Chapter 299: Brynhildr Baskerville the Third (14 Years Old)

【Wolfgang】

Sunraku: This is sudden, but I'm taking a poll.

Rust: A poll?

Sunraku: Just say a randomly cool-sounding name.

Rust: Absolute Zero.

Akitsu Akane: No-Blue Scythe-Lent!

OiKatzo: Blood Infection.

Pencil Knight King: Brynhildr Baskerville the Third.

Sunraku: Who the hell is that.

Pencil Knight King: The name a kid used when they sent me incredibly bizarre hate-mail in real life.

Pencil Knight King: I was thinking of publicly roasting them on a massive scale about three years from now to praise their courage for giving me advice from such a condescending, top-down perspective.

Sunraku: Are you a demon?

Kyougoku: Sunrakuuuu... You should come back to the world of Bakumatsu toooo... It's gotten really fun over heeeere...!

Sunraku: An invitation from a Bakumatsu player is basically synonymous with a Divine Punishment warning, you know...

Kyougoku: Do you have any idea how long it took me to escape from that respawn hell...!

Kyougoku: I keep getting surprise-attacked by things that look like ninjas! And I keep getting targeted for "Revenge" for things I have absolutely no memory of doing!

Sunraku: Ah, the Revenge Infection... Yeah, the good players can drag in dozens of people with that at once.

Pencil Knight King: I hate Bakumatsu. Those guys basically convert their conversational abilities straight into lethality.

OiKatzo: You normally wouldn't think there's a world where "Hello! Die!" is even more of a default greeting than in the Post-Apocalyptic Round Table.

Sunraku: If anything, it's more like "Die! (Meaning: Hello)," isn't it?

Kyougoku: Leaving that aside, a cool name... like Ultimate Shogun.

Sunraku: Denied.

Kyougoku: I'll absolutely deliver a Divine Punishment to you someday...!

Mold: More importantly, what's this poll about?

Sunraku: Actually, I made a really huge purchase in ShanFro, but the thing I bought doesn't have a name yet.

Rust: ...What did you buy?

Sunraku: That's a secret.

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

.........

......

"What do I do, at this rate Brynhildr Baskerville the Third is going to end up as the leading candidate..."

Kuh, they're completely useless when it actually counts.
That being said, according to the designer, it's still going to take a bit more time until it's "completed."
Fufufufu... when it comes to mineral resources, there likely isn't a single player who can match me right now. Considering I dumped a grand total of four point nine billion Mani into this including the purchase and modification fees, I absolutely expect it to put in the work to match that price tag...!

"Ahー... Shopping with a completely broken sense of monetary value is the best..."

"H-Hoaaaaah...! I'm holding a hundred million Mani right now, desu wa...!?"

Looking at Emul, who was trembling from both joy and the sheer physical weight of the piled-up grimoires she was holding, I suddenly realized I hadn't properly upgraded my equipment in a while. Since today seems to be a lucky day, I should act immediately.

"Alriiiight Emul! Since we're at it, I'm gonna give your equipment a massive upgrade too, ora!"

"Uhyaa, Sunraku-san is the best, desu waー!"

"I need you to pull your weight on the New Continent, after all...!"

"Uhyaa..."

Hahaha, Emul, what's with those dead eyes? Either way, if you keep partying up with me, we're almost guaranteed to clash with Lycaon and Goldunine eventually, you know?

You've got that great Option (Weight to sit on my head) and Part Compatibility (Size), so we have to make the most of it, right?

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

.........

......

And so, we are currently in the nostalgic first area, the "Rampant Forest."

"Look at that, Emul. Isn't it rare to see Goblins running away screaming and crying like that?"

"Is that what monsters encountering Lycaon look like, desu wa?"

"Hey, hey, that's rude. Doesn't that basically imply I'm the monster here?"

"Uwaah!? What the hell is this guy, a monster!?"

"A-A bird-headed... caveman?"

"It's a rare enemy! Let's take it down!"

"That's a player, you know..."

By the way, this is the twelfth time I've been mistaken for a monster. Since the rare enemies in this area are Vorpal Bunnies, Emul could easily get attacked, so she's currently in Muffler Mode.
I haven't used the Gender-Bend Chalice because it's honestly just a hassle now, and I suspect there might be some inconveniences if my registered gender differs when I sign up at the guild.

"Ahー, this feels so nostalgic. It should technically be pretty recent, but it feels like a memory from a distant past..."

"I don't know the Sunraku-san from back when you were sprinting through here, desu wa. But I can absolutely tell that the density of what happened after this has been way too insane, desu wa."

"And that's mostly because of that bastard Pencilgon... Seriously."

At the very least, getting tangled up with Ashura-kai in Thirdrema, and getting dragged into a massive mess because we defeated Wethermon............

"Yeah, I knew it already, but it really is all her fault."

"I've been faintly suspecting this for a while now, but aren't you just using 'I'm not the root cause' as a convenient justification, desu wa?"

"That's Not True At All."

Well, I always have the excuse "Arthur Pencilgon told me to do it" ready to play whenever I'm in a pinch.
As I walked forward, I kept passing by players who couldn't hide their beginner freshness. Every single one of them would look at my half-naked body with wide eyes and then shoot me a pitying look like, "Ah, he doesn't even have the money to buy equipment..." But honestly, the "My friend!" look I got from a half-naked horse-headed player who apparently made the exact same choices as me hit way harder. I'm not half-naked because I want to be, alright!? I'm unwillingly half-naked! Well, I mean, I originally chose money over appearance and became half-naked, but the root cause wasn't a desire to be half-naked, it was money, so basically, hooray for capitalism!

"Well then, we're finally here."

"I can see it, desu wa!"

There probably aren't many players who see this scenery from this direction.
A view of the forest opening up, running completely counter to the journey everyone takes from "Town One" to "Town Two". Beyond it lies the very first town where Pioneers land to step into the unknown. A town that boasts as much, if not more, liveliness as Thirdrema—the town known as "Firstia."

"Bigger than Secondil, smaller than Thirdrema. But the actual sheer area of it is on par with Thirdrema...?"

"Even so, it feels spacious mainly because there are so many open plazas, desu wa."

Visiting the very first town for the first time while I'm already in a position to checkmate the New Continent evokes a pretty deep emotional response...
It's not a bustling port town like Fifticia, serving as a hub for new journeys, nor is it a plateau city like Thirdrema that acts as a crossroads where players must choose between three paths.
It's spacious, it has a decent number of buildings, but it's got this exquisite rural vibe to it. It perfectly encapsulates the feeling of the "Very First Town of Departure," making you want to just sprint out using nothing but the energy of youth.

"I-It's incredibly crowded and chaotic, desu wa...!"

"And apparently, this is supposed to be one of the quieter periods."

A swarm of Pioneers rivaling a major metropolis. I heard it gets absolutely insane during summer vacation. Well, it's not like there's any reason to stay in this town for over a month, so most players probably set Secondil or Thirdrema as their home base.
Which means that this sheer level of congestion is literally just entirely made up of newly joined players. It's late at night, and yet it's this lively... I wish they'd share even 1% of this player base with games like "Benpi" or "Hazardous Farming" (Thrilling Farm)... Ah, they're trash games, so I guess that's impossible.
Thrilling Farm is great, you know? Farming in a hazardous environment where you have to use a nuclear shelter with the same frequency as going to the bathroom teaches you the cruel truth that "hard work isn't always rewarded" in the form of your entire crop getting wiped out. But even more than that, it teaches you the true importance of "the right person for the right job"!

"...Emul, keep quiet, okay?"

"Yes, desu wa."

Alright then, I'll just register at the Mercenary Guild, get my "Proof," and quickly get out of... Wait, where even is the Mercenary Guild?
Obviously, there's no way I'd know where anything is in a town I've literally just entered for the first time. I might as well explore Firstia a bit, treating it as a sightseeing tour.

"I see... Since they fully anticipated the town overflowing with new players, the shops are mostly set up as street stalls to handle the massive volume."

To handle the massive influx of players rushing in, auntie NPCs had lined up tables in long rows, displaying healing potions and medicinal herbs on top of them, handling customers while shouting loudly enough to push back the noise of the crowd.
Among the crowd, there were a few scoundrels reaching out to steal the displayed items out of a gamer's mischievous curiosity, but their thefts were being preemptively shut down by swift swats and intense glares clearly backed by high AGI stats... No, wait, wasn't that instantaneous speed just now almost on par with Sylvia Goldberg? That auntie is cracked!

".........A rabbit."

"......A snake......"

"Poison......"

Hmm, I'm catching fragments of words that sound very familiar. It seems there's a fair number of players who have already rushed out of this town and subsequently death-warped right back.

This game treats the Rampant Forest as its tutorial, but it absolutely hits you with noob-traps right out of the gate... Just remembering it pisses me off. If it weren't for the Vorpal Soul quota, I would've gone back to bully that shitty snake. Actually, wait, is that thing seriously related to Goldunine or what?

"Kuh, every single one of them is wearing the exact same equipment..."

Well, most of them are players who just started, and since there's very little reason to intentionally come back here, almost everyone is essentially fresh out of character creation.
Which means everyone is wearing the exact same starting equipment chosen from a grand total of maybe two or three options. Sure, there are slight differences in color and gear type, but how should I put this... It reminds me of chick sexing.

"Which paradoxically means that being half-naked actually establishes a rare identity...?"

Oh, a Gazing Bird Mask.
Grow strong, newbie. You're going to get stuck on the Mud Digger, but if you specialize in evasion, that equipment will carry you to the late game...

Just then, my eyes caught a commotion that felt distinctly different from the chaotic hustle and bustle of the crowd.

"What's going on, what's going on?"

Stretching my neck to take advantage of my tall avatar, what I saw was a scene of players facing off against each other. However, they exuded a sense of Familiarity that felt completely out of place in a town meant for raw beginners.

"Winning or losing is secondary!"

"Did you bring the school swimsuit?"

"Yeah I did!"

"Let's settle this fair and..."

""Square!""

No, seriously, what the hell are they doing?

Author's Afterword
There's probably a high school girl somewhere in this world who's going to die of sheer anger about three years from now... Damn you, Pencilgon!

• Revenge Infection
  A technique referred to as an Advanced Divine Punishment method.
  When either the "Miburo Faction" or the "Restoration Faction" gets mass-PK'd due to a certain disparity in combat power, if there is a survivor from the minority faction, it triggers the "Revenge" system. This technique abuses that system to execute a wide-area annihilation Divine Punishment.
  While the Revenge system is active, the surviving player receives a massive bonus correction during combat against "players of the opposing faction who were present in the combat area."
  By utilizing this to intentionally create a chaotic melee with a skewed power balance, a player can forcefully designate uninvolved players in the vicinity as "Enemies of Vengeance," allowing them to successfully execute a Divine Punishment under highly advantageous conditions.
  A ranker from the Restoration Faction known as "Sensou-ya" (Warmonger) excels at this technique. Combined with his exceptionally high personal Bakumatsu-performance, there is a record of him successfully intercepting even the infamous "Aerial Meat-Shield Piercing Surprise Attack Mob-Beatdown Divine Punishment."

In short:
Sensou-ya: "You were in that place at that time, so you're the target of my revenge."
Kyougoku: "Hah?"