In the bar, the two men who were sitting across each other looked at each other intently. One narrowed his eyes in confusion, and another one gazed with mysterious eyes and a pretentious smile.
Rozen just stared at Heathcliff, speechless due to what he just said.
On the contrary, Asuna, who didn’t understand what Heathcliff meant, raised a question.
“Why is it only half right, leader?”
Heathcliff himself didn’t put on airs.
“Let’s make an analogy.”
Instead of giving an easy and direct explanation, Heathcliff was like teaching a class, and said charismatically.
“For example, If Player’s level cap in this was set to 50, then how can we deal with level 100 monster?”
At this point, Asuna and Rozen couldn’t see where Heathcliff was going with this roundabout question.
“There’s no way to deal with it, obviously.” Asuna added without hesitation: “In SAO, level represents the gap. Even if a Player had the best equipment and used the strongest skill, they won’t be able to damage a monster with 50 levels above them because the monster’s defense has far exceeded the Player’s attack.”
“That’s right.” Heathcliff nodded to approve Asuna’s answer: “In SAO, once the level gap is higher than 20, you can no longer deal any damage to the enemy.”
Heathcliff then added another perspective.
“The opposite goes for a level 50 Player against level 10 monster, no?”
This was a no-brainer.
Even a newbie knew a level 50 Player should be able to deal with a level 10 monster easily.
However, Asuna understood the meaning of Hitzcliffe’s words.
“In short, if a Tamed Monster is equal to a level 50 Player, it was designed to be unable to deal with a level 100 monster, but it should be no problem if it faces a level 10 monster, am I right?”
Hearing the conclusion Asuna came up with, Heathcliff smiled. That was what Heathcliff was trying to say, and that basically explained why the Rainbow Butterfly was so powerful now.
“Let’s say Chairman Rozen’s Tamed Monster’s maximum strength was set to 50 by the game developer. When its strength was 1, obviously its skill won’t affect a 1st Floor Boss, once its strength reached 50, its skill still won’t be able to deal with a 50th Floor Boss, but its skill should work against the 1st Floor Boss, right?”
Hitzcliffe said this.
In other words…
“Maybe SAO’s developers intended to make the Rainbow Butterfly irrelevant from the 50th Floor and above by setting its maximum strength to be below the 50th Floor Boss and above. That way, the Rainbow Butterfly’s skill won’t affect the 50th Floor Boss and above, but at least it should have no problem dealing with other bosses and monsters from lower Floors.”
Hitzcliffe smoothly explained the logic behind his analogy.
“The game developer should have no intention to make Tamed Monster strong enough to deal with Floor Bosses, because that would defeat the Player’s existence, but if it was set to be unable to deal with low-level monsters, then what’s the point of raising them? Therefore, the game developers must’ve intended to make the Tamed Monster became stronger along with the Player as the game progressed, but they set the limit for Tamed Monster’s strength.”
Game developers must’ve thought that even though Tamed Monsters had a certain limit, it will take a while before that Tamed Monster reached its limit. Game developers thought that Tamed Monster shouldn’t be able to reach its peak performance until the later stage in the game because its growth process was slow.
But Rozen did what they couldn’t predict.
Rozen managed to develop the Tamed Monsters’ potential and strength extremely fast using his own method and ability, so fast that it even exceeded the game developer’s expectation. He managed to raise the Tamed Monsters to the point where they could demonstrate the strength that they were only supposed to have in the later stage of the game. Thus the monsters in the earlier stage of the game couldn’t resist their skills
That was how the Tamed Monster that wasn’t that strong and supposed to just provide some support to Players could even toy with Floor Boss and became the legend among Players.
That was the reason why Heathcliff said Rozen was only half right earlier.
“The game developers did set a limit on the Tamed Monster, yet you exceed their expectation by raising them unbelievably fast to the point that Floor Boss couldn’t resist their skills anymore.”
Heathcliff looked at Rozen as if trying to find out more about him.”
“I’m sure Chairman Rozen must’ve realized this, right?”
Rozen just shrugged his shoulders in response to Heathcliff’s question.
Heathcliff asked that because he knew Rozen had a special way to raise the Rainbow Butterflies and boosted their growth.
Heathcliff’s explanation obviously made Rozen thought more highly of him since that man had a deep understanding of this game called SAO, and his game knowledge was not just about the information within the game, but also the fundamentals that constituted the game – The System.
In other words, Heathcliff’s understanding and knowledge about the game were unparallelled compared to other Players.
Rozen then glanced toward Asuna, who was somewhat dazed by Heathcliff’s explanation.
(I can safely say that Asuna learned more about the game thanks to this man.)
That was how Asuna could change so much after just four months. She also respected Heathcliff and even willing to set aside her ego and became his second-in-command, because for her, Heathcliff was not just the leader of her guild, but also a person who taught her about the game.
Perhaps when it came to an understanding about SAO, even Rozen was no match for Heathcliff. And that exact Rozen was not aware that Heathcliff was also thinking highly of him because of Rozen’s ability to raise the Tamed Monster was also remarkable. In fact, that was the reason why Heathcliff wanted to see Rozen.
“Chairman Rozen.” Heathcliff suddenly said something unbelievable out of the blue: “Would you like to have a duel with me?”
This sentence instantly changed the atmosphere within the bar
“Duel?”
Rozen squinted.
“D… Duel…!?”
Asuna was also astonished.
But Heathcliff had no intention to change his mind. He just stared at Rozen intently. Strangely, there was no trace of provocation in his eyes. He simply observed Rozen out of curiosity.
“Of course, I don’t mind if you refuse.”
Heathcliff said casually.
Rozen blinked several times because he was still surprised and just remained silent for a moment. Heathcliff wasn’t in a hurry either, so he waited patiently for Rozen’s response
Not long after…
“Alright.”
Rozen finally made up his mind and agreed.
“However, I will bring both of my Tamed Monsters.”
Rozen planned to go all out, and instead of getting a cold feet, Heathcliff was surprisingly happy with Rozen’s response and smiled.
“That’s a given.”
The brief exchange of words suddenly resulted in an unforeseen duel.
The atmosphere suddenly became heavy, and Asuna, who knew she couldn’t do anything to stop this duel just looked down in silence, trying to process what just happened in her mind.
