Chapter 368: Wisdom Looks Back and Speaks
I bombed out trying to pull Summer Ilsa.
I did pull Murgleis, but I want to uncap a second Ixaba... I want to smugly run a Niten Ichi-ryu Kengo with two Ixabas...
There's plenty to pick apart, but I'm completely exhausted, so I'm logging out.
I crawl out of the simple base Aryur secretly made for me after I asked her a "favor," confirm that my body is male again, put my usual bird head back on, and give myself a light stretch.
Sunraku: "Yo, Emul. Nice morning, huh?"
Emul: "Even if you say it in such a refreshing voice, I feel like all sorts of things are wrong here, wa."
Sunraku: "Bit late to notice."
Still, Araba coming up to the surface at this exact timing... Was that thing I fished up really the flag after all?
Those scumbags and that pervert are definitely laughing their asses off... Still, I suppose the result worked out. I did manage to get away from that place. But... showing female mode in public might have been a bad move after all. Am I stuck continuing the hermit playstyle either way...? No, wait.
Sunraku: "If I make something else a much bigger deal, maybe I can actually get away with it...?"
I'd been holding back on the Wethermon-related information partly out of consideration for him, but information about a raid monster should, as a basic principle, be widely known. If that's the case, dragging Tottori and Deep Throater into it and dropping the scoop-bomb that is the Great Red Devourer might divert some of the attention... No. Just thinking about it is shaving away my motivation like damage over time. Forget it. I'm sleeping.
Sunraku: "Emul, let's go back to Rabituza."
Emul: "Hai na!"
So, we're back in Rabituza, but...
Sunraku: "Hey, Emul."
Emul: "What is it, wa?"
Sunraku: "We're both extremely tired, so can't we report the whole 'we fought the Great Red Devourer' thing later?"
Emul: "Sunraku-san? Being selfish isn't good, wa."
Just for now, I curse this game's real-time progression, baby. Can't be helped... Let's go.
I make my way through the Rabbit Palace, a place I've gotten so used to that I could practically be called a freeloader, heading for wherever Vash should be. Something I've noticed lately is that there may actually be a connection between whether Vash appears and the value of my Vorpal Soul.
When I'm prioritizing efficiency for material gathering and the like, I almost never run into him. On the other hand, after an intense battle, or after one of those ball-game tournaments, I see him pretty often.
And sure enough, I find Vash exactly where I expected, munching away on a pipe... no, wait, that's a long, thin carrot. Emul and I proceed to report on the Great Red Devourer we faced together.
Sunraku: ".........And, well, both Emul and I made it back alive, so... yeah."
Emul: "Sunraku-san, your Vorpal Soul was coming through like crazy, wa!"
Vash: "Ooh... that so, that so."
As always, he's a yakuza rabbit you'd never expect to see as an NPC in a fantasy story. Vash, meanwhile, looks up at the ceiling with distant eyes, as though remembering something.
Vash: "The Great Red Devourer... Ahh, I know that name... Nostalgic, and damn hateful too..."
Vash never drops the air of an overwhelmingly strong character, but for a single instant, something like regret crosses his face. Before I can ask about it, his usual broad smile returns and he looks back toward Emul and me.
Vash: "Ya did good, both of ya... That thing's a monster from the Origin... Older even than the Divine Era. It's the 'blood' of a god that fell on this land..."
The blood of a god... So that mysterious thorn I saw underground really was...
Vash: "Looks like ya've already got a pretty good idea... That's right. All of us are livin' on top of one huge corpse."
Emul: "Uweeeeh!?"
Sunraku: "Hahaha, Emul. The problem isn't what's on top. It's what's underneath."
Emul: "That's not what I meant, waa—!!"
It's a joke, a joke. But when I think back over what Vash has told me, the information I've gathered so far, and above all Rei-shi—who seems to be tied into the very foundations of this game by a route separate from Unique Scenarios—something starts to come into view.
Sunraku: "The Old Continent and the New Land... Aniki, so that's what this means, huh."
Vash: "...That's right. This here is the tip of the wing of the black god, the Left-Side Origin Beast Erebos..."
A wing... So it's a bird? A bird with thorns growing out of it that look harder than a badly made sword? Wait, then those weren't thorns... They're feathers?
No, more importantly, the really dangerous part is that Erebos is supposedly a "corpse," according to Vash, but as far as I know, its red blood cells and... blue ones that are maybe white blood cells? Macrophages? Something along those lines are currently very much active.
I physically shut the red blood cells up, but since they're raid monsters, it's only a matter of time before they respawn. And I can't imagine simply leaving them alone is the best option either.
Sunraku: "I think I can see the worst possible ending... the bad ending."
It's not as if I don't have the optimistic thought that surely they wouldn't do something that destroys a shared full-dive world used by an unspecified number of people. Even so, I can say this with confidence: the management team that implemented Unique Monsters probably would.
Sunraku: "Ritsu Amachi... So you really were insane after all..."
Anyone involved with Fuckaria and Spell Creation Online isn't exactly an ordinary civilian. She's probably some kind of shitty-game missionary chosen by the god of shitty games.
Destroying the world in an MMO is a bit much... No, but now that we players have actually defeated the Great Red Devourer, was that part of her plan too?
Sunraku: "What a guy..."
Vash: "Ah, right, Sunraku."
Sunraku: "Yeah, what is it?"
Vash: "You got somethin' tied to the Great Red Devourer... didn't ya?"
Sunraku: "...Yeah. It's ominous in about twelve different ways, so I'm still not sure whether I should use it."
At the very least, I can't use it while Emul is around because I can't keep the demerit under control, and for the same reason I can't use it anywhere crowded with players. Coming back to my senses and discovering my PN has turned bright red isn't exactly something I could laugh off.
Vash: "That thing's what ya'd call a severed 'empty vessel,' with no self-awareness of its own. You become its will, and that's how it can exercise its true nature... And the more ya use it, the more that power settles into ya."
Sunraku: "...So you're saying I should actively use it?"
Vash: "Kah kah kah! That's your own will, ain't it? Long as that 'wound' the pup carved into ya is there, you won't cross that final line..."
I see. So what Vash is saying is this. Right now, the effect of Lycagon's Contusion prevents me from undergoing Conversion. Whether Demi Conversion is included in that restriction still needs testing, but this time that very restriction is canceling out the demerit.
In other words: while I can ignore the berserk check and receive only the benefits, I should use this chance to master Broad Crown.
Sunraku: "In that case... Crystal Nest Cliff, obviously."
Usually I'm the ball in their ball-game tournament, but this time they're going to be my punching bags... Nice, nice. We really are best buds!
Vash: "And one last thing... Looks like ya broke through one shell."
Sunraku: "A shell... Yeah, well. I did."
He's talking about the level cap, right?
Vash: "Then go see Elke."
Sunraku: "Elke?"
Emul: "Elke-nee-chan's?"
Vash: "Yep... As ya are now, you oughta be able to see Elke's Secret Law."
Secret Law, huh... As usual, this rabbit says nothing but things that are loaded with meaning—and I mean that literally.
Still, when a flag gets raised, human nature makes you want to trigger it. I take Emul with me and head for the pruning room inside the Rabbit Palace... And after that I have to go see Bilac too. I feel like a pinball.