If a weapon can inflict status ailments, then the Assassin’s "Status Ailment Probability Up" skill would surely come in handy. If I were to assign someone to the Assassin job, Milia would be the ideal choice.
The Assassin class also grants "Status Ailment Resistance Up," but it wasn't a job well-suited for Roxanne, whose combat style focused on evasion. After all, status ailments only occur if you actually get hit. As for Vesta, making her an Assassin would mean losing the Dragon Knight's Dual Wielding ability.
"I’m not entirely sure I follow the details, but if that’s how it works, we should put the petrification skill on an estoc. It’s always most effective to put skills on the best weapon available," Roxanne said, offering her estoc as she spoke.
If Milia were to use the estoc, Roxanne would have to settle for a lower-rank rapier.
"Sorry about that," I said.
"It is no problem at all."
Roxanne didn't seem to have much of an attachment to her equipment. She was so particular about the turn order in bed, and yet she was perfectly willing to prioritize the party's overall efficiency when it came to gear. I was grateful for her selflessness. Eventually, I’d have to reward her by finding a weapon even better than that estoc. It wasn't as if there was zero chance of another one turning up soon, anyway.
I took the estoc from Roxanne and handed it to Sherry. It was better to put high-tier skills on the best equipment possible. I also pulled out the Skill Crystal: Collagen Coral I had purchased along with the Skill Crystal: Kobold I already had in my inventory and held them out to her.
"If you're going to use the Skill Crystal: Kobold to enhance the effect, then fusing it into a high-quality weapon is definitely the right move," Sherry agreed.
Furthermore, we were putting it on a one-handed sword rather than a two-handed one. I took that as her silent consent to adding multiple skills later. I really appreciated her cooperation.
"Um... would it be alright if I watched the fusion process?" Vesta asked.
"You don't mind, right?" I asked Sherry.
"Not at all."
"It's fine, then," I told Vesta.
I wouldn't have kicked her out even if she hadn't asked. We’d done this plenty of times before, after all.
"Then, I shall begin the fusion."
Sherry chanted the Skill Spell and fused the crystals. Her hands began to glow with a brilliant light.
Estoc of Rigidity: One-handed Sword Skills: Petrification Addition, Empty, Empty, Empty
When the light finally faded, the process was complete. So, it was called the Estoc of Rigidity. The skill itself was Petrification Addition rather than Petrification Infliction, likely because I’d included the kobold crystal.
"Oh! As expected of Sherry. A perfect success."
"Was it really a success?" Vesta asked.
"It was."
I held up the Estoc of Rigidity for Vesta to see.
"That's incredible."
"Sherry is always incredible," Roxanne added, praising her.
Sherry herself had a somewhat complicated expression. She probably realized that everything I chose for her to work on was guaranteed to succeed.
"For now, Roxanne, you'll be the one using this sword. Milia, you'll be observing for a while."
"Is that alright with you?" Roxanne asked.
"Yes, it is," Milia chirped.
I handed the Estoc of Rigidity to Roxanne. To unlock Assassin, Milia needed to reach level thirty as a Warrior. Since I was worried about having her fight as a level one Warrior, letting her watch from the sidelines was the safer bet.
We warped from the house to the twentieth floor of the Halber Labyrinth. I switched Milia's job from Diver Lv 33 to Warrior Lv 1.
"Sherry, swap positions with Milia for a bit."
"Understood."
"Yes, I will."
"But is there really a point in making her observe if you’re just going to move her to the back?" Sherry asked, her intuition as sharp as ever.
Technically, the only reason I was putting her in the back was because she was now a level one Warrior. Even if Roxanne was the one using the Estoc of Rigidity, if I weren't changing Milia's job, she could have just kept fighting with her rapier.
"It’s important to sometimes watch the battle from the rear to get a broader perspective. Milia, can you use a spear?"
"I use, yes."
I glossed over the truth with a vague excuse and handed the Holy Spear to Milia.
"Well, I suppose that makes sense," Sherry said, nodding tentatively as she swapped places.
I ended the conversation there and began the exploration. It took an unexpectedly long time for the Petrification Addition effect to actually trigger. It wasn't until our fourth encounter that a monster finally turned to stone. A Hat Bat that Roxanne had slashed plummeted to the floor.
"Ah!"
"It fell, yes!"
Roxanne and Milia spoke at the same time. Milia seemed to have been watching Roxanne's movements quite closely, though I doubted Roxanne’s superhuman fighting style would be much of a reference for her. The Hat Bat rolled across the ground, motionless. It was completely petrified.
"What happens to them once they’re petrified?" I asked.
"Their bodies become as hard as stone, making them more resistant to physical attacks. However, they become much weaker to magic. You still get items once you defeat them," Sherry explained.
So the battle didn't just end with petrification; you still had to finish them off. In a party without a Mage, the utility of petrification would be pretty niche. Since we had plenty of magic, I decided to burn it away with Fire Storm. Sure enough, the Hat Bat on the floor caught fire. Even if we still had to finish them, the fact that they could no longer attack us was a huge advantage. It was a very welcome skill.
That said, the proc rate wasn't exactly high. Roxanne had attacked dozens of times before it triggered once. The probability was likely only a few percent—roughly the same as the chance for Vesta to land a critical hit.
I finished off the two Love Shrubs and then slammed a Breeze Ball into the motionless Hat Bat. It was impossible to miss at this range, but since the target couldn't move, it was effectively a sure-hit.
"So this is what petrification looks like."
"Unlike paralysis, they say that once a monster is petrified, it will never recover naturally."
"It's white, yes."
"Is that so?"
The girls gathered around the Hat Bat with interest, some even poking it with their spears. Come to think of it, had the Hat Bat really turned white because it was petrified? It was hard to tell.
"Roxanne, do you want to try for one more?" I asked after finishing off the bat.
"No, I have seen enough. Thank you very much."
"Then how about you, Sherry?"
"I've never used a one-handed sword before, so..."
Sherry didn't seem interested in trying it out for herself. I’d thought her curiosity might get the better of her, but apparently not.
"In that case, let's stick with Roxanne. The rate isn't great, so let's keep going for confirmation's sake."
"Um... an experiment?" Roxanne asked.
"Exactly."
"I understand."
In truth, it wasn't just for confirmation. If I wanted to test the proc rates, I’d have plenty of chances once I let Milia take over. However, Milia was only a level three Warrior right now. I wanted to get her level a bit higher first. I could have tried turning Roxanne into an Assassin to test the skill, but there was no need to go that far. If she became a level one Assassin, it would introduce unnecessary risk. Since job effects scaled with level and affected the entire party, I wanted to avoid having too many low-level members at once. Vesta’s Dragon Knight was still only level twenty-four, after all.
We continued hunting with Roxanne wielding the Estoc of Rigidity. The second monster to petrify was also a Hat Bat. Since Hat Bats had erratic movements, Roxanne ended up engaging them most often, so it made sense. The bat turned to stone and fell. One Love Shrub remained.
I switched to fire magic and began the attack. Roxanne and Vesta surrounded the shrub while Sherry and Milia poked at it with their spears from a distance. Up until now, I’d been using Breeze Storm to prioritize killing the troublesome Hat Bats first. Since they were the most annoying threats, Roxanne would target them, and I’d use weakness magic to take them down—but if they petrified, that priority shift became a bit redundant.
It seemed the synergy between Roxanne and the Estoc of Rigidity wasn't actually that great. I hadn't thought it through that far, but it reinforced my decision to eventually give the weapon to Milia.
I fired my magic from a step behind the front line. Even though I’d switched to fire magic, the Hat Bat dissolved into smoke before the Love Shrub did. That was likely because its magic resistance had plummeted after petrifying. I finished off the remaining Love Shrub with a Fireball.
"It’s quite difficult to choose your targets when using a weapon with a status ailment effect," Sherry noted.
She’d noticed the drawback of the Estoc of Rigidity as well. As expected of Sherry. Well, "drawback" was a strong word; it was more like a high-class problem to have.
"The claim that giving two of these to a Dragon Knight would be effective turned out to be true in an unexpected way," I said.
"I see. That does make sense."
"It does?" Vesta asked, looking confused.
It was an important tactical point, so I decided to explain it to her.
"For example, say two Love Shrubs and one Hat Bat appear. In that situation, I’ll use fire magic because it's the shrubs' weakness and I want to eliminate the larger group first. Therefore, the one I actually want to petrify is the Hat Bat. If I’m using fire magic and only one of the shrubs petrifies, the total time of the battle doesn't really change. But if we can petrify the Hat Bat—the one we’re saving for later—the combat time drops significantly and the risk to us is much lower. Do you follow me so far?"
"Yes."
The petrification had happened relatively quickly this time, but Roxanne had still attacked over twenty times. The trigger rate wasn't high enough to rely on. You had to treat petrification as a lucky bonus rather than a primary strategy. It was impossible to expect monsters to turn to stone one after another exactly when you wanted them to. At best, you could hope for one petrification per encounter, and even then, most of the time it wouldn't happen at all. If you were going to gamble on it, it was better to aim for the enemies you weren't actively focusing on.
I watched Roxanne translate the explanation for Milia as I continued.
"If two Hat Bats and one Love Shrub appear, we’ll prioritize the bats. In that case, what would you want to petrify?"
"The Love Shrub," Vesta answered.
"Exactly. In other words, if you’re fishing for petrification, it's vital to choose your target based on the situation. If you have two swords with status effects, it's not necessarily better to have two different people use them. If two people have them, their targets are split. But if one person—like a Dragon Knight—uses both, they can focus their attacks on the specific target they want to neutralize."
"Ah, I see! That makes perfect sense."
Giving a Dragon Knight two status-inflicting swords was definitely a form of specialized optimization. Especially since Assassins seemed to be so rare in this world.
"Regardless, the plan to give it to Milia hasn't changed. Milia, just make sure you coordinate with the front line on which monster to target. We're fighting living things, so you won't always have a choice, but do your best."
"Understood," Sherry said.
"I do it, yes!" Milia added.
"I think we can manage," Vesta said.
It would be a pain to give micro-instructions every single time, so I was happy to leave the finer details to them. Their lives were on the line in the Labyrinth, so Milia would learn the ropes soon enough—even if she was hunting monsters instead of fish.