Chapter 333: I Whisper to You, Brimming with a Melting Craving
If by some one-in-a-million chance this novel ever gets sent to Nocturne, I think it'll probably be this one's fault. ()
Stranded life, day one (further addendum).
Word has spread among the elves that "there's a dangerous humanoid monster nearby." Scary, huh.
Sunraku: "You wanna go? Huh? If you're picking a fight with me, you'd better be at least level 99."
I can't exactly read a reptile's expression, but apparently this raptor didn't have enough courage to show any guts in front of me—the automatic flee device for anything level 99 or below.
Once the last of its hangers-on tucked its tail and fled, the leader gave a frustrated growl, turned its back, and ran away too.
Sunraku: "Hah. Show some guts like those little dinosaurs did."
The Lycagon’s Contusion check is probably based on the group total there, right? Like a Packhound?
Sunraku: "Times like this make me want to conveniently thank the Contusion... but no. Damn you, Lycagon."
Gotta keep the freshness of that motivation nice and fresh.
The elves are cowards, but when it comes to cowardly behavior they become extremely competent... in other words, their scouting ability is excellent.
My Contusion is a passive effect, so the instant a monster with a higher level than mine enters its range, the attraction effect activates.
But if the elves scout from beyond that range, we can avoid powerful monsters. And when the opponent is a monster that we'd normally have to flee from but whose actual level is 99 or below, I step forward and they run away.
As combinations go, that's actually pretty busted, isn't it? Granted, the wide-area scouting only works because, like this time, we have a large number of elves functioning as pseudo-party members... Even so, we'd been advancing toward the village the elves once abandoned without entering combat almost at all.
Tottori: "So Lycagon's 'curse' actually had another stage."
Sunraku: "This game has that whole live-feel thing going on, like it builds stuff on the fly, so I can't exactly be certain..."
I'm telling it to remove the curse, and instead it sucks on the thing like a piece of candy and updates it? That's absolutely ad-lib. AI that's too high-performance is its own problem.
Sunraku: "Distance-wise, I think we're almost there... Hesh, isn't there some kind of sign only elves would understand?"
Hesh: "Apparently there is, but..."
Sunraku: "This is ancient-history-at-the-ancestor-level stuff. There's no way the current generation knows where those signs are, Tottori."
Maybe I'd hit the nail on the head, because Hesh glared at me but didn't actually argue back.
Well, well. Localized ignorance and senility are common enough in games. Just think how many games have lost keys and doors pointlessly left locked. Mansions where even unlocking a door involves some elaborate mechanism must be ridiculously inconvenient to live in.
Sunraku: "Your Majesty. By rights, we should be heading for the base by the shortest route... Please forgive this unnecessary detour."
Toravante: "Think nothing of it. I permit it. Retaking the elves' village... It will not be a fruitless act for the pioneers of Einvarus as they advance through this land."
Sorry, Your Majesty. Tottori and I are about ninety percent motivated by self-interest here. I mean, there's no reason not to unlock the level cap...
Sunraku: "Ah—kh... Your Highness, we've been walking for quite some time. You are not... fatigued, I trust?"
For my mental health, it'd honestly be better to exclude her from my thoughts entirely, but ignoring the First Princess here would be pretty bad role-play. Hang in there, me. Hang in there, me...
Aria: "Yes, I'm quite all right, Sunraku-sama. You and the others protect us from the monsters, so I can rest easy."
The funny thing about Fuckaria is that the setting says monsters attack specifically because they're after her, yet the monsters' aggro always, always points at the player. Huuuuh?
Sunraku: "YOUR HIGHNESS IS... VERY STRONG."
Aria: "Oh my! Heehee, those are words I should be giving to you, Sunraku-sama!"
Nnghooooh. Her behavior and everything she says are pure goodness, yet the trauma inside me—the traumaaaa... Okay, calm down. Switch mental tracks.
Sunraku: "Hey, Emul... Don't you think intelligence is a truly arrogant thing...?"
Emul: "When Sunraku-san starts saying difficult things, it's almost always because he's thinking about something completely unimportant, wa."
You know me well...
In the end, since this is a real-time game—and since Tottori and I also have real-world time to deal with—there was no way we'd arrive that same day.
After several logouts and naps, little by little... Yet still advancing at what Tottori called "an astonishing pace," on the day after our encounter we finally reached a point where we could see the place from ground level.
Sunraku: "I see... Sticky vines growing in a web-like pattern spread all around it, with a perimeter of thorns like barbed wire..."
At the very least, repelling small monsters would be easy, and even a large monster like the three-headed tyranno would get bogged down. After that, shoot it with arrows or whatever until it retreats, and defense complete... Hmm. Now I understand even less why the elves of the past ran away.
Maybe they were attacked from the air by something like a Dracule Dinoquetzal? That I could understand... maybe?
Sunraku: "If you dug a moat and stuck some wooden stakes in it, wouldn't this make a seriously effective defensive setup?"
Hesh: "Th-This is Tiaplaten...! The homeland of us elves...!"
Maybe emotion made their attention lapse, because the elves charged straight ahead, got tangled in vines oozing sticky slime, and ended up unable to move. I watched them with half-lidded eyes while looking for a route inside.
Damn, these are tough. Do these vines have some kind of resistance to cutting? Ugh, Duxram, Blade of Aspiration is getting all sticky...
Sunraku: "Emul, blast it."
Emul: "Hai na!"
Nonphysical magic shouldn't give a damn about stickiness, right!? ...The damn things absorbed the magic. Piece of shit! And these vines smell like mint!!
Tottori: "Hey, Sunraku. They're saying we can cross over the vines from up in the trees."
Sunraku: "Come on, climbing a tree that's practically a giant sequoia is... Oh, I see. Rope ladder."
Is it okay? Not sticky? It wasn't sticky.
The biggest concern was whether the king could make it all the way up the ladder, but with help from the elves—extra kind thanks to their sympathy for the weak—we somehow got him to the top.
A thick trunk naturally means thick branches, so we filed along branches broad enough that you wouldn't fall unless you seriously lost your balance.
Sunraku: "—Hoh. Now this is something..."
I brushed aside the leaves, and this was what appeared in the opened-up view.
In terms of map layout, it's the same as Thirdrema or Ruluiath: houses arranged in a circle on plateau-like ground, the classic "there's an important facility in the center of the map" type. Is that some kind of trend among the map designers?
At the center of the village is something clearly different from the surrounding wooden buildings... something you could even call an oddity. Aside from that, it's a small, cramped Western-style rural village... No, calling it a village might be giving it too much credit. More like: found an open spot, made some animal trails, built some houses, good enough...
Sunraku: "The half-assed construction combined with the decay really brings out the sadness..."
Tottori: "I don't see any fields... Don't tell me they lived by hunting? Those cowards?"
I'd always thought what the elves lacked was courage, but I'll revise that. What they actually needed was civilization. Forget courage—the fundamentals like base fortification are completely busted with these guys.
Tottori: "I was wondering if maybe this was the goal of a separate branch or something, but I guess not..."
I agreed with Tottori's quiet mutter. At the very least, this is already a finished place. I don't know how long ago their ancestors fled in the night, but moving into somewhere this utterly ruined now would be a pretty tall order.
Well, if you had several crafter players... Emilia, was it? People with construction skills like that, plus a stable supply of materials, then maybe it could work as a secondary base...
???: "—I've been wanting to see you."
Hoooh. Together with a heated breath, that voice passed through my ear and slammed straight into my brain.
Sunraku: "—!!!?"
Zowa-wa-wa-wa! Every hair on my body stood on end. Not because someone had suddenly spoken right beside my ear.
Sunraku: "You...!"
???: "I've been wanting to see you... I've been looking for you for sooo long, you know?"
Because that voice—that way of speaking—was burned deep into my memory.
It wasn't that voice that had whispered into my ear for just an instant. It was the "voice" she used most often, with the cutesiness pushed all the way to the front. Wearing a grin that looked ready to split her face apart, a woman stood right beside me.
Sunraku: "...Nutcracker...!!"
Nutcracker: "Right now, it's Deep Throater... isn't it, Sunraku-kuuun...? Ufu-fu-fu-fu-fu."
Deep... Throater...? Ah. Ahhh, yeah. The slang meaning. I knew it. I fucking knew it! Goddammit!!