Chapter 83: Fetching, Raising, Conquering
Bilac: "Hmm... I ain't reached 'Ancient Craftsman' yet, so fixin' this is beyond me."
Sunraku: "That so... Then I guess I've got no choice but to ask Vash-aniki."
Bilac: "Ya fool!"
Sunraku: "Fire tongs!?"
You don't hit someone in the shin with a metal rod...! You just don't...! Even Benkei would cry at that! As I clutched my shin and writhed, Bilac — her whole body radiating anger — smacked me on the head repeatedly. And Emul had smoothly evacuated from atop my head at some point.
Bilac: "Don't go relyin' on Pops for everythin'! Pops can't spend all his time fussin' over you neither!"
Sunraku: "Uh... yeah. Sorry."
Vash is pretty much a random encounter himself. He's not always at the Rabbit Palace. And now that Bilac's chewed me out, going straight to Vysache to get this fixed is going to be tough. I've got a bad feeling about this — the intuition I sharpened on trash games for sniffing out landmine flags is right about eighty percent of the time.
Sunraku: "Well... what now..."
Emul: "What should we do...wa?"
Sunraku: "Hmm... could push forward on some other quests for a change, I guess."
What to do, what to do. For now, I'll hit the Skill Gardener, sort out my skills, and allocate all those points I've racked up.
Player Name: Sunraku LV:78 JOB: Mercenary (Dual Wielder) 4,000 Mani HP:40 MP:50 STM:100 STR:70 DEX:70 AGI:90 TEC:65 VIT:2 LUC:104
Skills: · Infinite Slash · Glowing Pierce · In-Fight Lv.MAX · Drift Step · Setsuna's Parting · Hand of Fortune Lv.6 · Greater Climbing · Climax Boost Lv.9 · Six-Fold Jump · Ricochet Step Lv.1 · Hate Trample Lv.1 · Moon Jumper · Transient Lone Wolf · Off-Road Lv.2 · Vorpal Blade Art 【Water Mirror Moon】 Type 3 · Ignition Lv.1 · Overheat Lv.1 · Nitro Gain Lv.1 · Duelism
Equipment: Right: Togetsu — Moonblade: Waxing Left: Togetsu — Moonblade: Waning Head: Staring Bird Mask (VIT+1) Body: Lycagon's Curse Waist: None Feet: Lycagon's Curse Accessory: Inventoria
Beautiful. Stamina and Luck have finally reached triple digits. Thinking ahead about using Inventoria, I put some points into MP and other stats too, but at this point I think it's safe to call myself a luck warrior without a doubt. VIT-senpai stands proud in the single digits. My overall stats are starting to look like four digits might be within reach once gear bonuses enter the picture, yet VIT keeps stubbornly holding the line at one digit. That kind of guts almost earns my respect. I mean, I'm the one who did it, but still.
Elke: "Along with that... how about some skill grimoires...?"
Sunraku: "When I've got the money."
Elke: "Puu."
Don't "puu" me. This rabbit's always looking for any opening to sell me something.
This time around I mostly left my skill setup untouched. The only real change was mixing Oppressive Kick with Assassin Pierce, which gave me a pretty interesting skill called Hate Trample. When used on a staggered enemy, it pulls a ton of aggro — from an aggro-management standpoint, it's actually really good. Getting Vorpal Blade Art [Water Mirror Moon] and Hate Trample — two completely opposite aggro-control skills — is a blessing. As for the other new skills I picked up, I'll test them out and level them as I go... Hm?
Sunraku: "Level them... raise them... Right. If I don't have it, I just need to gather it. Obtain it. Raise it."
That's it. If I can't rely on Vash, then right now Bilac is the only one I can turn to. Bilac only has the "Master Craftsman" job, and without the "Ancient Craftsman" job skills, the Ether Reactor can't be repaired. But Bilac's mentioned several times that she's still in training — which means that, as an NPC, she's not permanently locked as a "Master Craftsman" character. If certain conditions are met, there's a chance she could grow.
Sunraku: "Emul, I've got a plan."
Emul: "What are we doing...wa?"
Sunraku: "I'm calling it 'Project Raise Bilac'...!"
Sunraku: "...So, yeah. Let's go get the 'Ancient Craftsman' job."
Bilac: "What d'ya mean, 'so, yeah'...?"
If someone you'd just been scolding suddenly went, "If you don't have it, let's go get it!" with a big grin, you'd probably make the same face Bilac's making right now. Resting her giant hammer on her shoulder — her fur's black so it's hard to tell, but she's wiping soot from her cheek — Bilac looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
Bilac: "Mmm... If we can't rely on Pops, then makin' me into an Ancient Craftsman... it makes sense, but..."
Sunraku: "I'm not saying you need to become a Divine Craftsman. But isn't this a road you're going to have to walk eventually anyway?"
Bilac: "Uuumm..."
She spun her hammer — easily the size of a human short sword — in circles as she thought. Bilac isn't like Emul or Elke, who are roughly rabbit-sized or a bit bigger. She's about half my height, and when she swings that thing around, it looks like she's brandishing a greatsword.
Bilac: "...Alright. I'm in. I'll take ya up on that plan."
Sunraku: "Good. Really good."
Both things are good — that Bilac agreed, and that Bilac the NPC has the aptitude for "Ancient Craftsman."
Bilac: "Yer clueless about all this anyway, so I'll give the orders. Emul, fetch a map."
Emul: "H-Hai na!"
A few minutes later, Bilac accepted a scroll from Emul — not a magic scroll, just a regular one — and spread it out on the anvil.
Bilac: "Listen up. To become an 'Ancient Craftsman,' ya need two things."
Sunraku: "Which are?"
Bilac: "First one's a relic from the Divine Era... a 'Legacy Weapon.' When yer job's handlin' weapons, ya can't forge iron with nothin' but theories on paper."
Sunraku: "Mm-hmm."
Bilac: "And the second one... Pops says ya need somethin' called a 'Maryoku Uunyo Yunitto.'"
She'd intoned the name of the required item with great solemnity, but... something bugged me. Maryoku Uunyo Yunitto? Ma-ryo-ku... uun-yo... yu-nit-to...
Sunraku: "...Wait. Could that possibly be 'Magic Application Unit'?"
Bilac: "........................It might also be called that."
No, it's only called that. What the hell is "Maryoku Uunyo"? Some kind of sister city to New York?
Bilac: "A-Anyway! To become an 'Ancient Craftsman,' ya need a 'functioning Legacy Weapon' and a 'Magic Application Unit'!"
Sunraku: "A functioning Legacy Weapon? Will this do?"
Clunk. Onto the map spread across the anvil, I materialized an item I'd randomly picked from the Inventoria's storage space: the "Out-of-Spec Armament: Tachi Type 【Harbinger】." With no power running through it, it's dark and dull right now, but its blue blade — despite some minor differences — is unmistakably the same type of weapon Wethermon used.
Bilac: "Hmm...? Hm...?? Huh...?! HUH?! HHHHUUUH?!"
Impressive. A quintuple-take. With trembling, fluffy hands, Bilac lightly touched the Harbinger, and seemed to grasp that it wasn't an illusion — it was the real thing.
Bilac: "Y-Ya... This, this is..."
Sunraku: "Got it from beating Wethermon. I don't know if this qualifies as a 'Legacy Weapon,' and it won't work until the Ether Reactor I showed you earlier gets fixed, but..."
Bilac: "...Ya need a functionin' Legacy Weapon to become an 'Ancient Craftsman' so ya can learn the techniques of the Divine Era. 'Functioning' just means 'enough parts remain to understand how it works.' With somethin' this close to brand-new, I got no complaints!"
Sunraku: "I-Is that so..."
Feeling a strange déjà vu as Bilac looked ready to start bouncing around, I returned the Harbinger to Inventoria.
Sunraku: "If we're gonna take it apart, we'll need approval from those two..."
After forming the clan, we'd done some testing and discovered something. This Inventoria storage space is shared. At minimum, the Inventoria bracelets we got from the Wethermon fight all connect to the same storage space. Which means — and this is a real pain — the items that were already inside Inventoria belong jointly to me, Oikatzo, and Pencilgon. Taking things out and using them is one thing, but selling or discarding anything apparently requires approval from the other two. What a hassle.
Bilac: "Mmm... B-But there's still the other problem. Pops says the Magic Application Unit is somewhere in here... the 'Ruins of Past Glories.'"
Sunraku: "The Ruins of Past Glories..."
That name is something I can't ignore, even before the Bilac-raising project. No — it's not this place itself, but the area after it that I need. Either way, this area was something I had to get through.
The Bonus Unique Scenario "Epic of the Vorpal Bunny." To advance it to the next stage, Vysache had given me a fetch quest:
· Receiver Device Δ · Coordinate Device Δ · Transmitter Device Δ
I was told to collect these items. When I asked where they were, the answer came back: "Ruins of Lost Glories." Map-wise, that's an area you challenge from "Eleventar" — the city beyond the Ruins of Past Glories, which is one of the four zones leading to the fifteenth town, "Fifticia," which until the update had been the front-line base for progression.
Sunraku: "By some twist of fate, it's a straight shot from Fourfossier."
I re-examined the map — more detailed than the ones I'd seen in Thirdrema, maybe made by the Vorpal Bunnies — and laid out my plan, factoring in both the immediate objective and the ones beyond.
Sunraku: "Still, it's basically just heading straight from Fourfossier."
Not that I'm not curious about the other areas, but if I'm taking the shortest route to my destination, the next place I need to tackle is the area beyond Fourfossier... the "Canyon of the Ancient Souls."
Sunraku: "The problem is how to get two rabbits through Fourfossier..."
I really don't feel like running through town in a white keffiyeh again, and apparently that transformation-into-human magic isn't something every talking Vorpal Bunny can use.
Emul: "Shall we do the scarf technique again...wa?"
Bilac: "I could bring back the fur-coat technique... been a while..."
Et tu, Brute?