Chapter 201: Together Under Heaven — Part Seven
Sunraku: "...Well, then."
Psyger-0: "Ah..."
Sunraku: "Oh, Rei-shi."
I'd already shotgunned a Riot Blood, and I'm pretty used to this kind of all-night march anyway. So I'd stepped away to take a quick bathroom break and cram down a light meal before coming back—and just as I did, I ran right into Rei-shi, who'd logged in at exactly the same time.
Sunraku: "That was a quick return, Rei-shi."
Psyger-0: "Y-You too..."
Sunraku: "Well, I just grabbed a quick bite and..."
Silence. No, wait, wait. There's gotta be something to talk about. I mean, we've been on the same quest for a whole week—ah, right. Rei-shi missed more than half of it.
Sunraku: "......"
Psyger-0: "......"
Psyger-0: "O-Oh, right!"
Sunraku: "Yes? What is it?!"
Psyger-0: "I forgot the name, but... that armor and sword—are you not using them?"
Sunraku: "Huh? Ah, uh! That's, well—how should I put it—a change of image, I guess...? Ah, but I do intend to use them in the decisive battle against Ctarnidd. Yes!"
Psyger-0: "I-I see."
The charge on my Gilta Brille gauntlets is also nearly complete. Thinking about it that way, this timing—taking on the final battle right at the edge of the one-week time limit—actually turned out perfectly in a lot of ways.
Sunraku: "......"
Psyger-0: "......"
Alright, now I'm in trouble... At this rate, the conversation's going to die out again. With communication skills this pathetic, Love Clock's gonna come laughing at me from the depths of hell.
Sunraku: "Uh..."
Psyger-0: "Um."
Sunraku: "Nngh?"
Just as my brain cells are frantically laying down the emergency bridgework to keep this conversation going, Rei-shi speaks up, directing her words toward me. Talk about a lifesaver. I'll use this as a starting point and keep the conversation rolling.
Psyger-0: "Um, er... there's... something I'd like to ask you, um..."
Sunraku: "As long as it's something I can answer."
Her armor trembles faintly, and she radiates an aura like a wild beast growling. What is this? What's she planning to do? Is this one of those things? Is she silently telling me something along the lines of, "You'd better be prepared if you lie to me"?
Psyger-0: "Er... it's about... the clan 'Wolfgang'..."
My brain, running calculations at high speed, predicts Rei-shi's next possible statements and presents several outcomes. The possibilities I can think of are:
- "Haven't you been getting a little too full of yourself lately? I'll crush you."
- "What other information are you hiding? I'll crush you and make you spit it out."
- "You'll be a troublesome threat down the line. I'll crush you."
Psyger-0: "...Hah... fwooooh..."
If we're talking purely in terms of player skill, Rei-shi probably isn't that much of a standout. Compared to Sylvia Goldberg, the latter is stronger. But this isn't a fighting game. In PvP, the advantage lies not in player skill, but in stat parameters. From that perspective, Rei-shi surpasses Sylvia Goldberg. To handle a sniper rifle, you don't need to jump and bounce around. You just align the sights and pull the trigger—the key is optimizing that single action. In other words, it's not about the skill of a single body, but overall performance, including parameters and armaments. In that regard, Rei-shi—who balances heavy armor and high firepower, consistently maintaining a passing grade even if not a perfect score—is a powerhouse within the category of hack-and-slash action games, not fighting games. If Rei-shi were to unleash her full power and attack me right here, the moves I could make would be few. Running away or pinning my hopes on persuasion would be my only...
Psyger-0: "U-Um..."
Sunraku: "If possible, in a non-lethal format..."
Psyger-0: "???"
Huh? I was absolutely sure she was planning to force me into a one-on-one to make me spill everything I know... Did I overthink it? The way she didn't do anything as undignified as letting out an audible growl, yet still made her armor tremble to silently proclaim her power—I'd been genuinely impressed, thinking, "Ah, so there's a Provoke command like this too."
Psyger-0: "Er... um... right now... is our clan, um... recruiting new members... perhaps...?"
Sunraku: "Members?"
What? Why would she care about the membership status of our clan? We're a tiny clan that can barely claim to have anything better than the biggest hardcore clans out there. Sure, I think the fact that we completed a Bonus Unique Scenario with just three people is something even I can be proud of, but in the end, it's just three people. If someone attacked us with sheer numbers, we'd fold pretty fast. That's just how wars of attrition work—when a one-man-army forms a legion, there's nothing you can do about it.
What's the right answer to give here? Is it okay to tell her the truth—that everyone besides Rei-shi has already basically gotten an unofficial invite to join Wolfgang? But what should I do... Ugh... Dammit, I feel like I reached the same conclusion once before. This kind of smooth-talking is Pencilgon's domain!!
Sunraku: "Well, it's a brand-new clan that just got formed, so I doubt we're over capacity or anything..."
Psyger-0: "Is... that so...!"
Sunraku: "...Uh, why do you ask about something like that?"
I asked it. I went and asked it! I actually asked! A forbidden move in gaming—the cardinal sin of trying to ask the enemy for the answer before solving the mystery yourself! A dangerous technique where, nine times out of ten, they'll make a supremely punchable face and essentially say "Figure it out yourself, scrub," evading the truth in a way that only ramps up your bloodlust—er, motivation—for the coming fight. But this is PvP. If I disguise it as simple curiosity, I can get her true intentions...! That bastard who pulls this off effortlessly and unashamedly really is a scumbag after all. And the Unique-Other-Reliant-Man, whose communication power is inferior to a Chihuahua's, isn't even worth discussing.
Psyger-0: "Eh, why... er, why... um, er... that is... well, the truth is..."
The truth is? Rei-shi's avatar is currently dressed as an Oni Musha. Her expression can't be seen behind the Oni mask, which bears an expression of fury. The reason for her silence is beyond me. I counted properly this time. Twenty-three seconds. After twenty-three seconds of silence, Rei-shi finally speaks.
Psyger-0: "...No. Regarding this matter, I'll... tell you... when we return to the surface."
Sunraku: "...Oh. Okay."
Nnngggaaaaahhhh, I'm dying of curiosityyyyyyy!!! Dodging the question here is just not fair, Rei-shi! Now I'm even more curious! Insanely curious!!
Dammit, I underestimated Psyger-0 after all. To think I could be toyed with this easily... So this is what a hardcore gamer standing at the frontlines of SLF is like, huh... DAMN IT ALL, TIME FOR SOME SCREW-IT ENERGY-DRINK DRINKING!!
Sunraku: "Something urgent just came up, so I'm logging off for a bit! Good niiight!"
Psyger-0: "Eh, wha—! H-Huh?!"
LOG OFF!!
Rakuro: "Dammit... she's a master of the tease, isn't she."
No—maybe she had a very good reason and deliberately chose not to reveal it here. Maybe Rei-shi judged that it was better to let me agonize over it, teased by the unknown. Energy drink, energy drink... There we go.
When it comes to world crises or truths that shouldn't be known, players can just go "Huh, is that so" and be done with it—precisely because, in the extreme, a crisis in the game world is someone else's problem. Even bothering to pay attention is a pain, so "whatever, this'll do."
But in SLF—no, in a game where players create their own avatars and characters—events that occur in the game aren't someone else's problem. They're facts that befall the players themselves. I pop the tab and down it in one go... What the hell is this flavor? The concentrated, uniquely harsh taste of energy drinks—sparkling—absorbed by my body before I can even taste it.
Riot Blood: Revol Blantan
Rakuro: "Ah."
I lock eyes with the doofy face of the pumpkin-headed figure on the label. A single trickle of fluorescent, vermillion liquid—unlike anything I've ever seen before—drips from the corner of my mouth. I drank it... I was supposed to steel my resolve, set the proper stage, and then challenge it... Aaah, the caffeine is seeping into my body... Whoa, holy shit, this has way more immediate effect than the others! Amazing! But this is definitely not the healthy kind of thing, ahahaha!!
LOG IIIIN!!
Psyger-0: "Ah, welcome ba—"
Sunraku: "Alright, break’s over! Throne room, let’s go! We’re storming the place before we storm the place! What does that even mean, ahahaha!!"
Psyger-0: "Wha—wait, in just five minutes, what—?! What happened to you, Hizu—Sunraku-san!"
No matter how much time you spend building up to something, results usually come to fruition in about a minute! Fussing over the details is just a waste, a waste! I love the sky! Even though what's above us is the ocean floor, ahahaha!
How do I put it—if humans had switches, the me right now feels like my switch has been ripped out and the current's flowing directly into me. With this, I might've even been able to beat Sylvia Goldberg! How to describe it... the principle behind how it's hitting is different from the others. If the way things usually hit is like removing impurities from a pipe to create a clear flow, this is that plus an added boost of acceleration.
No, wait—maybe it's because I had Riot Blood back-to-back with Undead? Whatever. A human won't die just from having two energy drinks in a day. The effective duration was pretty short, right? Let's hurry up, solve the mystery, and storm Ctarnidd!