Chapter 12 — It Is like a Blowout Sale on Philosopher’s Stones!
When Hanakawa’s group arrived at the Castle in the Sky field, the beach was packed with people.
“Are all these people here to fight Sir Takatou?” Hanakawa asked. “Ah, I should be careful! If I refer to him as ‘sir,’ some might think I am his friend.”
“Hmm, I wonder. No matter how much they hate him or think killing him is fair, if they don’t have a plan to fight him, gathering like this is kind of pointless,” Carol said, glancing around, seeming strangely happy.
In contrast, Ryouko’s face was bitter. “Even if they had a plan, it would just end in their senseless deaths. Nothing they can do will defeat him. At worst, they’re threatening the end of their own world. If it was only this world on the line, I wouldn’t mind, but there’s no telling how far-reaching the consequences could become...”
“I heard that no one who investigated this field ever made it back. I wonder if there’s a point to gathering everyone here like this?”
“Good question. If they were hunting Takatou, they would surely move on from here. It seems they’re waiting here for something, though.”
The three of them had come here after hearing rumors that Yogiri had been seen in the Castle in the Sky field. The news had spread like wildfire, so virtually everyone in the game had heard it.
“Hmm. Perhaps I should use my exceptional communication skills to elicit what information I can from the girls over there?” Hanakawa suggested.
“Don’t make me kill you,” Ryouko replied instantly.
“Even if you are going to stop me, I feel like there was a level you could have reached before death threats!”
“Sending Hanakawa to do anything will cause more problems than it’ll solve, so I’ll go ask,” Carol said, glancing around. She must have been looking for someone who knew what was going on. Finally, she stopped to look at one person in particular.
“Huh? You’re going to ask her?” Ryouko said, surprised.
“Doesn’t she seem interesting?”
“That is... How should I put it?” said Hanakawa. “I may be of an age where I have a healthy interest in the erotic, but to see someone so brazen about it is still somewhat unappealing. In truth, someone more proper is closer to my tastes. Ah, that is not to say I would fail to find girls like you two appealing, however.”
The woman in question looked to be wearing little more than underwear. She walked around without a hint of shame, clearly confident in her voluptuous figure. The tattoo on her lower abdomen gave Hanakawa the distinct impression that she was a succubus. The men around her were throwing her furtive glances. Her attire was so bold, it felt hard to stare, even for someone as shameless as Hanakawa.
Carol stepped away to talk to the woman, returning after a short while.
“Apparently, her class is Succubus!”
“That’s what you wanted to ask?!” Ryouko exclaimed.
“I would have expected as much judging by her appearance,” Hanakawa added, “but it was her class, not her race? Interesting.”
“Don’t worry. I asked why everyone was gathered here too. Someone invited all the powerful people here to work together to defeat Takatou.”
“Work together?” said Hanakawa. “I feel like no matter how many you gather, it would all be pointless.”
“Oh, looks like someone’s here,” Carol said, turning. “Is that who invited everyone?”
Hanakawa looked across the water. There was a forest, within which rose an enormous gray pyramid, but what caught his attention was the woman in a wide-brimmed hat coming out from the trees, looking every bit a witch. She seemed a little familiar, so Hanakawa dug through his memories. She had been one of the six people Van had gathered in the guildmaster’s room, which meant she had one of the Philosopher’s Stones inside her.
“Yo, cheaters! Thanks for getting off your butts and coming all the way here!” the witch greeted everyone as she reached the beach, her speech rather flippant despite her appearance. “Wait, do we have some ordinary people here too?” she asked, looking directly at Hanakawa.
“E-Excuse you! How dare you refer to me as ordinary!”
“Ah! You’ve got one of the Philosopher’s Stones! That’s fine, then.” She immediately lost interest in him. “Now then, there are probably some people here who don’t know me, so I’ll introduce myself. My name is Evon. Just like all of you, I’m a witch who’d rather die than have to work for real. I’d planned on just waiting ’til I died, but I decided I couldn’t let that Takatou guy go free, so I unlocked my powers. If he dies, the world will be reset, so let’s take back that lazy, boring, slow life we always wanted!”
There was no energetic response to her words, but many were nodding in silence.
“Okay, let’s share a bit of info, then. Takatou is probably headed for the castle, but unless you have seven Philosopher’s Stones you can’t get out of the antechamber, so he’s probably stuck there. There’s also a prison area, but you need a Philosopher’s Stone to get through it.”
“I see, I see. Then I suppose we are in the clear, but is it possible to bring this many people with us?”
A party could probably make it through if only one member had a stone, but a party was limited to four people. Hanakawa didn’t know how many Philosopher’s Stones were here, but with only seven of them in the game, there was no way they could get everyone through.
“Exactly! We don’t have nearly enough stones,” the witch said. “From what I’ve figured out, Takatou has a dog with one stone. I’ve got another, and that fatty has a third.”
“Again with such disrespect! I would prefer you referred to me as ‘broadly receptive’!”
“That elf girl has another one, but that seems to be it. I don’t know where the last three are, but even if I did, that wouldn’t be enough.”
“Elf?! That is a word I cannot ignore!” Hanakawa hurriedly looked around. As Evon had said, there was a beautiful young elf with them. He immediately recognized her as one of the people in the guildmaster’s room, one of those who had a Philosopher’s Stone. Considering their shared experience, he thought to approach but immediately froze in place. Luu was standing beside the elf.
“Wait! Why is Luu here?!”
“Oh, so she is. She was told to give up on collecting the stones unless she wanted to join the game, so maybe that’s what she did?” Carol said upon seeing the goddess. Hanakawa did recall Alexia saying something like that to her.
“While I have endless curiosity for the elven beauty, I feel it is best to let this sleeping dragon lie.” Hanakawa discreetly hid himself in the crowd.
“So, why are we here if you know we don’t have enough stones? Are you going to tell us to fight over them?” the succubus asked.
“There’s no need for that,” the witch replied. “We can just make more!”
“What? What is this lewd witch saying?” Hanakawa said. “Those stones are fragments of a true goddess. There is no way they could be so easily replicated!” These were the same Philosopher’s Stones Yogiri was collecting to try and make it back home. If they could be so easily made, they wouldn’t have been so difficult to acquire.
“Yeah, that’s what the cheat powers are for.”
“Yeah, it really is like cheating.” At some point, a second Evon had appeared, speaking after the first.
“Excuse me? What is happening?”
“It’s pretty common for a cheat power, don’t you think? I’m just making copies of myself.”
“Okay, then. Go for it!” One of the witches bent backward, thrusting her chest out. The other casually punched a hand into her chest, tearing her heart from her body. Naturally, the wounded witch fell motionless to the ground. In Evon’s hand was what appeared to be a heart fused with some kind of transparent stone.
“That was pretty grotesque, even if it was my own heart. Anyway, let’s fix this up.” The heart in her hand burst into flame, reducing itself to ash and blowing away, leaving the transparent stone clean in her hand. At the same time, the corpse she had taken it from vanished. It seemed she could also erase the copies she made.
“So, if I do this...” Evon held the stone in both hands in front of her chest. “Yah!” She forcefully pulled her hands apart, but each still held a stone. In short, she had made two of them.
“Huh? Uh, if Luu is watching, should she not be screaming at this?” Hanakawa was shocked. He wasn’t sure what value was left in the Philosopher’s Stones if they could be copied that way. Looking over at Luu, he saw she was frozen in shock. “Excuse me! Is that a real stone? After all, most powers that create copies end up making an inferior replica!”
“It’s not inferior at all. This is the real deal. And if it’s a problem for them to all be identical, I can change them a little bit too.”
“That is actually cheating, then!”
“Exactly. Abnormal, unconventional, and unprecedented. That’s why we call it cheating, right?”
“I-I suppose that is true...”
“And it’s way too early to be surprised. Everyone here has cheat powers like I do.”
Hanakawa looked around again. None of the people gathered here looked particularly motivated, but all of them seemed reluctantly willing to do what had to be done. Yogiri’s ability to kill anyone with his thoughts and react to killing intent had been explained to everyone by the Great Sage, but they didn’t seem to think his powers were particularly special.
“Anyway, whoever wants a stone, come and get one.”
At Evon’s invitation, they all formed a line. One by one, they grabbed a stone from her and headed off into the forest. Things were surprisingly orderly.
“It is like a blowout sale on Philosopher’s Stones! Maybe we should go get some as well!” If they had extras, they wouldn’t need to extract the one inside Hanakawa. He figured there was no reason to pass up a chance to get more.
“Don’t you already have one?” Carol asked. “Eh, whatever. She can make as many as she wants, so there’s no point in hoarding them.”
“Let us get in line!”
“I guess we might as well.”
“It really doesn’t feel like they are very important items anymore...”
As Hanakawa stepped into line, Carol and Ryouko reluctantly followed.
Evon’s first performance of splitting the stone in two must have just been for show, as she casually handed out stone after stone to everyone in line. Their turn in line came quickly, and she didn’t hesitate to hand them three stones.
“I see. So instead of traveling around to collect the stones, Sir Takatou should have been looking for someone who could copy them!”
“No one would expect to find someone who could do that,” Carol sighed.
“And yet here she is!”
“Anyway, let’s go. These people are all confident they can kill Takatou, right? We have no idea what could happen next.”
Most of the people heading into the forest had equally crazy, cheat-like powers. None of them seemed particularly motivated to get to Yogiri first, instead reluctantly accepting that if it came down to it, they would have to deal with him themselves.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login