Chapter 386: Side 7: Extremely Noisy, Unbelievably Peaceful (Compared to Normal)

Might as well keep Bakumatsu going. At this point, let's keep writing about trash games all the way through!!

◇

Fweee... blub blub blub...

???: "Oh! It's Kyogoku-chan! The Kyogoku-chan who strutted in picking a fight with 'The Only Sword' and 'Thousand Needles' and then got blown up with them!"

???: "Waaay! It stunk a bit, but it was cool!"

???: "Let's breakdance together! We're spirits, so we spin like crazy!"

???: "Still, not being able to eat food is kind of a pain."

???: "Wait, you don't know? Offerings left at the Unclaimed Graveyard area can be picked up even by ghosts. It's a weird item called a ghost bun or something, but you can eat it normally."

???: "Nah, eating cemetery offerings is a little... ah, wait, we're the ones getting offered stuff!"

Multiple Ghosts: "Ahahaha... this bun's moldy!!"

Loud. Way too loud. Kyogoku had grown tired of just haunting people as a vengeful spirit, so she'd drifted into the ghost gathering for a change. But the racket far exceeded her expectations, and her brow furrows. The players who've become ghosts—things that can only be killed by exorcism, meaning they can't be divine-punished—are taking a breather from their usual daily lives built on smiles and violence. They're cheerfully watching the survivors scramble around and having a great time.

???: "So, Kyogoku-chan, are you friends with 'Festival Music'?"

Kyogoku: "Festival... ah, Sunraku. Are we friends? I guess... technically, we met in another game and he recommended this one to me."

???: "Recommending this game? Is he a demon or something?"

???: "Nah, he just saw her aptitude. Kyogoku-chan's got pretty high Bakumatsu affinity."

???: "The 'I'll definitely get revenge...!' look in your eyes right when you're getting killed is great, y'know. Gives me chills."

???: "Well, next time you come around, we'll still gang up on you, though!"

???: "Sharp players usually grow into aiming for the rankers... like Mad Dog."

???: "That guy's different this time, though. He finally learned to hide and survive, instead of being the EXP tank for Raid Boss-san every single event."

???: "Evolution on the level of apes learning to use fire, huh..."

???: "Oi oi, is this a paradigm shift or what?"

Bustling noisily, the players are so cheerful you'd never guess they usually split each other's skulls open the instant they meet. Watching it all, Kyogoku feels the sense of closeness that comes from a low-population game... and at the same time, spots a few players who brutally killed her in the past, cranking the warmth in her chest all the way up to a hellfire of hatred.

The Only Sword: "Yo."

Metal Marshmallow: "Ah, The Only Sword-san, hey."

The Only Sword: "I read the gunpowder store being used, but I didn't read that it was already under control. Man, gunpowder really is humanity's greatest invention."

Metal Marshmallow: "Not restocking my dumplings enough was the cause of my defeat. Actually, why the hell are you camping the dumpling shop every single time!"

The Only Sword: "I mean, anyone would go for Thousand Needles's ammo dump, right?"

With two rankers mixed in, the racket grows even louder. Even more so since these are upper rankers who should never have gotten knocked out this early.

Metal Marshmallow: "Y'see, we got baited by the auction for 'Golden Demon,' so we kept quiet about it. But they'd been moving barrels around for a while, building a siege line."

The Only Sword: "Yeah, right! Even the totally unrelated row houses got caught in the chain explosion. We were totally lured in."

Metal Marshmallow: "Anyway, is it true Golden Demon's being put through Ichito Pawnshop? That thing looks cool, I want it."

Ichito Pawnshop. That's a special form of sale in this game. In Tsujigiri Capriccio: Online, "pawnshops" are what you'd call item storage. You can deposit items and get money, using it as a pseudo-warehouse. But there's an exception: the one-day 100% Ichito system—"if you don't repay 100% within one day, the money becomes the player's outright, while the item is confiscated." A sale system. And items seized by the Ichito Pawnshop go on sale there as merchandise. So there's a technique where you use it to negotiate: "I'll put a rare weapon through Ichito Pawnshop, so do what I say."

Items stored in a pawnshop—meaning rare weapons you can't steal just by killing someone—could end up on the market. In terms of pure strength, things are pretty much settled the moment rankers join the fray. So an auction based on money power works out well for players outside the rankings. And best of all, since it's an auction run by the pawnshop, you can put the item right back into storage after winning the bid. Meaning you just pay and can't get robbed. Sure, you can blow up the pawnshop and release every item in storage... but that spawns powerful NPCs and has all sorts of other restrictions.

Metal Marshmallow: "That's the thing, though. Some attention-whoring idiot used 'Golden Demon' to challenge a ranker a while back, so one of the four got lost."

The Only Sword: "Raid Boss-san flipping their switch and barging in was totally an accident, so we decided it can't be helped. Ain't no way to win that one-on-one."

Metal Marshmallow: "How many times do I gotta say it—ranking rewards are basically art pieces..."

???: "Hey! An express message just came from the folks with Raid Boss-san! They're on the move!!"

What?! The players erupt in commotion. In this game, it's rare for the player called "Raid Boss" to move with any specific goal. They wander the streets on a whim, greet you cheerfully—and the next moment, the other person is dead. That Raid Boss has moved with clear intent. Several players have already started floating through the air, heading in Raid Boss's direction.

???: "They're going after Festival Music after all?"

???: "Nah, I dunno. Raid Boss-san is the type to save their favorite for last, right?"

???: "Our Hero getting left half-dead and kept for last every time... doesn't that feel kind of romantic?"

???: "Ahh, makes my heart throb... constricted by sheer terror."

???: "Saving favorites, you mean, like a predator-prey relationship?"

???: "H-Hey, breaking news! 'Subject to Overthrow' and 'That Guy (flicks chin)' just got divine-punished! 'Crimson Lotus Grenade' is moving!"

The words from the player who'd been floating over—pointing at an empty sky for some reason—throw the whole area into an uproar. Players with titles are all powerhouses, however different their methods. Kyogoku still hasn't fully grasped what titles and playstyles the rankers actually have, but even so, from the reactions around her, she can tell the situation has shifted massively.

???: "This event's insane. No respawns, so everything's changing at once."

???: "Well, That Guy (flicks chin) was basically in checkmate the whole time as long as Crimson Lotus Grenade was alive..."

???: "I'm telling you, fireworks damage needs a nerf. I die from fall damage every time."

???: "Oh look, the person himself showed up. More importantly, Raid Boss-san is on the move!!"

???: "You'd think the udonge flowers had bloomed."

???: "Calling it a once-in-three-thousand-years rare case is a bit much!"

The afterlife is louder than the living world. And on top of that, the conversations that pop up sometimes ooze an absurdly high intelligence, which provokes a hard-to-describe irritation.

Why? Why is that?

Kyogoku felt an instinctive impulse well up in her chest—I want to divine-punish these people...!

(But still, killing someone because "they're smarter than me and it pissed me off" is a little... ah.)

There, Kyogoku notices... no, realizes.

Kyogoku: "Ahh, so that's... what it is."

Because I want the item. EXP efficiency. Rehab. Just because they pissed me off... Not everyone carries a mission. But you can't suppress this feeling that rises up from the sea of your heart. That's why players who've come to understand the behavioral principles of the players in this game move on to the next stage. Namely, a spiritual justification to carry out their impulses. Even when five people gang up on one, to do it with pride and confidence, Bakumatsu players all use the same word.

Kyogoku: "Divine punishment...!!"

Those two characters are magic words. A magic-spell keyword that shifts all responsibility—"the heavens made me do it"—and excuses any action. It has no mechanical meaning in the game. It doesn't raise your stats. It doesn't apply any correction to the blade you swing or the bullet you fire. But more than anything, it sweeps away the hesitation of the player controlling them. Morals, goodwill, common sense, whatever god or supernatural being you define... all wrapped up together, "heaven" guarantees every deed. That's why Bakumatsu players all love and chant those two words: "Divine punishment."

???: "Oh, you've got a good look in your eyes now..."

???: "The gears are meshing. That girl's gonna get strong..."

???: "Even if you restrict yourself to a single sword, you should at least get the basics of other styles down. Know yourself, and that leads to knowing your enemy."

???: "Uh, is this one of those 'if you're a ranker, you gotta say something' situations?"

???: "No, 'The Only Sword' and 'That Guy (flicks chin)' just suddenly started doing a strong-character comedy routine, so I went along with it."

Anyway, someday, I'll take these bastards down. Kyogoku made that vow, and hard. She won't hesitate anymore. After all...

The heavens told her to do it.........

While a monster adapted to the laws of Bakumatsu lets out its first cry, on the surface, the situation has shifted dramatically.

To put it plainly: Bakumatsu overall ranking number one, "Raid Boss: Yura," and Bakumatsu overall outside the rankings, "Festival Music: Sunraku," are now facing off against each other.

Divine punishment is the magic word to play dumb: "The heavens told me to do it, so it's not my fault." Whether you stab an ally in the back, blow them up, or aim for their head on login.

In other words, all Bakumatsu players are victims of fate called "heaven"...!! Today, everyone's energetically at it again—Divine Punishment, Divine Punishment!