Chapter 229: Legitimate Half-Nakedness Exercising Historical Justification and the Abnormality of a Pervert Discussed from an Artisan's Perspective
[Author's Note: To fix a contradiction, I’m inserting one new chapter before the latest chapter I posted yesterday.]
Prickle prickle prickle prickle, sew sew sew sew.
A brown-furred rabbit sat with her ears perked straight up, rocking gently in a rocking chair as she tirelessly crafted small dolls. The dolls took various forms—some shaped like rabbits, others like goblins. On the table beside the rocking chair lay leather key chains. It seemed this brown rabbit—one of Emul's sisters, though I had no idea how many there were, and apparently Rabituza's equivalent of an accessory shop—was making keychains.
???: "......? Oh my, welcome. You're with Emul... Ah, you must be that famous bird fellow I've heard about."
Sunraku: "Kyoto dialect, huh..."
Emul: "Sunraku-san! This is my big sister, Effuielle!"
Effuielle: "I've heard all about you. I'm just a humble accessory maker here."
She smiled softly. Her demeanor seemed quite different from Bilac, who was also one of Emul's sisters. But...
Effuielle: "Word on the wind says you even received an accessory from Cazzeria. So what business could someone like you have with a small fry like me? I'm not particularly skilled with jewels, you know...?"
...Yeah, I can definitely see the family resemblance to Bilac.
She nonchalantly threw a verbal jab right out of the gate. In essence, she'd hit me with a preemptive strike, smiling all the while: "You're in the care of a top-tier artisan who isn't me, so what do you want? Hmm? You just browsing? That it?" But a crappy-game hunter doesn't back down. My life's work is excavating unexploded bombs from a sea of bargain bins! High-class and low-class don't matter. Crappy games emerge equally from unexpected places, unearthed from wire carts.
Sunraku: "Truth be told, it's embarrassing, but up until now, I've barely ever used accessories."
Effuielle: "Is that so."
Sunraku: "I haven't even opened my accessory slots. So this time, I came to have you open them for me."
Emul: "Sunraku-san is basically a monster by nature, wa. This is his first step toward rejoining society, so I'd like to ask big sister Effuielle to puhleashe helph mwah—"
Sunraku: "Who are you calling a barbarian?"
Squish, squish. I pulled on Emul's cheeks to shut her up physically. I've been putting Emul on my head so much lately that I can pretty much find her cheeks by instinct now...
Effuielle: "Ohoho, no wonder Bilac sis took a liking to you. I understand. You can leave the slot expansion to me... Ah, if you don't mind, please also buy some accessories I made while you're at it."
Sunraku: "I'll take your best one."
That aside, apparently players can currently open up to six slots. Apparently, at level 1, you have one accessory slot, and then you can open a new slot every 20 levels.
That means players who've reached level 100 by removing the level cap, like Kyotimate, can open a sixth accessory slot. But since I haven't removed the level cap, my limit is five.
Effuielle: "I see, I see... This bracelet here is taking up one of your soul crevices, Sunraku-san."
No new terms, please. They’re confusing enough.
But I'm guessing she means slots. Effuielle pulled a pair of glasses from the pocket of her apron-style dress and perched them on her nose. This one's got glasses, too...!
Effuielle: "I'm surprised you managed to hold your own against Lycagon and Ctarnidd in this state..."
Sunraku: "If your body moves the way you want it to, you can usually manage."
Effuielle: "If that's your conclusion, us accessory makers might as well shut up shop... There. Here, and here... and here."
Effuielle lightly tapped my hand a few times, then raised her hand high. An effect gathered in it.
Effuielle: "Slot Lock Open!"
Whack!
Sunraku: "Ow!"
Whack!
Sunraku: "Hey!"
WHAM!!
Wasn't that last one way stronger!?
Effuielle: "There we go. Now that I've opened up your soul crevices, you can equip accessories."
Sunraku: "So it's like a preemptive strike vaccination..."
The kind you say "I'll do it in three seconds" but then do it in two. Though I hear it used to hurt even more.
Anyway, with my accessory slots now open, let's equip something right away.
Effuielle: "............"
Emul: "............"
Sunraku: "If you've got something to say, just say it."
Emul: "You look even more like a suspicious person now that you're half-naked with a cape, wa."
Effuielle: "To put it bluntly, you're a pervert."
Sunraku: "No, look, this is, uh—it's like an old-school wrestler or martial artist getup, alright? It's for doing aerial techniques and stuff."
In reality, if I ran into a half-naked person with a bird mask and a cape outside of a wrestling ring, I'd dial 110 without hesitation. But it's fine; this is a fantasy game. Compared to skeletons who shed even their skin and flesh, this is practically modest!
Sunraku: "Still, it looks like I won't be able to move too recklessly."
Emul: "Why not, wa?"
Sunraku: "The cape gets in the way."
If it were waist-length, I could just ignore it as decoration, but Lapistella Cloak reaches down to my shins, and it's pretty heavy. On top of that, the shoulder-and-neck armor covering restricts my movement a fair bit. Heavy armor noticeably hampers mobility. Maybe being half-naked really is... No, no, wait. If I let my spirit succumb to half-nakedness, I'd just be a pervert.
Sunraku: "Levin Trigger: Hazard feels pretty normal, I guess... just like a leather glove."
It has a somewhat plasticky stiffness, but it's within acceptable range for a normal glove. The activation action is hitting the amber on the thumb against your left chest. At least it doesn't seem prone to accidental misfires.
Effuielle: "Now, please buy some of my proud creations as well."
Sunraku: "Yeah, yeah... By the way, what effects do these dolls have?"
Effuielle: "Well, basically, they take on some of your burdens or attract good fortune. This Goblin Doll here, for example, provides a tiny but constant HP regeneration effect."
Sunraku: "How much?"
Setting aside whether I'll use it or not, an accessory with a regen effect is incredible.
Effuielle: "Ohoho, I don't dislike a free spender..."
Sunraku: "I've got so much cash I could use it as a weapon of sheer mass. My wallet is wider than the sea. I'll buy every last one."
Emul: "B-Bourgeoisie, wa!!"
In real life, only a lucky few can do that, but in games, you just grind and money piles up. The thrill of cleaning out an NPC's entire inventory is a familiar feeling for any loot grinder.
I bought all the dolls—goblins, skeletons, mandragores, all of them, with their unsettling charm preserved despite being chibi-fied, and handed the Mani to a beaming Effuielle.
Sunraku: "The amount I converted into cash is about to run out... Well, at least I've already paid for the weapons and armor up front."
Emul: "To be honest, Peatz's face when we took all the Mani he had and gave him gems in return was a little funny, wa."
You know what that is, Emul? That's the face people make when they spend all their living expenses on something useless.
Strictly speaking, it's a bit different, but when you see your cash vanish in exchange for some item, people and rabbits don't seem to differ much.
Sunraku: "Well, anyway..."
Emul: "Are we going to my other sister's, wa?"
Effuielle: "I'm a big sister too, you know?"
Emul: "Mmm! I don't mean you, Effuielle big sister! I mean Bilac big sister, wa!"
With Effuielle calling after us to come again as she returned to making dolls, I headed off... to the colosseum.
I'll put off picking up the weapons and armor for now. First, I want to test out the accessories. Especially this Trigger that reeks of danger.