"You want me to do the tanking? Are you sure? You have not seen me fight yet so why are you recruiting me?" I asked.
"As long as you are a tank and just block the damage, everything is fine, and leave it to the DPS to do the work!" Dolly said.
The other members of Dolly's party approached. From the looks of their equipment, they are indeed full of DPS and support already. They are now lacking for a tank.
Their team composition is:
DPS: Swordsman, Gunslinger
Support: Two Clerics
Semi-Support: Alchemist
Magic Damage: Magician
I can say that they have a good composition of the team. Swordsman is the main DPS and once they needed to heal or do some mana regeneration, the Gunslinger can support and alternatively, can be switched with the Alchemist and work into the offensive role. The magician will do magic damage against enemies who are too weak against the magic attack and quite resistant to physical attacks.
The alchemist will be the main buffer and debuffer of the group depending on how well this alchemist performs since the Alchemist class can either switch to the physical role to support role.
Having two clerics is also good too. One should focus on the heal while the other one will be in charge of the Status Ailment problems and resurrection. They can also do it alternately if they run into lacking mana or low health. Now to perfect this team, all they need is a good tank.
As for their levels, their lowest level is 25 and the biggest level is 32. I don't want to compare myself to them since I have the help of the titles that will compensate for my slow leveling.
"What is your current level? Can I see your status?" Dolly asked and started to fiddle on the options to see my status. However...
[Status cannot be viewed]
"Huh? Did it bug out? Why can't I see your status?"
I shrugged and smiled inwardly. If she saw me smiling, she would be creeped out. Luckily, my mask hides my face.
"Just leave it at that. There are times that this happens, don't worry too much about it."
"Is that so? Then you should report it to the developers. If that bug persists, it will be troublesome."
She led me to her group. Males dominate the party with only two girls with us, the first cleric and Dolly. The others are all guys.
"Welcome back, so is this the one?" the swordsman asked and started to eye my equipment.
"Yeah, he is an acquaintance. He is a tank and since you guys didn't specify much on the requirements, I brought him to fill our last spot! You don't have to worry too much about him."
"If he can properly do the tanking job then I won't mind it. So, shall we get going? We can't afford to lose every second talking idly. Let's get to business and do some grinding and boss pummeling," the swordsman said and led the group to the entrance where an elf is guarding the entrance.
"I don't know if these eccentric people are friendly, to begin with. They have been giving orders here and there to me who was looking for a team to clear the tower dungeon."
"These guys are not your usual teammates?" I asked.
"I play solo since my friends seemed to have not enough money to buy the Reality Verse Cabin. They are random party I just found when I was looking for one."
A random party huh? I usually tend to avoid random parties before when entering this place. I would rather go to a party with someone I knew or tag along with some people whom I am acquainted with. Doing a random party is very troublesome especially if you are a beginner.
These guys she was with are also clearly troublesome people. I won't be surprised if they start to reveal their true colors once a good drop appears since the Tower Dungeon permits player killings.
...
After paying the toll for entering, we immediately form into formation. Dolly was currently in the very back line while I was placed in the very front of the group. I didn't do any attacks, just provoke the monsters to attack me then let the DPS and magician do the work. If I steal the kill since I can easily kill the mobs, these guys would be furious and will immediately show their true colors. I don't want that to happen so early. If they wanted to benefit from us, then I should also milk them dry of their efforts. After all, defeating monsters and leveling up is a very troublesome thing.
We continue the clearing and managed to clear the first floor. If I was the leader and the groups' party members have low levels to compete in the next floors' mobs, then I would climb up the second floor before returning to the first floor since the monsters will immediately respawn. Aside from that, no other players will meet up in a single place since all players that entered the dungeon will be separated in other places.
However, it is not my call to say this nor I would benefit from telling this random stranger that I am suspecting.
The journey has been pleasant so far, I managed to get myself lots of ingredients for the potions I needed to craft and I also have the monopolization of the grass drops. This group is not interested in these ingredients.
Finally, we arrived on the seventh floor. The danger also scales around too and the mobs are starting to get actual damage to me. The DPS also did their work properly but I already notice that the Gunslinger is slowly positioning himself near Dolly. Since Gunslingers has high burst damage and Magicians are quite squishy in physical damage, a single burst from a gunslinger will immediately reduce the HP of the magician to zero.
Not only that, the female and male healers are too biased in healing. Most of the time in parties, the Cleric will need to prioritize their healing on the tank and only do the healing to the other members if they are damaged. But in my situation, the clerics didn't care and just heal the Swordsman despite the swordsman's HP is quite full while I already lost lots of HP.
But the more they do this, the more they are trying to make sure the enemies will not suspect anything on their doings. Since it has come to this, I will wait for this bunch of random guys to show up what they wanted to see.
As for Dolly, I don't think she has understood many things at all. But let's leave it at that at other time