A New Kind Of Grind

"Hey Cecilia," I said, walking into what had, apparently, become her new apartment.

(The Purpleheart Collective was tolerating this whole 'living in glorified magic tents' thing surprisingly well for now, but I gave it maybe another week or month before someone realized that the Miners could just make clay generators and the Blacksmiths could trivially turn that clay into bricks and those bricks into a real apartment building, at which point they'd want to actually do that. This whole mess was just a starting point.)

"Hey," Cecilia said, sitting on a couch made in the bamboo-pole-frame-with-canvas-paneling style of the building as a whole, except with some canvas-skinned cushions added on as a concession to comfort. "What's up, Roxy?" Her phone was levitating in front of her face, and she was, quite clearly, reading it. "...Who're your friends?"

"Neloteth and Elendar Tanelye," I said. "They've decided they're my harem now. Nel will probably want to take a topless selfie with you at some point, if you're alright with that?"

"Sure," Cecilia said, nodding. "Also, congratulations on the harem. You don't see that many of those, these days."

"Thanks," I said. "However, I didn't just come here to brag. I found something interesting in my first delve, and wanted some build advice from you."

"The Slotless Paladin Unlock, yeah?" Cecilia said. Apparently, a high-ranking Guild member tended to hear about rare events that other Guild members wrote reports on. "It's not a terrible choice for you, all told. Good role coverage, nice stat spread... the lack of the Thief role is probably gonna annoy you, long-term, but I bet you can scrounge up a workaround somehow. Maybe after a year of grinding you'll turn up another Slotless Unlock you can trade for a Slotless Thief Unlock, or even a Class Slot Unlock."

"Is that likely?" I asked.

"Absolutely not," Cecilia said. "Just going by the statistics, neither you nor anyone you ever delve with will get another one of those items. But, well, you seem pretty lucky, so..."

I shrugged. "Anyway, speaking of trading... you think I should trade Slotless Paladin for a different one?"

"Hrm..." Cecilia trailed off. "...Honestly, not really. I saw the after-action report, and you definitely lean more towards Warrior than Thief in a fight, and I think you'd be better off with Healer spellcasting than you would be with Thief abilities. Out of combat, the Thief role's abilities aren't super stat-intensive, and even a good Druid or a Ranger can do them well enough for on-level delving."

"And since you already have a Ranger..." Nel said.

"Alright, alright," I said. "So for my temperament, with my delve partner, my best build is going to be Wizard and Paladin, rather than, say, Paladin and Spellthief, or Bard and Spellblade, or Swashbuckler and Thaumaturge?"

"With a Wizard's Soul Stats, you're going to be casting buff spells like a Level 4 Cleric," Cecilia said. "That combination of versatility and power is really powerful, and I'd seriously recommend you keep it."

"I guess that makes sense," I said. "Still..." I sighed. "Ugh, there's fourteen delver classes I could take, but I still can't stop overlapping with Akane and Nicky."

"Are they..."

"A Wizard and a Paladin," I said, nodding. "God, if I ever go delving with them, we are going to have the most garbage party comp."

"Intra-party balance isn't a real concern," Cecilia said. "As long as you've got access to each role and people capable of fighting, you'll be fine. Hell, I've seen this one group that was four Rogues and a Druid, and they did just fine."

"...Huh," I said. "Well... Anyhow. I guess I should actually use this goddamn thing, huh?" I pulled out the red chip that was the Slotless Paladin Unlock, and sighed.

"Might as well," Cecilia said. "Unless you really, really need the money from selling it, but... Somehow I don't think you do."

"It'll speed up your recovery, too," Nel added.

I nodded, and reached out to use the item.

[Accept Paladin as a Slotless Class?]

I responded in the affirmative, and sighed at my new class list.

Slot 1: Wizard, Level 4

Slot 2: Alchemist, Level 3

Incubus, Level 2 (Slotless)

Paladin, Level 1 (Slotless)

I checked my stats next, and...

"A Level 4 Wizard has higher Body Stats than a Level 1 Paladin," I said.

"A Level 4 Wizard is still worse at casting Healer spells than a Level 1 Paladin," Nel pointed out. "Since you're both, though, you should be able to cast Healer spells about as well as a Level 4 Cleric."

"...Oh right, that bit," I said, before closing my eyes and mentally reaching out to my new spellcasting repertoire. Which... huh. "...I may need a minute to figure out how to cast these fucking things."

"You are a Wizard," Nel stressed.

"There's a difference between Mage and Healer spellcasting," Cecilia said. "Give her a minute to acclimate."

"...Fair, I suppose..."

"Ah, here we go," I murmured. "[Restoration]!"

The interesting thing about injuries, and recovering from them, was that, yes, there were hitpoints in this system, and I was even at full hit points. The thing is, when you get sufficiently fucked up, that's represented as a long-term debuff that decreases your Body stats and thereby your maximum HP. Removing that debuff with Healer spellcasting was possible, but the cost scaled with some factors that mostly equated to "how high are your stats" and "how recently were you fucked up?"

Fortunately, spells like [Regenerate] would decrease both the effects and duration of the debuff over time, so now that I was ready to use [Restoration] to outright remove it, for a magic cost that I could actually afford.

Yeah, just because the "seriously injured" debuff could theoretically be removed by a Healer didn't mean it was practical to do so. I had the Soul stats of a single-role spellcaster, and also the Body stats of one; that it was really, really expensive for me to heal myself made it abundantly clear why this wasn't a thing people did more often, especially since the alternative of just waiting for it to heal on its own wasn't actually dangerous, just inconvenient.

(Naturally, since I didn't need to recover from being seriously injured on a daily basis (yet), I was already considering magic-banking systems for saving up excess magic for the purpose of turbocharging a [Restoration] spell, before remembering that I am an Alchemist, and that I should probably be trying to figure out what I'd need to make a [Restoration] potion.)

"Holy shit that ate almost all my magic, and I've been on the mend for like four days now," I said.

"Yeah, [Restoration] is a fucking expensive spell to cast," Cecilia said. "Now that you're a Paladin, however, you've got ways to prevent taking damage in the first place." She put her phone away, and stood up, rolling her shoulders. "C'mon. Let's go teach you how to be a Warrior."

---

"This here is a Level 1 Dungeon Gate," Cecilia said, as the four of us (Just because Elendar was no kind of delver didn't mean she wanted to be left out) entered the first room of this incredibly basic, beginner-level Dungeon. "Through that door is going to be a very, very basic combat encounter. I want you to handle it yourself, however you see fit."

I nodded, and equipped my (recently repaired) armor straight out of my inventory, followed immediately thereafter by my sword and shield- also having been repaired by Haruna. I stepped through the door, and beheld... two slimes.

I sighed quietly, and tried to tap into the Warrior role, to figure out what it could do for me. A flash of insight, a drawing back of my right arm, and then...

Perfectly timed, I slashed forward and across with my sword, bisecting the slimes mid-jump, and letting their goo splash harmlessly.

"...So, is that it?" I asked, as everyone else trailed into the room behind me. "Warrior just... tells me how to swing my sword?"

"No, that's Thief," Nel said.

"It might help you to understand how Warrior and Thief are equals and opposites," Cecilia said. "See, for Thief, their whole thing is supernatural skill; nothing they do is impossible for someone who isn't a Thief to do, but Thieves can do it far more reliably than someone relying on mundane, mortal skill. That's why Thieves rely on precisely-aimed attacks at weak points, and often make use of ranged weapons."

"Okay..." I said, nodding carefully.

"Whereas Warrior is the role for doing stuff like that Fighter boss you dueled," Cecilia continued. "Warrior is about doing stuff with a sword that is actually impossible- throwing an iron lance through an orichalcum shield, or driving a sword straight through steel plate. Nobody else can do that at all without insane amounts of stats or magic to back them up. At Level 1, with Body Stats lower than what you're getting from Wizard, you aren't going to be doing anything quite that impressive, but that'll come soon enough."

"Alright, so, being a Warrior makes me better at killing things with a sword," I said, nodding slowly. "Which, well, I can see how being better at fighting improves my survivability. But..."

"Right, there's the other facet of Warrior," Cecilia said, nodding. "Parry this."

She suddenly had a sword in her hand, and swung it at me exactly slow enough that I could, conceivably, bring my sword up in time to parry it, if I leaned into the Warrior role to the exclusion of all else. The ringing of metal on metal was loud, and my arm recoiled, the sword jolted in my hands.

"If you hadn't been a Warrior," Cecilia said, "that would've broken your sword again." She nodded once. "So, summarize what you've learned to me."

"Warrior lets me make impossibly strong attacks, and also block those attacks from other Warriors?" I said.

"That's the long and short of it, yeah," Cecilia said, nodding. "Now... Hrm. Your sword form is good enough for Level 5, I think, but once you get Mystic Artificer and making your own enchanted gear, you're gonna wanna spend some time really mastering it. Shouldn't take long; I'll help."

"Can I also ask you to help me with my weapon arts?" Nel asked.

"Sure, I've got time to kill," Cecilia said. "Now, Roxy, go on ahead and finish up this Dungeon."

I nodded to her, and pressed onward, plowing through trash mobs until the very end, where I split an incredibly unimpressive wolfgirl with a spear in half, receiving as my reward the one and only treasure chest of the entire delve.

"Alright, so..." I hummed quietly, as I tallied up all the loot. "...Ten silver pieces, a few Level 1 herbs, and a Level 1 health potion. Not... super impressive, but honestly, not that bad."

"Everyone's gotta start somewhere," Cecilia said. "Just wait until you get back to the real dungeons."