Chapter 242: If You're a Man, Dye Yourself Black, Even If Your Body Perishes

[Urge-to-talk-about-the-setting gauge: 40% (as of 8:59 AM today)]

[Urge-to-talk-about-the-setting gauge: 300% (as of 9:35 AM today)]

[My urge to talk about the setting has hit max-hazard overflow and I can't take it anymore, so I'm doing consecutive updates.]

[I'm truly sorry, but please let me off the hook for tomorrow's update... I'm completely spent.]

For now, I managed to equip the gear itself, so apparently my—Sunraku's—Vorpal Soul is over 200.

I mean, that's fine, but making an uncheckable parameter an equipment requirement is pretty brutal. At the very least, this Vorpal Soul is a hidden parameter more like HP, MP, or STM, so it could be dropping without me even noticing. And if I can't check it, that means there's a chance I suddenly won't be able to equip the gear when I really need it.

Sunraku: "...Well, I more or less know how to raise it."

Specifically, if I go pick a fight on the Crystal Plains, it feels like I could push it straight to the cap.

Anyway, Goldsheen is the one that inflicts a debuff on the target, while Netherlight is the one that grants a buff to me... a buff to me?

Sunraku: "No, that's bad."

No, that's bad. I mean, I repel pretty much all of that stuff.

Sunraku: "O-oh, oof..."

And in the first place, as a weapon, Duxram, Blade of Aspiration is so absurdly good that I'm already at the point of asking whether I even need any other weapons. Durability not going down really is convenient. If you're a dual-wielder, isn't it practically mandatory gear?

No, wait. Since it's a Blade-to-Blade Sword, its headline effect should come out when the two are combined.

Sunraku: "So at the very least it's not trash. It's not trash. It's not trash..."

Looking cool gives it an enormous advantage all by itself, so it's not trash, it's not trash... As I kept hypnotizing myself that way, Vash apparently more or less guessed what was going through my head. Wearing what looked like a wry smile, he tossed me one more palm-sized item.

Sunraku: "This is..."

Its shape was gun-like, but rather than a weapon, it felt more like a flare gun for firing signal flares. In other words, it didn't look lethal.

Vash: "Yeah. This here's called a BC Beacon. You've probably heard about it a few times already... It's what you'd call the whistle that calls Bahamut."

Sunraku: "Ba—"

What did you say!? No, hold on, that line has way too much destructive power. That fake magical girl is going to die.

That one sentence alone connects everything I've learned up to now all at once. The dots connect, and mere information changes shape into setting lore.

At the very least, the footage left by the underground scientist, Setsuna's words, and what Vash just said confirm that Bahamut isn't a monster but some kind of "science." If that's the case, are Leviathan and Behemoth connected too? The fantasy setting kept my attention away from it, but those "named" fantasy creatures that get used constantly in fiction... does bearing one of those names mean it's something from the Divine Era? No, but... damn it, I'd love to throw all of this at the theory-crafting freaks and let them go wild, but the importance of this information—including the BC Beacon—is just too high!

Vash: "That said, it ain't something you can just use wherever you feel like. These days, no matter how loud you shout, nobody's gonna hear you... There's a 'coordinate' where it can be used."

Sunraku: "A coordinate?"

Vash: "Yep. We ain't gonna tell you where. Get close enough and the beacon'll tell you on its own. Find it with your own two feet."

Sunraku: "R-right..."

Vash: "Ah, and there was one more thing I forgot to tell you."

Please have mercy. Any more and my brain capacity is gonna—

Vash: "That wound the mutt carved into you... There's a way to nullify it temporarily. That's why we deliberately made Netherlight the way we did."

Hit by a rush of shocking information at the highest firepower of the entire day, as if Vash were demonstrating how to knock someone out with information, I was finally and completely KO'd.

Emul: "S-Sunraku-san... what Dad said..."

Sunraku: "Honestly, I want to go to sleep right now and forget everything that happened today."

Both the Curse (Marking) and Lycagon’s Contusion are, when you get down to it, permanent debuffs that can't be deleted. That's exactly why the information Vash gave me was a real eye-opener, and the method he'd pointed me toward was such an absurd demand that it had made Emul ask:

Emul (recalled): "Is he serious?"

Sunraku: "The only way to erase a dark color is to paint over it with an even darker one, huh..."

The place Emul and I were heading was the other summit of this Rabbit Palace. If Vash is the symbol of the nation of Rabituza, then this was where the NPC who forms the core of the nation itself could be found. I'd heard his name plenty of times, and I'd even submitted opinions and petitions through Emul before.

But this would be my first time actually meeting him...

Sunraku: "So this is the office."

Emul: "Hai na. Big Bro Aydward is in here, wa."

The Vorpal Bunny who proudly bears the letter "A" among Vash's children. To put into action the conclusion I'd reached from the information Vash gave me and what I'd pulled out of Bilac, I opened the office door.

Aydward: "Hm... Oh? If it isn't Emul and... I suppose I should say, pleased to meet you? Sir Sunraku."

Sunraku: "Yeah. Pleased to meet you... Chancellor."

If the eldest daughter is a black rabbit and the second son is a white rabbit, what color is the eldest son? The answer was gray. A rabbit slightly smaller than the human-sized Vash, with his right ear flopped over halfway up, pushed his glasses up with one finger and smiled at me in a polite tone. Ah. The intellectual-yakuza type...

Aydward: "What business brings you all the way to my room?"

Sunraku: "Big Bro... no, I'll deliberately call him Vysache here. He gave me all kinds of advice."

There are ranks to the permanent debuffs Unique Monsters inflict on players. Take Lycagon, for example. Its Curse (Marking) is ultimately something meant for prey. It's a curse that deliberately forces the prey down a difficult road, strengthening it and making it more satisfying to bite into.

Then, after I showed enough strength to push back against its fangs, Lycagon changed that "curse" into Lycagon’s Contusion.

It's a challenge issued to a worthy rival. While acknowledging your strength, the wound also carries an intent of encouragement—"Get even stronger." In game-system terms it has gotten worse, but in the lore of the world, apparently it has actually become lighter.

If that's true, then as Ctarnidd itself embodies, everything has an opposite.

If the "curse" being reduced resulted in Lycagon’s Contusion, then there must also be a pattern where the "curse" becomes even worse.

Damn it. How much of this world's setting am I supposed to cram into my head in one day? This is a scoop so huge I could drain every last bit of funding from the Library, force them into debt, and still keep charging them.

Sunraku: "I'm not a Vorpal Bunny. At the end of the day, I'm just a hanger-on... but even so, I'm happy to have a seat at the very bottom of this country as an honorary citizen of Rabituza."

Aydward: "Indeed. I hold you in high regard as well."

Sunraku: "And that's exactly why... I think I ought to fulfill my duty as a citizen."

Vash said that to cancel out a curse, you need an even stronger curse.

And it can't be one rooted in "interest" like Lycagon's, one rooted in "evaluation" like Ctarnidd's, or one rooted in "expectation" like Siegwurm's.

It has to be something more fundamental—"hatred." The only thing that qualifies is the "curse" of the seventh one, which hates everything without distinction—young or old, man or woman, strong or weak, whether you oppose it or grovel before it.

Sunraku: "Chancellor. Add me to the Rabituza Defense Line... to the fight against Goldhuneenay the Inexhaustible."

According to Vash... it hates humans, hates rabbits, hates the world. It is the mother of every "snake," and the archenemy of the Vorpal Bunnies, continuing its invasion of Rabituza even now.

And it is the "seventh Unique Monster," of which the Library had discovered only the faintest trace of its existence in this game.

[At last, the seventh is revealed: Goldhuneenay the Inexhaustible. She's a cute girl with a habit of shedding her skin (stripping), yep. (looks away)]

[You remember the Ravenous Snake, right? The one that attacks with sh— I mean, toxic feces. That one... or rather, every snake-type monster is derived from Goldhuneenay.]

[It's a phenomenon that could only happen in the present age after the Divine Era: a genuine "first ancestor" that should be biologically impossible.]