Chapter 398: The Busybody Auntie
[They said at first it was just luck, but Korinna’s reputation has stabilized by now… Well, I doubt there will ever be another Channeler who could sense the aura of death apporching, but even purely as a Healer, she’s steadily climbing the ranks.]
Tsutomu leaned back against the chair, nodding with satisfaction as he watched the Monitor’s broadcast. Among the Channelers gathered in the venue, many were visibly moved by Korinna’s performance.
[She’s even managing the party well now. Well, she’s still too soft on Hannah, but I guess that’s something she’ll figure out eventually.]
It had been clear for a while that Hannah, when too swept up in the heat of battle, tended to disregard instructions. Korinna had definitely noticed as much. Yet she had attempted to stop Hannah with reason alone, This was a fatal misstep, however well-intentioned.
After all, Hannah had been throwing herself into battle with reckless abandonment even before the concept of an evasion-based Tank had taken shape. With no vision and backing, she had tried to serve as a Tank using nothing but armor and the Boxer’s standard fighting style, and was promptly thrashed by monsters. Even then, those around her had tried to talk her out of it, but she threw away her standing as one of Ealdred Crow’s top Attackers and dropped down to a role others mocked as a ‘Feather Tank’.
In other words, she was strong, but dumb. In Live Dungeon terms, she was the kind who loved risky, high-reward ‘heroic’ builds. Tsutomu had found her at her lowest, beaten by reality, and had offered her a place in his Clan. From there, he had helped steer her strength in the right direction.
When calm, Hannah was capable of listening to others. But once her emotions were lit aflame, they eclipsed all else, and she stopped hearing the people around her. That was when Diniel usually kept her in check by loosing arrows that made death feel a little too close, or when Tsutomu would deliberately let her [ wear off to dull her movements.
But this time, Diniel had needed Hannah to go all out and could not afford to act as a stopper. Leleia shared Tsutomu’s willingness to use force when needed, but lacked both the courage to make the final call and the strength to physically restrain Hannah when she went off the rails.
Korinna, unfortunately, had assumed she could reason with her. To someone like herself: educated, disciplined, a graduate of the Royal Capital Academy; it might be natural to expect even an emotional comrade to eventually listen to logic. But Hannah was not that kind of person. Her self-detonation with the Lightning Magic Stone had almost been inevitable.