Chapter 419: Side 15 — Backstage Standby

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A future in which everything was already fixed did not have a scrap of interest to it.

That was why, even after suddenly being told that an event would take place eight days from now, Arthur Pencilgon did not panic. Instead, Pencilgon got to work on whatever could be done under the current circumstances.

Pencilgon: "Momo-chaaaan, lend me a hand."

Psyger-100: "...You’re plotting something again, aren’t you?"

Pencilgon: "I want to go see Imron-chan, so let’s head for the Bugman village."

Psyger-100: "All right, fine. We need two more people."

P.T. Overwerke: "Oh, I’m free. The clan members went hunting before I got back from my night shift, so... haha..."

???: "A Bugman village? Then would you mind bringing our Seto along? I want to have it mapped out."

And so, with Arthur Pencilgon as the party leader, Pencilgon immediately set out with Psyger-100, P.T. Overwerke, and Seto—a pretty remarkable dream team.

Pencilgon: "Ah, hold on a sec."

Pencilgon opened the forums and selected the SLF Cooking Information Exchange Board.

Then Pencilgon made a brief post:

“Does anyone remember that salad recipe we saw the other day?”

Then the forum was closed.

Naturally, this did not mean Pencilgon had suddenly developed an interest in cooking.

Those who enjoyed role-playing as information brokers in SLF tended to like using codes and ciphers. Zenith Guevara, an information broker involved in a certain plan currently being carried out behind the scenes, used posting a particular sentence on a particular board as a signal.

The signal had been sent.

Having finished sending Zenith Guevara and Super Farmer a request for production, Pencilgon closed the forum window and turned toward the temporary party members with a smile, as though nothing had happened.

Pencilgon: "All right, let’s take the shortest route!!"

The other three had just watched Pencilgon perform an obviously suspicious action right in front of them.

But they knew that pressing the issue would only get them brushed off, so they said nothing and set out.

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Once she had finished taking care of her bald boss, who had somehow completely misunderstood the concept of health, it was finally time for games.

Perhaps because times had changed, trains with pantographs had become far less common. Inside one such train, a career woman sat blankly, as though her mind were somewhere else entirely.

A sword... a spear... no, a sword after all. Simple is best. Technique shows itself in the classics.

Her name was Ryuka Sekiguchi.

People often got it wrong, but it was not “Luka.” It was “Ryuka.”

She was also known as Imron.

Having surfaced from the rough waves of working life, she was on her way home.

Dual swords are supposed to be the main weapon, but straight swords work too... What a star weapon class.

Several vague images formed and vanished in Ryuka’s mind. Each time one of those images took on enough shape to become an idea, she would turn it over for a while, sigh, then smash it apart in her head.

Ryuka: "No... That’s too ordinary if I want to beat that blacksmith."

Ryuka knew almost nothing about that individual.

She knew that it was a Vorpal Bunny, and one other thing: it had made a number of weapons that had badly shaken Imron’s pride.

It had all begun with a request from a half-naked player who had arrived wearing a blank expression—or perhaps only an expressionless atmosphere, since the player wore a mask.

Imron: "W-what is this...?"

Sunraku: "Alexand Scorpion materials. Make something out of these..."

Imron: "Crystal Scorpions... no, is this a variant? This is insane. What kind of resources are these...?"

Sunraku: "A straight sword, a one-handed sword, twin swords... make one of those, I guess. All right, I’m counting on you..."

Imron: "Huh? Huh? This Twin-Core Treasure... no way. Resource 500!? Five hundred... fiiive huuundred!?"

Imron had been about to call out to the unsteadily departing Sunraku.

But before she could, Sunraku turned back as though remembering something. The voice was quiet, yet it set Imron’s heart ablaze.

Sunraku: "Oh, right. I’m giving the exact same number and kinds of materials... to the NPC who made this too..."

Imron: "...Oh?"

In Shangri-La Frontier, four major factors broadly determine weapon production.

The first was proficiency in the blacksmith-exclusive magic [Armament Forging: Forge Rise].

This was the foundation of everything. Having reached the highest-tier job, Master Craftsman, Imron had already raised [Armament Forging: Forge Rise] to its maximum value.

The second was the quality of the facilities.

This was deceptively troublesome. Production-class players generally used shared workshops that existed as facilities, or workshops built with their own funds—or their clan’s funds.

But simply having a furnace was not enough. Just as Bilac had sought out a new furnace, better equipment depended on better facilities.

Third was the quality of the materials themselves.

Materials that could be used in weapon creation possessed a parameter called “resource.” The higher that value was, the more freedom and accuracy a creator had when assigning abilities to the finished weapon. Depending on the material, effects the creator had not even intended could sometimes be added as well.

Of course, there were also “cursed materials” that had high resource values but imposed negative effects on equipment, so those tradeoffs had to be considered too.

Still, the Twin-Core Treasure of the Alexand Scorpion that Sunraku had handed over had a resource value of 500.

For comparison, the highest-resource material dropped by a Yuzaper Dragon was worth 120. Atlanticus Lepnorca’s Mirror Bone was worth 450. Scarlet Scar’s Ancient Scale of Glory was worth 750.

As an aside, Scarlet Scar’s highest-rarity drop possessed the astonishing resource value of 1,000.

And finally...

There was the creator’s real-life skill.

In weapon-crafting mode, there were several ways to decide a weapon’s shape—in other words, its appearance. This applied only when making a one-of-a-kind weapon; system-designed weapons had their appearances determined automatically.

The easiest option was to use an appearance prepared by the system as-is, or modify it slightly.

The other option was completely manual creation.

A player could determine the design through thought and actual hand movements. Imron often used this method.

Imron had always possessed a rich imagination, and SLF’s weapon-crafting system could not have been more perfectly suited to her.

Ryuka: "Hmm... ah, we’re here... huh?"

The train had arrived at a comparatively rural station, far from the urban area that still retained plenty of greenery.

Ryuka came back to her senses and stood up.

Then she noticed the thing tethered to her bag, swaying as it moved.

Ryuka: "Theatrical Superhuman Actorman... that’s it!!"

Ryuka had been staring at a keychain related to an old tokusatsu series.

Then, in an instant, an image flashed through her mind like lightning and took shape.

Ryuka: "This is it!!"

Ryuka shouted inside the otherwise empty train.

In SLF, players could set not only a weapon’s appearance but even its visual effects.

However, the cost required for those settings also came from resource points.

In other words, blacksmithing in SLF was a battle against resource points.

Prioritize appearance, and performance suffered.

Prioritize performance, and the appearance became ordinary.

Psyger-100’s Sacred Blade Excalibur was widely known among players, partly because of Psyger-100’s own standing and flashiness. At the same time, countless replicas had spread throughout the game.

But those replicas usually spent all their resource points on appearance, making them flashy but otherwise ordinary swords.

With the overwhelming resource value of Alexand Scorpion materials, however, Ryuka—Imron—could realize the image Ryuka had in mind while still giving it performance worthy of that design—even if it would not be the single strongest sword possible.

Train Announcement: "The doors are closing."

Ryuka: "Huh? Ah, wait, wait, wait—ngh!!"

The twenty-seven-year-old career woman, Sekiguchi Ryuka, hurriedly tried to get off the train.

The doors caught her face from both sides.

Her hobby:

Watching tokusatsu shows.

It’s not like there are many people who put tokusatsu homages into their own creations, right? HAHAHA!!

In SLF’s manual blacksmithing, blacksmith magic lets you touch heated metal and shape it like clay. You can also change its shape through thought.

Flavor Vomit Corner

Fake Excalibur

Player-made replica weapons designed only to resemble Excalibur.

The words “Sacred Blade” and “Excalibur” are locked by the system, so they are usually disguised with names that only sound vaguely similar, such as “Wall-Sword Kuscalibur.”

Even fakes require a fair amount of cost to make, so the ones being sold off cheaply actually took a surprising amount of work.

Psyger-100 came up with “Clone Sacred-Blade Attack,” wielding six swords that looked exactly like Excalibur alongside the genuine one.

But Psyger-100 eventually gave up after losing track of which sword was the real one.

Theatrical Superhuman Actorman

A tokusatsu series that once aired in the real world of Shangri-La Frontier.

Its hero fought the evil organization Radisher by using “Script Chips” to act out various roles and change forms.

It earned a respectable amount of praise because both the lead actor and the suit actor were almost absurdly committed to their performances.