[Vol. 2 pt. 25]

And their best turned out to be the worst.

The girls barely managed to survive their first encounter against the dungeon’s trash mobs. Their second encounter, which added in an extra goblin, was all that it took to wipe them out and leave them bloodied on the ground. Marisa in particular seemed to expect something after her defeat since her defeat pose on the ground had her chest down and ass up waiting for her conqueror to take her from behind. Unfortunately for her, because the girls were trying to do this the combat way instead of the lewd way, her conquerors had no interest in her armored ass.

It did make me think of something, though. She had on some pretty heavy armor over her waist. It was pretty tight on her, too, showing off just how wide her hips were and how thick her ass was. I wanted to try slapping a girl’s ass while she wore armor even if it most likely meant that my hand would hurt afterwards. It just sounded fun.

Then I imagined playing the drums on some girl’s ass armor.

I shook the idea out of my head and revived the girls. Well, technically, they weren’t dead. They were in defeated states since there was still a party member, me, alive. They couldn’t move or do anything, but they were still technically alive.

Nora was first. “Shit… why is fighting them so much harder than fucking them?”

Then Marisa. She just looked disappointed that she wasn’t taken advantage of.

Alisa sighed as soon as she was up again. “What troublesome boys they are.”

And then Ava. “They could at least do lewd things after beating me up.”

These four women were exceptionally competent at actually fucking… but absolutely incompetent at fighting.

“Alright,” I said. “First off, do any of you have any experience in real life with this sort of thing? Fighting, I mean. Anybody take some boxing lessons? Wrestling? Karate?”

“Would that even matter?” Nora asked with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“It’s a game. It’s different from real life. Plus wouldn’t people knowing how to fight in real life give them an advantage over people in the game who don’t?”

“I think you’re underestimating just how much of a connection there is. When it comes to things like crafting where you don’t have to use realistic processes to make something, having real experience doesn’t matter. Forging a sword in real life is pretty complicated and requires a long process. In this world, all you have to do is gather the materials and click ‘craft,’ sometimes at a specific station, and you’re done less than a minute later. But when it comes to actually using your body, of course it’s going to matter. You can still know techniques and stances, have higher reflexes, and so on. That sort of training is what really sets the world-first pro players apart from the rest. It’s not uncommon that you’ll learn some of the best raiders and PvPers in the game take lessons in real life to improve their abilities. Even then, the ones who don’t take lessons in real life will usually be playing other combat training games that are just as good as the real deal for gaming. Also, if you didn’t expect real ability to carry over, then what was your excuse for being able to fuck all my monsters so easily?”

“I… guess I didn’t think of it that way. So, we’re not going to get any better at fighting unless we learn how to fight for real?”

“Well, yes, but you don’t have to go and spend your free time training how to fight. That’s only what the real tryhards do. As long as you continue fighting monsters and are genuinely trying to improve, you’ll get better and better just by playing the game. That’s how it works in all games. Anyways, I’ll ask my previous question again. Do any of you have experience with fighting outside of this game?”

The monotone elf raised her hand. “I do,” Ava answered.

“Great. What kind of experience?”

“Lots of fighting my older brothers. Then my mom had even more kids, so I had to fight against a bunch of little brothers. They were like cats swarming me wanting to bite and scratch me.”

That wasn’t exactly the kind of fighting experience I was looking for, but it would have to do. “So, sounds like you’re better off at something like melee combat instead of ranged. Are you particularly attached to the bow or are you open to trying out a different class?”

“I don’t care. I only chose bow because I chose an elf. I thought it was fitting.”

“Makes sense. Though, there’s one class that focuses on fighting with their fists and feet. Their weapons are basically just different gauntlets that you can wear. So, you’d be a brawler elf instead of an archer elf. Does that sound good to you?”

Ava nodded. “I’ll punch stuff.”

“Good. Anybody else have some experience?”

Next was Alisa. “It is… a bit embarrassing to admit despite the game we’re playing, but I used to be close to a boy who always wanted to take me to renaissance fairs. Apparently, I had quite the talent for archery. The men running the stall said they had never seen somebody pick it up so quickly.”

“Then it sounds like you might be taking up Ava’s old spot of the archer. Why’d you choose rogue?”

“Oh, that’s simple. I thought that a rogue would have the nicest costumes if art was anything to go by. It was always the rogues who wore tight pants, revealing corsets – I love that aesthetic.”

“Then I guess it should be good news that you’ll still be able to use the armor you have if you switch over. Rogues, archers, brawlers – they all use the same, medium armor type. There might be a bit of difference when it comes to what stats you want to prioritize, but that’s not important until way later, plus the armor still looks the same even if there are different versions of it with different stat allocations.”

“Oh? I see… in that case, I wouldn’t mind at all switching to using a bow.”

“Good. How about you two?” I asked, looking at Nora and Marisa.

Marisa clearly wasn’t working out as a tank no matter how determined she might have been to be one. I wasn’t sure if that was because she genuinely wanted to be a tank or just because she didn’t want to appear useless and too eager to get fucked by monsters, but it wasn’t working out. She got too easily distracted while she was up there in the front. Even so, she did want to try her best to help everybody.

Meanwhile, Nora liked barking orders at everybody and didn’t seem all that comfortable having to rely on them. She seemed like somebody who really wanted to be in control and able to rely on herself. Healers were good for that, but tanks were the ones who really dictated how a battle went. They were the first, and usually the last, line of defense. If they failed, it took some extreme clutching for the rest of the group not to wipe in anything even slightly challenging. At endgame, tanks were the only ones who could even survive direct attacks from bosses. Anybody else would just instantly die even if they tried to buff up their defenses as much as possible. And if one attack didn’t kill them, two definitely would.

“None here,” Nora answered.

“I… don’t have any either,” Marisa answered.

I nodded and said, “Alright, I have an idea. Going off of your personalities alone, you should switch. I think you’ll both be way more comfortable if you do that.”

“I was thinking the same,” Nora said. “Being a healer isn’t for me. Too much standing around watching others.”

Marisa sighed and agreed. “Yeah… I don’t think I’m a good tank. Being a healer hiding in the back sounds easier.”

“Hey, who are you calling hiding? Did I look like I was hiding at any point?”

“I – I don’t mean you! But isn’t that the stereotype?”

“Actually,” I said, “that’s how healers used to be way back in the day, but not anymore. If anything, one of the critiques I was going to give Nora is that she hasn’t been using any of her damaging spells. Not that she’s had much opportunity to given how much healing has been needed. Anyways, my point is that healers don’t get to just hide in the back. At least in endgame content, if the healers aren’t contributing as much as possible to DPS, then the party won’t be able to pass the DPS checks unless they’re over-gearing with even better equipment that comes out later.”

“Se-seriously?” Marisa asked. “But… they’re supposed to heal, not damage!”

“You’re welcome to play that way when you’re playing with friends. But if you ever team up with randoms or try to do any endgame content… I’d suggest you keep that opinion to yourself and deal some damage unless you want vote-kicked. Then again, unless you only ever want to fuck the endgame bosses into defeat… all you’d need to do is heal. And that’s what I’m preparing all of you for.”

Marisa looked a bit down when I explained that other players would expect her to do damage as well, but she perked up as soon as she understood that she would be allowed to focus only on healing as long as it’s to fuck the bosses instead of kill them.

“So, I guess we’re switching,” Nora said. “Does that mean we’re calling it here since none of us leveled up the other classes?”

“How much time do you have?” I asked.

“A couple of hours.”

“That’s enough. If we go right now, I can power-level you up to where you are now. Alisa and Ava won’t need new armor and I’ll get you and Marisa some gear. That can all be done in an hour. Then we come back here and, assuming that the swaps actually work, we should be able to clear it in thirty minutes giving us another thirty to spare. Sound good?”

The women all nodded in agreement, meaning that it was time to show off a little.

An hour later of grinding outside of the dungeon and the girls were ready to go. Thankfully, leveling up other classes was easy due to receiving a major experience buff to any class below your highest-level class. I even got them some experience-boosting food to help out even more. So, between the buffs, speedrunning them through some world events, and having them rush through their class quests, they were able to get to a high enough level for the dungeon.

It really wasn’t anything impressive, but they managed to seem pretty impressed whenever I was able to gather up a group of as many monsters as I could find—anywhere from ten to thirty of them—and kill them all with a single AoE attack. The girls looked like they couldn’t wait until they could do that, too.

And now, with Nora as the tank, Marisa as the healer, Ava as the brawler, and Alisa as the archer, they took on the first battle of the dungeon.

Since I spent the entire time leveling them up explaining their new classes and roles to them, they were able to get into their jobs pretty easily. Not only that, but the battle went smoothly. Nora’s health dropped to about the halfway point a few times, but that was because Marisa actually tried her best to deal some damage with her spells despite originally being against that. There wasn’t actually anything wrong with that, either. Plenty of healers let tanks health get low during such encounters because they knew it was safe to. My only concern was related to worrying that she didn’t mean to let Nora’s health get that low in the first place. Monitoring somebody’s health and letting it get low because you’re comfortable with that is one thing. Letting it get that low because you’re not paying attention is completely different.

And during the second battle, which they previously lost against, I had to shout out to Marisa to remind her to actually heal Nora. It turned out that she just wasn’t paying attention.

“Focus on healing for now. It’s good that you want to help with damage, but let’s get you used to practicing healing during dungeons, first,” I told Marisa.

“Ri-right. Sorry,” Marisa said.

“Don’t apologize. You’re doing great and it’s even better that you want to help out with the damage. But you’re still new to this, so take it one step at a time.”

“Got – got it!”

Meanwhile, the others all excelled in their new roles.

Alisa was seriously insane when it came to using her bow. Nearly every single one of her shots made its way into an enemy’s head and she never accidentally shot one of her friends.

Ava turned out to be an incredible grappler. Goblins were known for latching onto their enemies to try and restrain them on the ground, but it was Ava who ended up doing that to them instead. Her petite body made it easy to slip out of their grasps and her skill guaranteed that she could choke all of them out. When she wasn’t choking them out, she was busy punching them and deflecting their attacks with her arms.

And then there was Nora. Nora looked happier than ever being at the front tanking the monsters while shouting to the others which one to focus on. Not only that, but I instilled an extremely healthy habit into her that many tanks, even endgame raiding tanks, lacked.

I taught her to actually use her defensive cooldowns instead of only using them during emergencies. I made sure that any healer she ever played with would be incredibly grateful for her actually using her cooldowns. A tank using their cooldowns gives healers even more time to deal damage and buys them an opportunity to heal up the others if they need it instead of only the tank.

Thanks to the overall improvements that the girls made, they were able to successfully defeat the second pull of the dungeon.

And then they cleared the third group.

And the fourth one.

Without me ever needing to help them out, they managed to go through the dungeon group by group clearing out all of the enemies. There were a couple of random chests they came across and looted, but there was nothing of note inside of them. Just vendor trash. Even so, they were excited to get the chests in the first place.

We were almost at the boss before long.

“Aren’t there usually multiple bosses in a dungeon?” Nora asked.

“Not in this one. This is the first, and weakest, dungeon in the game. Only one boss at the very end. The rest of the dungeons in the game will have three to five bosses, though. Usually only three,” I explained.

Nora bashed her new shield into the head of the wolf attacking her. “Got it. Also… I kind of feel bad attacking wolves.”

“Well, there’s no way to defeat a wolf or anything else close to one in this game other than by killing them. Just be happy that they don’t make pained yelps or anything. It’s always screwed up when a developer adds canine enemies and then makes them yelp whenever hurt.”

“I guess so.”

“Having fun tanking?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of nice. I can see why you do it.”

I was pretty sure our reasons for it were different. She liked tanking because it meant being in control and getting to order others around. I liked tanking because I liked the idea of protecting all the others and being an unbreakable wall for them.

But if she was able to successfully lead the group through the dungeon right up to the final boss of it, I wasn’t going to judge her for what motivation inspired her.

Instead, it was time to teach them about fucking boss monsters into submission.

Standing in the center of a large, cleared room with stalactites hanging from the ceiling and skeletons piled up against the wall on one side of the room was none other than the boss himself. He was a huge, hulking orc with tusks protruding from behind his lower lip, a chest and arms covered in battle scars, a necklace of bones hanging around his neck, and with a leather loincloth hanging down over his crotch which featured a very noticeable and thick bulge pressing up against it.

“I-is that the boss?” Marisa asked. I couldn’t tell if she sounded more afraid or aroused.

“Yeah, that’s him,” I answered. “Gurunk the Savage. In a normal boss fight, you’d have to try killing him while dodging falling stalactites from the ceiling and the pack of wolves that come when he whistles for them. But since you’re going to be fucking him – well, all you have to do is make him cum before he exhausts all of you.”

While I explained the strategy of fucking him into defeat to the girls, the boss simply stood there in his idle animation glaring at all of us.

He didn’t know that he was about to get four great women trying their best to make him cum.