Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)

Volume 7 - Ch 4.09

And so, because of our neglect of it, its going to be unnecessarily wasted. Also, things would be even better if Miria could do something with that displeased look that she had on her face every time when she had to distribute the fish to anyone who was not her. Look Miria, I know youre not happy that you wont be able to gobble any more of the fish up, but that is no reason to be throwing the childish temper tantrums like that, because it was giving me the kind of vibes that something about this situation was really off and that she might try to snatch the fish away form us if she gets desperate enough.

The next morning, I went to the Quratar Merchants Guild in order to pick up the bat Skill Crystal from Luke. After I picked it up I returned home and immediately handed it off to Sherry so that she could start the fusion process.

Roxanne, take off your shoes and pass them on to me.

What? Oh, o-okay. As you wish, master.

When she heard my request, Roxanne took off the Hardened Leather Shoes that she was wearing and placed them on the table before us.

It will be a good idea to enhance Roxannes equipment this time.

Apart from her having a Sacrificial Misanga, the need to enhance her equipment is greater than anyone elses. It has to be done in order to compensate for her weaknesses that might start showing up once I decide to start messing around with her Jobs to increase their levels so that the stat bonuses for the entire Party would be that much greater. And besides, since Roxanne can already dodge pretty much any attack that might be coming her way, I feel like theres no need for us to enhance her armor per se.

The ideal path that we should be taking here, is to infuse Roxannes existing armor with such a set of Skills that would compliment her fighting style in the best way possible, and what would be a better way to do it than to infuse her armor with a Skill that would increase her evasion, directly improving her best quality as a warrior.

The Bat Skill Crystal and the effect it grants therefore seem to be the ideal things that were practically made for her.

Sherry and Miria usually do not receive that many attacks even though they are fighting on the front lines together with Roxanne, so I think that for the time being there is no need to upgrade their evasive abilities. Someday for sure, but not right now.

As for me, I guess I technically could be wearing the piece of armor with Bat Skill Crystal added onto it to increase my own evasion, but the more I think about it, the more I think that I do not need it as well, because whenever I am heading out to do some battling on the frontlines, I do not need to evade enemy attacks since I have Durandal with its HP Absorption Skill, and that more than makes up for my lack of the ability to avoid.

And so, going by the process of elimination, I have concluded that Roxanne is going to be the most ideal person to make the full usage of the Bat Skill Crystals ability.

Even though I might not need the ability to evade the enemy attacks better. No. The higher we are going to go, the stronger not only the Floor Bosses, but also the regular enemies are going to become. And since we rely mainly on Roxannes godly dodging abilities during the Floor Boss fights, then making Roxannes evasion stronger is going to be directly linked to our safety in the Labyrinths. And since Kobold Skill Crystals is only going to double the effectiveness of the Bat Skill Crystal, then I dont see the need to use it right now at this very moment.

I am thankful for that as well. Since Kobold Skill Crystals are one of the most useful ones in this world, obtaining them is definitely going to require more time, and most importantly, more money, so before we move on to using the strengthened Bat Skill Crystals, it might actually be a good idea to use a regular Bat Skill Crystal to see how much better Roxanne is going to be performing with it.

And besides, even if Sherry claimed that using the Kobold Skill Crystal together with the Bat Skill Crystal supposedly doubles the users ability to evade, we have no guarantee that its actually going to get doubled. If we want to invest more of our money in it, then first we would have to confirm the exact amount of the increase in evasion.

However, if we assume that the value of Roxannes evasion is already unnaturally high, then using the Kobold Skill Crystal on the Bat Skill Crystal should result in an even bigger increase to it. Even just a ten percent increase should produce some good results, but I wont lie, it would be ideal for us if the actual increase would be around thirty to fifty percent. Then, Roxannes evasion capabilities would probably ascend from just Godly to beyond Godly, making her even more amazing than she already is!

All right then, could you please fuse the Bat Skill Crystal with these Hardened Leather Boots, Sherry?

Certainly, master.

Sherry picks up the Hardened Leather Shoes with one Empty Skill Slot that we have looted from the Bandit attacks before, and then she performs the Item Fusion process in the same casual way like she was doing before. At the beginning she was always anxious with every fusion she was performing, but right now she looks like she is completely used to it.

As expected of Sherry. Great job as always.

Brilliant as always.

I did it! Master, Miss Roxanne!

Amazing, desu.

Everyone offered Sherry the words of praise, letting her know how amazing she was for completing yet another Item Fusion. When I used Identifyon the item that she got as a result, it showed it as Hardened Leather Boots of Willow. Initially I found that name to be quite strange and cryptic, but then I remembered how willows behave when they are influenced by even the strongest of winds, so maybe the name is supposed to draw a direct comparison to precisely that: indicate that when the user is going to wear these boots, the are going to be evading the attacks of the enemies just like a willow on the wind?

I plan on having everyone try these boots on to see how they are going to work, but Roxanne is going to have a go at it first.

Okay.

I pass the Hardened Leather Boots of Willow to Roxanne, and after she has equipped them, we then moved on to the fourteenth floor of Harubas Labyrinth so that I could observe if there were any noticeable changes in Roxannes evasion, but from what I could tell, there was no apparent change present in her, but that should hardly come as a surprise to me, since even before Roxanne wore the Hardened Leather Boots of Willow, the monsters were barely even able to touch her, so I dont know how any change from that would have even been represented.

As such, at least when it comes to Roxanne, I can say with absolute certainty that as long as just evading the attacks of the monsters is concerned, things are the same for her as they were before, so next, I borrowed the boots from her so that I could try them on myself, but I also wasnt able to feel any kind of noticeable difference in my evasive abilities, or at least there are no big changes like when I am using Character Resetto redistribute the Bonus Points to my other stats, or when I change my Jobs or when I am Leveling Up.

I even tried to launch a pretty reckless direct attack at one of the monsters while wielding Durandal, but even then I failed to notice any kind of significant difference. However, I think that when I equipped the Hardened Leather Boots of Willow, it kinda did become a little easier for me to evade the incoming attacks, if only just to some marginal extent.

If the difference was a considerable one instead, then I guess I wouldnt have hated it this much, but if I look at the total number of attacks that I have received from the enemies, then it has probably decreased, so theres no use in me continuing to wear those boots, so I just hand them off to either Sherry or Miria. Once they try them on, I will decide whos going to keep it.