Chapter 196: Sharing the Same Heaven - Part 2

"Oh, the player count actually went up a bit just because a sequel got announced."

Originally, it was a game that was sparsely populated despite being a genuinely good game because the required player skill to fight on the front lines was way too high. But human nature dictates that when a sequel is announced, people suddenly get the urge to try out the previous game.
The entrance area—which used to radiate a glaring, aggressive aura due to the fierce ranking battles strictly between regulars—seemed to be welcoming newbies in a somewhat milder atmosphere. I get it, I totally get it. Even if you call them casuals or whatever, an underpopulated state where you only ever match up against people you already know isn't healthy for a game.

Although I took a direct hit from the surprise of an unexpected commercial-use (but not actually commercial-use) present, since I received it, I might as well put it to good use. While thoroughly enjoying the dark pleasure of installing data from a trash game right into a state-of-the-art VR system, the first game I booted up was Nephilim Hollow.
If you ask me why, I'd have a hard time answering because I just picked it randomly without any real meaning. Just a fleeting thought of "I wonder if Rust and Mold are online," led me to choose it. That's all there is to it.

"And, sure enough, they are."

Whatever happened to going in under perfect conditions? Well, as a guy currently doing a continuous gaming session from Saba-Gan straight into NephHolo, it's not really a line I have the right to say.
Looking up from the entrance area, fighting to capture the hearts of the new players are Rust & Mold and Super Tamao. An unfamiliar mech is engaged in a fierce clash against Crimson Twinewing, but well, considering that immortal phoenix managed to stand at the absolute apex until I finally assassinated it, I seriously doubt it'll lose so easily. How about I hit them with a little surprise?

"Now then... I've been slowly modifying you piece by piece, but today, right at this exact moment, I'm going to unveil you."

And with me—who just got a massive buff to my base performance (player skill)—piloting it, no less.
There is no longer the figure of a blue bird that stripped away everything for the sake of sheer speed. Sitting there instead is a vividly multicolored Nephilim with new wings added all over its body. The completely mismatched, disjointed parts each retain their different default colorings, resulting in a hue that looks as if someone just violently splashed entirely different colors of paint all over it.
I always get weirdly meticulous when naming things like this. For the evolved form of the Kingfisher, I shall bestow upon it the name of a closely related species.

"Now, let's flutter about flamboyantly... 'Bird Possessing Fourteen Colors,' Coracias Lilac!"

This right here is the true revenge match of the Kingfisher.
Bustling about to finish my preparations, I slam down a challenge letter to Rust and the others, who had just shot down Super Tamao's mech. The acceptance notification arrives immediately, and Coracias Lilac—a Nephilim bearing the name of a species of roller bird—stands face-to-face against the twin-winged Phoenix.
Since this isn't a Friend Match but a random public match, we can't exchange words. But looking at Crimson Twinewing charging at me with absolutely everything it has the exact second the battle start signal goes off, it's glaringly obvious that their motivation is more than fully charged.

"Bring it on! I'm not running or hiding this time!"

Both sides of the back, both arms, both shoulders, both legs, and the left and right of the waist. Excluding the physical blade "Totsuka" held in its hand, propulsion boosters are equipped on literally every single body part. Including the base boosters and the leg jets, it's a completely mobility-focused build equipped with a grand total of fourteen boosters.
It's an insanely specialized build that has completely abandoned even long-range attack methods, meaning that the moment it loses its single sword, its only method of attack becomes ramming into the enemy. But there's no such thing as a pure demerit in games; by shouldering massive demerits, Coracias Lilac has obtained the ultimate wings, entirely distinct from the Kingfisher.

"With how I am now, I can master this thing completely!!"

Fourth, fifth, eleventh, fourteenth boosters ignited. Executing a literal triple axel mid-air, the vividly colored bird evades the Phoenix's charge and takes its back. In response, Crimson Twinewing launches an attack behind itself with swift, agile movements.
However, third, seventh, eighth, thirteenth boosters ignited. Retaining the momentum of the triple axel, Coracias Lilac shifts into an entirely different direction, and the blade it swings down completely destroys Crimson Twinewing's left arm.

Fuhahaha, did you see that Rust! Did you see that Mold! This is the final answer I meticulously thought up! I won with the Fiddler Crab, sure, but I've always been quietly bothered by the fact that I never managed to win a single time with the Kingfisher!
If Crimson Twinewing enables erratic movements by asymmetrically placing its boosters, then I'll just go even further beyond with ultra-ultra-ultra erratic maneuvers using boosters stacked all the way up to the absolute load limit!! Fufufufu, the controls are so chaotic that even I feel like I'm going to lose my mind. But by making the impossible possible, I've achieved these vibrator-esque movements!!!
With a headgear-type VR, the information processing couldn't keep up, resulting in a Russian Roulette-like mech where there was constantly a minimum 30% chance of spiraling out of control in an unrecoverable tailspin and crashing straight into a building. But with the commercial-grade processing power I have now... well, I've managed to suppress it to around 20%!!

"It can barely even move its arms, but this Nephilim... can literally breakdance in mid-air."

I'll thoroughly burn the concept of true three-dimensional maneuverability into your minds. Fall from the sky, you oversized mosquito!!

"Ah, control error... Gubea!"

The concrete of the building that refuses to catch me gently is such a tsundere.

"Ugh... I feel like I'm chugging the sweet wine of victory... ugh... straight out of a barrel... ugh...!!"

".........! .........!"

Despite Rust relentlessly delivering loose gut punches to me, I wouldn't be so tactless as to interrupt my smug victory performance. Well, my avatar has a kettle for a head, so I can't really make a smug face anyway. But regardless, the grudge of the Kingfisher—which had victory slip through its fingers twice—has now been avenged.

"Ugh... Hey, could you stop that soon... ugh. Riding Coracias Lilac honestly makes me... ugh... incredibly motion sick—Ubebebebebebebe."

Wait, wait, stop spamming it, stop spamming! And the power behind each hit is gradually increasing, do you have a stacking buff active or something?!

"One more match...!"

"No... Honestly, fighting consecutive matches with those movements is way too rough on me..."

More than anything else, it's my semicircular canals taking massive damage from that. I mean, connecting a triple axel into an even faster triple axel was something even I thought was an absurdly reckless demand on myself, but I couldn't have achieved my revenge against Crimson Twinewing without doing something on that level.

"Even so, I can't believe you managed to pull off such reckless movements..."

"Truth is, a lot of things happened and I swapped out my VR system."

"...By any chance, is it a commercial model?"

When I answered "Yeah," Mold's eyes went wide with shock. Ah, stop it Rust-san, please stop resuming the gut punches while muttering "It's unfair based on specs alone." Even with the pain sensation limits in place, continuous impacts to my stomach are really not good for me!

"Yeah, yeah. So for the test run, I figured I might as well try using that unruly horse of a build I put together but couldn't control... Well, it's a bird, though."

"Pfft..."

"Sunraku, please stop rendering Mold useless."

"Is this my fault?"

"If he bursts out laughing while navigating, it's going to be a disaster..."

Her shoulders drooping, Rust seemingly gave up on getting her revenge today. Perhaps inspired by the battle that unfolded on the holographic monitors, some are heading off to buy boosters, some are discovering the possibilities of new builds, and others are enthusiastically debating... A passion so intense it's hard to believe this game was underpopulated just recently radiates all the way over to us.

".........I still suspect that this exact moment might just be a dream."

"I bet."

"Maybe you really were the Blue Bird that brings good fortune."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I love this game. I'm certain that decades from now, even right before I die of old age, the last thing I'll remember is this game. That's why I believe... the appearance of the Kingfisher was the turning point for this game."

"No, like I said, what is that supposed to mean?"

It was purely a coincidence of epic proportions. That's a jinx on the level of "If a black cat crosses your path, you'll start pulling terrible RNG." Ah, right, I should probably ask her.

"Rust, they announced a sequel for NephHolo, but are you still going to play ShanFro?"

It's not inherently a bad thing to dedicate yourself entirely to NephHolo, and I have absolutely no right to stop her. But regardless, I did make a contract with Rust and Mold to "provide robots in ShanFro." For them to leave ShanFro without ever using them would leave me feeling... kinda conflicted.

"I plan on continuing both ShanFro and the original NephHolo......... Black Doll has lost their minds. To use the 'ShanFro System' for the sequel of an underpopulated game like this... Idiots. Fools. I'll follow them for the rest of my life...!"

"Wait, seriously?"

The ShanFro System is exactly what it sounds like: the system used in Shangri-La Frontier... in other words, the virtual reality system with a repulsive level of precision. According to what Rust heard from the director of NephHolo and the president of Black Doll—the studio developing NephHolo—they stated: "There is no title within our company more suited for the ShanFro System than NephHolo, and by streamlining the features to a certain extent, we are developing it to utilize the ShanFro System at a relatively low cost..."

I see. You don't necessarily have to run an entire world as an open-world environment. You can build a world limited to a single city like in GH:C, and for a game like this, you can just build specific zones and use loading screens for travel or individual maps. And the upper management determined that as long as they can somehow manage the controls... as long as they can solve the controls, it's entirely possible for this game to cause a massive storm in the industry as a Sci-Fi Mecha Action game...

Thinking about it that way, I truly feel that Rust is incredibly lucky. No matter how much individual users formulate "theories on why it would sell," a game sequel won't get released. Unless the hearts of the people with the power to make that decision are moved, no matter how much you love a game, a sequel won't be made, and eventually, after slowly bleeding players, it becomes a game of the past.

Personally, I think that's fine in its own way. Part of that is because the games I like are exactly those kinds of "past" games, but at the end of the day, a sequel doesn't always guarantee a better game. Ruining the brand built up by the first game with the second or third installment is a phenomenon that has repeated itself countless times throughout gaming history.

That is exactly why this isn't just some game with minor system tweaks and updated characters/mechs slapping a "2" on the title. Being able to look forward to a sequel evolving toward a new horizon using the hyper-advanced technology of the ShanFro System, in real-time... That's an emotion completely foreign to someone like me, who only plays games that have already been judged and relegated to the past. And honestly, I feel a little envious of Rust, Mold, the players who stuck with this game, and the newbies just starting out who get to experience that.

"So naturally, Sunraku... you're going to buy it too, right?"

"............Do I have to buy it?"

"You must. No, it's an obligation. Buy it."

But Rust's words suddenly make me realize something. Right, come to think of it, as someone playing NephHolo right at this exact moment, I'm technically standing on that side too.
I let out a soft sigh, looking at the excited players around me. In this case, should I actually be thanking Faeria Trash? Precisely because I conquered that game, I felt the urge to take a break from trash games. And because of that I started ShanFro, picked NephHolo back up, and through whatever twist of fate, ended up fighting against pro gamers while hiding my face... Life really is unpredictable.

"Anyway, an upcoming sequel with a TBD release date comes second to fighting Ctarrnid tomorrow. Time-limit-wise we're launching our attack tomorrow night, so... please don't play NephHolo so much that you're groggy tomorrow, alright?"

"...Of course. I need to get used to the system in ShanFro in preparation for '2', so I won't hold back in the Ctarrnid fight, and I'll definitely ride the robot."

In the eyes of Rust as she made that declaration, the flames of motivation were undeniably burning brightly.

"A bird... even though I said unruly horse... Who horse... Who horse? Pfft, kukukuku..."[*1]

"Stop creating your own punchlines just to laugh at them."

"This might actually be a pretty severe case this time..."

Author's Afterword
Originally, Rust & Mold were planned to be one-off characters for a single arc, but I somehow grew attached to them, so they're sticking around... That kind of story.
I mixed up the English and scientific names a bit, but Coracias Lilac is based on the "Lilac-Breasted Roller." I really like its coloration; it looks like a MS Paint bucket fill gone wrong.

Even with people complaining about this and that, I really do think it's a blessing when a series manages to keep continuing.
I'm still waiting for Patapon 4...

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Dare-Uma / Unruly Horse: In the original Japanese, Mold is laughing at the phrase "Dare-uma" (誰うま). This is Japanese internet slang for "Who asked you to be so clever?" However, "uma" also means "horse." Since Sunraku called his bird mech an "unruly horse" (jaja-uma), Mold is having a laughing fit over the accidental double-pun of saying "Dare-uma" about an "uma."