Chapter 136: Opportunity, Agony, and Yet Another Fumble
The clock rewinds a few minutes.
Among the rarest of rare monsters in this game—the seven Unique Monsters, of which only a single one exists now and forever—was Lycagon the Nightslayer. While her firepower contribution to the fierce battle against it had been virtually nil, the fact that Akitsu Akane had earned a seat at the very edge of the raid party had sent her soaring. She was, in a word, ecstatic.
Akitsu Akane: “Wow… is that the survey ship?! It’s so huge! It’s like a luxury cruise liner!”
Ceecrue: “Indeed it is, de gozaru…”
Unlike Psyger-0, who had headed off to her clan’s base in Fifticia, and Sunraku, who had hurried back to Rabituza on business, Akitsu Akane had no morning club practice and zero plans. She was savoring every last bit of Fifticia’s scenery to her heart’s content.
Some NPCs shot suspicious glances at the girl in the strange mask, but from a player’s perspective, eccentric players making avatars like that were a dime a dozen, so she drew little attention. If you wanted to catch the eye of the players who’d reached Fifticia—not the small minority who’d sprinted here at maximum efficiency like Akitsu Akane and Sunraku, but the steady, methodical grinders who’d earned their strength fair and square—it wouldn’t be your looks that did it; you’d need some truly unusual behavior.
Akitsu Akane: “Wow, amazing…! Is that grilled fish skewers?! I’ll take one! The flavor’s so thin though!!”
Even a comment so rude it would be outrageous in any other context didn’t sour the vendor’s mood—not when the joy radiating through that mask was so palpable. While Akitsu Akane frolicked about as if to declare that simply savoring this moment was the truest sign of a healthy gamer’s spirit—far more important than dwelling on how uncanny it was for an AI to “sense” a mood—Ceecrue, still disguised as a mantle, whispered to her so no one else could hear.
Ceecrue: “You’re in remarkably high spirits, de gozaru.”
Akitsu Akane: “I’ve never actually seen the ocean before! So getting to see it even in a game makes me super happy!”
Ceecrue: “Within a game of play… what curious phrasing. At times, I find your words hard to grasp, Akitsu Akane-dono, de gozaru.”
Akitsu Akane: “Really? But Sunraku-san and Emul-chan seem to talk pretty normally, don’t they?”
Ceecrue: “Emul has grown into quite the formidable young one herself, de gozaru. Seeing Diale fret so was most satisfying, de gozaru.”
Emul had likely risen to become one of the strongest among Vysache’s direct offspring, but Ceecrue had no way of knowing that the reason she conversed so normally with Sunraku was that she’d learned to process most of his monologues as nonsense.
Virtual reality—fiction though it may be—Shangri-La Frontier’s graphics alone surpassed the average game. The sound of the tides, the scent of the sea breeze wrapping the city in bustle and vitality, the morning sun glittering across the ocean, the city, the world. Magic and fantasy existing alongside tangible reality—the port city of Fifticia was something Akitsu Akane could never tire of, no matter how long she gazed.
And then, as if to block that very scenery, a rude little window popped up before her eyes.
[Unique Scenario — “Strike the Apostle of the Abyss” | Begin? Yes / No]
Akitsu Akane: “Huh? Why…?”
Unique Scenario. She understood what the words meant: a super-rare mission. But why was it appearing now, at this very moment? To the inexperienced Akitsu Akane, a Unique Scenario was something that “showed up after you did something amazing.”
And honestly, that wasn’t wrong. Unique Scenarios were stories of those who lived in this world—fundamentally different from ordinary quests. They were things like showing your might before the emperor of the night, piercing the wrath of the sky sovereign, or reaching the deepest depths of the great hole that pierced the very foundation of this world. That was precisely why a Unique Scenario basically never spawned just because you were out sightseeing.
So why had one appeared before Akitsu Akane? Psyger-0, for her part, would have grasped the answer with ease.
In this game, a “party” is a kind of shared fate. A quest triggered by the party leader also triggers for the other members. They have the right to refuse, but in short, as long as the leader fulfills the conditions, the other members can accept the same quest—the same Unique Scenario—even while they’re out sightseeing.
And the temporary party formed a few hours ago to defeat Lycagon—whose original “two-person area-clearing party” leader had been too frantic and scatterbrained to ever properly disband it—still existed. What’s more, Akitsu Akane, who’d always joined as a last-minute addition to ad-hoc parties and left whenever the leader disbanded them, had never once conceived of the idea of leaving a party on her own.
Akitsu Akane: “Hmm… I don’t really get it, but if it popped up anyway, why not give it a shot!”
And so, it never even crossed her mind that the Unique Scenario before her eyes had been triggered by Sunraku, to whom she was still connected via that party, nor did the thought of politely declining ever occur to her.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who click on spam emails because the subject line hooked them, and those who don’t. Akitsu Akane was decidedly the former. Without a moment’s hesitation, she hit “Yes” to accept the scenario—and the fox-masked ninja and white mantle found themselves suddenly surrounded by a horde of musclebound men and stuffed into a barrel.
Psyger-0: “The party… wh-what should I do…?”
Psyger-0 was in the grip of fierce agony. Before her eyes, a window still indicated that she was in a party with Sunraku, Akitsu Akane, and the two Vorpal Bunnies. Slipping free of this bond would be simple—she just had to press “Yes” to the question currently displayed: “Leave the party?”
Yet even as her logic understood that, her heart violently refused.
Severing a connection you’d finally made is hard—all the more so when it’s driven by strong emotion. She knew. She knew. If she left it alone, Sunraku would eventually cut it from his end. And since she’d soon have to form a proper party with her clan members, she couldn’t just wait for him to disband it.
Psyger-0: “Uu… uuu…”
She’d half-forced her schedule clear yesterday. Since this morning—both in reality and in-game—her sister had been urging her to come back. With an additional New Land Research Vessel now complete, Psyger-0, a main member of the clan “Schwarz Vulf,” needed to unlock the level cap as soon as possible. That was exactly why she had to leave this party right now, and get her preparations in order to board the survey ship.
Intel from the advance team confirmed there would be combat aboard the ship, and the shop inside the vessel was known to charge steep prices for its items. But, but, but—that single button press was, for Psyger-0, a problem as difficult as challenging Lycagon, if not more so.
Psyger-0: “Mmm… mmmmmm…!!”
Her finger stretched forward, then pulled back. She steeled her resolve—no, wait, just a little longer.
Her index finger ran a shuttle run in midair, in a state so profoundly indecisive you could slap it into a dictionary alongside video footage as the textbook example of “crippling indecision.” The one difference from a regular shuttle run was that her finger’s movement grew slower with each passing moment.
(I know… I do know, but… still… I can’t bring myself to be the one to cut it… I know it’s just pointless sentimentality, but… it’s like… yes, the feeling of knocking down a house of cards you spent ages building yourself…)
Even as her finger wavered back and forth, her thoughts alone accelerated. To her, the sight of herself making excuses to herself was the height of ridiculousness—but from an outsider’s perspective, it was more like a colossal knight radiating an overwhelming, visceral pressure. Though the vector was entirely different from those who had carved “curses” and “scars” into her body, she was still driving away not just NPCs but even fellow players.
Psyger-100: “So you were already here, Zero.”
Psyger-0: “…Ah. Yes, well.”
Psyger-100: “What on earth are you doing with all those bizarre movements? We need to mass-produce high-concentration recovery potions before heading to the New Land. We’re running a horn-hunting marathon in the Mythical Great Forest right now.”
Psyger-0: “Ah… yeah… just a moment, I’ll disband the party…”
Any more hesitation would inconvenience not only her sister but the other members too. Besides, they were friends—the party link could be reformed. She gathered her resolve to press “Yes,” but the lovestruck corner of her heart writhed and screamed, stop, don’t do it.
Psyger-0: “God, forgive me—!”
Psyger-100: “What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?!”
She twisted her neck away, squeezed her eyes shut, and thrust her finger forward with a momentum no hesitation could halt. And because of that, Psyger-0 failed to notice it—failed to notice it and failed to stop her finger.
[Unique Scenario — “Strike the Apostle of the Abyss” | Begin? Yes / No]
Shoving aside the window asking whether to leave the party, a fresh information window had appeared: a window asking whether to participate in the Unique Scenario triggered by the party leader.
And the index finger of the “Maximum Firepower Attack Holder,” packed with enough force to shatter items with low object durability in a single blow, chose this moment of all moments to press “Yes” without a single wobble… on the Unique Scenario window.
Psyger-0: “…H-Huh? That’s strange—I’m certain I pressed it just now…”
Red Whale Pirate: “Alright, boys, found ’em! Load ’em up, load ’em up!”
Red Whale Pirate: “Haul ’em, haul ’em!!”
Psyger-0: “Wha— hey, wai— kyaaaaaah?!”
Ceecrue: “Fugyuuuu?!”
Akitsu Akane: “Ceecrue-saaaaan?!! Oh! Psyger-0-san, was it?! Long time no see!!”
And with no one understanding what the hell was happening, the swarm of musclebound men tossed Psyger-0’s colossal frame into a barrel as if it weighed nothing, then carted the two girls and one bird off toward Deadbeat Alley.
Sunraku: “Ahh… uhh… so…”
Between Akitsu Akane’s explanation, Rei-shi’s deductions, and my own investigation, I’d pieced together exactly what had happened, how, and why. The party hadn’t been disbanded. And because I just so happened to be the party leader, the Unique Scenario had triggered for the two of them as well.
Which meant that not only Lycagon the Nightslayer, but Ctarnidd of the Abyss too—these two might end up entangled with it. So what the hell was I supposed to do?
The council in my head devolved into a chaotic brawl, went full apocalypse, and at last a divine conclusion descended to pass judgment.
Sunraku: “Ahhh, whatever! Screw it, anything goes!”
Emul: “I don’t really get it, but Sunraku-san, is that really okay, wa?!”
Sunraku: “Hahaha, the sky’s so purty.”
What’s two more people at this point?! As long as it’s fun, it’s all good!!
- Red Whale Pirates — “Barrel Delivery”: A kind of forced event where muscleheads “escort players who aren’t at the quest start point.” The NPCs exist solely to stuff players into barrels and haul them off. As a forced event, it takes precedence over everything, and their STR becomes “unlimited” only in this extremely specific context. Consequently, the sight of a fully armored knight like Psyger-0 being juggled into a barrel and carted off at breakneck speed by grinning pirate beefcakes carrying it like a festival shrine is… genuinely horrifying.