Chapter 3 — You’re Making This Sound Like a Manga That’s About to Be Canceled!
“What happened to that Van guy?” Yogiri asked.
Van was the one who had created Cavern Quest, so he was responsible for everything that happened here. He may have left some minor matters to the submaster, but Yogiri felt like anything involving the Philosopher’s Stones should have been dealt with by Van himself.
“It seems his pride has been hurt a little. I happened to be nearby when he started sulking, so he pushed the annoying work on me,” the man named Shirou replied with a bitter smile. It didn’t seem like he was particularly excited about this job either. “Now then, would you mind putting your battle on pause for a little?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Well, I do! What the hell is going on here?!” Naltine roared. “How is it fair for the people running the game to suddenly pop up out of nowhere and attack only one of us?! We’ve been playing by the rules the whole time! You can’t just say us being here was ‘inconvenient’ for you!”
“It does feel a little unfair, doesn’t it?” Yogiri understood his complaints. Even if the monster attack on the city was done through some sort of bug or exploit, it made more sense for the staff to start with a warning rather than instant punishment.
“When did I attack you?” Shirou asked.
“What?! All of my lackeys disappeared the moment you appeared! Wait, wasn’t that you?” Naltine was taken aback, confused by Shirou’s sincere question.
“Yes, I’m the one who turned them all into equipment.”
“Then it was your fault!”
“It’s possible he just did that to calm the situation down, though,” Yogiri interrupted. “He might turn them back after.” If he turned them back into their original forms later, what Shirou had done wouldn’t really be an attack.
“Oh, I see. Not like that makes it okay, but I’ll forgive you if you hurry up and turn them back!”
“No, they can’t be returned to their original forms,” Shirou explained.
“Then it was an attack! Are you trying to mess with me?!”
“But it’s weird that you only attacked Naltine. Does that mean you were punishing him for abusing the bug?” In online games, even if the bug was a mistake on the developer’s part, it was common for players who exploited those bugs for their own gain to be punished by having their accounts closed. If one thought of Cavern Quest as a game like that, it wouldn’t be that strange for the staff to take such a hard-line approach.
“Takatou, I think you should just let it go...” Tomochika said. Yogiri’s group had also brought a monster through the gate. Tomochika must have been trying to avoid calling attention to that.
“Ah, you mean because monsters are in the town? They found a legal way to do it, so there’s no penalty. However, if it becomes an obstacle to the game’s progress in the future, we might have to deal with it.”
“Then what do you want?!” Naltine shouted.
“I just find large groups of monsters to be off-putting.”
Shirou’s words struck everyone silent. It took a moment for them to understand what he was saying.
“You mean like a kind of trypophobia?” Yogiri asked, still confused. Trypophobia was the irrational fear of large groups, especially groups of small holes.
“Similar, but not quite the same,” Shirou replied. “I find large groups of living things to be repulsive. I’m not really worried about small holes.”
“I thought he looked too normal. That’s more what I’d expect from a Sage!” Tomochika exclaimed.
“What? So you turned my lackeys into equipment just because of your feelings?”
“Their levels were pretty low. The weapons they turned into are all basically garbage.”
“You’re dead!” Naltine picked up the pillar at his side and swung it at Shirou. But the pillar went flying in the wrong direction, a single sword dropping to the ground where Naltine had once stood. This time, Yogiri was able to see what happened. Naltine’s body had turned solid, then compressed into the form of a sword before dropping to the ground.
“His level wasn’t too bad. He makes a decent weapon. But he doesn’t quite meet the threshold of being a rare item. It’ll probably do as a somewhat expensive sword at a shop, though,” Shirou mused, picking up the blade that had once been Naltine.
“Huh? You’re going to sell him?” Tomochika stared at the sword, dumbstruck.
“My role in this game is item and level design. My main responsibility is creating methods of obtaining equipment to match player ranks to keep the game balanced.”
“So the armor I’m wearing is...”
“The armor was Machef Druid. Your gauntlets were Gamerlin Andora.”
“Noooo!” Tomochika hurriedly began stripping off her armor.
“That is an odd response,” Shirou said. “No matter what it used to be, it’s just plain armor now. It’s nothing for you to be concerned about.”
“Of course I’m going to be concerned about it!”
“Hey, that guy had a Philosopher’s Stone in him. Are you sure it was okay to turn him into a sword?” Yogiri asked.
“That’s what you’re worried about?!” Tomochika exclaimed. “Well, okay, that’s important too, but the fact he’s turning people into weapons and selling them is disgusting!”
“Whether they are sold or not, I have no idea how he did it! There is no way to defend against an attack we cannot even perceive!”
Though Tomochika and Atila seemed on guard, Yogiri didn’t feel threatened in the least. While turning someone into a weapon didn’t necessarily count as an attack, Yogiri couldn’t imagine it as anything else. If Shirou tried it on Yogiri himself, the Sage would instantly die. It was the same as anything else.
“No, he had no such thing in him. I wouldn’t turn a Philosopher’s Stone into a weapon like that.” So either it had already been removed or he had never had a stone in the first place. Though it seemed suspicious coming from a Sage, they were the ones who set the rules for this game. If Yogiri started doubting them now, there would be no end to it.
“So, you wanted to talk about something?” He tried to get the conversation back on track. Shirou had apparently come there because he had something he wanted to tell them.
“It’s about the Philosopher’s Stones. Due to unavoidable circumstances, the rules around them will have to be changed. Van decided it wouldn’t be fair to change the rules without informing you.”
“What, he’s not going to hand them over after all?”
“No, that is not an issue. The problem is that the stones have started disappearing.”
“Huh?” Yogiri was taken completely by surprise. He had only come into this game because he was after the Philosopher’s Stones. If he couldn’t even get them after all, he had no reason to be there.
“Van prepared seven stones for use in the game, but at present there are only six.”
“That changes everything, doesn’t it?!” Tomochika snapped.
Yogiri could understand her desire to complain. They had only joined the game to acquire the Philosopher’s Stones. If they couldn’t get them at the end, there was no point in playing.
“I fully understand your feelings, but the seventh stone has disappeared without our knowledge, so there is nothing we can do about it.”
“Well...I suppose we don’t necessarily need all seven, right?” Yogiri said. They didn’t really know how many stones they needed in total. Returning to their own world would require a huge amount of energy, and they were searching for the Philosopher’s Stones to serve as that energy source, but they had never figured out how many it would take to get them home.
“It seems the stones you were carrying have disappeared too,” Shirou said.
“What?!” Tomochika checked her item box in a panic. Since she had obtained the Gift, she could store items in a mysterious pocket of space and look at them at a glance. “They’re not here. They’re gone, Takatou!”
“What’s going on?” Yogiri asked, perplexed.
“According to Van, there was a case in the past where the stones fused together into a person. It is possible they have done so again and left.”
“You mean Luu?! I guess that’s possible, but why would she just leave?!” Tomochika replied.
Luu was a girl who had appeared from the fused Philosopher’s Stones. Each stone she fused with caused her to grow, bringing her to the point of a twenty-year-old shortly before the world had been reset. Like a baby bird imprinting on the first thing it saw, she had grown quite attached to Yogiri. If she had transformed into a young girl again, Tomochika couldn’t imagine her leaving without saying a word to them.
“At any rate, the decrease of Philosopher’s Stones is beyond our control.” Shirou bluntly refused to take responsibility. Of course, he was only there as Van’s representative. He didn’t care one way or the other about the stones and had only come to tell them about the situation. Van probably hadn’t come himself because it felt like he was breaking his promise to them.
“The stones inside people haven’t disappeared yet?”
“At present, that seems to be the case. Only the stones that were removed from their hosts have disappeared.” In that case, the stones inside Dai and Sakut should have still been there.
“So, what is this change in rules?” Yogiri asked. “The Philosopher’s Stones were needed to beat Lasbo, right?”
“I guess this will be a pain if I don’t explain it to you. In truth, you do not need to collect all seven stones.”
“You’re making this sound like a manga that’s about to be canceled!” Tomochika said.
“You misunderstand. You need seven stones to reach Lasbo, but they don’t all have to be held by the same party.”
“Oh, Volf said something like that too, didn’t he?” Volf, the man who had come to take the Philosopher’s Stones from them, had said something about multiple parties working together in a raid to defeat the last boss. It sounded like a single party didn’t have to collect all seven stones for the game to be cleared. However, since Yogiri and Tomochika didn’t know how many stones they needed to get back home, they had just decided to collect as many as possible.
“The rule change is regarding the ability to reach the last boss. For those who still have Philosopher’s Stones, there is no change. For those whose stones have disappeared, the one who possessed them at the time of their disappearance will become the key to the last boss instead. From now on, anyone who kills one of the keys will become a key themselves.”
Dai and Sakut made two. The stone they had taken from Volf had disappeared, meaning Yogiri’s group had the third key already.
“So can we just go fight Lasbo now, then?” Yogiri asked.
“You can go if you like, but you will have to wait there until all the keys are gathered.”
“What do you mean, ‘wait’?”
“I suppose I can explain it further. Lasbo’s field is divided into a number of areas. The first area is the entrance. Anyone can come and go through it as they please. The next area is the prison. Originally, one needed the Philosopher’s Stones to get out of the prison, but now we’ve changed that to need the key instead. Beyond the prison is the antechamber. There is nothing to do there but wait until all seven keys have been gathered.”
“I see. So if you want to guarantee a shot at fighting the last boss, the fastest way is to get all seven keys yourself,” Yogiri mused.
“Uh, Takatou,” Tomochika interrupted. “I don’t think we need to worry about Lasbo anymore, do we? If Luu is back, why don’t we just get her to send us home?”
“The problem is, we have no idea where she went.”
Yogiri began to think about their next steps. There was no use complaining about the rules of the game being changed. There was still nothing they could do but keep collecting the Philosopher’s Stones. If there was a chance the stones would disappear when removed from their hosts, they would have to get the hosts to join their party and work with them.
But how would they find them? It might have been best to wait in front of Lasbo’s boss room. Every day they spent in Cavern Quest, they had to pay a Life Tax to survive. The price of the Life Tax increased every day, so it wouldn’t take long for everyone in the game to be wiped out. The only way to avoid that was to defeat Lasbo and clear the game. That meant those with the keys to fight the boss would likely gather in front of the boss room as soon as possible. If Luu was searching for the stones too, she would likely find them there, and waiting in front of the boss room seemed like a better option than blindly searching around the game.
“Maybe we should just go wait in front of the boss room,” Yogiri suggested. “The people with the other stones should show up eventually... What’s wrong?”
Tomochika had gone pale. Looking around, he saw that Edelgart and Sakut had similar expressions, and even Atila looked like she was thinking hard about something.
“Can’t you hear it, Takatou?!”
“Huh? No, I don’t hear anything. What is it?”
“Some guy called the Great Sage is talking!”
“The Great Sage?” He stopped to listen but couldn’t hear anything. It seemed he was the only one who couldn’t. As he started to wonder what was going on, Edelgart and Sakut suddenly stepped away from him. Their faces were full of hatred, like they wanted nothing more than to kill him but couldn’t. Yogiri was taken aback by the extreme bitterness they showed. He couldn’t say they had been super close, but he thought they were at least friends from the time they had spent together.
“So, what are you all hearing?”
“Well...this guy called the Great Sage is explaining that something is wrong with the world. To summarize, he’s telling us about everyone you’ve killed.”
“Indeed. Even the faces of those you’ve killed are appearing before us,” Atila added. “Those we are familiar with among them appear as close-ups. But even that aside, the sheer number is chilling...”
“Ah, so that’s why.” Yogiri recalled the events in the Elven Forest. The elves kept careful watch to keep humans out, but one day, they had suddenly stopped. The cause had been more than half of the elves suddenly dying, which was likely a result of Yogiri dealing with Izelda. In short, Yogiri had basically wiped out the elves.
“Are you not going to join them, Atila?” Yogiri asked, not sure how she would respond to the revelation.
“I knew long ago that you were the one responsible for killing my underlings. Though the fact you have killed tens of millions of humans is concerning, it means little to a dragon like me.”
“Man, this is bad...” He couldn’t blame people for being angry with him if he had killed people close to them. But he had only ever used his power to protect himself, so he didn’t feel guilty in the least. Apologizing was easy enough, but an apology like that wouldn’t mean much, nor would he expect anyone to forgive him.
“Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my leave.” Content that he had delivered his message, Shirou made to go.
“You’re leaving now?!” Tomochika exclaimed.
“This situation has nothing to do with me,” the Sage replied dismissively.
“How do you figure?! This is the Great Sage talking—”
As Tomochika tried to press him, the ground suddenly began to shake. It felt like something had pushed up from below, and, in fact, rock was beginning to punch through the earth. Yogiri was sent flying, landing on his backside. Looking around, it seemed he was the only one who had been knocked down.
“What?! What is it now?!”
“This town is no longer usable, so we’ll be disposing of it. I imagine this is a sign that the erasure is beginning,” Shirou replied like it was obvious. With the guild staff and the people running each of the shops dead, the town couldn’t uphold any of its functions anymore. Yogiri had wondered what they were going to do about it, but he had never expected them to just wipe the town out.
“Why didn’t you tell us that from the beginning?!”
“That’s not my job.”
“What does ‘disposing of it’ mean?!”
“There’s no need to be so concerned about it. Any players in the closed channel will be automatically moved to another one.”
“Oh, really? I guess that’s not so bad...” As Tomochika started to feel relief, the ground shook again. The wooden buildings began to collapse as the ground alternately exploded upwards and cracked open. Giving up on standing, Yogiri remained seated on the ground. Dai trotted over to his side, worried about him.
“This still doesn’t look like a situation where we can relax!”
“What you find worrying differs from person to person, I suppose. Now then, I’ll be taking my leave.” With that, Shirou flew up into the air and disappeared. They were in an underground cavern, but it was possible there was another exit somewhere.
“What are we supposed to do now?!” Tomochika cried. The earthquake was getting worse, the ground splitting to divide Yogiri, Tomochika, and Atila from Edelgart and Sakut.
“Good question,” Yogiri said. If Atila returned to her dragon form, she could fly over and collect Edelgart and Sakut. But Yogiri hesitated to suggest that. It didn’t seem like they would be willing to work with him anymore.
“Jeez, this is impossible...” Tomochika gave up.
Sakut’s beautiful face was twisted with hatred, her gaze filled with bloodlust aimed at Yogiri. He had no idea what he could say to her at this point.
“Ah!” The ground beneath Edelgart and Sakut opened, dropping them into the abyss. Looking down into the crevice, it seemed to open into empty space. The two women were gone, so it was likely they had been moved to another channel.
“Are we really just going to drop down like that?!”
“Hmm. It’s probably all right.” Yogiri got the feeling that it would be okay. He would at least get a vague impression of danger if doing nothing here would get them killed. But from Tomochika’s perspective, she had no basis to feel like they would be safe.
“Are you sure?! Gaaah!”
The ground beneath them collapsed, dropping them into the darkness.
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