Chapter 368: Wisdom Looks Back and Speaks

Author's Preface
I bombed my gacha pulls for Swimsuit Ilsa.

I pulled Murgleis, but I want to uncap my second Ixaba... I want to smugly play a Niten Ichi-ryu Kengo with Ixaba...

There's a whole mountain of things to retort to here, but I'm just utterly exhausted, so I'm going to log out.
Crawling sluggishly out of the makeshift base I had Allure secretly build for me via a "request," I confirmed my body had returned to being a man, swapped back to my usual bird head, and gave a light stretch.

"Yo, Emul. Nice morning, huh."

"Even if you're using a refreshing voice, I feel like a whole lot of things are wrong here desu wa."

"A bit late for that, aren't we."

But for Araba to surface at this exact timing... Was fishing that thing up really the flag after all?
Those fiends and that pervert are absolutely dying of laughter right now... But I guess you could call it a net positive, seeing as I successfully escaped from that spot. I did, but... making my female mode public might have been a serious blunder. Looks like I'll have to continue my hermit playthrough either way... No, wait a minute?

"If I just make it so they have way bigger things to worry about, I might actually be able to manage this...?"

I held back on the information regarding Wethermon out of some consideration for her, but Raid Monster info is fundamentally something that should be widely known. If so, by dragging Tottori and Deep Slaughter into this, I can use the massive scoop bomb that is the "Devouring Great Crimson Clad" to divert their attention to some extent............ No good, my motivation is being chipped away like I'm taking slip damage. I'm just gonna sleep.

"Emul, let's head back to Rabituza."

"Yes, sir!"

Now then, we've returned to Rabituza, but...

"Hey, Emul."

"What is it desu wa?"

"We're incredibly exhausted, so wouldn't it be fine to report the fight with the Devouring Great Crimson Clad later?"

"Sunraku-san? Being selfish is no good desu wa."

Just this once, I curse real-time progression, baby. Can't be helped... Let's go.
I made my way through the Rabbit Palace, feeling so familiar with it I might as well be a freeloader, heading toward where Vash was likely to be. I recently realized this, but I'm starting to suspect that Vash's appearance is tied to the numerical value of my Vorpal Soul.

When I'm prioritizing efficiency for gathering materials or whatever, I almost never run into him, but conversely, I spot him quite often after engaging in fierce battles or playing a few rounds in the ball game tournament.

And so, finding Vash puffing on his pipe—wait no, he was crunching on a long, thin carrot—just as expected, I gave him the report regarding the "Devouring Great Crimson Clad" that Emul and I had faced.

".........And, well, both Emul and I managed to survive in one piece, yeah."

"Sunraku-san's Vorpal Soul was absolutely surging desu wa!"

"Ooh... Is that right, is that right."

As always, he was a yakuza rabbit who didn't feel like an NPC from a fantasy game at all. But as for Vysache himself, he looked up at the ceiling with distant eyes, as if recalling something.

"The Devouring Great Crimson Clad... Ahh, I know it... A nostalgic, yet utterly detestable name, it is..."

Vash never breaks his top-tier character behavior no matter the time or place, but for just a brief moment, an expression resembling regret surfaced on his face. However, before I could ask him about it, Vash returned to his usual magnanimous smile and shifted his gaze back to Emul and me.

"Ya did good, you two... That thing's a monster from the Genesis... A remnant from even before the Divine Age, the 'Blood' of a god that fell upon this land, ya see..."

The blood of a god... So that mysterious Thorn I saw underground really was...

"Looks like ya've got a rough idea of it... That's right. Every last one of us is livin' right on top of a massive corpse, ya see."

"Ueeeeeeeh!?"

"Hahaha, Emul. The problem isn't what's on top of us, it's what's below us, ya know?"

"I absolutely didn't mean it like that desu wa—!!"

It's a joke, a joke. But thinking back on Vysache's story, the information I've gathered so far, and above all, Rei-shi—who seems to be biting into the core of this game completely separate from the Unique Scenarios—things are starting to become clear.

"The Old Continent and the New Continent... Aniki, does that mean exactly what I think it means?"

"...Exactly right. This place is the Black God, the Left Genesis Beast 'Erebos'... the very tip of its Wing, ya see."

A wing... So it's an avian? A bird growing thorns harder than some poorly-made swords? Wait, so those aren't thorns... they're Feathers?
No, what's even crazier is that, despite Vash claiming Erebos-kun is a "corpse," as far as I know, its red blood cells and... well they're blue, but white blood cells? Macrophages? They're currently putting on a smash-hit performance right now.

I physically silenced the red blood cells, but since it's a Raid Monster, its resurrection is literally only a matter of time, and I really doubt leaving them alone is the best option.

"I'm starting to get a vague idea of the Bad End here..."

Surely they wouldn't do something as insane as completely destroying a shared, full-dive world populated by a massive number of players... I do have that optimistic thought, of course. But even so, I can state this with absolute certainty: if it's the developers who implemented something like Unique Monsters, they'd probably actually do it.

"Amachi Ritsu... So you truly were a lunatic..."

The moment she was involved in both Faer-kuso and SpellCre, she was already far from a normal human being. She's gotta be some kind of trash-game missionary chosen by the God of Trash Games, or something along those lines.
Destroying the world in an MMO is a massive no-no, right... No, but wait. Considering the Devouring Great Crimson Clad was defeated by our (Players) hands, was this actually part of her plan too?

"What a terrifying woman..."

"Ah, that's right, Sunraku."

"Yes, what is it?"

"Ya got somethin'... connected to the Devouring Great Crimson Clad, didn't cha?"

"...Yeah. It's ominous in more ways than one, so I'm honestly hesitant about whether to actually use it or not."

At the very least, since I can't hold the reins on its demerit, I can't use it anywhere near Emul, and by the same logic, I can't use it in crowded player areas. Waking up back to my senses only to find my PN completely dyed red isn't a laughing matter.

"That right there... is what ya'd call an 'empty vessel' severed from its own ego. By ya becomin' its Will, it exercises its true nature... And the more ya use it, the more that power will acclimate to ya, ya see."

"...In other words, you want me to actively use it?"

"Gahahaha! That's up to Yer own will. But as long as ya've got that 'Scar' carved into ya by that mutt, ya won't be steppin' over that final line..."

I see? In other words, Vash is trying to say this: Due to the effect of the engraved Scar, I currently cannot undergo Conversion. Whether that includes Demi-Conversion is something I need to test, but for this specific situation, that very restriction is directly neutralizing the demerit.
Meaning, I should master the Brood=Krone right now, while I can "completely ignore the Rampage Check and only reap the benefits."

"In that case, the Crystal Nest Cliff is definitely..."

Normally I treat them like the balls in our ball game tournament, but this time, I'm going to turn them into my personal punching bags, huh... Nice, nice. As expected, we really are best buddies!

"And finally... Looks like ya broke through a shell, didn't cha?"

"A shell... Er, well, yes."

He means the level cap, right?

"In that case... go pay Elke a visit."

"Elke?"

"Big sis Elke?"

"Yeah... The way ya are now, ya should be able to see Elke's Secret Law (Law)."

A secret art, a secret law... As always, this rabbit only says incredibly profound things (in the truest sense of the word).
That being said, once a flag is raised, it's human nature to want to trigger it. Accompanied by Emul, I headed toward the Pruning Grounds within the Rabbit Palace... I still have to go see Bilac after this too, so I'm basically bouncing around like a pinball.

Author's Afterword
"Tuning" (Ritsu) is the concept of a passive world interfering from the outside in. "Law" (Hou) is the concept of an active organism asserting itself from the inside out. Ritsu Amachi has nothing to do with it, but from a world-lore perspective in the game Shangri-La Frontier, this is an extremely important setting.

Left Genesis Beast Erebos:
A Demon Lord who aimed for the heavens, and a super-galactic penguin. Its special skill was annihilating others to prove that it alone was the "Only One." Because its red and white blood cells move autonomously, it's practically Cells at Work... Also, the platelets are soft and cute, or rather, way too soft.
By the way, the true identity of those thorns is super-galactic split ends, since it lacked super-galactic cuticles...
Because of the simple yet absurdly broken trait of "having no level cap," it was the strongest "Individual" during the Genesis Age, but it died in a mutual kill against the strongest "Swarm"—the super-galactic bipedal turtle—whose level was defined by their combined total value.

The turtle's name? A brilliant duelist would already know it. [*1]

Translator's Note

• [1] Yu-Gi-Oh TCG. If the Left Beast is Erebos the Underworld Monarch, the Right Beast could be Aither the Heavenly Monarch.