Defense Specialization and the Tower’s Second Floor 5

Maple and Sally rush out of the room, quickly close the door and lean against it.

“Phew… let’s calm down for now.”

“W… what are we going to do, Sally?”

“What to do… What skills did it take from you, Maple?”

Sally asks Maple that question since there’s no use going back to the boss room without knowing that first.

Maple checks her skill list and confirms that ‘Machine G.o.d’, ‘Oozing Chaos’, ‘Throne of the Heavenly King’, and ‘Pandemonium’ were gone.

“Everything from ‘Oozing Chaos’ is gone, including ‘Savagery’.”

“Huh? So this ignores your equipment… and its effect is so powerful! Is there a time limit?

“It doesn’t look like it? Ah… are my skills gone for good?”

Maple looks at Sally, seemingly worried.

“Maybe when we defeat the boss… or when we leave this floor? I’m not sure. I think everything will be back to normal as soon as the event ends, though…”

Which means that they now cannot give up on conquering the tower.

“Hmm… we should be able to beat this. But what should we do?”

“Umm, somehow…?”

Maple looks at Sally, seemingly surprised.

“Hmm. This might prevent us from getting the ‘No Damage’ achievement, but… We could make it take your ‘Dedicated Affection. If such a boss were to use that skill, it would end up killing itself… But I don’t know if this boss would try to use that skill at all.”

“But Sally, if it takes my ‘Absolute Defense’, we’d be in trouble!”

“That’s right… if it takes away your defense, then you…”

Then Maple would be just a regular person.

Sally believes that if Maple can’t attack nor defend, then she won’t be able to do anything at all.

“Maple, what’s your [VIT]? Not counting skill bonuses.”

“Huh? Ah, umm…? Oh, I haven’t been paying attention to that lately. Let’s see…”

Maple opens up a blue panel and checks her [VIT] stat.

“Hmm. 2,000-ish?”

“T… two… thou…”

Sally closes her eyes and swallows the rest of what she was about to say.

“Oh, sorry! Should I give you the exact number?”

“She didn’t… get the number wrong or anything like that…?”

Sally finally understands that if that’s the case, then Maple doesn’t have anything to worry about.

Maple doesn’t have any defense-piercing skills, so the boss won’t be able to steal such a skill from her in order to defeat her.

“Well, Maple, you have to protect me. I can’t do anything against your weapons.”

“Sure! But what are we going to do?”

“We’ll wait patiently for that boss to s.n.a.t.c.h your ‘Dedicated Affection’ away.”

Sally concludes that the boss’s defense is not that high since it took some damage from her ‘Double Slash’.

So she also sums up that if it were to take Maple’s ‘Absolute Defense’ and ‘Fortress’, they’d still be able to manage somehow.

“All right! And then we beat it down!”

Maple throws her fist forward, showing her motivation to go back in and try again.

“Yeah. There might some troublesome situations ahead, so let’s plan this carefully. We should be okay here for now.”

Sally tells Maple that they shouldn’t be too reckless about this since the boss might have even more tricks up its sleeve.

“Well then, let’s try to come up with a good plan!”

And so, the two begin to think hard about a fail-proof strategy that would allow them to win the battle.