Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter SS

Bonus Short Story

The Narumis Go Shopping

“You need to get good at close combat, even if you want to be a magic user,” I explained.

My mother placed a hand on her cheek and, sounding hopeless, said, “I don’t think I’ll be very good at it though.”

Just then, my family and I finished hunting golems and were heading to Granny’s Goods. My parents would change to new jobs once we arrived because they’d learned all of the Newbie skills available.

When I asked them which jobs they wanted, my father said that he wanted to stick to combat-focused jobs and swing a massive sword around. Meanwhile, my mother wanted to become a Caster to shoot off magical spells. That meant they were both aiming for specialized builds.

Specializing in combat-only or magic-only build had benefits like simplifying skill management and making it easier to deal large amounts of damage. For example, a magic-only build allowed you to fill all your skill slots with magic skills because you didn’t need to waste precious slots on close combat skills. As a result, you could fire off more powerful magic attacks than more balanced builds. The drawback was that you would be helpless if monsters got too close since you’d have no close combat skills to defend yourself with. A party needed a capable tank to keep you safe while you chanted your incantations.

Close combat builds suffered similar limitations. Dealing with flying monsters or long-ranged attacks became difficult if you could only fight in close range, and these builds would perform well in some maps but poorly in others. Thus, you needed to rely on skilled comrades to keep out of danger.

There’d be no problem with my family choosing specialized builds if I could ensure that I was always by their side to compensate for their weaknesses, but that wasn’t realistic. The safest course of action was for them to select balanced builds with both long- and short-range attacks, and I explained this to them while we were walking.

“Sure, I’d love to learn magic and close combat both,” argued my father. “But everyone says you’ll never be worth your salt if you don’t specialize. What do you say to that?”

“It’s true,” my mother agreed. “That’s what everyone says.”

Every top adventurer in this world had a specialized build, and society derided balanced builds as subpar. My mother also expressed concern that choosing not to maximize firepower would greatly reduce our party’s combat potential. I certainly couldn’t fault them for thinking this way.

There were plenty of good reasons to believe specialized builds, who got the most out of their few skill slots, were the strongest. Nobody in this world had risen past level 30 or knew about all the jobs available. Most adventurers also couldn’t gain more skill slots.

However, I knew how to get more skill slots and acquired varied jobs. The drawbacks of choosing a balanced build would disappear as you leveled up. And there was another reason I wanted my family to have balanced builds.

“We can get more skill slots, so you don’t have to worry about that,” I explained. “And the main reason I want you to choose balanced builds is so that you can protect yourself in fights against other adventurers.”

The easily recognizable weaknesses of specialized builds were simple to exploit in fights between adventurers, making defeat likely if your opponent knew your skill repertoire. For that reason, balanced builds were the strongest because they allowed you to adapt your combat style in many ways to face any enemy. We had plenty of time before we would reach Granny’s Goods, so I gave my family a long lecture on how to fight other adventurers.

“If you say we can learn both, then that’s what I’ll do!” said Kano while slashing through a skeleton blocking our way. “That way sounds so much more—” she swiveled back to face us and struck a pose “—fun!”

Taking inspiration from Kano, my parents began striking weird poses too.

“You can count me in!” said my father. “Wahoo!”

“Me too,” my mother said. “I’ll have a look for a nice sword in the tenth-floor shop. Hey!”

After a second of watching them, puzzled, I remembered where I’d seen those poses before. They were the victory poses from the tokusatsu series Adventurer Sentai Boukenger that played in the morning. It was the usual super sentai series; an ordinary high school boy became a Boukenger ranger and fought against the monster Oblowden and his evil organization. The series was popular enough to have several film adaptations, and it influenced many kids to aspire to become adventurers.

I wanted to join until I remembered that the Boukengers were a three-person team.

I guess I’ll play the monster then. So, I squealed like the show’s villain and struck a pose.

***

“These gloves are stupidly cheap!” remarked my father. “They’d set you back at least a million yen anywhere else.”

“This ring is of gold!” my mother said. She turned to my father and asked, “Can I get it?”

We’d traveled through the gate and arrived at Granny’s Goods, but my parents were far more interested in shopping than changing jobs. It amazed my father that he could use the dungeon coins we had collected through a mere hour of raiding to purchase a set of mithril alloy gloves that usually cost over a million yen at the guild stores. But my mother was obsessed with a golden ring that we couldn’t profitably resell.

I exhaled because I’d spent so much time explaining the importance of changing jobs, and all they wanted to do was shop. To be fair to them, they’d seen an amazing shop like this for the first time and had it all to themselves.

“Bro! I really want this shiny dagger!”

I turned to look at Kano, who was sifting through the shelves with dollar signs in her eyes. She had pulled out a dagger forged from pure mithril, and light reflected off the blade like a mirror. Pure mithril weapons were sharper and more durable than their mithril alloy counterparts. But their price was usually exorbitant due to the scarcity of the ore they were created from.

“Kano, how about you take a look at the price tag before you suggest we buy something,” I said.

Then, I shifted my eyes to a shelf filled with jars of red liquid. Those were healing potions, the current top product at Narumi’s General Goods. Each bottle would net us seven hundred thousand yen on resale. Customers snatched them up quickly, and I’d been buying them up from Granny’s Goods whenever they were in stock. These potions were our greatest source of revenue at the moment.

And so, Kano picked up one of the healing potions, then said, “We make a bunch of money from these, but I feel like it’ll still be ages before we’ve saved up enough to buy the whole family armor and weapons.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Our leveling up is going okay, so I want to find a way to make more money faster.”

The profits from the healing potions were more than enough to put food on the table. At this pace, it would take several months before we had enough money to buy all the equipment our family would need for raiding. I felt like we’d need to speed things up.

“It’d be perfect if there was somewhere we could raid to make more money, hunt monsters easily, and find great drop items,” said Kano.

“As if such a place could... Oh wait, maybe one does exist,” I commented.

“Really?!” Kano jumped toward me, her eyes sparkling.

I had spent little time in the low-level areas in DEC, so my memory was hazy. Yet I’d remembered a hidden area in one of the undead zones that had been a juicy place to hunt. It was a decent place to make money, where the monsters would drop the raw materials needed to make equipment. The monsters were quite strong, but Kano and I were powerful enough to handle them. If we went there, it would be best to speak to Furufuru first and accept a quest from her.

“Well, we can think about that later,” I said. “For today, let’s buy three potions and make our way home, so put that dagger back.”

“Booo!” whined Kano, puffing her cheeks like a hamster with a mouthful of seeds. But complaining wouldn’t fill our pockets with the money we needed to buy the dagger. She reluctantly placed it back on the shelf, then looked at me sullenly. “If we keep leveling up... Will we ever get to the point where we can buy awesome weapons like that dagger?”

“Definitely! In fact, we’ll be able to get equipment made from much rarer metals than mithril.”

“Oh...”

In DEC, plenty of rare materials were stronger than pure mithril. There were the fangs and pelts of powerful monsters and precious metals imbued with high concentrations of magic you could only mine in the deepest, hellish pits of the dungeon. One could also get equipment as rewards from quests in the depths of the dungeon, which usually were enchanted with the highest level of magic. We were too low-level to get our hands on any of these, but I was confident that my leveling-up plan would get us there eventually.

“So for now, we’ll kill a bunch of monsters, learn magic...” trailed off Kano. “Oh, and I want to try out that juicy raiding spot you told me about!”

“Is there a good raiding spot?” asked my father after he’d finished changing jobs. “I’ll tag along.”

“Take me too, Kano,” insisted my mother. I noticed that she was wearing the golden ring she had been obsessing over earlier... My father really couldn’t say no to her, could he?

Kano pulled them both into a hug. “Sure! I’ll take you both!”

I smiled when watching over them, admiring they were such a close family.

They’re raring to go, so I just have to lead them in the right direction, I mused. I’d always been alone in my world but had found a family I loved with all my heart ever since I’d arrived here. Even so, I made a vow to whatever remained of Piggy in my mind. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe and smiling.