Chapter 105: Like Eating Rice Instead of... Rice
Rakuro: ".........Ahh."
After the fierce battle with the Golden Scorpion and the crushing despair that followed, I decided to flee from SLF for the time being. Glancing at the clock: 5 AM... Well, sure, waking up early is healthy... though not sleeping at all is unhealthy.
Rakuro: "Haaah..."
I down a spite-energy-drink instead of spite-sake and trudge down to the kitchen with a zombie's gait.
Rumi: "Whoa, big bro's up early? And here you are, living it up as a degenerate human."
Rakuro: "Shut it. I don't wanna hear that from someone who pours half her youth into part-time work."
Rumi: "The other half shines like the stars, so it nets out positive! Life is great!"
My sister's got some serious fortitude. Still, logging into a game nearly every single day really does look like degenerate human behavior, I suppose. Not that Oikatzo's one to talk, given he's made gaming his job.
Rumi: "Anyway, what happened? You look obviously mopey."
Rakuro: "Nah... how do I put it. In your terms, it's like... you desperately save up money and buy a piece of clothing whose design you totally fell in love with, only to find out it was actually baby clothes... something like that."
Rumi: "You okay? Not getting enough chlorophyll? Maybe try a sunbath?"
Rakuro: "You're saying I've played so many games I've rooted myself to the spot? Hahaha... who're you calling a plant?"
Smack. I deliver a light chop to Rumi's head and recall the despair of that moment.
It was nothing, really. I'd had a vague, nagging feeling it might turn out this way. It just turned out I was right on the money. Since it's a powered "suit"—since the Non-Standard Specialized Armor is "armor" comprised of four parts: head, torso, waist, and legs—Lycagon's Curse applied. That's all there was to it. I'd completely forgotten that simple fact. My blunder.
Rakuro: "But still, man..."
Having frantically scrambled to repair the reactor, and the end result is that I—and only I—can't wear the powered suit... that stung pretty deep. To add insult to injury, it turned out that almost all of the Out-of-Spec Armaments were equipment designed on the premise of "wearing the enhanced armor"—a real kick in the teeth while I was already down. The one saving grace is that the Tactical Machine Beasts can be activated just fine. But add +1 to -2 and you still have -1. I just didn't have the spirit to log into SLF for a while. But the thing that stings most is the fact that, with the reactor repaired, I can't wear the powered suit—while those two scumbags can wear them just fine. That fact alone makes my blood boil. Once I realized that, I even considered not logging in for a while so they couldn't wear the powered suits either... but that doesn't actually solve anything. There was one more shocking revelation, but that one seems like it might still be salvageable, so the damage there isn't too bad.
Rakuro: "Sometimes a change of pace is necessary..."
Rumi: "Yeah, big bro. If you failed at something, you just gotta make up for it with something else. Going with that analogy you just made—which I didn't really get—like, dress up in clothes with a similar design, right?"
Rakuro: "Substitute... change of pace... I see. That helped. Thanks, Rumi."
With a heart feeling slightly lighter, I toss a word of thanks to Rumi and return to my room.
Rumi: "......Yeah, no. It's still a game in the end, isn't it."
Rakuro: "Hmm... oh yeah, I still had this."
I remove the Shangri-La Frontier game chip from the console, place it in its case, and set it on the game shelf. Then I find myself staring intently at the case of a particular game. Before SLF, I was a picky-eater gamer who only ever played trash games. But actually, among the games I've bought, there are some that aren't trash games at all. One of those precious few non-trash games is this one...
Rakuro: "Nephilim Hollow..."
Category-wise, a robot action game. The setting: "a parallel Earth where giants suddenly fell from the sky, and one thing led to another until civilization was half-destroyed." Players pilot the very giants that once fell from the heavens, sometimes clashing and sometimes cooperating with three factions... a smoke-and-gunpowder-scented type of game. My personal assessment: a genuinely good game. So why do I own this game? It has to do with the fact that it's underpopulated. This game is, bar none, incredibly difficult to control. Not that the controls are bad—they're just complex. I'm not as close to them as Oikatzo or Pencilgon, but a fellow trash-game buddy—close enough we'd greet each other if we met—once told me, "There's a game whose controls are like handling vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums all at once," and recommended it. That game was this one. And honestly, that analogy wasn't wrong. The in-game robots—Nephilim, controlled by fusing with the closed-eyed giants—aren't the type you board and pilot from a cockpit. You literally fuse and integrate with the machine. And for that very reason, the controls are too busy, to an absurd degree.
For example, let's say you've equipped Gatling guns on both shoulders and both arms. If this were a cockpit-type, you'd pull a lever, press a button, or operate a touch panel to fire the Gatlings. But Nephilim are integration-types. In other words, it's like logging into a robot avatar within the game—you have to operate those four Gatling guns exactly as if they were your own body. Which means the player has to simultaneously control the robot's maneuvering, actions, weapon deployment, and every other action with their own brain. You can rely on the CPU to automate the weapons, but the price you pay is your win rate in PvP. At the very least, if you're aiming for the top in in-game ranked matches, you need enough skill to perform high-speed manual maneuvers while landing deflection shots. Yeah, I see what that game review site meant when it called it "a game for people with multiple personalities." It's a single-seater, yet there are far too many things demanding your attention.
Rakuro: "That said, once you get used to it, you can control it just fine. And the story and game balance are genuinely good, too."
If I had to sum it up: the barrier to entry as a player is so high you'd hardly think it's an entertainment game. But as a spectator, it's a genuinely fun, good game. To put it another way: in the realm of underpopulated games, the dark side would be Berserk Online Passion, and the light side would be Nephilim Hollow... Seeing as we're constipation buddies, I can see why he recommended it. But if you ask me, Nephilim Doll just doesn't have the kind of malice that makes you want to spit at the player. Look at Constipation—the management gave up on trying to rein it in, and now that wild stallion has transformed into something indescribable.
That said, to soothe the listlessness of a robot-starved me—as per Rumi's words—the best thing is still to pilot a robot. I do have one more robot action game, but that one's a trash game with various issues, so I'll rule it out for now.
Rakuro: "What character was I playing this game on again... Eh, whatever. I'll know when I see it."
That feeling of playing a game for the first time in a long while has a different kind of excitement from a New Game, doesn't it?
Rakuro: "Ah, right, right. That's right. I was 'Kawasemi Man,' now that I think about it."
I log in and, for the first time in ages, become "Sunraku" within Nephilim Hollow. I make my way to the hangar where my Nephilim is stored. This game doesn't have the insane level of reality replication that SLF does, so there's nothing like that. But since I haven't played it for a while, it feels like dust must've piled up on my machine too.
Sunraku: "Been a while, Kingfisher... Man, no matter how many times I see it, that's a miraculously well-matched default color combination."
Back when I was playing this game, a thought suddenly struck me: "What if I went all-in on acceleration and stripped my armaments down to the bare minimum that could deal massive damage in a single hit? Wouldn't that be fun?" The Nephilim I built on that supremely idiotic theory—that is Kingfisher. Among the Nephilim—the giants that fell from the heavens—it's based on a transformable skeletal frame capable of folding its body. By shaving armor down to the absolute limit, it gained the fastest wings imaginable. When it transforms from giant form to kingfisher form, its initial speed already exceeds the top speed of most sloppy medium-weight Nephilim. In roughly five seconds, it forcibly shoves itself into the realm of ultra-high speed. By its very nature, it's a machine like a bottle rocket—with abysmal fuel efficiency granting an operating time of just three minutes that can't even last a five-minute match, and the crippling weakness that losing even a single part causes a catastrophic drop in mobility. But that just means: defeat the opponent with zero damage within three minutes.
Sunraku: "Come to think of it, powered suits and robots feel subtly—no, completely different... but eh, it's a change of pace, so who cares."
The important thing is the change of pace—venting my wounded mental state through something else. It feels like the core issue hasn't changed at all, but let's chalk that up to charm. With that, I immediately head toward the PvP environment... specifically, the entrance to the in-game organization, "Nephilim Company."
Sunraku: "Turning's sloppy. Recoil control's messy. Feints are too simple... Sigh. I really am rusty."
I shot down an opponent specialized in long-range—the kind that could easily become a hate magnet—and let out a sigh as I reflect on the match, noting how sluggish my own movements have become. The last time I played was several months ago, if I remember right. Back then, I was rampaging around on a "I'm gunning straight for the top of the rankings!" high. But underpopulated game or not, it seems it wasn't sweet enough to let a half-baked newcomer snag the top spot. I couldn't surpass the number one ranked player.
Sunraku: "That player's name was, if I recall..."
Pilot "Rust" has challenged you to a duel. Do you accept?
Sunraku: "Right, right, Rust it was... Speak of the devil, huh."
The name "Rust" written on the challenge letter thrust before me—it belonged to the number one ranked player from those ranking matches back then, the one I fell just one step short against and drew with. That crimson machine—with its deliberately asymmetrically arranged auxiliary boosters enabling movements like a dead leaf dancing through the air—I just couldn't quite close that final gap. The result was a draw, but it felt like a loss. If it hadn't been for the fact that the latest installment in a major series had just been exposed as a trash game and gone down in flames back then, I might've stuck with this game a little longer. It still stings to this day.
Sunraku: "I wanted to get a bit more rehab time in, but... a once-in-a-lifetime encounter, a golden opportunity—I can't exactly turn this down, can I?!"
I accept without hesitation. And shortly after, the red bird I saw that day appears before me. Compared to how it looked back then, the paint job's gotten flashier, and some of the armaments are different. But aside from that, the design is unmistakably the machine of the number one ranked player, Rust: "Crimson Wing Union." The crimson-flame phoenix-like paint of Crimson Wing Union against the default-colored jade-green Kingfisher—it's certainly dramatic. But what both Rust and I are after isn't atmosphere.
Sunraku: "Alright... I'll take you down faster than it takes to make a cup of instant ramen!"
Over the ruined city, a red bird and a blue bird take flight.