As they progressed deeper into the dungeon, fighting again and again, a member of the vanguard gave a suggestion.
Instead of spreading out in a horizontal row, why not spread in a V-shaped formation with both flanks raised like wings?
Monica would be at the tip of the V, far from the enemy, yet if the enemy entered the V-formation, they would be surrounded on both sides.
That way, the enemy that entered the centre could be contained, and Monica would also have more time to attack than when they were using the horizontal formation.
Laurent adopted this suggestion immediately; he’d try anything to maximise the improvement of Monica’s Archery skill.
When ten more goblins appeared, the fight went on like this:
As the battalion had planned, both wings advanced first in a V-shaped formation, opening up the centre. It was, in short, a winged-shaped crane formation.
No matter how low their intelligence, the goblins still hesitated from charging in bullishly upon seeing the formation.
If they charged in without a thought, they would be surrounded on both sides.
But that was precisely what Laurent, and the battalion had expected.
The uncertain goblins were perfect prey for Monica.
In the blink of an eye, several goblins had been taken down by her arrows.
The other goblins, alarmed, attacked the ends of their winged formation.
But both flanks would only engage perfunctorily, retreat, and repeat.
When the tanks backed down, Monica rained arrows down on the goblins.
At the end of the battle, all ten goblins had been pierced by arrows.
The vanguard only had to finish off the downed goblins, and the battle was over.
Laurent noted this formation as an ideal one to use.
If I hesitate over this for too long, we’ll run out of time. I’ll have to decide the unit formation as we go along.
Laurent appraised Monica’s skill again and found that her Archery skill had risen to C-rank.
After the battle, Laurent retrieved the arrows from the corpses of the monsters Monica had felled, keeping the ones that could still be used.
Even in this he was thorough; Laurent refused to allow Monica to do anything but shooting.
Monica looked mortified as she accepted the retrieved arrows from Laurent.
What a weirdo. Why would he go so far for me?
“Laurent-san, could I speak with you for a moment?” a member of the vanguard called.
Apparently, there were a few people who had sustained significant damage to their equipment in the earlier battle.
Laurent hastened over to them and reviewed the situation.
Currently, Laurent’s battalion formation was as such:
They had thirty people in total.
Monica (archer), Shaqma (support mage), Euphene (healer), twenty in the vanguard (with five tanks among them), three more archers and three combat mages.
Laurent, with his abysmal stats, led the battalion while wearing only the lowest-quality protective equipment.
The vanguard, which bore the heaviest responsibilities, were divided into two groups of ten each. Every time a fight ended, they took turns as the advance and rear guard.
As Laurent checked on the conditions of the vanguard, Monica assessed the state of her own equipment.
When she tugged on the empty bowstring, [Iron Piercer] groaned.
There was slight damage.
Monica sighed.
I’ve probably fired more than a hundred arrows. No wonder the bow is in bad shape.
Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since they had first entered the dungeon.
The dungeon itself didn’t have a way to distinguish between day and night, so drowsiness was not an issue; as long as they had the stamina, they could continue without rest all day. But that did nothing to prevent the wear and tear of their equipment.
Monica went to discuss her equipment with Laurent, but he already knew what she wanted, and pressed an [Earth Stone] into her hand even without her saying a word. “Use it.”
“Um, are you sure?” Monica glanced at the rest of the battalion.
There were members among them whose equipment was damaged worse than her.
Guardians of the Magical Tree had pretty deep ties with the pharmaceutical guilds, so they had a practically free supply of stamina recovery potions, but items like [Earth Stones] which were refined from ores were much more costly.
“Yup. Raising your [Archery] skill is our priority right now.”
“… Okay.”
I feel bad, getting preferential treatment like this.
Monica had never been trained with such intensive focus before, so the VIP treatment she was getting made her skin crawl with discomfort. She used the [Earth Stone], skittish.
Once her equipment was perfectly repaired, Laurent moved the vanguard members with damaged equipment to the rear guard and rearranged the formations. Then they advanced into the dungeon once more.
Laurent noticed Monica’s anxiety and decided to let her take it easy for now.
In the short span of time they had spent together, Laurent had perceived Monica’s earnest diligence, but also her self-doubt and her low sense of self-worth.
Eventually, I’ll push her harder, but not today. I have to step lightly until the time is right.
For now, Laurent decided to continue observing her.
They moved onward into the dungeon, using the formation they had refined in battle as they advanced.
Eventually, they managed to reach the first teleportation point.
Teleportation points were sanctuaries that appeared without fail at every level of the dungeon. This holy corner of the dungeon could not be breached by monsters.
Adventurers could also use items to summon a magical circle of teleportation here.
Going through the teleportation circle allowed adventurers to progress to the next floor of the dungeon.
Laurent and the battalion used the circle and advanced to the second floor of the dungeon.
——
The second floor held all kinds of monsters, and it was clear that the monsters’ were even better-equipped than the first-floor monsters.
Laurent’s party headed deeper into the forest, where they were promptly swarmed by a pack of monsters.
The group consisted of five armoured hobgoblins, four black wolves with wicked-looking claws and one sharp-beaked pigeon.*
(*T/N: I s**t you not, the author said pigeon. But as my brother says, nothing is scarier than a crazy pigeon.)
Despite their trepidation at encountering different breeds of monsters together, Laurent’s battalion spread out into their V-shaped formation.
The high-agility wolves immediately split into two pairs and sprinted around the battalion’s sides.
Monica did not hesitate. She disregarded the wolves and fired her arrows at the armoured hobgoblins before her.
[Iron Piercer] dealt out heavy damage and pierced through even the hobgoblins’ iron armor.
She dealt with the two hobgoblin archers first. Then, Monica saw the pigeon take to the air. She backed up a step and shot it down, before she resumed shooting at the hobgoblins.
Monica sensed the warriors on her sides erupting into hurried movements.
She thought that it must have been Laurent strengthening their formation so that they wouldn’t be surrounded by the wolves.
Her faith in Laurent had grown into something extraordinary in such a short time.
All I need to do is fire at the enemies in front. Laurent will handle the rear somehow.
She continued attacking the enemies ahead of her, never pausing.
Behind, just as Monica had expected, Laurent was handling the wolves with little issue.
He had reinforced the rear with fighters and extended the battle lines both vertically and horizontally, preventing them from being flanked by the wolves.
As Laurent barked out orders to the battalion, he kept a careful eye on Monica, who was still firing arrows in the heart of the formation.
Her battle focus has developed quite a bit.
Just as Monica was about to shoot down the last hobgoblin she noticed a small circle of light glinting off its body.
What? That light…
Monica squinted. She still wasn’t entirely sure the light even existed, but she tried shooting at it, anyway.
The arrow struck cleanly at the centre of the light.
The hobgoblin’s body promptly exploded.
Monica shrieked. “Oh my God! What was that?”
“It’s your [One Strike Kill] skill,” Laurent explained. He had come up next to her at some point.
It looked like he had dealt with the wolves.
“[One Strike… Kill]?”
“It’s a skill where you strike at an enemy’s vital point and have a possibility of causing death in one blow.”
An enemy’s vital point. So that light in the hobgoblin’s body earlier was an indicator of its vital point.
“I believe that as your [Archery] skill rose, the [One Strike Kill] skill was naturally unlocked with it.” Laurent appraised her skills. Her [Archery] was already B-rank, and her [One Strike Kill] skill was at C-rank.
With the way things are going, the next phase of her training should come easily—putting her unique skill, [Hawkeye] into use.
Laurent and his party cut through even the formidable enemies of the second floor with comfortable ease, already having worked out their strategy for the hobgoblins and wolves. They moved through the second floor of the dungeon swiftly, and at last, arrived at the teleportation point, proceeding onto the third floor.
——
The third floor layout was a sprawling ruin in the middle of the forest.
Stone houses and structures were clustered together; ancient humans had lived here.
Ivy and tree roots curled around every single building.
It was a civilization that had almost entirely been swallowed by the forest and the passage of time.
But for monsters, it was a place perfect for lying in wait for humans.
Monica winced. Here at last… the ruins stage. I hate this stage.
She clutched her bow anxiously.
Though the civilization had long fallen to ruins, its buildings remained intact.
There were large spaces within the buildings, where monsters who had banded together in tribes for survival lived. They hunted in large numbers, so Laurent’s party saw more monsters in a single group than they did on the previous two floors.
In addition, the buildings were clustered together. The roads between them were incomparably narrower than the open plains they had been in earlier, so they could only advance in rows of four to five people.
There were also turrets and bell towers sprinkled throughout, bridged by corridors stretching through the sky.
The complicated layout of the buildings meant that there were countless locations from which they could be attacked from above. To move forward, the battalion would need to expose themselves to attack from higher locations.
Archers were usually told to obtain more advantageous positions than the enemies’ before they could find them.
If enemies were able to obtain the better position first, the battalion would be opened up to one-sided fire, potentially leading to exhaustion of troops. Another misstep, and the battalion might be annihilated.
In short, calling this stage Monica’s Achilles’ heel wouldn’t be very far off the mark.
It’s always here where I end up being more of a nuisance than a help to everyone.
Monica felt light-headed just from looking at the narrow roads snaking between the ruins and the buildings.
He should just give up on making me an ace. What’s there left for Laurent-san to do?
She looked hopefully at Laurent.
Laurent spotted her look and gave her a kind smile. “It’s alright, Monica. I’ve got a plan.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Monica. You need to use your [Hawk Eye] skill from hereon.”
“[Hawk… Eye]?” Monica said blankly.
She hadn’t even realised she had that skill.
Laurent smiled wryly.
It was hardly a surprise that she hadn’t known.
Only S-rank Appraisers could uncover unique skills.
“Monica, the [Hawk Eye] skill enables you to have a bird’s-eye view of the dungeon, like you’re looking down at the stage from above. Have you ever felt like you were looking down at yourself from above?”
“Yeah, if I don’t blink and just unfocus my eyes, I can get that viewpoint, but… is that weird?”
Laurent laughed again.
It would hardly be the first time he met someone who didn’t think much of their abilities and assumed that their skills were nothing special.
“Why don’t you just try activating [Hawk Eye]?”
“O-Okay.”
Monica stopped blinking and unfocused her eyes.
Her eyes began to shine gold.
A bird’s-eye view spanned before her eyes, as though she was a video game character.
Currently, she was looking down at herself and the battalion members, seeing the buildings and the streets as though it was a satellite picture.
“Monica, can you hear me?”
“… Yes.”
“Okay, steady. Try moving your vision toward the ruins.”
She grunted, her brows furrowing into a strained expression as she shifted her view.
This was the first time she had shifted her vision like this.
She hadn’t even known she could do something like that.
“What’s the highest building around here?”
“… That building.”
“Good. Now, say that there were enemies in that building. The enemy is able to attack our battalion from the window as we pass through that road. Where is the best position for you to attack the enemy?”
“Um…”
“You have a good understanding of [Iron Piercer]’s range by now, I think. And your archery skills have returned to you. Where can you attack the enemy from, taking into account their positions, shelters and the range of the bow?”
Monica pointed at one building with a shaky finger. “… There.”
“Alright, great. You can deactivate [Hawk Eye] now.”
Monica grunted, collapsing onto one knee with a thump.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to stave off a headache.
“You okay?” Laurent held a potion out to her.
“Sorry. Thanks.”
“You’ve done well. At that speed, you’d be able to use it in battles.”
“Is that… possible?”
“Yeah, if the enemy attacks from a high position, drop whatever you’re doing and retreat for a few moments to activate [Hawk Eye]. Then shoot down the enemy’s ranged units.”
Laurent picked out two of the best warriors in the battalion and appointed them as Monica’s guards.
He reorganised the battalion again and led them deeper into the ruins.
As they progressed deeper into the dungeon, fighting again and again, a member of the vanguard gave a suggestion.
Instead of spreading out in a horizontal row, why not spread in a V-shaped formation with both flanks raised like wings?
Monica would be at the tip of the V, far from the enemy, yet if the enemy entered the V-formation, they would be surrounded on both sides.
That way, the enemy that entered the centre could be contained, and Monica would also have more time to attack than when they were using the horizontal formation.
Laurent adopted this suggestion immediately; he’d try anything to maximise the improvement of Monica’s Archery skill.
When ten more goblins appeared, the fight went on like this:
As the battalion had planned, both wings advanced first in a V-shaped formation, opening up the centre. It was, in short, a winged-shaped crane formation.
No matter how low their intelligence, the goblins still hesitated from charging in bullishly upon seeing the formation.
If they charged in without a thought, they would be surrounded on both sides.
But that was precisely what Laurent, and the battalion had expected.
The uncertain goblins were perfect prey for Monica.
In the blink of an eye, several goblins had been taken down by her arrows.
The other goblins, alarmed, attacked the ends of their winged formation.
But both flanks would only engage perfunctorily, retreat, and repeat.
When the tanks backed down, Monica rained arrows down on the goblins.
At the end of the battle, all ten goblins had been pierced by arrows.
The vanguard only had to finish off the downed goblins, and the battle was over.
Laurent noted this formation as an ideal one to use.
If I hesitate over this for too long, we’ll run out of time. I’ll have to decide the unit formation as we go along.
Laurent appraised Monica’s skill again and found that her Archery skill had risen to C-rank.
After the battle, Laurent retrieved the arrows from the corpses of the monsters Monica had felled, keeping the ones that could still be used.
Even in this he was thorough; Laurent refused to allow Monica to do anything but shooting.
Monica looked mortified as she accepted the retrieved arrows from Laurent.
What a weirdo. Why would he go so far for me?
“Laurent-san, could I speak with you for a moment?” a member of the vanguard called.
Apparently, there were a few people who had sustained significant damage to their equipment in the earlier battle.
Laurent hastened over to them and reviewed the situation.
Currently, Laurent’s battalion formation was as such:
They had thirty people in total.
Monica (archer), Shaqma (support mage), Euphene (healer), twenty in the vanguard (with five tanks among them), three more archers and three combat mages.
Laurent, with his abysmal stats, led the battalion while wearing only the lowest-quality protective equipment.
The vanguard, which bore the heaviest responsibilities, were divided into two groups of ten each. Every time a fight ended, they took turns as the advance and rear guard.
As Laurent checked on the conditions of the vanguard, Monica assessed the state of her own equipment.
When she tugged on the empty bowstring, [Iron Piercer] groaned.
There was slight damage.
Monica sighed.
I’ve probably fired more than a hundred arrows. No wonder the bow is in bad shape.
Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since they had first entered the dungeon.
The dungeon itself didn’t have a way to distinguish between day and night, so drowsiness was not an issue; as long as they had the stamina, they could continue without rest all day. But that did nothing to prevent the wear and tear of their equipment.
Monica went to discuss her equipment with Laurent, but he already knew what she wanted, and pressed an [Earth Stone] into her hand even without her saying a word. “Use it.”
“Um, are you sure?” Monica glanced at the rest of the battalion.
There were members among them whose equipment was damaged worse than her.
Guardians of the Magical Tree had pretty deep ties with the pharmaceutical guilds, so they had a practically free supply of stamina recovery potions, but items like [Earth Stones] which were refined from ores were much more costly.
“Yup. Raising your [Archery] skill is our priority right now.”
“… Okay.”
I feel bad, getting preferential treatment like this.
Monica had never been trained with such intensive focus before, so the VIP treatment she was getting made her skin crawl with discomfort. She used the [Earth Stone], skittish.
Once her equipment was perfectly repaired, Laurent moved the vanguard members with damaged equipment to the rear guard and rearranged the formations. Then they advanced into the dungeon once more.
Laurent noticed Monica’s anxiety and decided to let her take it easy for now.
In the short span of time they had spent together, Laurent had perceived Monica’s earnest diligence, but also her self-doubt and her low sense of self-worth.
Eventually, I’ll push her harder, but not today. I have to step lightly until the time is right.
For now, Laurent decided to continue observing her.
They moved onward into the dungeon, using the formation they had refined in battle as they advanced.
Eventually, they managed to reach the first teleportation point.
Teleportation points were sanctuaries that appeared without fail at every level of the dungeon. This holy corner of the dungeon could not be breached by monsters.
Adventurers could also use items to summon a magical circle of teleportation here.
Going through the teleportation circle allowed adventurers to progress to the next floor of the dungeon.
Laurent and the battalion used the circle and advanced to the second floor of the dungeon.
——
The second floor held all kinds of monsters, and it was clear that the monsters’ were even better-equipped than the first-floor monsters.
Laurent’s party headed deeper into the forest, where they were promptly swarmed by a pack of monsters.
The group consisted of five armoured hobgoblins, four black wolves with wicked-looking claws and one sharp-beaked pigeon.*
(*T/N: I s**t you not, the author said pigeon. But as my brother says, nothing is scarier than a crazy pigeon.)
Despite their trepidation at encountering different breeds of monsters together, Laurent’s battalion spread out into their V-shaped formation.
The high-agility wolves immediately split into two pairs and sprinted around the battalion’s sides.
Monica did not hesitate. She disregarded the wolves and fired her arrows at the armoured hobgoblins before her.
[Iron Piercer] dealt out heavy damage and pierced through even the hobgoblins’ iron armor.
She dealt with the two hobgoblin archers first. Then, Monica saw the pigeon take to the air. She backed up a step and shot it down, before she resumed shooting at the hobgoblins.
Monica sensed the warriors on her sides erupting into hurried movements.
She thought that it must have been Laurent strengthening their formation so that they wouldn’t be surrounded by the wolves.
Her faith in Laurent had grown into something extraordinary in such a short time.
All I need to do is fire at the enemies in front. Laurent will handle the rear somehow.
She continued attacking the enemies ahead of her, never pausing.
Behind, just as Monica had expected, Laurent was handling the wolves with little issue.
He had reinforced the rear with fighters and extended the battle lines both vertically and horizontally, preventing them from being flanked by the wolves.
As Laurent barked out orders to the battalion, he kept a careful eye on Monica, who was still firing arrows in the heart of the formation.
Her battle focus has developed quite a bit.
Just as Monica was about to shoot down the last hobgoblin she noticed a small circle of light glinting off its body.
What? That light…
Monica squinted. She still wasn’t entirely sure the light even existed, but she tried shooting at it, anyway.
The arrow struck cleanly at the centre of the light.
The hobgoblin’s body promptly exploded.
Monica shrieked. “Oh my God! What was that?”
“It’s your [One Strike Kill] skill,” Laurent explained. He had come up next to her at some point.
It looked like he had dealt with the wolves.
“[One Strike… Kill]?”
“It’s a skill where you strike at an enemy’s vital point and have a possibility of causing death in one blow.”
An enemy’s vital point. So that light in the hobgoblin’s body earlier was an indicator of its vital point.
“I believe that as your [Archery] skill rose, the [One Strike Kill] skill was naturally unlocked with it.” Laurent appraised her skills. Her [Archery] was already B-rank, and her [One Strike Kill] skill was at C-rank.
With the way things are going, the next phase of her training should come easily—putting her unique skill, [Hawkeye] into use.
Laurent and his party cut through even the formidable enemies of the second floor with comfortable ease, already having worked out their strategy for the hobgoblins and wolves. They moved through the second floor of the dungeon swiftly, and at last, arrived at the teleportation point, proceeding onto the third floor.
——
The third floor layout was a sprawling ruin in the middle of the forest.
Stone houses and structures were clustered together; ancient humans had lived here.
Ivy and tree roots curled around every single building.
It was a civilization that had almost entirely been swallowed by the forest and the passage of time.
But for monsters, it was a place perfect for lying in wait for humans.
Monica winced. Here at last… the ruins stage. I hate this stage.
She clutched her bow anxiously.
Though the civilization had long fallen to ruins, its buildings remained intact.
There were large spaces within the buildings, where monsters who had banded together in tribes for survival lived. They hunted in large numbers, so Laurent’s party saw more monsters in a single group than they did on the previous two floors.
In addition, the buildings were clustered together. The roads between them were incomparably narrower than the open plains they had been in earlier, so they could only advance in rows of four to five people.
There were also turrets and bell towers sprinkled throughout, bridged by corridors stretching through the sky.
The complicated layout of the buildings meant that there were countless locations from which they could be attacked from above. To move forward, the battalion would need to expose themselves to attack from higher locations.
Archers were usually told to obtain more advantageous positions than the enemies’ before they could find them.
If enemies were able to obtain the better position first, the battalion would be opened up to one-sided fire, potentially leading to exhaustion of troops. Another misstep, and the battalion might be annihilated.
In short, calling this stage Monica’s Achilles’ heel wouldn’t be very far off the mark.
It’s always here where I end up being more of a nuisance than a help to everyone.
Monica felt light-headed just from looking at the narrow roads snaking between the ruins and the buildings.
He should just give up on making me an ace. What’s there left for Laurent-san to do?
She looked hopefully at Laurent.
Laurent spotted her look and gave her a kind smile. “It’s alright, Monica. I’ve got a plan.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Monica. You need to use your [Hawk Eye] skill from hereon.”
“[Hawk… Eye]?” Monica said blankly.
She hadn’t even realised she had that skill.
Laurent smiled wryly.
It was hardly a surprise that she hadn’t known.
Only S-rank Appraisers could uncover unique skills.
“Monica, the [Hawk Eye] skill enables you to have a bird’s-eye view of the dungeon, like you’re looking down at the stage from above. Have you ever felt like you were looking down at yourself from above?”
“Yeah, if I don’t blink and just unfocus my eyes, I can get that viewpoint, but… is that weird?”
Laurent laughed again.
It would hardly be the first time he met someone who didn’t think much of their abilities and assumed that their skills were nothing special.
“Why don’t you just try activating [Hawk Eye]?”
“O-Okay.”
Monica stopped blinking and unfocused her eyes.
Her eyes began to shine gold.
A bird’s-eye view spanned before her eyes, as though she was a video game character.
Currently, she was looking down at herself and the battalion members, seeing the buildings and the streets as though it was a satellite picture.
“Monica, can you hear me?”
“… Yes.”
“Okay, steady. Try moving your vision toward the ruins.”
She grunted, her brows furrowing into a strained expression as she shifted her view.
This was the first time she had shifted her vision like this.
She hadn’t even known she could do something like that.
“What’s the highest building around here?”
“… That building.”
“Good. Now, say that there were enemies in that building. The enemy is able to attack our battalion from the window as we pass through that road. Where is the best position for you to attack the enemy?”
“Um…”
“You have a good understanding of [Iron Piercer]’s range by now, I think. And your archery skills have returned to you. Where can you attack the enemy from, taking into account their positions, shelters and the range of the bow?”
Monica pointed at one building with a shaky finger. “… There.”
“Alright, great. You can deactivate [Hawk Eye] now.”
Monica grunted, collapsing onto one knee with a thump.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to stave off a headache.
“You okay?” Laurent held a potion out to her.
“Sorry. Thanks.”
“You’ve done well. At that speed, you’d be able to use it in battles.”
“Is that… possible?”
“Yeah, if the enemy attacks from a high position, drop whatever you’re doing and retreat for a few moments to activate [Hawk Eye]. Then shoot down the enemy’s ranged units.”
Laurent picked out two of the best warriors in the battalion and appointed them as Monica’s guards.
He reorganised the battalion again and led them deeper into the ruins.
