Chapter 57: Putting Feelings Into a Moment, Part Five
What is “True Reforging”? When a truly exceptional Master Craftsman forges a weapon, they do more than simply make a superior blade or enhance it. They read the experiences accumulated within the weapon and reshape it into a form better suited to those experiences—in other words, its “true form.” That is what Bilac's explanation, delivered in her peculiar pseudo-dialect, amounts to.
Bilac: "Vorpal... weapons bearin' the name 'Vorpal' remember battles against the strong, y'see. Mixin' the memories of the battles ya've fought with the fragments of a mighty foe ya handed over to Pops... it changes their form."
Sunraku: "Huh..."
Every time Vash's hammer struck the Vorpal Choppers, sparks flew and magic circles materialized, only to be drawn into the blades like they were being absorbed—before new magic circles bloomed anew in the spray of sparks.
Vash: "...In the dark night sky... the forge's flame..."
Sunraku: "Huh? What did you... mgph?!"
Emul: "Sunraku-san! Quiet... kyau?!"
I tried to ask what he'd said, but my mouth was forcefully shut by a rabbit-powered low kick straight to the shin—a wonderfully direct, muscle-brained method of silencing. You—an NPC, willingly inflicting damage on a player—you—!
I whipped around to find Bilac, a creature that by all rights should be a docile, plant-eating member of the order Lagomorpha, radiating the kind of pressure you'd expect from a black panther.
With Emul clutching her head in silent agony behind her, Bilac exuded a carnivorous beast's aura as she uttered just one word.
Bilac: "Listen."
Sunraku: "You just—"
Bilac: "Listen. Listen well."
Sunraku: "...Yes."
Emul: "...Yes."
As if our comedy routine had never reached his ears, Vash continued swinging his hammer. Only now that Emul and I had fallen silent did I realize that what was leaking from Vash's mouth was a song.
Vash (singing): In the dark night sky, the forge's flame. Vash (singing): Sparks are born, swallowed by the dark. Vash (singing): The hammer dances, the iron sings. Vash (singing): Tonk-a-klang, kon-kin-kan. Vash (singing): You are the blade, you are strength. Vash (singing): From earth you rise, you feed the wood, you nurture fire, you forge the metal, you cool in water. Vash (singing): The world turns, and yet it halts. Vash (singing): From gold to iron, from iron to steel, from steel to blade, from blade to sword. Vash (singing): In the brightening sky, the sword gleams. Vash (singing): Mirroring light, cleaving the darkness. Vash (singing): Oh dancing blade, sing, world...
...I see. If the CV were a cutesy loli voice like some tentacle-faced cosmic lifeform instead of that grizzled yakuza-boss baritone, you could probably sell that for 300 yen a track. But it's too short, and the voice is all oyabun... Still, I remember Mana a year or so ago cleared an otome game themed around yakuza women and spent a while carrying herself like a gekiga character. So there must be a market for oyabun-type voices somewhere. What I'm getting at is that I didn't feel the kind of overwhelming emotion that was making Bilac tremble on the verge of tears.
Sunraku: "So, uh, I'd love an explanation if possible (whisper)."
Emul: "That's D-Daddy's... I mean, the Head's Iron-Hammering Song...wa. Big sis Bilac absolutely loves that song...wa. (whisper)"
The terrifying phrase "necessity of managing affection ratings for all 26 A-to-Z rabbits" flashed through my mind, and I shook my head to banish it. I can barely handle one person—a galge with 26+1=27 heroines is just too much. I do have experience with twelve at once, but that... I really, truly do not want to remember. Frame-perfect scheduling involving RNG manipulation, the brutal grind of hitting exact one-second windows with a stopwatch, crafting meticulous charts for exactly which beat of the BGM to trigger conversations even though it wasn't an RTA, a single tenth-of-a-second slip cascading like dominoes as every heroine's affection plummeted... m-my pulse is getting erratic.
Emul: "Y-your face has gone pale...wa! Are you alright...wa?!"
Sunraku: "I'm fine... just remembered when I picked Italian for lunch and somehow it led to everyone studying abroad in Italy and a Bad End..."
It was so incomprehensibly nonsensical that I couldn't move for several minutes afterward. The student council president, the disciplinary committee chair, the sports ace, the delinquent—all of them off to Italy for pizza-making apprenticeships?! What kind of insane pipeline does that school have to Italy?! No wonder the official SNS blew up in flames. Love Clock—a game where the instant you pick any pizza-related option, you're locked into the Pizza Route with twelve heroines and it's nothing but RNG manipulation frame-perfect scheduling... ugh, my head.
Vash: "Oi, it's done."
Sunraku: "Huh? Ah, done?! Okay, okay, that's great!"
I washed away the traumatic memories that had seeped out of my brain—trauma from a completely different direction than Fuckaria—with the information in front of me, and turned back toward Vash.
Vash: "Right... the Vorpal Choppers have gained their true name and true form here. Togetsu — Waxing, and Togetsu — Waning."
Sunraku: "Ohhh...!"
The horror born from the gap of using kitchen utensils as weapons was gone. What Vash handed to me had completely transformed from cooking implements into weapons. The blade shape, once suited for slicing ingredients, had changed into a form specialized for cutting down enemies. Waxing and Waning were nearly identical in shape, but Waning, unlike Waxing, seemed to be held in a reverse grip.
Vash: "Been a long time since the shape itself changed this much."
Sunraku: "The shape itself?"
Vash: "These two... they're two halves of one blade. They only have meaning when both are together. They're what you call a Blade-to-Blade Sword."
Sunraku: "Blade-to-Blade Sword..."
At the very least, it wasn't a term I'd encountered at my current level of progression.
Emul: "It's the combining sword Sunraku-san said he wanted before...wa."
Sunraku: "For real...wa?!"
Emul: "Copycat...wa!"
What an incredible stroke of luck—truly a blessing. Had my subconscious desire for those combining scissor-like twin swords somehow soaked into the Vorpal Choppers? Either way, I'd finally obtained the long-coveted combining twin blades—no, a Blade-to-Blade Sword—! ...Wait a moment. Something in the corner of my memory was trying to tell me something. Like I'd forgotten something...
Emul: "Sunraku-san is so curious...wa. That thing can't be wielded without considerable skill...wa."
Sunraku: "Seriously? Then I'll become a skill-build warrior."
Emul: "That thing can’t be wielded without considerable skill...wa."
Emul: "Without enough skill, you can’t wield it...wa."
With trembling hands, I deposited the newly received Togetsu — Moonblades: Waxing & Waning into my inventory and read their description fields.
Togetsu — Waxing Blade-to-Blade Sword Its paired blade is Waning. A sword with a waxing crescent moon blade floating in the sky. Infused with Vorpal Bunny magic, its true form remains hidden within the gathering clouds.
· When fighting foes of a higher level, landing a critical hit reduces your HP but boosts the power of your next attack. · Landing critical hits a set number of times fills the fusion gauge. · Required Stats: STR 40, DEX 50, TEC 55
Togetsu — Waning Blade-to-Blade Sword Its paired blade is Waxing. A sword with a waning crescent moon blade floating in the sky. Infused with Vorpal Bunny magic, its true form remains hidden within the gathering clouds.
· When fighting foes of a higher level, landing a critical hit restores your HP. · Landing critical hits a set number of times fills the fusion gauge. · Required Stats: STR 40, DEX 50, TEC 55
Calm down... calm down. It's just simple arithmetic. Nobody's asking me to solve equations that unlock the secrets of the universe. Let's see... the required stat total is 145, and my current total in those stats is 52... subtract that to get 93... five points per level, so divide by five... about nineteen levels' worth of... so I need to reach somewhere around level 50 before I can equip them.
Sunraku: "NOOOOOOOOO...!"
Emul: "S-Sunraku-saaaaan!"
Ambushed by an unexpected stat requirement, I crumpled to my knees with a groan.
Returning to Thirdrema—the city I'd struggled so hard to escape—stirred up no small amount of complicated feelings. But with Oikatzo having only just arrived in Thirdrema himself, this major hub city ended up being our meetup spot in SLF. Since causing another unidentified-creature incident in Thirdrema would be a pain, I sprinted through the shortest route at top speed. And now, I was sitting across from a grinning Pencilgon at The Serpent’s Apple, an NPC café tucked away in a Thirdrema back alley that she had personally recommended.
Pencilgon: "So, Sunraku-kun—whose real-life getup is absolutely 110% call-the-cops material. Leaving aside your perverted fashion sense for a moment, do you have anything to say for yourself regarding standing us up for nearly three hours?"
Sunraku: "My Unique Scenario mentioned Wethermon."
Pencilgon: "All is forgiven."
Resolved! I'd actually been doing a bit of other work on the side, but explaining that would be a hassle, so I wrapped it all up under the umbrella of the Unique Scenario.
Oikatzo: "Man, a Unique... so jealous."
Sunraku: "Nyah nyah, jealous much... oi, stop that with the fork—not the fork!"
What are you doing to someone with single-digit VIT?! That could be a fatal wound, idiot. Still, maybe I was being a little too immature with the taunting. Next time I'll be more elegantly insufferable about it.
Oikatzo, clad in light armor, withdrew the fork he'd clearly been aiming at my throat and took a bite of cake—which must've tasted awfully bland to him... wait.
Sunraku: "Oi, Katzo?"
Oikatzo: "Hm? Ah, this is my SLF account."
Sunraku: "Oikatzo? You seriously went with that?"
Your naming sense is as awful as ever, man! Though, to be fair, taking the characters from Uomi and Kei to make “Katsuo” (“bonito”) was already a terrible pun.
Oikatzo: "When you hear my player name and go quiet for a few seconds, you're usually thinking something like 'what a stupid pun,' aren't you?"
Sunraku: "Hahaha, what nonsense."
Pencilgon: "Alright, alright, save the comedy routine for later. For now: Katzo-kun, finish that. Sunraku-kun, spill the info."
Event skipped: Oikatzo spent a while eating cake while I simply relayed information.
Sunraku: "...So, yeah. It's not exactly directly useful for strategy, but being described as 'half-dead' suggests something that's alive but also dead—probably some kind of undead-type monster."
Pencilgon: "...I see. Now that I think back, his movements were stiff at the start of the battle. I see—I'd been completely convinced he was some kind of cyborg type, but if he's undead, several things click into place..."
I'd figured my intel was only good for lore analysis at best, but apparently Pencilgon saw it differently. She'd sunk into deep thought but surfaced from the sea of contemplation faster than I'd expected, snapping her head up and looking between me and Oikatzo in turn.
Pencilgon: "Something just came up, so I might need to go solo until tonight."
Oikatzo: "Well, that's fine, but what's the plan for today?"
Pencilgon: "For now, take this and go grind levels at the Iron Ruin of the Divinity until tonight."
She handed over a map and... a fishing rod? Oikatzo and I exchanged glances. We'd have asked for more details, but Pencilgon already seemed set on leaving—she'd risen from her seat and was heading for the door.
Pencilgon: "You'll understand when you get there! Meet back here tonight!"
Oikatzo: "She's gone."
Sunraku: "Yep."
No point sticking around, so Oikatzo and I left the café and started through the back alleys. What, walk the main streets? And stand out like a sore thumb? Players have been steadily increasing in Thirdrema—the last thing I want here is trouble. So I had Oikatzo move like he had something to hide too. Fortunately, the map data for Thirdrema I'd memorized before was still lodged in my brain. I took three wrong turns, but that's within acceptable parameters.
Finally out of Thirdrema, we followed a path separate from the one leading to the Myriad-Bloom Forest Grotto—a trail barely carved into the forest, more of an afterthought than a proper road.
Oikatzo: "Leveling with fishing? What's that about?"
Sunraku: "I just checked the item description—it's literally just a fishing rod."
Emul: "D-Daddy— I mean, the Head says white-fleshed fish taste better than red-fleshed ones...wa."
Oikatzo: "I heard salmon's technically a white fish."
Sunraku: "For real? I'll have to tell my teammates... wait, who just said that?"
Sunraku: "Emul, you can stop with the 'Pretending To Be A Fur Scarf' party trick."
Emul: "It's not a party trick...wa! It's a legitimate Vorpal Bunny emergency concealment..."
Oikatzo: "WHOA THE SCARF TALKED?!"
Oikatzo screamed at the fluffy thing clinging to my neck that had just started speaking. Ah, right—this was his first time seeing this.
Around here is where the protagonist’s real flaws start becoming apparent.