I’m Not a Piece of Shit

Chapter 7: “You said Sword Phantom was good. Shamans are good too.”

Two party members.

Inferno–Sword Phantom–Deflection Greatsword: A swordsman. Thunderbolt–Frost Blossom–Deflection Curse Blade: A shaman.

To put it bluntly, they were misfit characters.

(Not trash characters, though. Their performance was good, just their reputation wasn’t.)

Here’s a quiz: What are the chances of forming a full four-member party with this combination?

According to the highly intelligent and rational mind of Dajeong-dosha, the answer is…

Well, it converges toward zero.

To be honest, I thought Perro would reject me. After all, the general perception is that the synergy of misfit + misfit doesn’t result in 1+1=2. It’s more like 1+1=0, the miracle of mathematics.

But when I sent the party request, Perro looked flustered, glancing between the air (the info window) and me. Then, with a surprisingly serious face, she pondered for a moment before accepting.

Since Perro was someone I acknowledged as having a great gaming brain, she must have grasped the potential of this tree.

“Dajeong-dosha, but what’s good about building the traits that way?”

Ah, never mind.

She must have just been desperate for a party…

But still, isn’t a Sword Phantom user the last person to talk?

Let me briefly explain the Sword Phantom trait. It materializes a phantom of your main weapon that attacks alongside you. In martial arts novels, it’s akin to “sword projection,” while in sci-fi, it’s similar to “funnels” (or not).

This trait was designed to address the challenges swordsmen face due to the presence of global cooldowns, making it hard to use skills smoothly. It’s effectively a swordsman-exclusive trait.

It’s cool, it has “sword” in its name, and it looks great.

(There was even a slightly unhinged assassin who would choose the Sword Phantom trait just to shout “Mancheonhwawu” during combat. It was oddly charming.)

But the downside is that its damage output is lower compared to other trait trees.

It’s flashy and stylish, but if it were powerful too, that’d be overpowered.

Without precise calculation of the skill cycles and maximizing cooldown utilization, a Sword Phantom swordsman could never achieve their full damage potential.

But Perro managed to pull it off.

During the process of developing tactics, we researched opening cycles to secure stable aggro. That’s when I realized, “Wow, this girl is really crazy about gaming.”

Not just the opening cycle, but her entire damage cycle was meticulously designed in an Excel file, aligning every skill cooldown to the longest one at 45 seconds, down to 0.1-second intervals. Anyone who saw it would be impressed.

But that’s not relevant right now.

You’re a misfit character too.

I need to explain this clearly.

“Instead of going full Thunderbolt level 3, mixing in Deflection reduces cooldowns, letting you rotate skills more effectively.”

“Oh… That’s why I chose Sword Phantom too. The benefit of mixing Sword Phantom is that… and about Deflection, if you minimize avoidance… and then the synergy would…”

Argh!

I get it!

“Yes, yes, I understand. But honestly, it’ll be hard to find more members. How about we just two-man it? Based on the strategy guides I saw, it seems doable.”

“Ah, two-man? Would that be okay?”

“Of course. You said Sword Phantom was good, and shamans are good too.”

Cutting off the Sword Phantom explainer mid-sentence, I forced an entry vote. She looked a bit reluctant but eventually agreed, saying, “Well, we should at least see the patterns first.”

Bandit Hideout. Jumping in.

Bandit Hideout’s first boss, “Marauder Geumgang,” relies heavily on summoning and managing adds, similar to the Corrupted Shaman from the Corrupted Den we tackled before. 

The reason I hesitated about solo-clearing this dungeon wasn’t the second boss but the first.

Geumgang, nearly four meters tall, wielded a massive axe befitting his hulking frame. 

At that size, he was practically no longer human. Why was someone like that content being a mere bandit?

“Perro… PerroFace-nim, is this your first time here?”

“Yes. Have you been here before, Dajeong-nim?”

“Roughly… Let me explain briefly. The major pattern involves a ground slam, which you can’t counter. You’ll need to use resistance skills. Everything else can be countered. I’ll handle the summoned adds, and you take care of the two-hit combo. If you think you can’t handle it, just call out.”

Monster attacks generally fall into two categories: counterable attacks and unblockable ones. 

Unblockable attacks must either be dodged during the brief invincibility window provided by movement skills or countered with skills that grant invincibility through a “resistance” effect.

Well, seeing is believing.

Using the marker system, I placed a countdown above Geumgang’s head: 3, 2, 1, 0.

Perro summoned three sword phantoms and dashed forward, driving her blade into the boss. With a roaring laugh, Geumgang swung his axe, but Perro countered it and followed up with a fiery Z-shaped slash, the swordsman’s basic skill, Triple Strike. 

Despite its somewhat large motion, Perro used the stagger effect from the counter to land it cleanly. It was impressive.

I waited a beat to avoid stealing aggro and began my own attack by throwing a Curse Blade. Gradually, I moved forward into the boss’s attack range.

Perro glanced at me briefly, puzzled, but quickly focused back on Geumgang’s patterns and attacks.

When Geumgang swung his axe horizontally, a distinct ting—ting sound echoed twice in quick succession.

Since the axe was massive, we maintained an appropriate distance, countering together to benefit from the shared counter effect. 

Thanks to the Deflection trait, cooldowns for my attack skills were reduced, letting me unload single-target abilities more quickly.

“You fools! What are you doing? Help me at once!”

At 90%, the first special phase began. With Geumgang’s call, bandits spawned across the hideout—five in total.

After countering the follow-up attack, I backed off carefully, tossing attack skills at the bandits one by one to absorb their aggro.

Exorcism Talisman, Thunderbolt Talisman, Frost Blossom Talisman. I pulled one of the closer bandits with my body and used Exorcism Talisman on another as soon as its cooldown refreshed.

Soon, all five bandits began converging on me. Perro, showing good awareness, gradually maneuvered Geumgang toward the edge of the arena.

I stole a glance and saw her deftly triggering counters with her sword phantoms. So that’s possible too.

Since the bandits moved slightly slower than I did, I lured them into clustering tightly. 

Fortunately, as monsters from an early zone, their AI wasn’t very advanced, so they followed my lead.

Calmly, I used talismans one by one, starting with three. The Snare Array’s area-of-effect increased, so I had to spend one extra talisman.

I threw the talismans at the clustered bandits. Since my Curse Blade was still stuck in Geumgang, I had to aim carefully to ensure it didn’t redirect to the boss. The bandits were snared precisely as planned.

Next was my newly unlocked level-20 area-of-effect skill, Lightning Burst Array. I tossed four more talismans over the snared bandits, quickly and boldly, without much finesse.

Concentrating, I aligned the flying talismans. North, south, east, and west—one each to cover the whole area. Then, I activated the skill.

The talismans resonated, glowing white. Sparks crackled as small bolts of lightning rained mercilessly down on the bandits within the array.

Wow, that effect was stunning.

I shivered at how much cooler it looked than I imagined.

However, the bandits’ health bars still hovered around 60%. During the 30-second cooldown, I individually targeted them with attacks, whittling their health to about 30% before preparing the next sequence to finish them off.

“Taste my wrath, you worms!”

“Ground slam incoming!”

At Perro’s shout, I turned my head sharply to see Geumgang’s motion. His body was enveloped in the distinct purple glow that accompanied unblockable attacks. It was almost too late to react.

Focusing on his axe raised high in the air, I threw my last talisman to the ground. I watched the tension in his bulging arm muscles, timing my move.

Time seemed to slow.

His bent elbow gradually straightened.

Just a little more…

When his forearm, elbow, and wrist aligned—now!

Phantom Shift.

The axe slammed down as the ground quaked, sending nearby debris flying momentarily into the air.

With a sharp bang, my distorted vision quickly returned to normal. The bandits pursuing me stumbled and faltered.

The invincibility granted by Phantom Shift was brief, activating only in the instant my body swapped with the talisman. 

If I had thrown the talisman further away, the resistance duration might have been longer, but there wasn’t time for that.

Even I wasn’t entirely sure it would work, but it succeeded. The strange sensation of time resuming its normal flow left my head throbbing slightly.

I turned to check Perro. She had dodged the slam by moving back, triggering a resistance, and seamlessly re-engaged Geumgang with a charge skill.

Thankfully, bosses didn’t use big patterns consecutively, so there wouldn’t be another ground slam or fusion attack for about a minute. I refocused on dealing with the bandits.

She really is my main tank.

Party play truly makes things more manageable.