Chapter 13 — How Did Someone Who Can Defeat Anyone End Up in a Situation like This?
“Now that we have a name for the dog, let’s get to the main subject,” Tomochika tried to get them back on track.
“I guess the first thing we need to think about is if we’re going to take this game seriously or not.”
“I suppose. It doesn’t really feel like we have to, does it?”
“How many Philosopher’s Stones do we even need? I doubt we need all of them.”
“Yeah, we’ve been collecting them this whole time, but never thought of that. We already have eight, right?”
Sion had collected seven for them. Dai, their new animal companion, possessed one more.
“Maybe that’s enough to get home already.”
“But even if the stones hold a lot of energy, how do we use them?” Tomochika asked.
Now that I stop and think about it, we have been collecting them without knowing what we would do with them for quite a while, haven’t we? Mokomoko replied.
“That robot said he’d send us home, right?”
On their journey from Quenza to Hanabusa, their train had been stopped when it had ended up in the middle of a battle between a Sage and an Aggressor. Tomochika was referring to that particular robot Aggressor. According to the robot, moving to a higher world required a tremendous amount of energy.
The robot only said it could give us advice if we were to secure a large amount of energy and determine the coordinates of our world. The second time we met with it, it did not seem so sure it would be able to help us, Mokomoko warned them.
They had met the creature again in the Elven Forest. After dispatching an army of similar giant robots that had suddenly appeared to attack them, Mokomoko had contacted it. It had explained that the other robots were of the same affiliation but a different faction and had said that it didn’t want to fight Yogiri and Tomochika. After telling the robot they had acquired the coordinates and a few Philosopher’s Stones to use as energy, the robot had confessed it didn’t know how to make use of the stones themselves.
“It said it would talk with its boss about taking us home in exchange for the Philosopher’s Stones, right?” It seemed Yogiri remembered the details. The robot had come to this world in search of the Philosopher’s Stones, also known as the Fragments of the Goddess. When Yogiri had offered to trade them in exchange for a ride home, it had said it would present his offer to its higher-ups.
“We kind of just left everything to someone else, didn’t we? Maybe we aren’t taking this seriously enough,” Tomochika said.
“But after we met Luu, we kind of changed direction,” Yogiri answered.
The Philosopher’s Stones they had collected in part one had fused together into a baby. As they gathered more stones, the baby had continued to grow. Apparently, the stones were parts of some kind of goddess, one powerful enough to send them back home if she were restored to her full strength. At that point, they hadn’t needed to worry about using the Philosopher’s Stones for their energy anymore, so they had completely forgotten about the robot.
“They’re not transforming into Luu in part two, and we have quite a few of them, so we should probably think of what we’re going to do with them.”
“The Sages can probably tell us what to do with the stones, right? I’m sure Sion knows how to use them.” Sion was the one who had given them the idea of using the stones as an energy source in the first place.
Perhaps I should contact that robot again. I am not sure if its memories of part one will be preserved, though.
“Are robots different from humans in that?” Tomochika asked.
“Who knows?” admitted Yogiri. “If the reset was supposed to change everything back, it should have changed our brains back too, but we still remember what happened. If the robot’s system memory is the same, it might still remember.”
Unfortunately, it appears I cannot contact it anyway. Perhaps the signal cannot reach it from here or my decryption key is wrong. At this point in part one, we had yet to exchange keys with it, after all.
“I don’t really get it, but it sounds complicated.”
“Oh well,” Yogiri continued. “Let’s assume we need to focus on collecting the stones. In that case, what should we do next?”
“Right, that’s what we’re talking about.”
“If we’re going to take the game seriously, we need to do quests, strengthen our equipment, collect information, find the Philosopher’s Stones, and then beat the last boss.”
“Sounds kind of...annoying.”
“We could technically skip right to the last boss, but we’ve been warned against doing that.”
“But we only want to collect the Philosopher’s Stones, right? Do we really have to fight the last boss?”
“The only problem with that would be, how would we get back to the surface?”
“The surface? Wait, we can’t go back?!” Tomochika exclaimed.
“We teleported here, right? It doesn’t look like there are any exits.”
Tomochika remembered what she had seen outside. They were in a cave entirely enclosed by stone.
“If we can find a way back home from here, that’s fine. But if we can’t, we’ll need to head back to the surface.”
“I suppose so. I get the odd feeling we won’t be able to find a way home from inside a game someone made.”
“So I figured we could use the clear reward of our wish to get out...but maybe we should start by reading the guide he gave us.”
The guide claimed there was no way built into the game system for players to leave, but as Yogiri had predicted, one could use the wish granted to them after clearing the game to escape. Otherwise, if one cleared the game but wished for something else, they would start the game over from the beginning.
“So he plans to make them play this game for the rest of their lives?! Even those who only came here to get away from the Seyla?”
“I don’t know if ‘the rest of their lives’ is going to mean much,” Yogiri said while reading through the guide. “According to this, you have to pay a daily Life Tax or you die.”
“That seems kind of brutal!”
“The Life Tax is 100 DP.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Oh, it also goes up ten percent every day.”
“Okay, that’s just extortion!”
“It really sounds like they’re trying to weed out the lazy players, doesn’t it?”
“But if the cost goes up every day, eventually no one will be able to pay it, right?” There was a limit to how many quests one could do. It was easy to see everyone coming to bankruptcy in the end.
“Yeah. The Life Tax also gets reset every season. So if you want to keep living, you have to beat the last boss no matter what.” When the season ended, everyone’s DP would reset to 0. The Life Tax would be reset, all items and equipment would disappear, and anyone with the Gift would have their level reduced to one again.
“So what would happen if you weren’t able to pay it, Takatou?”
“I don’t know how the system kills people, but I guess it’s possible I could unconsciously end up killing the system itself. I wonder what would happen then?”
I doubt that would result in everyone being returned to the surface. Everyone would simply be stranded underground. And without the system, the life support it provides would disappear as well. It appears the system is what provides food, climate control, and even lighting down here.
“So I guess the plan is to collect DP, find the Philosopher’s Stones, beat the game, and return to the surface. How does that sound?”
“How did someone who can defeat anyone end up in a situation like this?” Tomochika demanded.
“Just because I can defeat anyone doesn’t mean I can solve any problem.”
Now that he mentioned it, that was true. Yogiri only used his power to defend against people who attacked them. He rarely chose to use his power proactively. If there was a way to solve the problems they faced without his power, he would go out of his way to do it.
The other question is just how far we can trust that Sage. Will he truly let us have the Philosopher Stones? Will he send something to us from outside the game?
“After talking to him for a bit, he doesn’t seem like the kind of person to lie...” Yogiri said.
“Are you sure? He seemed honest enough, but he also seemed like the type who would change his mind on a whim.” Tomochika couldn’t see Van as the trustworthy type.
“There’s no point worrying about that now though. If he breaks the rules, we’ll have to deal with it as it comes.”
“I guess we need to start by trying a quest, huh? Let’s take a look.” Tomochika stood up and Yogiri followed her. They headed to the wall of quests, Dai following quietly behind them.
“There seem to be a lot of hunting quests. The difficulty starts at level one...and wait, isn’t that the quest for the last boss right there?”
The quests weren’t organized at all, with quests of different difficulties scattered across the wall. Among them was the quest for the last boss, casually posted along with all the others. The difficulty of that quest was ten, meaning ten was probably the highest difficulty possible. The objective was to defeat Lasbo. The field was the Sky Fortress. The reward was 0 DP, so it seemed it just hadn’t been set.
“I guess we should start with a ‘level one’ quest. How about this one? Collect ten herbs. It’s in the forest and grasslands. The reward is 10 DP.”
“I wonder what the basis is for the rewards. I got 100 DP just for going to the adventurer’s guild with a boy.”
“Maybe this one is so cheap because anyone could do it. Let’s try it out just to get a feel for things. We’re supposed to give the number to the reception desk, right?”
“Come on, this is why we don’t like newbies. You planning on heading out without weapons?” a nearby adventurer called out to them.
“Huh? Oh! This is one of those drama things again, isn’t it?” Tomochika noted. Since taking dramatic actions could earn DP, this may have been a repeat of the adventurers who had accosted them earlier.
The adventurer narrowed his eyes, as if to tell her to play it off normally. Like they had heard before, they had to avoid acting unnatural or planning things out beforehand. She would have to play along.
“Do we need weapons?” she asked.
“Seriously? Monsters always show up during collection quests. You’ll be killed right away.”
“So how do we get weapons and armor?”
“There’s an equipment shop. Low-level equipment is pretty cheap, so if you’re going to take a quest, go get geared up first!”
“Got it. Thanks for the help!”
“No problem! I couldn’t sleep at night if I saw you go off and die right away. You can’t take any quests lightly, even the herb-collecting ones.” After saying that, the adventurer left.
“I wonder how much DP we got for that? Asking the staff every time seems like a pain.”
“Hey kid, did you want to find out how to check your DP easily?” another adventurer walking by called out to them.
“They just keep coming!”
It seemed total newbies attracted a lot of attention.
◇ ◇ ◇
After leaving the adventurer’s guild behind, Yogiri and Tomochika took a look around Base Town. The cavern it was set in was roughly square, about a hundred meters long on each side. The center of the town was dominated by important buildings for taking on quests, like the guild and equipment shop, while the other areas seemed to be for lodging. The lodgings ranged from huge mansions to tiny shacks, but the most common were the inns and apartment buildings. There didn’t seem to be anything like farms or orchards, so there weren’t any people who would work in agriculture either. It seemed that basically everyone in Cavern Quest was an adventurer. Just in case, they took a look at the cave walls around the town, but as expected, there were no exits.
“I wonder how many people live here?” said Yogiri.
It is hard to tell from the exterior of the buildings alone, but it appears this town is capable of housing one or two hundred people. I cannot imagine it holding as many as a thousand, Mokomoko mused.
After taking a look around the town, they headed to the item shop. Rather than large, bulky goods like weapons and armor, the store sold smaller miscellaneous items.
“Welcome! What are you looking for?” The clerk immediately ran to their side. It seemed he was into the role-playing aspect as well.
“We heard you sell crystals that can tell us how much DP we have.”
“Yes, we do!” He took them over to a part of the store with numerous crystals on display. “They all have more or less the same function. The larger ones will be easier to read, and the smaller ones like the rings will be easier to check at any time.”
“Can I try one out?”
“Please do. Go ahead and pick one.”
Tomochika picked up a crystal about the size of a ping pong ball. The surface lit up with letters.
Entered the item shop with a member of the opposite sex: 100 DP
Received advice from an adventurer (2x): 60 DP
Her total DP had gone up to 1148. It was kind of small and therefore a little hard to read, but not to the point where it was a problem.
“This system really likes it when you travel around with members of the opposite sex!”
“Having a mixed party is quite a boon,” the clerk said. “You can also get quite a boost from swapping your party around while doing simple quests.” He seemed just as quick to offer advice as the adventurers earlier.
“How much is this one?”
“5 DP.”
“I guess I’m happy with this. Is there anything you want to buy Takatou?”
“Hmm. What about one of those bags that can hold a lot of stuff?” The backpack he had now was the one he had brought for their school trip. It was pretty full with the Philosopher’s Stones they already had, so he wanted to do something about that.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Tomochika told him. “My class has that.”
“The item box?”
“Yeah, the same one Hanakawa had.”
“Speaking of which, what class did you get?”
“Ahh, so you had to ask, huh?”
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“It’s not really something to hide, but...it’s Ruler of the Battlefield...”
“Sounds pretty rough...”
“Yeah...” It seemed she was a bit embarrassed by the title.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login