Chapter 46: That Thing from the Wall Painting Races Through the Air
After consulting the map, I work out a route from Thirdrema's terrain that leads to the Prismatic Forest Grotto. If I could just take the main street straight there, it'd be fastest, but I need a certain degree of stealth too—worst case, I'll be saying hello to the crew targeting my Unique.
Sunraku: "Go through here, take the back alleys..."
Emul: "This way's a shortcut, wa!"
Sunraku: "I see... Alright."
Route decided. All that's left is to run without tripping.
Psyger-0: "He's not here..."
Feels like I've been playing nothing but hide-and-seek lately, Psyger-0 thinks, letting out a sigh in a player-run restaurant in Thirdrema. Based on the theory that "if you can make someone crave a dish they ate in-game in real life too, you win," restaurants run by actual professional chefs in reality compete fiercely, and Thirdrema is a particularly intense battleground. Among them, this establishment, which primarily handles ingredient items obtainable in the Prismatic Forest Grotto, is Psyger-0's favorite spot. Her personal recommendation is the "Caesar Salad with Fluorescent Moss and Nitro Tomatoes"—the very culprit behind the salad boom that hit Psyger-0 in real life.
Psyger-0: "I'd heard he was a very restless person, but you really are like a tuna, Hizutome-kun..."
"Stops moving and dies"—a rather harsh assessment. Perhaps it springs from a tiny bit of irritation that she still hasn't managed to take that first step in interacting with him. So how can she break the current deadlock? While waiting for her salad, Psyger-0 arrived at a solution: a "shift in perspective."
(In other words, I'll just swap the order of operations.)
Though when it comes to the concrete "how," she draws a blank. Both reality and the game just won't cooperate... she thinks as she gazes upward—
Psyger-0: "Excuse me?"
Something—a simple figure with a white hood completely enveloping its body down to about the knees, with only eyebrows and eyes seemingly drawn on—was soaring through the air with an indescribably bizarre mobility.
Psyger-0: "Uh, um, that Egyptian..."
Like that thing—the one that dwells in the mansion of the earth and underworld god, the one that shoots beams from its eyes and has a taste for human hearts...
Psyger-0: "...Ha!"
In that instant, Psyger-0's thoughts connected scattered words at lightning speed. Bare feet, markings, hiding, bizarre behavior, the person she's looking for... The player name is too far to read clearly, but it's probably four characters. She has no proof, but she's certain: that bizarre white hood is absolutely Rakuro Hizutome—Sunraku. Good news waits for you while you sleep, but if you don't seize good tidings yourself, nothing will ever progress. Though she feels a tug of regret for the salad that still hasn't arrived, Psyger-0 dashes off in the direction the Medj—no, the white hood that seems to be Sunraku leaped away, armed with a certain secret plan.
Emul: "I-I really wish you'd stop suddenly adding twists and spins to your jumps, wa!?"
Sunraku: "No, sorry. When I hide like this, it actually makes me more self-conscious about what's underneath, so I just kinda..."
Item name: Ritual Garb: Vanquisher’s Long Hood (Festa Medjed Keffiyeh). No matter how you look at it, equipped with this thing, you look exactly like that figure from Egyptian wall paintings—whose design says "boss" but whose looks say "mascot character." It's basically that thing exactly. But it has a rather unique (in an amusing sense) property. You see, by classification this is headgear, but the white cloth completely covers you down to about the knees, meaning a single headgear slot can conceal almost your entire body. The downside is that while equipped, all skills that use the arms become unusable—making it utterly worthless in combat, a true joke item. Well, I suppose the devs figured using it as a fashion piece around town wouldn't be a problem.
And so, clad in that Ritual Garb: Vanquisher’s Long Hood (Festa Medjed Keffiyeh), I leap across rooftops, slip through back alleys, and sprint down main streets. It stands out like crazy, but it should be impossible for anyone to instantly identify this thing and Sunraku as the same person at first glance. By the time they check the name and realize "Oh, that's Sunraku," I'll already be long gone. A perfect plan. The post-reveal judgment of my character—once everyone understands that this thing equals Sunraku—is just collateral damage.
Emul: "But why are you taking a detour, wa!?"
Sunraku: "It's a fake-out! A fake-out!"
Using crates and walls as springboards, sometimes ducking out of sight to hike up the hood and free my hands to scramble onto rooftops, I keep running. Right now, I'm heading... not in a straight line toward the route to the Prismatic Forest Grotto, but toward the route to the Iron Ruin of the Divinity. That said, my destination hasn't changed: the Prismatic Forest Grotto. This is purely a fake-out. The real plan is to use the back alleys at the last moment and switch to a route that heads straight for the Prismatic Forest Grotto.
Sunraku: "Listen up, Emul. If you seriously want to deceive people, you need at minimum: a lie that sounds like a lie, a truth that sounds like a lie, and a lie that sounds like the truth."
That's straight from Pencilgon's playbook. The fact that an honest truth isn't even on the list really shows what a bastard she is. Anyway, the idea is to make the majority believe I'm heading to the Iron Ruin of the Divinity, obscuring my real objective. Even if someone spots me heading toward the Prismatic Forest Grotto, majority opinion will sweep away the minority truth. That Packhound monster concept really is perfectly rational, honestly.
Sunraku: "Now let's go be as obnoxiously conspicuous as possible!"
Emul: "Kyaa, somersaults are too much, please, waa!!"