(Robin's POV):
Me and Grace returned to the giant terrestrial sphere while making minimal use of the air that we could hold. We only have about twenty boxes remaining due to various circumstances and I would wish that I could finish this troublesome trip as soon as we can.
"Jeebus, we're actually pretty lucky that we managed something like that. Though I'm more surprised on how Michael would try to survive something like that without any casualties."
"Michael?" - Grace
I should at least tell Grace about how the other guys lead in combat. It will be pretty helpful if she learns how to adapt from the others.
"Well, I'll tell you about the others. It might work as a lesson about leading your team well."
"Eh?" - Grace
"First one is me, you pretty much understood how I work around right?"
We had already entered the spherical earthen object and started seeing the beautiful looking yellow ore. I brought out my pickaxe and asked Grace that question.
"Yep, you're pretty delicate when it comes to handling a plan. It's more like you have pretty much laid out everything in your mind to set up all forms of situations." - Grace
"Correct, and taking all the time necessary to generate a plan would be shortened if you take in logistics of probability. You could shrink if you just consider one thing or everything as possible."
"What about the others?" - Grace
"Denzel is the type that will constantly improvise and generate multiple plans on the spot. However, if he plans out before then it means he's completely serious about his decision. He plays everything out with skillful precision and gets everything off in the heat of the moment. His extremely high speed of calculating situations is pretty dangerous if you fight him without a plan. Well, just don't."
"I see, how about this Michael you mentioned about?"
After collecting one batch of ore, we moved to a different vein and I started mining once more. She kept watch but we continued talking.
"Well, he's more or less a person who would make everything work well. He's one of the most flexible ones to get his plan stretched out since he looks for a way to deal with the extra factors. It will make sure his plan works extremely smooth."
"I see... How will he do something like that though?" - Grace
"He pretty much gains control over everything he planned out. His role will be pretty much essential once his plan will be used. He will provide assistance towards those who have trouble maintaining the plan."
"I see... What about the main leader?" - Grace
"Seymour, he does plan out everything well. It's just that sometimes, his plans sound completely insane."
"Insane?" - Grace
"He always places us in the border of possibility or impossibility. He intends to limit our abilities to the brim where we cannot use any stat booster skills, tarot cards, or even unleash powerful level abilities."
"So he would hold you all back on purpose?" - Grace
"I pretty much get his intent. He doesn't want anything to be revealed that easily. This will prevent enemies from learning more about us and try to make countermeasures this early."
"I see... That's actually pretty tricky to manage..." - Grace
"Yep, there's also the problem when we tried to survive against a swarm of thousands of summoned monsters and try to pummel through a thousand players in a last stand. I didn't call you guys in since Seymour told me that it was enough with the current lineup."
"Enough? How many were you against a thousand?" - Grace
"Well, there's me, Denzel, Seymour, Mitch and Chesca who are the marksmen. Denzel's team contained William, Malech, Jerald, and Vince, they held out the front line pretty well. Seymour maintained the backline along with Karl, Ross, and Allen. Julius and I flanked the enemy on different sides."
"How did you even..." - Grace
"It was an extremely precise plan laid out by both Denzel and Seymour. The initial idea was to have me, Denzel and Seymour handle the front line while the others try to get everything done."
"Won't that make it a little difficult for you?" - Grace
"That's why I was grateful when Denzel said something about a team from his group."
The major difference about holding off the front line was Denzel bringing his own team to do the dirty work of receiving the army head first. They played the battle with perfect coordination and assisted each other to almost perfection.
We mined out some more ore before coming back towards the small space that we used to rest up. I explained more things to Grace in which she listened in quite well. She asked a bunch of questions like a great student and doesn't seem to falter with the amount of information she's holding in her head right now.
"I don't recommend holding the information all at once. You will need a decent sleep once we arrive to the carriage understand?"
"Got it, thanks for worrying though." - Grace
After arriving to the spot, the others were just playing some cards and it seems like they're doing blackjack.
"Yo, cards for us too?"
"Aight." - Ridley
Ridley and Rylle had fully recovered and are just playing cards together with Jay. Ridley serving the cards as dealer gave me and Grace two cards each and noticed that mine is actually pretty decent.
An ace and a ten... Free win.
"Blackjack."
"Oh come on!" - Ridley
"What?!" - Jay
The others seemed to have a decent game while I just swooped in for a nice blackjack. After some time, we finished playing around and started our leave from the biome.
"With this, we have enough ore so we don't have to worry about it. The problem is that we don't have any sense of time here so we might've gone through a few days in here."
"Yeah, I've heard rumors of this biome getting rid of your sense of time. I wonder how long we've stayed here." - Jay
"Well, if Denzel has recovered at this point then holy crap. We could get you guys to settle in the palace for that."
"Ooh! I hope so too!" - Jay
"He looks like a great person, I'd like to know how he moves around when it comes to managing everyone." - Rylle
"Well, I'm more interested in learning about the other members there." - Ridley
"I want to try and memorize the entire palace." - Grace
Grace, you're so brave to try and memorize something even I am unable to.
"The palace itself is huge so I know that there will be a bunch more rooms that are unused. I wonder how everything will turn out at this point though. The only ideal case is that Denzel had made a full recovery."
"Yep..." - Jay
We finally managed to exit the void and got ourselves a fresh breath of air.
"Air!!!! Fuah!!!"
"Robin's unusually excited." - Jay
"Shut up, I'm tired of fighting multiple bosses. I'm not coming back there ever again!"
I performed inventory and noticed that we had about seven boxes remaining. The fact that we were able to manage to fight against multiple bosses is actually a great feat. There are monsters that are completely dangerous to fight against and even monsters that we have zero knowledge about.
"Finally done from that vacuum boss wasteland."
We returned to the carriage and counted all the ore that we collected. Due to the long discussion, I managed to collect more than triple the amount I initially had planned. Another reason is that I don't have plans to come back here indiscriminately. We will need about a thousand boxes just to manage a completely smooth battle. The fact that my passive to prevent any status ailments except asphyxiation which involves atmosphere physics is extremely overpowered.
"Aight, everything set?" - Rylle
Ridley and Rylle sat down on the front again to maintain the horses that we left for quite some time. When we left the area, it was night so Grace and Jay immediately went to sleep. Ridley and Rylle rotated on handling the reins between each other. I simply kept watch and stayed on guard to ensure we won't enter any surprise attacks.
After some time, the sun was starting to rise up which also timed with Jay and Grace waking up. I stayed awake the entire time so I may have some eyebags showing here and there.
"Where are we?" - Jay
"Castle, we're staying here until lunch break. I have to make a report to Seymour so don't worry about it."
"Why though?" - Jay
"Well, I have to make sure that the entire trouble I went through was a success. I also have to tell Seymour about the contents inside the void biome. He did ask me to round up as much information as I could since you know him. All zodiacs will be needed to win in this game."
"You did fight against one of them in the volcano biome right? Praetorian?" - Grace
"Yep, I think Seymour will try to eliminate them soon. We have to gather all thirteen before that other faction does."
"The celestials or gods?" - Rylle
"Yep, they're a major threat having a bunch of chrono related classes. They also have the top one in the rankings here right now so it's basically not the time to deal with them head first. They already tried a grand-scale invasion against us but we simply managed it. Denzel fought against the person who lead that which is Chrominus."
"Chrominus? I remember him... I can't believe he would manage to fight against a chronomancer like that." - Grace
"Well, it's Denzel after all."
I went around to find Seymour to provide him the information that he needs.
"Yo Seymour."
"Ah! Robin! Managed to get through?" - Seymour
"Yep, it was a difficult struggle though... The problem about the void biome is that you will have zero air. There are small spaces that contain some air but it's not infinite. The place is also filled with boss monsters so it's a major threat."
"What about the zodiac?" - Seymour
"I doubt anyone would try to get this for the time being. But I also have some instinct telling me to not look for it right now."
"Instinct? Then I guess I know what is the trouble to get that zodiac then." - Seymour
Seymour left the area and invited me over for breakfast. I sighed in relief with the success of the mission.
Mission Complete...