Chapter 153: So Which One of Us is Taking a Detour?

<<Ahhh! Meteos's combo connected!!>>

What the hell was that just now? Armed Lava's response was flawless. Guarding against the aerial kick, keeping the continuously approaching Meteos in check with a grab attack, and then taking the safe route of guarding against a high-power but high-recovery move... but Meteos landed the hit before the guard could even become active.

<<No way, just now... did she actually thread the needle through the guard frames?! Hahaha, is that really a human feat?! Even if you knew it was coming, there aren't many people who could actually pull that off...>>

Just as the commentator said, that wasn't something you could pull off with mere reaction speed. It was an impossibly fatal thrust that you couldn't execute unless you knew the exact scripted progression of events from the very beginning—calling it an acrobatic stunt would be far too mild.

That's just completely unfair. Even if the player inside Armed Lava had been me, there's absolutely nothing you can do when someone perfectly inserts an attack into your gaps like that.

<<Armed Lava is launched into the air! And Meteos's gauge is maxed out! Is it coming? Is it coming... It's hereee!! Meteos slams down his Super Special!! KOoooooo!! Not even "K (Kei)" could win! She's too strong, far too strong, the Absolute Champion Sylviiiia!!>>

From there, it goes without saying—she landed the full combo without a single drop, slammed him with her super special flying kick... and finished it. Although she lost half her health, it was such an overwhelming display of dominance that you could easily call it a flawless victory. As I close the website tab... specifically, the video titled "K vs Silvi," I truly realize that what Katzo said was the absolute truth.

"I could probably copy the raw technique itself, but... her reads are so optimized it just doesn't make any damn sense..."

The match between Katzo and Sylvia-whatever, which was apparently recorded a year ago, had Sylvia taking the first round, and Katzo snatching back the second.

Then came the third round. Katzo's Armed Lava whittled Sylvia's Meteos down to half health while maintaining seventy percent of his own... and that's exactly when Meteos's movements completely morphed.

Up until that point, if anyone was fighting by predicting the state of the battle, it was Katzo, yet from that exact moment, Sylvia's movements drastically accelerated.

She perfectly handled all of Katzo's attacks as if she permanently had a successful-parry buff applied to herself, and her HP management—while accounting for the DoT from attacking the magma arms that had been present since the previous game—was so exact it looked like she was using a literal calculator.

And above all else, that guard-pierce—a brute-force move equivalent to piercing through a Paper with a Rock—was executed with the absolute fastest, most optimal, and peak performance possible. Exactly how many times did you save-state[*1] to pull that perfect RNG? This was a live match? Hahaha, give me a break.

"Actually, looking it up, his record in official matches alone is zero wins, eight losses, and one draw... he's getting completely steamrolled."

The fact that he still hasn't given up on winning just proves what a hardcore sore loser that guy is. Come to think of it, back when he showed up in "Benpi" and I beat him to a pulp, he actually went out of his way to buy a physical copy just to come back for revenge... Maybe that kind of fighting spirit is the fundamental prerequisite required to be a Pro Gamer.

Well, at the end of the day, our job is purely to set up the Katzo vs Sylvia match; we're essentially the opening act of the opening act. If that's the case, the ones I should be investigating and formulating counter-strategies against are those three macho dudes. It's like the Three Little Pigs... a very sweaty-smelling version of them.

"Alright, time to pull an all-nighter cram session and build a strategy!!"

I gave up forty-five minutes later.

"Ahhh... what the hell should I do..."

Currently, I had taken off my gas mask and ventured outside the hotel to a 24-hour establishment—the absolute reliable ally of all-nighters and midnight snacking: the convenience store. Understandably, if I walked into a convenience store wearing a gas mask, it could very well trigger a bizarre, gag-manga-esque chain reaction where the guy who got called over by Katzo ends up getting the cops called on him.

Due to an unexpected discovery, the possibility of staying up late had suddenly arisen, so I was here to restock on energy drinks, and... well, I just kind of wanted to breathe in that cheap, junk-filled convenience store air. That hotel is definitely not the kind of place you stay at with the casual mindset of crashing at a friend's house to play games.

"As expected, they don't have imported energy drinks... Well, if I Double Charge them I'll get 200% caffeine fulfillment and hit a pretty good high, so maybe I should just play it safe with one today... Hmm, but if I crack open two, I'll have to deal with the bladder limit issue..."

In a way, it's a trump card for decisive short-term battles. When you normally only need one proper tank, but due to a shortage of supplies or something you stack a bunch of inferior, lower-grade parts to compensate for the output... that feels exactly like a hype mecha anime trope, so I really like it, honestly... Not that it needed to accurately simulate the rapidly approaching operation limit via bladder pressure.

In reality, there were quite a few things I was supposed to be doing, like casually watching gameplay videos of the players from the Pro Gamer team "Star Rain" to grasp their general styles, figuring out countermeasures for the characters they'd likely pick, practicing with my own character, and running system verifications... but while aimlessly messing around with that brand-new full-dive system, I ended up finding it.

Yes—the digital download version of Shangri-La Frontier...!!

To begin with, you can only create a single save file in Shangri-La Frontier. Your user data is stored on a server that could practically be called the ShanFro world itself, and to authenticate it, it checks three things: the hardware code of the user's full-dive system, the user's actual biometric data, and a typed password. Only after verifying all three can a user act as their alternate self within the world of ShanFro. However, in the event that your full-dive system gets damaged in an accident or something, there is a method to log in using a different system.

...I'm stringing together all these grandiose terms, but simply put, as long as you meet certain conditions, ShanFro is a game that lets you play your own save data on hardware you don't even own. Meaning, the ShanFro I had fully accepted I wouldn't be able to log into for about three days, could unexpectedly be played right now.

The full-dive system I actually own—which is the generation right before the brand-new (and incidentally, insanely expensive) model sitting in this hotel—isn't damaged or anything, so this time I'm just performing a peaceful alternate hardware login. Using my mobile device that's linked to my personal hardware as a relay point, I connect it to the target system, inherit the hardware code, and run the password authentication. Long story short, you just plug in your phone and wait a few minutes, which is exactly why I left my phone in my room.

When my stay here is over, I just have to do the reverse procedure, so there won't be any issues cropping up later either. I can play ShanFro without a single problem—I am completely capable of playing it.

"I impulsively got everything ready to play ShanFro, after all..."

I did technically watch the videos of Star Rain's Three Macho Stars, and we're going to be doing serious practice tomorrow anyway, so just for tonight... right?

As I mentally looped that excuse to absolutely no one about five times, an incredibly cheerful voice—completely out of place for a convenience store in the dead of night—suddenly echoed out. That being said, the only people in here were the sleepy-eyed female clerk likely working the graveyard shift, myself, and the person responsible for the voice.

"Coffee! Black! Pump out a really thick one for me!"

What the hell is with that shady-sounding order? Though as expected, I couldn't exactly voice that retort out loud to a total stranger. If those words had come out of Pencilgon's mouth, I would have mercilessly roasted her while tacking on some BM for good measure, but...

Thinking that, I headed to the register with my energy drinks in hand, only to see the female clerk sporting a strained smile, and a blonde woman puffing out her chest with a smug look on her face for some reason. That being said, her hat was pulled down low and she was even wearing sunglasses—a highly suspicious fashion choice that practically screamed "I don't want anyone to figure out my identity." However, because the base APP stat[*2] of the person wearing it was so incredibly high, she strangely pulled it off. That was the impression this blonde foreigner gave.

"Ah, umm... well, most coffee is generally black, but..."

"?? Coffee, super black, super thick, just squirt it right out?"

"I really don't think you needed to force your translation of 'Black Coffee' into Japanese..."

Crap, I couldn't hold back anymore and accidentally said it out loud. Her highly suspicious fashion combined with her utterly atrocious phrasing had caused the female clerk to give completely irrelevant replies, but it seems my comment made her realize the woman was just saying "Give me a strong black coffee." The clerk gave me a slight bow and jogged over to the coffee machines. In other words, despite the limited conditions, it was now just me and Suspicious Fashion alone.

"Ahh... Thanks! Azassuu?"

"No no, don't worry about it, No problem, you're welcome?"

Activating the special skill "Polite Customer Service Smile" that the vast majority of Japanese people can easily acquire, I reply to Suspicious Fashion, who approached me with a level of communication power you rarely see in Japan. How do I put it, she is an incredibly stereotypical "Foreigner using broken Japanese," especially in the way she somehow naturally selects the most inappropriately suggestive vocabulary.

"Mhm, me too, that brand, is my fav! But this place's one... isn't thick enough...?"

(Does she just not know the word for 'weak'...?) "Yeah, it has a bit less caffeine."

"T-Thank you for waiting... Um, here is your black coffee. Let's see, your total is..."

"OK! I've been waiting for this exact moment!"

You didn't even wait a single minute. Fast comeback there. There are times in this world where keeping your mouth shut is a virtue. Suspicious Fashion, who apparently paid with a rather sparkly-looking card, gave a fluttering wave to me and the female clerk before exiting the store... leaving behind only me and the clerk, both of us possessing average Japanese sensibilities.

"...She was, like, the textbook definition of a hyper foreigner, wasn't she."

"Ahaha... Ah, I'll ring up your items now."

"Ah, I'll be paying in cash."

With light footsteps beneath a night sky where the stars were relatively visible, she laughed. She ran as she laughed.

---------------------------------------------------------- (This part really confuses me too)-------------------------------

Ah, I know, I really do know. Fundamentally, I shouldn't be doing something like this. Even if it's from the same series, in order to get used to a game built on a system completely different from the traditional colosseum-style, I absolutely shouldn't be taking a detour like this.

But that's that, and this is this. The gaming title that completely blew past the motherland USA—which used to lead the world even in the gaming industry—with just a single release... The exploration of a utopia that I had previously avoided due to the busyness of my actual job and my personal philosophy of despising lag.

Since I went out of my way to come to Japan, wanting to get my hands on it is just the nature of a gamer. I feel bad for my teammates who are currently fired up trying to formulate strategies against "Him"—the only person to ever force a draw against me in an official match, and the one I openly declare as my official rival—but I'd like them to let me take just a tiny detour.

I'll work hard starting tomorrow, so just for tonight... right? Making excuses like that in her heart, she... Sylvia Goldberg stepped into the hotel elevator and pressed the button leading to the top floor where the suite rooms were located.

(Oh? That boy from earlier is staying at this hotel too... I wonder if he's coming to the Festival the day after tomorrow?)

Right before the elevator doors closed, she caught a brief glimpse of the kind boy yawning as he entered the hotel... and mere seconds later, that memory was entirely washed away by her anticipation for the unseen Utopia (Shangri-La).

On that day, there were two individuals who completely abandoned the City of Chaos to embark on a journey to the Utopia.

Author's Afterword
In reality, it seems Gyokuro green tea absolutely crushes everything else in terms of caffeine content, so the one who is the most hopped up on caffeine in this story might actually be the heroine.

MC: "My caffeine power level is 530,000."
Heroine: (Ordering seconds of Gyokuro) "1,000,000 power plus 1,000,000 power makes 2,000,000 power!! Add in twice the usual concentration, and that's 2,000,000 times 2 for 4,000,000 power!! And then, if I add in a third steeping at three times the norm, that's 4,000,000 times 3, making me the self-triggering Unique Monster man! It's 12,000,000 caffeine power that far surpasses you!!"

Though apparently, because of tannins and whatnot, things like Monster Energy actually give you a better caffeine high.

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Save-State: The raw text uses the term "Tuiki" (追記), a slang term derived from TAS (Tool-Assisted Speedrun) videos. It refers to the number of re-records or save-states used to manipulate RNG and execute perfect, frame-perfect plays. Sunraku is mentally comparing Sylvia's live gameplay to a perfectly engineered TAS.

• *[2] APP Stat: The raw text specifically uses "APP" (Appearance), which is a direct reference to the Appearance stat from the Call of Cthulhu Tabletop RPG