Chapter 383: Side 5: Lysogenic Dragon Cells

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"By the way, what does it mean 'to pull a Mold'!?"

"Honestly, I get it."

"Rust!?"

While Rust and Mold were a duo that primarily focused their efforts on Nephilim Hollow, they still couldn't completely ignore the game known as Shangri-La Frontier.
And in preparation for the day when the information brought to them by a certain player belonging to the same clan became a reality, the two were heading toward the Forest-folk village where a facility capable of unlocking the level cap supposedly existed... but before that, they were proceeding through the forest to resolve Mold's leveling needs and simply satisfy their own curiosity.

"...What's this."

"A player... I think?"

"O-Oooh..."

There, they found a dying player who looked like a half-squashed mosquito.

"I never heard that the duration is shorter if it's not a player... Dammit."

"...So, even if it was after a negotiation, I want to hear the reason why you shaved off eighty percent of Mold's HP."

"It's fine since it's a game, but let's stop naturally offering me up as a sacrifice, okay, Rust?"

The man's name was apparently Vigilance. Unable to bear leaving him there, they saved him, only for the man to make the bizarre proposition of "shaving off Mold's HP" in exchange for a certain amount of items.

"That was... well, whatever. I'm probably not the only one anyway. It's a passive effect of the 'Vampire' (Dragonblood Demon Tribe) race."

"Race..."

"Vampire?"

"Vampires are a race that uses their inherent skill 'Blood Charge' to drain blood from monsters that have it... well, it translates to damage, but basically, we gain HP to accumulate a 'Blood-Sucking Gauge'."

The higher the Blood-Sucking Gauge, the more their stats are continuously enhanced. However, the moment the gauge drops below fifty percent, a stat penalty is applied, and the moment it drops below thirty percent, they start taking damage over time.
Does that mean they're a race completely specialized in extreme high-risk, high-reward mechanics? thought Rust, who piloted the Crimson Twinewing—the very incarnation of peakiness—in a certain game (world).

"Well, I'm a solo player... so I figured it'd be fine as long as I kept hunting monsters along the way, but..."

According to him, the skill itself has a high chance of failing against higher-level monsters, and against lower-level monsters, the gauge recovery amount is a measly ten percent.
NPCs apparently possess standard horror-movie morals and recognize the 'Vampire' race as some sort of monster, making communication nearly impossible. This meant that unless he managed to negotiate with players to fill his gauge, the possibility of dying a dog's death constantly followed him around...

"Fortunately, if I respawn, the gauge resets to eighty percent, but..."

"...Inefficient."

"It really is a performance designed to kill solo players..."

Mold threw a question that suddenly popped into his mind at Vigilance, who was holding his head and sighing.

"By the way, why did your race change? Was it that 'Conversion' thing?"

The 'Conversion' system still had very few confirmed cases... Specifically, only the handful of players who had managed to reach the Beastman village had actually experienced it firsthand. Yet, by some coincidence, Rust and Mold belonged to the exact same clan as one of those confirmed cases.
Because of that, they naturally asked the question, but Vigilance shook his head with an expression that still looked quite pale.

"No... I know exactly what caused it. It was Noirlind."

"...Hm."

"Eh."

In a certain sense, Vigilance tilted his head at the bizarre reaction of the two who were on the verge of plunging into a massive vortex concerning that very name, but he accepted it as them simply reacting to the notoriety of the Black Dragon and continued his story.

"After I got killed by that guy, every time I respawned, a weird status effect was applied... I cured it every time, but eventually, my race completely changed."

"That's..."

"The status effect was named 'Infection: Phase X'... At Phase 10, the race change triggers. There's almost no doubt that the colored dragons possess some sort of virus-like forced race-change ability."

Both Mold and Rust were thinking the exact same thing.

No matter how you look at it, siding with Noirlind is definitely the evil route.

Setting that aside, there was no need to idiotically reveal the policy of the clan "Wolfgang". Having agreed on the shared goal of avoiding the roaming Area Boss—which had recently evolved, causing its level of sheer villainy to more than double—to dream of a new area, Rust, Mold, and Vigilance formed an impromptu party and proceeded through the forest.

"I caught a glimpse of that three-headed T-Rex earlier, and man, that thing is out of its mind. No matter how you look at it, the balance has shifted completely from an early-game boss to a final dungeon gatekeeper."

"I heard it's actually surprisingly intelligent and fully understands high-risk, high-reward tactics, which makes it a pain."

"...You seem to know a lot about it."

"Eh!? No, well..."

"...An acquaintance charged it solo."

"Ah, there's no way it has stats that can be beaten solo, but I guess you could still test things out even by yourself..."

Rust immediately threw out an excuse to escape Vigilance's pressing, and since the information truly was brought by an acquaintance who would charge in solo, it wasn't completely false.
That being said, she absolutely couldn't say that there was an idiot in her inner circle who had formed a (self-proclaimed) friendship with the Area Boss acting as optional parts for it. Furthermore, that exact culprit was also one of the reasons the "Scar" evolved into the "Scar-red".

Incidentally, the fundamental root cause of the entire situation was Tottori the Shimane—who was currently being hailed as a Hero—but that fact hadn't gone public yet.

"Still, we haven't encountered any monsters for a while now."

"Well, yeah... that's because I've been actively avoiding them as we advance."

"Eh?"

"...Mold, stealth-based classes can detect monster reactions."

"Eh, but Akitsu Akane..."

"She's a completely different category."

The 'Ninja' class in this game is more like a NINJA disguised as a Ninja. While the skill acquisition tendencies technically allow for fulfilling the role of an authentic shinobi or spy, the 'Ninjutsu' (Magic) you primarily learn is heavily skewed toward fantasy-style jutsu.
And Akitsu Akane is no exception, being a Dragon-Breath NINJA who literally spits lasers from her mouth.

"To tell you the truth, I actually reached the end of this ridiculously massive Sea of Trees once."

".........Really?"

"Yeah. But unlike the Old Continent areas, there aren't any towns or anything. It's highly likely that towns... or rather, NPC villages, are contained within the areas. The Old Continent was like an amidakuji—a set of rails and connections—but the New Continent is just a point inside a circle."

Vigilance's overly dramatic phrasing... or to put it bluntly, his attempt to sound cool, caused the two to exchange a look, but since they more or less understood what he was trying to say, they didn't point it out.

"What kind of place was it?"

"Ahh, a desert."

"A desert..."

Mold and Rust briefly exchanged glances. As far as the currently hidden information went, the place Akitsu Akane—who had broken through the Sea of Trees via sheer luck that could only be described as a massive, invisible force—had arrived at was supposed to be a 'Marshland'. At the very least, there was no way to mistake a desert for a marshland in terms of humidity.

"...A branching path? No, it's more like pasting photos of completely different sceneries together."

"What are you talking about?"

"Ah, um, I just heard a rumor on the wind before that the next area was a volcano!!"

"A volcano? I don't think the New Continent is only painted in two colors—Sea of Trees and Desert—but... well, it's probably fake news nine times out of ten. You should definitely check your sources on that info, you know?"

"Ahaha... Yeah, that's true."

At the very least, it would probably be undesirable for other players to reach the Marshlands at this current stage.
Having somehow managed to cover it up, Mold floated a dry laugh while shooting a reproachful glare at Rust, who had nearly let it slip.

"...So, do you remember the direction?"

"The sun and the moon are great because they follow their set paths right on schedule, don't you think?"

"Astronomy, of all things."

The weather in ShanFro today was completely overcast, so they got lost.

Author's Afterword
Because the onset is probability-based, it doesn't necessarily mean you will absolutely turn into a Vampire. However, dying repeatedly in a short period increases the onset probability.