The Support Ate it All

Chapter 139: 8th Week Mentoring and Strategy Battle (1)

Strategy Battle Class.

Teacher Seo Cheong-yong wrote a word on the blackboard.

[Guardian]

“Okay, let’s start with a quick review. What is the role of a guardian in a dungeon?”

A model student in the front row raised her hand and said,

“To protect.”

“What do they protect?”

“Well… it varies from dungeon to dungeon.”

“That’s correct. In the last strategy battle, you acted as guardians and protected the statue of the goddess. Now, let’s each share what we felt while defending.”

The first student chosen began to speak.

“No matter how well we defended near the statue of the goddess, it still took some damage, so it seemed better to keep the monsters from entering the temple at all.”

“Exactly. Although the ultimate goal is to protect the statue of the goddess, allowing any intrusion into the temple itself is a loss. It was practically the same as defending the temple. Next?”

Teacher Seo Cheong-yong then pointed to the second student.

“It felt much harder to defend once the side walls were breached.”

“Why did it feel harder?”

When Teacher Seo Cheong-yong asked again, the second student briefly recalled and answered.

“…I think it was because I got confused about where to block first and which side to prioritize.”

“You observed correctly. The more defensive points there are, the more choices and distribution become necessary. However, there’s no guarantee that the distributed forces will exactly match the enemy’s strength, so it becomes more difficult than blocking just one place. Next?”

The third student chosen began to speak.

“It was the most difficult when the Beheader Goblin appeared.”

“Really? Why was it the most difficult?”

“Because while blocking that, we didn’t have the resources to block other places, so areas that usually didn’t get breached started to get breached.”

“That’s exactly right.”

Teacher Seo Cheong-yong seemed quite pleased, perhaps because the desired answers were coming out smoothly.

“Let’s summarize. For the enemies to destroy the end goal, which is the statue of the goddess, they first had to infiltrate the temple. Since the main gate defense was rarely breached, they created a new attack route and breached the side walls to disperse your defenses. Lastly, they used a strong card, the Beheader Goblin, to force your forces to concentrate in one place, making other areas vulnerable. Do you all understand up to this point?”

Everyone nodded or answered with a small “yes.”.

Teacher Seo Cheong-yong smiled warmly and said,

“Then remember what we just talked about, because this week we will be on the attacking side.”

The blackboard was wiped clean, and the rules and environment were displayed.

MAP: [Cave]

RULE: [Crystal] [Strong Enemy] [Double] [Random Rule]

“Everyone got the hang of the crystal rules by now, right?”

When the crystal rules appeared for the second week in a row, half the faces soured while the other half brightened.

Naturally, this depended on whether they had suffered losses or wins due to the new rules the previous week.

While the former deathmatch rules were based on direct confrontation and always determined the outcome by sheer force, the crystal rules didn’t guarantee victory solely based on fighting power.

Even if one’s fighting power was slightly lower, there was a chance of winning by effectively charging the crystal.

For example, because Jo Byeok lacked mobility and pursuit skills, he couldn’t fully demonstrate his abilities and ended up losing the match to me.

Additionally, it was said that people like Shin Byeong-cheol who excelled at running away managed to recover quite a few points during this opportunity.

Even now, he looked excited like a fish in water, probably thinking that he could score high points just by running away well in the attack match.

It’s too early to be so happy.

It won’t be as easy as he thinks.

The main difference was that while the crystal rules involved one-on-one matches, this week’s attack match involved two people.

Sure enough, Seo Cheong-yong took out two crystals.

One emitted a red glow, and the other a blue glow.

“Now, there’s one sanctuary, two people, and two crystals. Only one crystal can be charged at a time. What does this mean?”

“……?”

“…….!!”

Most of the students tilted their heads in confusion, but the quick-witted ones caught on to what Seo Cheong-yong was implying.

“Is one person supposed to assist while the other charges?”

“That’s right. If we apply what we just reviewed, what should we do?”

To achieve their goal, they had to infiltrate the enemy base, disperse, and concentrate their forces.

Song Cheon-hye raised her hand and said in a calm voice,

“The one assisting should strongly distract the enemy to draw their attention.”

“Exactly! You’re all answering well today.”

Seo Cheong-yong was feeling the reward of teaching and didn’t hold back his praise.

At that moment, a student sitting in the corner raised their hand.

“Um, teacher, but…”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“Well… what kind of strong enemy will appear?”

Everyone hoped for the return of the Beheader Goblin, but things were never that easy.

As evidenced by past experience, this school loved crafting curriculums to mess with the students.

And a bad premonition never missed its mark.

Seo Cheong-yong gave a meaningful smile.

“You all stayed awake during Teacher Jo Ok-soon’s class, right? The answer is there.”

“……!”

The students’ faces stiffened at the same time.

It was because they recalled what kind of monster had been covered in Jo Ok-soon’s Monster Ecology class.

Ogre.

Ogre.

A monster that straddled the line between mid-boss and boss-level. It was like a walking tank.

Its hide was extremely tough, making most physical attacks only graze its skin and its resistance to magic was similarly high.

It was also the first monster I encountered when I entered the world of the game. After a few hits, I quickly realized I couldn’t defeat it.

Despite its huge size that towered over a human being, it was agile enough to be compared to superhumans, and with its [Super Strength] trait, every blow it dealt had immense destructive power.

Close-combat classes had to be cautious around it and ranged classes with weaker bodies could be nearly killed with a single hit.

They wouldn’t bring it in with its default specs, of course.

They would probably bring in one that’s a couple of levels lower, but since its base specs ranged from C to D-rank, even a slightly lower rank would still be incredibly strong.

Given this, it was understandable that there were cries of despair even before the strategy battle began.

– Is this difficulty for real?

– How do you jump from the Beheader Goblin straight to an Ogre?

– Are we supposed to run around dodging an Ogre while recharging crystals?

– It’s a two-person task. Someone has to draw aggro too.

– This is crazy, really.

While everyone else was in a funeral-like atmosphere, Go Hyeon-woo, the embodiment of positivity, was still radiating bright energy today as well.

“Ogre, huh? It’s an opponent I’ve always wanted to face. The time has finally come. Aren’t you excited, Kim-hyung?”

“I’m just okay.”

“Well, it might be a bit too easy for someone of your skill, Kim-hyung.”

Go Hyeon-woo nodded to himself as if he was satisfied with his own conclusion.

I wonder what level of skill he thought I had.

Anyway, I had a separate matter to discuss with Go Hyeon-woo, so I handed him a stack of papers I had prepared.

“Here, take this.”

“What is it?”

Go Hyeon-woo accepted the stack of paper, flipped through a few pages, and his eyes immediately deepened.

It was a dungeon strategy guide.

“We’re going in?”

“Yes, tonight.”

“There are two strategy guides…”

“Memorize just the first part for now.”

“Got it. I’ll study it in advance.”

There were two major goals to achieve this week.

The first goal was to deal with the swordsmanship club.

They should be entering the Black Death dungeon soon.

According to what I heard from Dang Gyu-young, the raid on the Black Death dungeon would be completed by the end of this week at the latest.

And the moment the swordsmanship club entered the dungeon, they would realize that someone had been there before them.

They would be busy playing cat and mouse with the Black Death clan leader, and the evidence of our activity, marked by the Inferno Fist, would be all over the place.

It would be stranger if they didn’t notice.

From the perspective of the swordsmanship club, it was infuriating enough that someone had entered and rummaged through the dungeon before them, but the Black Death dungeon was even up for priority bidding.

They had used their priority bidding rights to exert influence at the club level, yet someone had ignored this and entered the dungeon.

They could never let this slide.

Even if they considered the stolen rewards a loss, if they let this pass after their priority bidding rights were disregarded, there would be second and third attempts to challenge the swordsmanship club’s stronghold in the future.

So, they would do whatever it took to find me and make an example of me.

Honestly, I did do something wrong.

I admitted it readily.

At that time, given my skills, raiding the Black Death dungeon was the best way to obtain more than a semester’s worth of metal, so I forced my way in, but I also understood that it was wrong and that I would need to make amends later.

Moreover, aside from the moral issues, anyone would fear making an enemy of a powerful force like the swordsmanship club.

I was no exception to that.

I have a few deals to make with them later.

If our relationship soured, I wouldn’t be able to trade with them properly and considering the profits I would miss out on, it was natural to worry.

For these reasons, it was beneficial to maintain amicable relationships with clubs.

However, with the swordsmanship club, I had already made a bad first impression.

To fix this, I needed to return the Millennium Iron and other items I had taken or prepare compensation of equal value.

And I would need to prepare a “small token of goodwill” that could help appease their anger to some extent.

So, I have to go down.

To retrieve items that the swordsmanship club would appreciate.

And to secure my share as well.

The second goal was, as always, to grow stronger through the mentoring event and side quests.

However, this week was a bit more special than usual.

First, let’s review the side quest from the past duel battle week,

[Side Quest: 7th Week Duel Battle] (Completed)

▷Objective: Win 3 duel matches. (3/3)

▷Reward: 1st Mentoring Event – 4th week extra bonus (Large)

By winning two matches against Cha Hyeon-joo and one match against Jo Byeok, I completed it with the maximum reward.

As a result,

[Event: 1st Mentoring] (In Progress…….)

[Remaining Duration: 6 days]

▷ Accelerate your growth with the help of a mentor.

▷ Increased probability of acquiring skills/traits.

▷Increased skill/trait growth rate

▷Bonus enhancement (Large) in effect…….

▷4th week extra bonus (Large) in effect…….(New!)

Thanks to the bonus enhancement (large), the efficiency of my rank upgrades had been significantly high over the past three weeks, and the side quest added even more efficiency.

The system was encouraging me to push hard since it was the last week of mentoring.

But before running ahead,

Finishing this first takes priority.

[Side Quest: 8th Week Strategy Battle]

▷Objective: Clear the strategy battle dungeon

▷Deadline: ~Sunday midnight

▷Reward: Varies based on performance

I needed to enter the dungeon as soon as possible, score points, and clear the quest.

This was because the reward was a skill book.

My plan was to maximize the rank of the skills I learned within this week.

And the skill book I would receive if I cleared the side quest with the highest achievement was,

The second piece of [Spiral Explosion], following [Twister].

One-point Explosion.

TN: The 4th week extra bonus is for the “4th” weak of mentoring period.