Vol. 7 - Chapter 355 - Interview Continues - &
"I-It's my turn now! Lacritta, departting!"
Finally it was the turn of <Raccoon-kin> girl.
She readied her tower shield. She did say she is a tank. It was a two-handed shield. On this note, it was impossible to wield a weapon with such sort of shields, since it needed two hands to hold, obviously.
Let's see, Lacritta, her job is <Racc-Shell>.
<Racc-Shell> is a <Dungeon Activity> original high-ranking high tier job, specialized in tank position primarily. An interesting point about this job is that the one with this job can learn Illusion category magic.
For physical attribute shielders, focusing on physical attacks are their main priorities, which means the stats to be mindful of are STR and VIT.
However <Racc-Shell>, excels more in the magic front and is weak at physical attacks. So the main stats in this case are VIT and INT.
<Raccoon-kin> category holders in itself are more geared toward INT, so most of their jobs are like <Spirit Raccoon>, <Healing Raccoon> or <Illusionist Raccoon>.
Meanwhile, Job <Racc-Shell> specialized in shields.
Lacritta took her stance and turned towards the target.
"<Clank>! <Shield Wall>! <Hallucination>!"
Ohh! I mentally yelped at the skills Lecritta used.
Clank is a taunt skill. She has been faithfully following my words "Treat the target as a monster" from a while ago.
Just that alone makes her far better than boys.
<Shield Wall> is a defense skill. Apparently, she is following like provoking the enemy to attract its aggro and then defending herself. Her movements were quite refined.
Her skill <Hallucination> was an illusion magic which randomly grants the enemy a random status ailment like <Confusion> or <Blind> etc. But due to its randomness, you never know what status ailment character is rolling out, but on the brighter side, it has a high success rate.
Lacritta continued to imitate the act of attracting the aggro, invoking defense skills, and sometimes using magic to put debuffs with her refined movements and soon after, her turn came to an end.
Overall, she was quite skilled in her action as she didn't let the notion of 'target are to be attacked' narrow her vision. That was a pass for me.
"Now it's my turn huh. <Songstress Princess> Noel, onward to her trial."
Next one to take Lacritta place was Noel from the <Baron> <Princess> category. Her job was surprisingly <Songstress Princess>. As visible from its name, it was one of the <Princess> category jobs.
Like others, it was similarly a high-ranking top tier job. The user of this job mainly acts as a buffer through singing, and it offers quite an all-rounder set of skills. Just another magnificent job one can expect from the <Princess> category.
It mainly uses songs from the skill category while the stat is dependent on RES and DEX, an unusual combination.
Nevertheless, the thing that surprised most me was she was the first girl I have seen acquiring <Princess Job> on her own.
Usually, the conditions to unlock <Princess Job> are set in a way that is quite, no, for most of part hard to figure out.
In the game, I got hold of some of the conditions from a quest while rest was figured out through the sweat, hardwork and skills of <Dungeon Activity> players. Did she unravel it on her own? Or maybe the conditions to become <Songstress Princess> are passed down through generations in her family.
Either way, she demands full attention as one of <Princess Job> holder. I am really intrigued how she has raised her job.
I have already mentioned it, <Songstress Princess> is a versatile job. So users usually get caught up with the versatility factor and the result is basically as the phrase goes; jack of all trades but master of none.
Well, it is still kind of hard to mess up in <Princess Job>, and that's one of their charming points.
Anyway, I can't wait to see her chosen path.
Noel steps towards the target, while holding a mike.
In <Dungeon Activity>, there exists a specialized category of equipment known as <Instrumental Equipment System>. Leaving aside the topic of performance for now, all sorts of instruments can be remodeled to the preferred one.
Though there were a plethora of jobs in the game, jobs that used instrumental equipment were still far and few between. So the general notion among players was that there was so much to do in making instrumental weapons of many kinds that developers gave up on that.
Instead, they set up a feature where various instrumental weapons like guitar, harmonica or flutes could be converted using <Instrumental Convert>. Like, remodeling guitar into harmonica, harmonica into mike without losing their original performance.
One prominent example would be like suppose you got <Harmonica> from a treasure chest, but the catch is <Songstress Princess> can't equip it, so that problem is left to <Instrumental Convert> skill to solve.
Noel took a deep breath. Oh, is she starting? I wonder what kind of skill she will use?
"<Loud Cheers>! <Appeal Song>! Listen to my songs, <Live On Impact Song>!"
"Gah, is that where she is starting!?"
"Woah, what's the matter, Zephyr-kun?"
I was so surprised that I unconsciously ended up raising my voice. Misato, who was next to me, asked me with a startled expression.
"Ahem, my bad. I never expect she is going to use that skill actually."
I apologized to Misato for startling her and turned my attention towards Noel once again.
Man, she really surprised the hell out of me.
I mean, they were skills meant for a 'tank'.
Whether it's <Songstress Princess> or <Idol>, they are buffers by nature. Their core skills revolve around supporting their comrades through songs.
But her songs contain appealing attributes, which work the same as taunt skills. If she can use taunt skill, then she must have learned defense skills as well. Surprisingly, <Idols> can serve as sub-tanks too.
The first skill Noel used, <Loud Cheers>, was a buff to enhance defense. It was a skill set that cheers for the whole group and strengthens the whole group.
Moving onward, <Appeal Song> was a taunt skill. Finally the last one, <Live On Impact Song>, is another defense skill but more powerful which also comes with knockback effect.
During the time <Live On Impact> is active, the character sings and releases a shockwave at fixed intervals. Monsters who get hit by shockwaves are slightly pushed backwards, causing them unable to get closer.
"~~~~! ~~~~! ~~~~~♪"
Thud, Thud, Thud
A heavy sound like the target being struck by shockwaves echoes.
It was just a harmless skill, the only appeal of it was the minor knockback effect it comes with. Her singing was good though.
Speaking of, <Songstress Princess> also has a combo called <Glorious Song>, a tactic to completely seal the movements of monsters with consecutive defense skills to prevent the monsters from getting any closer. Though, this tactic requires a third order tree to be unlocked and Noel is still far from it. Besides, it also requires training to pull it off.
Either Way, whoever has <Songstress Princess> as main tank has to be a pervert. It is definitely not common.
Anyway, 'these are the only defense skills I can use', I seem to hear such pleas from Noel. As proof, the next skills she used were different from the tank set.
"<Healing Melody>! It's healing time~ <Love Heal Voice>!"
The next set of skills she used was healing skills.
<Healing Melody> is a group heal skill which recovers a bit of HP for a short period of time continuously, <Love Heal Voice> was the same. A fascinating point about it was it comes with its own jumping and dancing performance. I am not sure if it's the effect of her skill, but seeing her performance kind of soothes my heart too.
Though <Songstress Princess> only have group healing skills, they can act as healer with relative ease. I am sure her chance to shine would come with the rise in monster group encounter rate.
"moving to offensive now! Please surrender for me~ <Terror Carnival>! <Mic On Impact>!"
She had now switched to offense. <Terror Carnival> releases a kind of unsettling sound waves to damage the opponent, while <Mic On Impact> let off invisible shockwaves.
Target quivered in small motion. It seems to have taken decent damage.
I wanted to have her continue for a while longer, but that was the end.
She splendidly showed her versatility. The skills she used were also point-on. Leaving aside tank skills which came outside of prediction, crowd skills are useful in many cases, so it's in fact nice to have them.
My <Strongest Training Manual> also has the way of a tank after all.
It was clear they really came to take my classes seriously. I can feel the thought they have given before choosing their skills.
Well-Well, I thought it would take time to choose capable candidates from the list, but I might be wrong this time.