Chapter 4: School’s Out Today! Let’s Go Raid a Dungeon!
The day after all those fun trial classes.
Today is Saturday. Which means, Dungeon Attack Day!
I headed straight for the guild room and swung the door open with a cheerful shout.
"Good morning, everyone! Today is the super fun, exciting Dungeon Attack Day!"
"That’s right! We’re gonna mow down monsters and score a <Gold Chest>!"
Lana jumped right in with me, and we exchanged a loud high-five.
Looks like she’s overflowing with excitement, even though she used to dive into dungeons daily; we haven’t gone for a few days now.
"You two have too much energy. At least greet people properly."
"Hehe, I think it’s great, Miss Sierra. I’ve been looking forward to going into the dungeon, too."
"…Fine. But Hanna, be careful. Especially, you were told to act as a model student, weren’t you?"
"Aww. Um, I’m still not used to being treated like one of the top students of our year…"
Sierra gave us her classic dead-eyed stare for getting overly hyped. Honestly, I kind of like Sierra’s dead-eyed look. Today is a great day already!
And Hanna is steadily being recognized by the teachers as one of the top students. Go Hanna.
Once things settled down a bit, I looked around the room. I saw Ester, Shizu, Pamela, and Celestan.
Cheria, Lulu, Rika, and Kalua weren’t here yet.
With that confirmed, I turned to Sierra with something on my mind.
"Sierra, got a minute? Everyone’s been improving, so I think it’s time we decide on the next move."
"No problem."
She nodded, so I took a seat beside her.
"Thanks. As a short-term goal, I want us to start aiming for clearing an Intermediate Low-tier Dungeon."
Up until now, we’ve only tackled Beginner-Level Dungeons — basically the tutorial tier.
Intermediate-Level Dungeons jump up in difficulty, and instead of party-based, they become guild-based raids.
I might’ve mentioned it before, but running them with just a fixed party becomes rough fast.
You need to form raid teams suited to the dungeon. If the match-up is bad, you swap members.
Also, there are way more Intermediate-Level Dungeons than Beginner ones. A total of 30.
10 Intermediate Low-tier (Chuka).
10 Intermediate Mid-tier (Chuchu).
10 Intermediate Upper-tier (Chujo)— all within the Academy.
Incidentally, clearing three dungeons in each tier allows you to progress to the next tier.
The requirements to enter an Intermediate Low-tier Dungeon are: "Job Lv 40+," "Clear 3 Beginner Upper-tier Dungeons," "Experience in an E-Rank guild or higher."
Right now, the only ones who meet those conditions are: Me, Hanna, Lana, Ester, and Sierra — just five people. Not only in the <Eden> guild, but in the entire first-year class, only five qualify.
Which means no substitutions, so we’ve held off on trying Intermediate-level Dungeons and focused on training others.
Incidentally, Kalua is closest, just 4 levels away from meeting the requirement.
But… I really want to dive into Intermediate Dungeons soon. Because they’re fun.
That’s why we’re having this strategy talk: let’s set our sights on Intermediate Dungeons.
"Haa…"
After explaining all that with passion, Sierra let out a sigh.
"It’s good that you’re thinking about the others… but I think they need more <Skill> and <Magic> training first. Looking at them, it seems that their bodies aren’t used to the sudden level-ups. Even if their level meets the requirement, I doubt they’d perform well in a real Intermediate Dungeon."
"…Fair point."
Sierra definitely had a point.
Especially the new members, the day after they hit Job Lv 20, they were already over Lv 30.
There’s no way they’ve mastered their movement or skill combos yet.
Sierra calmly explained that they need more reps to get comfortable with their Jobs.
And she was absolutely right.
Back in the game version of <DanKatsu>, the player controlled every character…
Either that or semi-auto.
In any case, everyone’s proficiency back in the game was pretty high.
Meaning: even if a new member joined, they didn’t really need practice.
But in real-life <DanKatsu>, everything depends on personal skill. Even if your Job and Level are high, you can still be a total disaster. That’s totally normal.
In-game terms, we used to call that "power-leveled trash." A side effect of power-leveling. It means the level doesn’t match the actual skill.
To put it simply:
"So first, we need the newcomers to develop skills that match their level, right?"
"That’s right. Our Guild <Eden> is aiming for S-Rank — the strongest. We should have the strength to back that up."
"Yeah… I’m really glad I talked to you, Sierra."
"…Also, another suggestion: I think we need someone besides you who can give orders and direction at your level. We early members got strong so quickly because of your leadership. Having someone like that makes a huge difference."
According to Sierra, the big difference between the veteran members and the newcomers is my command and direction.
She says the reason the first group became so strong is that they’ve been following my guidance since the beginning.
Didn’t expect her to praise me that much… Hearing Sierra say that is kind of embarrassing.
But,...
"Someone who can lead and command like me, huh…"
Nobody else here has the game knowledge I brought with me.
Still, saying "there’s no one, so it’s impossible" would be dumb. Even without my meta knowledge, there must be someone good at strategy, maybe even better than me.
I should try searching.
So the conclusion was: even if the new members reach Job Lv 40, it’s still too early for them to tackle the Intermediate Dungeons.
Shizu and Pamela nodded too — guess they realize it themselves.
Kalua and Rika, who took their Jobs earlier, are better off, but the newer members still need practice and familiarity.
So instead of me personally coaching every newcomer like I did with the veterans, which I don’t have enough time for, our new goal is to bring in someone strong in strategy to help train them.
I explained all this to everyone gathered in the guild room.
"So yeah, if any of you know someone good with strategy or tactics, please introduce them. Anyone come to mind?"
The full members were assembled, so we held a meeting and asked for recommendations. Felt like when we recruited the last batch of new members.
Rika spoke first.
"Well, I can think of someone. But a senior year student wouldn’t be acceptable, right?"
"Yeah. I want to keep our core team made up of first-years. And ideally their Job should be a Combat Job or a 【Naval Officer】-type."
"Zephyrus, what’s a 【Naval Officer】?"
When I explained our need, Kalua tilted her head and asked — guess she’s never heard the term.
"The 【Naval Officer】 is a set of military-ranked Jobs — like 【Lieutenant】 or 【Captain】."
By the way, Instructor Davidev, the 【Muscle Warrior】, holds the rank of Major in the national army — but rank (position) and Job (profession) are totally separate in this world. Still — Major at his age? Dude’s an elite. As expected of a 【Muscle Warrior】 in this world.
"Hm, never heard of those before."
"Well, only dukes can manifest them."
【Naval Officer】-type Jobs belong to the "Duke" category of Jobs. So yeah, no wonder Kalua had no clue.
The 【Naval Officer】-type Jobs mostly consist of professions meant to stand above others. It includes military rank jobs, as well as high-authority jobs like 【Minister】 or 【Chancellor】 — a very powerful category. If possible, I’d love to add a "Duke" to <Eden>.
While I was thinking that, Sierra cut in.
"And why exactly do you know about jobs that only Dukes can manifest?"
"Miss Sierra, it’s Zephyrus-kun we’re talking about. Same as always."
Hanna said, backing me up with her standard "that’s just how he is" line. Man, that’s embarrassing…
I kept asking around, but unfortunately, no one knew a first-year who was good at strategy. Well, Rika did say she had an older cousin who excels at tactics and could introduce them, but like I said earlier, I want to stick to first-years if possible. So I told her I’d ask if we come up empty.
Then, someone raised their hand quietly— It was Celestan, my attendant.
"May I speak?"
"Of course."
"They aren’t acquaintances, but if you’re looking for first-year students from ducal families, I believe there are two enrolled here. Perhaps we could approach them?"
"Oh! That’s some great intel. Do you know where they are? I’ll go talk to them right away."
As expected from Celestan — always reliable. It’s best to move fast in these situations. I stood up immediately, and Lana jumped up too, looking very obviously annoyed.
"Hold it, Zephyrus! What about the dungeon attack!? You can’t just cancel that!"
"Oh, right. Dungeon attacks first."
Guess I got so caught up in wanting to tackle an Intermediate Dungeon that I almost put the dungeon attack on the back burner. That would have been putting the cart before the horse.
"Well then, I’ll make the arrangements from my side."
"Right, thanks, Celestan. But it’ll have to be after today’s dungeon attack. We’ll adjust the schedule later."
"Understood."
With that settled, we moved on to dividing up the parties.
Today’s goal: <Eden>’s entire roster will clear all the Beginner Mid-tier Dungeons.
Once that’s done, the new members will graduate from Beginner Mid-tier and step up to Beginner Upper-tier. At that point, they’ll be able to join any Beginner-level Dungeon party without issues. Awesome.
Can’t wait until we can say the same for Intermediate-level Dungeons.
So we split into two parties. One — same as three days ago: the five new members, plus me and Ester. I’ll be taking command and working them hard today.
I feel bad for Ester, but I asked her to carry again.
"Sorry for treating you like a chauffeur lately, Ester."
"Not at all. It’s fun in its own way, so I don’t mind. I can explore while I wait anyway."
Still… It’s a pretty dull role.
Ester’s always helping me out… I really need to do something to repay her soon.
Meanwhile, a few people are definitely sulking about being on the other party.
"Muu… I’m not in the same party as you again, Zephyrus?"
"Sorry, Lana. We’ll be at the same party tomorrow."
"You promise! Hanna’s lonely too, you know!"
"Wh–what!? L-Lady Lana, you don’t have to tell him that!"
"Nope! If you’re lonely, you have to say you’re lonely, or nobody’s gonna pay attention to you!"
I promised Lana and Hanna that we’d party together tomorrow. Hanna’s loneliness was totally obvious, and now that Lana exposed her, her ears turned red all the way to the tips.
Also… I’m pretty sure Lana learned that line from when she wanted attention from her big brother. Right?
Well, good reference. If Lana ever tells me she’s lonely, I’ll make sure to give her attention.
Anyway, tomorrow we’ll be attacking a dungeon with the main members for the first time in a week. Maybe we could even try an Intermediate Low-tier dungeon.
"So, which dungeon are we heading to today?"
"I want a dungeon Rika hasn’t cleared yet! Let’s go mushroom hunting!"
Sierra and Lana gathered the others on their side to decide which dungeon they’d take.
Seems their plan is to help Kalua and Rika progress through new dungeons and farm bosses for level-ups.
Knowing those two… they might actually hit Job Level 40 today.
Can’t wait to see how they’ve grown when they get back.
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