Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 9 - Chapter SS

Bonus Short Stories 
Covert? 
WARNING: Contains spoilers. Please read after volume 9.

A certain day of a certain month, Royal Palace 
A few days before the incident at Quartierlatin... 
“This is a job for Azurite,” declared the kingdom’s first princess and acting ruler, Altimia Azurite Altar. 
Those were her first words, upon hearing about the ruins that had shown up in Quartierlatin. 
This was a declaration that she would hide her identity and go investigate it herself. 
If she hadn’t been alone in the room, the other person would surely have pointed out that using your actual first name wasn’t smart if you wanted to hide your identity. 
However, if she used a fake name, someone with a high level Truth Discernment skill would sense it, so just using her middle name was actually safer for covert action. 
There was also the fact that Azurite was a fairly common name here in the kingdom. As the name of the first king, a man who’d risen from shepherd to sovereign, many commoners gave that name to their children in the hopes that they would be at least a bit as successful as he was. 
Nobles, however, avoided using it due to respect for the royalty. 
“If I take care of the necessary verdicts ahead of time, things should be able to run without me.” Altimia checked all the relevant political affairs and confirmed that everything would be fine without her. “I also need some equipment.” 
Since she would be acting covertly, she obviously couldn’t wear her regal clothing. Her best equipment, the highest quality forged dress armor, also wasn’t an option. She needed something that wouldn’t stand out in a city and came with decent stats, which led to her choosing light swordswoman clothing. It was a good quality product that wouldn’t draw much attention to her. 
However, that did nothing about her most prominent feature: her face. 
Altimia believed that every single person in the kingdom would be able to recognize her by her visage. 
Infinite Dendrogram was a primarily a fantasy, but it had both newspapers and cameras. There were photos of her face everywhere, and there was even a clan which doubled as her fan club. 
Hiding her face was an absolute necessity. 
“I guess I’ll have to use this again,” she muttered as she equipped a mask. 
She’d prepared it for situations such as this, and it even had an anti-Reveal effect. However, the design was such that it only hid the upper half of the face, which made her look quite shady. Anyone who’d wear something like this anywhere except a masquerade would be considered suspicious. 
“Perfect. No one will suspect a thing.” 
Sad as it was, the princess, lacking in worldly knowledge in some regards, had no clue regarding the odd nature of her appearance. 
Thus, Altimia went on her covert(?) operation to investigate the ruins in Quartierlatin.

Soon afterwards, she met Ray Starling and was faced with a terrible situation where her appearance was seen as shady as his.

The End 
The Lynx’s Monetary Affairs 
WARNING: Contains spoilers. Please read after volume 9.

A certain day of a certain month 
“By the way, what do you think Tom spends his money on?” Bishmal, the seventh in the duel rankings, asked during a post-spar lunch meeting. 
The other participants were Riser, the seventh in the rankings, as well Ray and Nemesis. 
It was common for duel rankers to eat something together after sparring. Others who tended to participate included Juliet, the fourth in the rankings; Chelsea, the eighth in the rankings; and even Figaro. 
Ray wasn’t in the rankings, but since he sparred a lot, he often ate with the rankers, too. 
“Tom?” Ray repeated. 
She was referring to The Lynx, Tom Cat. The ex-dueling champion who’d lost his throne to Figaro and gone on to defend the second spot with his fearsome cloning ability. He was a man of mystery. 
“He’s gotta have a lot of money, right?” Bishmal asked. “But I never actually see him spending it on anything.” 
Not only did Tom make impressive amounts of money from his dueling awards, he also ran a few revolutionary establishments in Gideon, such as the maid café. There was no doubt that he was rich, but no one ever saw him actually use his wealth. 
“Munch munch... Isn’t he just buying new equipment?” asked Nemesis. 
“No... As far as I know, he hasn’t changed his equipment even once,” answered Riser, a true veteran player. “He never changes his equipment or the weapons wielded by his clones.” 
“You seem to know a lot about him.” 
“I was one of those who tried to surpass him and become the duel champion. I never won against him, though.” 
The top three in the rankings could only be challenged for their rank by those who were directly below them. To challenge Figaro, the current champion, you would have to defeat Tom, the second in the rankings, and take his place. 
“Speaking of money, I once saw Tom enter a money exchange place,” Ray said. 
Everyone else was perplexed. “Money exchange?” they asked in unison. 
In Dendro, where there was only a single currency, a money exchange business was simply a place where you would exchange your coins to make them easier to use. You could get hyper-expensive coins for big purchases, or cheaper coins for smaller ones. 
They all wondered why Tom would go to such a place, finally coming to the conclusion that he must have been planning to buy something expensive.

“This is your first moneeyyy. Five silver coins worth a total of 5,000 liiir. An onigiri costs about 10 lir, by the waaayyy.” 
In a study-like area, which was the character creation space, a white cat was handing a new player some money while giving him an explanation. 
The white cat was Cheshire — one of the control AIs, and the true form of Tom Cat. 
He was giving the new player five silver coins. It was the amount that each and every player received, and all of the money came from Cheshire’s work as Tom Cat. 
It was his own earnings that he exchanged into mere silver coins. 
Control AIs could simply create the money, but they preferred to reuse the money already in circulation to prevent a collapse of Dendro’s economy. 
Speaking of control AIs and money, Mad Hatter — the item control AI — earned more than Cheshire purely due to his gacha machines, but all of that money was moved to drops and created dungeon treasure chests. 
While Dendro’s control AIs may have been operating the most immersive and realistic VRMMO experience around, it was important to note that they also partook in simple moneymaking activities. 

The End