13th of June, 2023

I have to admit, the 27th floor is pretty cool. It's something like a huge delta that's ten kilometres across, with houses and towns built all along it. We just cleared the 26th floor boss yesterday, and everyone was relieved that no one died. I can actually understand their irrationality now. They know that the 26th floor should be easier, but there's just the fear of losing teammates. I still find it weird that people find it worth the friendship, but I accept that that's just how people are.

I think I can officially call myself a stalker now. Well, I always was but it was always among different guilds. Now I've just been stalking one particular one for a while. They're decent fighters, but since there's only the three of them they don't make as much progress clearing as other guilds. The reason I'm stalking them is because two of them are in love with each other. It's not just the "oh we're going to die so let's screw each other for the hell of it" love, it's the closest thing to love that I've seen since I've gotten here.

I first saw them clearing the 26th floor boss. It was like a huge bull that was four metres tall and two metres wide. I'm not too sure how long it was because any opportunity I had to look was spent running beneath its huge legs. and horns that could kill the weaker players in one hit. It charged around like hell and did huge damage to the tanks. It boiled down to the faster players dashing in between and chipping away at its health until it finally fell. No one died but that was only because the boss wasn't programmed to kill the tanks while they were weak. I think the clearers have gotten a little smarter since half the Army got annihilated. The tanks actually stayed down once they'd downed a couple of potions, and only one or two tried to go up against the bull again. Once they almost died twice they got the hint and stayed out of it.

I still haven't upgraded Sonic Gale, but the skill's useful for slashing at the boss and then getting the hell out. Of course, I didn't only use that or else I would have been crushed underfoot halfway into the fight. I've gotten better at using Dark Aura and those multiple slashes took off a decent chunk of its life, and I've also taken up curved sword skills for more effective AOE damage. The good thing about attacking such a big target is that the smaller damage ends up being inflicted on a bigger area and does quite a bit of damage.

Anyways, one of the tanks that got taken down got up again, and started to rise. "Masaki!" Some girl rushed up to him. "What the hell are you doing!? You can't win!"

The tank tried to brush her away but he was too weak to do so. Typical idiot. He tried to go forward, which obviously caught the boss' attention and it charged. Luckily, he got yanked out of the way by his partner. Why couldn't he see that he was just holding her back? I thought he was going to keep on going and get both of them killed, but the third guy came up to them and said "Can you even think about how Tarako would feel?"

First of all, they were lucky other clearers got the boss' attention or they would've gotten crushed. Second, the tank actually calmed down and stepped back, letting his two teammates do the work. And that got me thinking. Maybe love actually make people smarter sometimes, and the love and emotions I'd been seeing earlier was just fake and incomplete.

I hate to admit it but I got distracted seeing that and I would have died a couple of times if I hadn't used Sonic Gale to dash away. After we killed the huge bull, I followed the three of them up.

They're now on a boat off to kill some monsters somewhere. I hope they're not planning to settle down there or take a break because that would make observing them boring. I saw that the third person is Tarako's brother. The tank is actually pretty good: he regenerates health as he battles, which is still pretty rare this early in the game, and he swings a huge axe like I swing my sword around. The girl's a spear user and she's not bad either. She basically covers Masaki as he swings his axe around, making sure he doesn't get surrounded by monsters by keeping them at spear's length while her brother, Takuma, does the same on Masaki's other side with his sweeping scythe. You would have thought that they would have been unbalanced, but they work really well together, and they work like one person with six arms.

I haven't seen anything special today, but maybe I'll see something awe-inspiring tomorrow. Or maybe not.