Chapter 254: Complete Transmission of Momentum via Striking the Core, and Flight Dependent on Another's Kinetic Energy

Thinking about it now, the strangely high encounter rate I had with Saiga-san was probably a stratagem built on the premise that her real-life identity would be revealed in ShanFro.
That being said, knowing that I can strike up a conversation with her on the premise that she's a ShanFro hardcore gamer makes things a lot easier for me moving forward.

"Ah, speaking of which."

"Y-Yes, what is it!"

"Well, speaking of which. Now that your entry into 'Wolfgang' is practically confirmed, I was thinking I should probably give you the contact address for the SNS we clan members use."

"Addre, ss...!?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll send you my personal address for now, and then I'll add you to the group chat."

Uwaa, she's making an incredible face.
Like a cat making that Bremen, or maybe it was Cold Noodle, reaction face...

"E-E-E, exchange...!"

"O-Ou... Yeah, an exchange."

With movements as if her joints had rusted solid, Saiga-san pulled out her mobile device from her bag, slowly offered it toward me, and...

"I-I may be inexperienced, but I look forward to working with you!"

"Ah~... So, do you have this app installed?"

I've been vaguely feeling this recently, but maybe Saiga-san has a much more amusing ecology than I originally thought... No, no. For lack of a better word, calling it her "ecology" is terrible. That's the kind of vocabulary I reserve for those bastards.

............

.........

......

"Dammit, having such an infuriating ecology...!"

Now this is the correct usage.
After going home from school, I—having suffered a twelve-loss streak against the AI Hanshi: Extreme—embarked on the spectacularly nonsensical endeavor of playing ShanFro as a change of pace from the VR Kendo Classroom: Extreme, which I had originally started playing as a change of pace from ShanFro.

And what exactly am I doing right now?

"Fuh... Nugugu..."

I'm rock climbing in the Canyon of Ancient Souls.

If I unearth any more Uniques, I feel like I'll seriously end up burying myself under the workload, and the interpersonal events are still a little ways off.
So, having quite a bit of free time on my hands, I decided to go play at the home of my buddy, the Crystal Scorpion—something that realistically happened quite recently, yet somehow feels like an incredibly long time ago.

That being said, the "knocking them off the cliff" exploit and the "Inventoria escape" have probably both been patched by the management by now.
Therefore, I was executing Option C: "Scaling the cliff face to gain distance," a strat I had been wanting to test out for a while.

I simply clung to the rock face, moving sideways inch by inch, and whenever my stamina got dangerously low, I'd duck into Inventoria to recover.
Repeating that process endlessly yielded incredibly high void points, but well, this stimulated my Trash Game Soul in its own way, so it was fun in a sense.

"........."

Gently placing my hands on the edge of the cliff, I poked only my head above the top. Since it's nighttime, I figure there shouldn't be any active Crystal Scorpions, at least... Yep, a crystal plain that looks perfectly peaceful on the surface...

"...!"

I hurriedly pulled my head back, clinging to the rock face and holding my breath. A split second later, a massive mass passed right above me, crushing crystals with a loud gashan gashan.
It seems the golden light I caught a glimpse of didn't notice me clinging to the edge, as it simply kept walking away...

Well, considering how many days have passed since then, it's obvious he'd respawn. It's not that I don't find his materials appealing, but today's main course is ore-type items.
Not just in ShanFro, but in hack-and-slash games in general, weapons are usually divided into two categories: "made from monster materials" and "made from ore materials." There are exceptions like wooden weapons, but we'll ignore those for now.

The important point is that this Crystal Nest Cliff is a literal treasure trove of jewel-type items, meaning as long as I can do something about those infuriating scorpions, all that's left is a mountain of treasure.

"Now then..."

If I climb up clumsily, the vibrations will give me away. Actually, as a fundamental prerequisite, in order to reach a mining spot, I have to be noticed and then overlooked by the Crystal Scorpions... As expected, I should use the Golden Scorpion to... No, if I do that, I'll be forced to play tag with it until morning.

"In that case, Plan C it is."

Plan A, "Inventoria Escape," was hard-countered by the management, so it's a no-go.
Plan B, "Scorpions Can't Stop Suddenly," is likely impossible now since I practically sent an arrogant feedback email to the management boasting about it.
That leaves Plan C, the Inventoria Escape Custom... I have no choice but to go with the "Spectrum Inventoria"!

If I die, I die, and I'll just formulate a new countermeasure. Here goes nothing!

"Gooooooood moooorning!!"

Just like the very first time I came here, without a shred of hesitation or stealth, I sprinted toward the mining point at top speed.
Naturally, the Crystal Scorpions reacted to me completely trampling over their detection range, activating and directing their aggro toward me as if to say, You again?
Sorry, but yeah, it's me again.

"Timing, coordinates, and the guts to never mess up when it counts!"

Vorpal Secret Art 【Fading Mirror】 activates, detaching my aggro like a multi-stage rocket booster!
As the massive wave of crystals closed in, I pushed as close to the mining point as possible, 3, 2, 1...

"【Transfer: Storage Space】!"

This is the countermeasure for performing an escape using the patched Inventoria that I devised in Ruluiath. If they're going to ambush me by reacting to residual aggro, I just need to shove all of it onto a decoy.
At the very least, Atlanticus Repnorca completely lost sight of me after the effects of 【Fading Mirror】 expired.

Gulping down a potion that had essentially turned into plain water thanks to a bullshit RNG roll, I waited for the exact moment the aggro decoy disappeared.
Actually, just to be safe, I'll wait until the cooldown for 【Fading Mirror】 finishes......... Alright, it's done.

"【Transfer: Reality Space】"

My coordinates shifted, and I desperately braced myself to keep from slipping off the crystal beneath me.
Fearing that even my breathing might trigger them, I covered my mouth with my hand and looked around... Eei, endure it, endure it.

"............(Guh)"

Despite feeling an increeeeeeeedibly strong reluctance to leave behind the Crystal Scorpion materials scattered all over the area, as the saying goes, "He who chases two rabbits catches neither," so I tearfully gave up on them.
In other words, if you try to capture Emul and Bilac at the same time, they'll team up and beat you up, so you should capture them one by one. Yep.

Now then, pulling myself together. If I leisurely mine here, I'll just get run over by the Crystal Scorpions again. This situation demands rapid execution, but to think I'd end up using this item like this...

With a kotsun, I struck the amber against my exposed chest, and in the next instant, electricity—not metaphorically, but literally—ran through my entire body.

"Haaah-hah-hah-haah! Behold my ultimate technique, 'Accelerated Mining'!"

It's already been proven that the Overflow state can be controlled using Moment Sight. In that case, I just need to repeatedly swing the pickaxe and catch the dropped items at maximum speed!

The pickaxe strikes, and a sparkling ore spawns. And before it even hits the ground, catch! And strike!
What is this, it's amazing! It feels like I'm doing high-speed mochi pounding all by myself! Ah, crap, this is kinda hitting the spot. Alriiight, I'm gonna rack up a high score!

"Uhahahaha, this is insane. It makes me want to optimize my efficiency even fur—Gobea!?"

An impact from directly beside me. When I looked, I saw that I had been violently launched into the air by the Golden Scorpion—which had returned at some point—swinging its tail in a full-moon arc. I was sent flying straight off the cliff, taking a bungee jump without a cord.

Ah, yes, I got carried away. I got knocked off the Crystal Nest Cliff before I could even set a high score...

............

.........

......

"Muguu. I really can't get used to falling to my death..."

"Please refrain from muttering something so incredibly ominous the moment you wake up desu wa..."

You know, when you fall to your death, the time spent falling through the air is actually scarier than the moment of impact. The sensation of your balls shrinking—or rather, the feeling of all your internal organs floating up into your chest—is indescribable.

Even so, the results of my time-killing raid were excellent. I haven't checked exactly what I got, but I picked up at least twenty items.

"Aaah! My pickaxe is missing!"

I was actually getting kinda attached to it!

Perhaps it's just a consumable item anyway...
If I think of it as vanishing into the flow of destiny...
Could this mean I should just hurry up and buy the next one?
Kind of hard to let go of the attachment, though...

Wait a second. If I take the first letter of every line in my current train of thought, it spells out PICK. This is clearly a revelation from God.

"Alright, time for a raid!"

This, too, is the Vorpal Soul! Probably!! I'm going to take back Pickaxe-kun, who's technically been with me longer than Duxram!

One Hour Later.

"Hey, Emul. Wanna hear how I died just now?"

"I'm a little curious desu wa."

"I got swatted into the air by a Crystal Scorpion's tail, and while I was flying through the air doing a triple-and-a-half spin, I got launched even higher by the Golden Scorpion, fell off the cliff, and plummeted head-first straight into the mouth of an Undead Wyvern waiting at the bottom and died."

"...Pufuhyu."

"The hell are you laughing at?"

"This is unweafonable desu waaa!?"

Well, I successfully rescued Pickaxe-kun, who had gotten stuck on the Golden Scorpion's head, so I'll consider it a win. I'll definitely come back to pay my respects someday, though...!
While walking and squishing Emul's cheeks, I ran into Akitsu Akane, who was wearing an incredibly refreshing expression.

"Ah! Sunraku-san! Please listen to this! I did my best!"

"What, did you finally beat that multiplying spear guy?"

"Yes! Exactly!"

Eh, seriously? I actually want to know how the hell you beat that thing.

According to her, the spearman was the type where dealing damage to the clones also whittled down the main body's HP, so in the end, she just gathered them all up and incinerated them together with her Apology Cannon.
She said it like it was no big deal and brushed past it, but shooting a laser out of your mouth is pretty damn insane... Well, she's a ninja, so I guess it can't be helped. Yep.

Author's Afterword
Sunraku's Retry Count: 1 (He casually gathered materials while retrieving his pickaxe)

Akitsu Akane's Retry Count: 54 (She struggled to herd the multiplying spearmen together by sprinting around the arena at full speed)

Saiga Rei's Retry Count: 0 (You can't retry in real life, you know)

I apologize for the delay in updates.
A scrapped ShanFro lore concept resting in the corner of my settings folder whispered, "Write a short story using me," so...
If I actually implemented you, the ShanFro worldview would turn into Drakengard. Having the corpse of a god radiating a curse of despair lying right in the middle of the continent is a bit too much, don't you think?
Well, the current concepts I did implement lean heavily toward Muv-Luv or R-Type, so they're pretty extreme too. Cough cough.

Well, to be perfectly honest, the Star Legend Gacha and the free pulls were absolute garbage, so I fell into a state of extreme depression... (Averts eyes)