Chapter 384: Side 6: The Ace of Spades Carrying a Handicap

In short, this was before that day when the woman in mourning was sent skimming spectacularly across the water and went down. Back then, before the route to the elves' village had been established, players would get lost and be hunted down by monsters, and they had fallen into a kind of stagnation.

Once that problem was solved, however, an unprecedented boom in day trips to Tiaplaten swept through the playerbase.

The reason, naturally, lay with "Sunraku" and "Tottori the Shimahne."

The woman in mourning had effortlessly disposed of Third Knight Order Commander Julian while displaying a string of extraordinary movement techniques. Racing through the air, standing atop blades, and unleashing hundreds of flashes in a single slash had left an overwhelming impression.

According to rumor—meaning Tottori leaking information—those were the so-called Triple-digit Skills he had acquired by unlocking his level cap.

They were not Uniques, but Skills unlocked through ordinary leveling that, in theory, any player could eventually obtain. Seeing those Skills demonstrated, combined with the map Tottori the Shimahne had brought back establishing the route to Tiaplaten, gave more than a few players—rather, the overwhelming majority of them—more than enough reason to flood the place.

And in the current environment, where crafters had gained influence thanks to Emilia's rise as a master carpenter rather than a president, it was only natural for players to step up in place of the elves, whose sorry level of civilization let them insist that a single leaf counted as a repair.

Psyger-0: "Th-this is..."

From what Psyger-0 had heard from Sunraku, Tiaplaten was supposed to be a place that had gone untouched by human hands for a long time, half-decayed back into nature.

Now, however, hundreds of players—possibly more than a thousand—were noisily moving around, with NPCs visible here and there as the bustle spread throughout the entire village.

???: "Honestly, I'm a complete amateur when it comes to construction, but calling one leaf a wall repair is pushing it..."

???: "Hey! Anybody have any wood items!? We're short on pillars!"

???: "I'll sell you some for twenty thousand Mani?"

???: "That's way too much of a rip-off!!"

???: "Lately I'm starting to have more fun holding a hammer than a sword."

???: "Once you start making chairs in real life, you'll officially be one of us DIY people. Welcome aboard!"

???: "Anybody need bone-type items? I brought in a pretty good stock."

???: "Wait, are we building Skull Azuchi Number Two?"

???: "Then let's give it a different castle name."

???: "Skull Neuschwanstein."

???: "Too long. Shorten it to Sku-Nev—gweh!?"

???: "Ah, sorry!"

???: "A log to the back of the head... yeah, that hurts."

Most of the players were there to unlock their level caps, but even more conspicuous were the crafters advancing construction all over the village with wood and stone items.

Psyger-0: "...Diale-san."

Diale: "Leave it to me! When it comes specifically to the art of mimicry, I am Emul's teacher, after all!"

If she were being completely honest, Psyger-0 did wonder what these rabbits were even competing over. Still, Emul went without saying, and even Ceecrue, who traveled with Akitsu Akane, would disguise himself as a cloak, so perhaps mimicry really was something like an essential skill for Vorpal Bunnies.

Diale: "My mimicry is a cut above Emul's. I can even account for the decorations on your equipment and make the disguise look that much more like actual clothing...!"

Psyger-0: "O-ohhh?"

With a proud huff, the short cloak on Psyger-0's back—Diale—fogged the surface of her armor with her breath.

There were still only three players who had a Vorpal Bunny as a party member—in other words, who had the right to enter the Rabbit Palace in Rabituza. Having it become known that Psyger-0 was one of those three would not be especially convenient.

Psyger-0: "For now, shall we head for the Awakening Altar...?"

According to the information she had, the Awakening Altar was located in the center of the residential district. If so, barring something extraordinary, there should be no way to get lost. That was what Psyger-0 had assumed, but...

Psyger-0: "Um... could this possibly be...?"

???: "Whoa, Psyger-0!? The real one!?"

Psyger-0: "Ah, yes."

???: "Well, if you're part of the second wave, I guess it's not weird for us to be here at the same time... Yeah, this is the line for the Awakening Altar. Looks like about a twenty-minute wait, I'd say."

Psyger-0: "I... see."

The route to Tiaplaten might have been established, but that did not mean the monster threat had disappeared. Reaching the village still required a certain level of stats. Even so, if crafters could make it there, it was only natural for combat classes to come flooding in by the droves. Crowding was inevitable, and for Psyger-0, having this many eyes around was extremely inconvenient.

Psyger-0: "........."

???: "Huh? You're not lining up?"

Psyger-0: "There were... more people than I expected..."

???: "Apparently it's pretty empty around midday on weekdays."

Psyger-0: "...I see."

As a student, cutting class was difficult. Either way, Psyger-0 judged that unlocking her level cap right this instant was impossible, so she quietly stepped away from the line and considered what to do next.

Diale: "...You're not going to line up?"

Psyger-0: "Probably not... If you go in with me too, Diale-san, they'll figure it out."

Diale: "Tch... to think they could see through my mimicry. I suppose that is only to be expected from a ruin of the Divine Era civilization..."

Psyger-0 could not bring herself to say that probably had nothing to do with it.

Psyger-0 classified Arthur Pencilgon as someone she was "bad with."

Part of that was the exquisitely awkward position Pencilgon occupied as one of her older sister's classmates, which made her difficult to stand up to. More than that, though, even a few minutes of conversation gave Psyger-0 the chilling feeling that Pencilgon might see straight through her inner thoughts.

Pencilgon: "Well, well, well. Fancy running into you here, Saiga's little sister-chan... No, seriously, what a coincidence. A total coincidence."

Psyger-0: "R-right..."

Pencilgon: "By the way, judging from how you were hunting monsters like you had nowhere else to be, I take it you couldn't get into the Awakening Altar after all?"

Psyger-0 did not ask how she knew. People knowledgeable about Arthur Pencilgon's behavior described her as "a demon king who can start from knowing absolutely nothing and spend about five minutes gathering information until she has perfected the act of already knowing everything," and said, "The most effective countermeasure is to silently take her out."

At the very least, working out the rough course of events from a small amount of information must have been almost absurdly easy for her.

Pencilgon: "Nfufufu. You can't exactly undergo a precision inspection with a little something extra stuck to your back, can you...? But don't worry. If you surrender yourself to my plan, everything will work out just fine. So... okay?"

Psyger-0: "A plan..."

Pencilgon: "Exactly. I'm the type who properly nurtures the seeds I've properly sown... Ahh, when I put it that way, maybe I've got a talent for farming... No, no, I'm still too young to rot away playing in the dirt. Yep! All right, I've recovered..."

The sight of Pencilgon resolving her own problem all by herself had something in common with the person Psyger-0 had feelings for, who could work himself into a rage through sheer self-questioning. That aside, Pencilgon brought the derailed conversation back on track, pushed her glasses up with one finger while still in the male form created by the Holy Grail, and flashed a fearless grin.

Pencilgon: "To me, Sunraku-kun is a joker in the Old Maid sense, while Katzo-kun is a joker in the poker sense. But you are, without question, an ace... and that is exactly why I'll deploy you in the way that makes you shine brightest. To do that, there's something I want your help with."

Psyger-0: "...I'll at least hear you out."

With the corners of her mouth curling upward into a grin, Pencilgon concisely explained the contents of her request—her quest.

Pencilgon: "I'm looking for a certain player... You're in Black Blade, and you used to be with Schwarz Vulf, so you've probably at least heard the name, right? The owner of the Holy Hammer Mjolnir, and probably one of the absolute best crafters—blacksmiths—among all players... I want to find Imron-chan somehow."

Imron's name is, strictly speaking, Yimulong—written with the meaning "one-eyed dragon." That in turn points to Ichimokuren and, from there, Amenomahitotsu-no-Kami, the smithing god of Japanese mythology. It is actually a pretty elaborate player name with a whole chain of references behind it. But no matter how knowledgeable a gamer may be about this kind of thing, there is no way everyone is going to pick up on such an obscure name—especially when it is already a Japanese-mythology reference and then gives the reading in Chinese—so it mostly just gets passed over. What I'm getting at is that she's a dyed-in-the-wool crafter with a slightly... unusual sense for names.