Chapter 134: A Straight Flush Mixed with Jokers

 When I first saw that email, I thought it was some new kind of spam or something. A stone was thrown into our relationship, which basically has no real-life interaction, and the email's writing style suggested an ulterior motive.

For the time being, while demanding an explanation from the sender... Katzo, I sent a secret email to the brain of our clan "Wolfgang," Pencilgon.

Well, to simplify my conversation with Pencilgon:

Me: "What do you think his aim is?"

Pencil: "Depends on the content, but how much of a 'debt' can we make him owe?"

Me: "Covering all travel and participation fees... I don't know what it is, but seems he's pretty cornered."

Pencil: "Good thing work settled down."

Uumu, it seems conversing with a madman is impossible after all. I'm asking if we should accept his offer, but that bastard is only talking about after accepting it.
However, as a result of sending several interrogating emails, the information he spat out was as follows.

GGC... Global Game Competition. As the name suggests, it's a major event introducing numerous games made, being made, decided to be made, or "Please invest because we're making it" from all over the world.
Until a few years ago, it was held overseas in places like the UK and the US. It was a location choice where the power of so-called sponsors could be glimpsed, but for two consecutive years including last year and this year, Japan has been the host country. It's safe to say the existence of the super-massive title Shangri-La Frontier accounts for a large reason for that.
Even blockbuster games made by major American companies pouring hundreds of millions into them were nothing more than "games." In contrast, ShanFro is... needless to say.

Until ShanFro was released, the game balance of various countries was roughly divided into three. America for quality, Asia for characters and story, Europe for novel systems.
Because of national characteristics, there are many wonderful games and garbage games, for better or worse... like having only characters with 30% gorilla DNA mixed in, or skinny guys and beautiful girls mainly swinging greatswords, or being so original it took humanity several years to understand...
And now, ShanFro... a single enterprise not from Asia, but "Japan," has swept all of that away. By my estimate, there is a difference of three... no, five generations between ShanFro and current titles.
About half a year after ShanFro's release, various manufacturers domestic and overseas announced titles similar to ShanFro, but please guess from the fact that I, who excel in that kind of smell, have marked several. Pseudo-ShanFros flowing away with momentary brilliance like a meteor shower... I'm looking forward to their release.

Returning to the topic, in short, the game industry is currently in a state where ShanFro is running far ahead of countries like America, whose financial power easily exceeds 530,000. Naturally, any game including even one element of action, RPG, simulation... contained in ShanFro treats ShanFro as a hypothetical enemy. Since it's basically a place where God Games and Good Games are announced, I usually settle for watching broadcast videos, but recently GGC has a bloodthirsty atmosphere... is what I heard from Katzo around last year.
He's a relatively famous pro gamer, and companies announcing games at GGC ask pro gamers to show live gameplay, so apparently he shows his face at GGC every year. And why would Katzo, invited for work this year, do something like inviting Pencilgon and me?

"In short, to play against an opponent you absolutely don't want to lose to, almost all the originally planned members were absent, putting you in danger of a default loss, huh..."

Reading the email in the spare time between logging out of ShanFro and logging back in, I unintentionally scoffed. It's a chain of accidents like a gag; the energy drink tastes better than usual.

"Even so, what to do... The day after tomorrow, huh."

Well, I don't have any particular errands. I'm not in a clan that requires daily login & quotas either. I have a promise to meet someone in ShanFro after this, but that's not a problem... to be blunt, there is no reason to refuse this other than my own will.
In short, a fill-in to avoid a default loss due to vacancies; that is the role Katzo seeks from us. However, choosing us despite that shows he's not just making up numbers; I feel his will to win.
I have endless doubts like whether it's okay to arbitrarily enter ordinary people who aren't even pro gamers, but it's hard to imagine Katzo inviting us without considering that, so I probably don't need to worry.

"The day after tomorrow... Prepare various things tomorrow and leave... Hmm, guess I can go."

The only thing I have to do today is digest one scenario; at least it'll be easier than breaking through an area on a forced march. If this were overseas, I would have sent him spam emails with a smile, but a distance reachable in two or three hours by Train (Linear Motor Car) is an easier difficulty than touring seedy game shops looking for Trash Games.
The GGC itself is held for three days, but the "Friendly Match Live Gameplay" Katzo proposed ends in one day, so the required time is short. And above all, the currently booming Kei Uomi-sama, who seems to be earning quite a bit as a pro gamer, says he'll cover various expenses. I've been sprinting full speed in ShanFro recently, so a breather occasionally might be good.

"I'll accept your invitation... Send."

Sending the email, I suddenly thought.

"...Thinking about it carefully, does this mean I'm going to meet Towa Amane and Kei Uomi in real life...?"

An event like meeting celebrities should normally be more exciting............ but we converse normally through emails and in-game, so the rarity feels thin. Maybe I'll bring a signature board for my little sister.

...And so, that's why I have to go on a short trip to the GGC venue tomorrow night, but right now my immediate schedule is verifying the Unique Scenario with these two.

"Hey Rust, it's been a while since we stepped away from this game, but that Unique Scenario... hasn't it been conquered by someone else already?"

"...I think it's fine. The trigger conditions for that are something even we don't understand, after all."

The Unique Scenario "Pierce the Apostle of the Abyss" the two provided me occurs by conversing with the NPC "Self-Proclaimed Great Pirate Stude." But apparently, even the two involved don't know what to do to reach that point.

"When we first came here, Rust got seriously pissed at the NPCs'... um, provocations, and beat them all up."

"Beat them all up... Looking at her, she seems like a bow-main long-range... And I told you, no need for honorifics."

"Ah, right... Rust switches between 'Magic Bow' and 'Strong Bow,' so her base STR is high. Against humans, especially NPCs, just punching them normally is enough, so..."

"Ah—..."

There were some concerning words, but anyway, it seems Rust went on a massive rampage. Rampaging to the level of "If the face looks evil, punch first"... and before she knew it, she was taken by an NPC calling themselves "Messenger of the Great Pirate" and reached the Unique Scenario. Hmm, is defeating a certain number of NPCs the condition? No, if I recall, Pencilgon once told me that killing NPCs also accumulates Karma values. It's not impossible if it's the rarest of rare, a Unique Scenario EX, but... no need to kill? It might rather be a different possibility.
In the first place, in this game, you incur equal penalties whether you kill a player or an NPC. Within such a game system, those who would think of beating up NPCs are probably a minority; if you want experience points, you just leave town and defeat Area Bosses or Rare Enemies. A loophole in the specifications... not quite, but it is a blind spot.

"So, hanging out with that self-proclaimed Great Pirate brat and chasing the ghost ship... that's this scenario."

"Brat, you say."

"Ah, yeah, that can only be described as a 'Brat'..."

An NPC evaluated like that even by Mold...? Just so you know, my standard for "Brat" recognition is based on Faer-kuso; I don't recognize average brattiness as a brat. The greatest evil of Faer-kuso is undeniably the beast called Faeria (Faer-kuso), but there existed a brat comparable to that Faer-kuso.
His name was "Ark," a character even called "Nuisance (Gaiark)" by his common name. He is an artificial evil intentionally designed as a "Brat" by the developers who birthed the character Faer-kuso, who scatters disasters unknowingly. His role in the story is a villain holding immense power as the Beloved Child of the Spirits in the "Spirit Religion," repeatedly obstructing the protagonists. Starting from putting a bounty on the protagonist's party, sending assassins (at least 10 including strong enemies), pouring poison into the well of the village the protagonist is heading to, inciting monsters, setting fire to forests, stealing important items, etc... Numerous actions whose main focus is clearly not just an obstacle for the protagonist, but making the player uncomfortable.

Even knowing that, they are stress-inducing. Ultimately, the reason he treated the protagonist... strictly speaking, Faer-kuso, as an enemy was the selfish reason "Because she is loved by the spirits more than me." Furthermore, because he goes berserk and fights as a boss character, he is the Brat of Brats taking up a whole wiki page just on how to beat him to a pulp.
As for his end, abandoned by the spirits, he gets demoted from a brat with power to just a brat, and is thrown out of the church with nothing but the clothes on his back—a rather harsh ending for a character. If you progress the story to a certain point and talk to a specific NPC in a specific town, you can hear the story, "A ridiculously cheeky brat was taken away to a Male Brothel (That kind of shop)"... that kind of character.
If Faer-kuso were an R18 game, we might have seen Nuisance-kun get into That kind of situation at That kind of shop, but since most players are satisfied seeing the scene where the bossified Nuisance-kun is beaten to a pulp and abandoned by the spirits, was there a need to blatantly beat a dead horse? Didn't the production side handle the "Villain" character wrongly? Hey Faer-kuso, during the boss fight you said "You haven't suffered enough taking all the pain in this world," so why are you putting on a saintly face and pitying him? It ended up just raising the Trash Game level after all.

"Yes, mere cheekiness cannot win the 'Brat' recognition from me..."

A few minutes later.

"Welcome! I am the Great Pirate Stude-sama! What I say is absolute, you hear!"

Saying this feels somewhat strange, but I might have just learned the true meaning of a "Brat."