Chapter 422: Punched the Shop Curtain and Got Hit with a Flashy Counter

Author's Preface
It's much harder to build up motivation compared to when I'm just brainstorming lore, but since this is an unavoidable development in my clumsy work, I did my best to study up by reading romance novels for the sake of the heroine, but the hurdle is high... It took more time than coming up with the scorpion's lore.

Subject: Vocabulary Detonation
From: Sunraku
To: Takeda Ingen
Body: Epic of President Legend... is great.

Subject: re: Vocabulary Detonation
From: Takeda Ingen
To: Sunraku
Body: It is great...
Putting that aside, I see, it truly is a masterpiece one would want to display on their shelf even after clearing the game!

Subject: re:re: Vocabulary Detonation
From: Sunraku
To: Takeda Ingen
Body: No, seriously, I have nothing but gratitude for Takeda-shi going out of his way to send it to me from Zimbabwe.

Subject: re:re:re: Vocabulary Detonation
From: Takeda Ingen
To: Sunraku
Body: No, no, it was merely pocket change. Well then, I am about to board a flight to Australia, so I will be dropping off for a bit~

Subject: re:re:re:re: Vocabulary Detonation
From: Sunraku
To: Takeda Ingen
Body: Takeda-shi! Making a comment about "dropping" right before boarding an airplane might invite an incredibly dangerous flag!!

"Man, that's just so cool..."

I wanna try saying a line like that someday. But seriously, this guy is just casually flying to the Southern Hemisphere... He seems ridiculously busy, so how on earth does he make time for gaming...? Takeda-shi, a man of many mysteries indeed.

Now then, I even defeated the hidden bosses, the "Goddess's Chosen," and got the platinum trophy, so with this, I can return to ShanFro without any reservations. GH:C? Apparently, its reception isn't too bad, but I can leave that for another time.

Alrighty, off to school, off to school.

"Eh? A decisive battle flag was triggered this weekend?"

"Ah... You really... didn't know..."

"Judging from how you said that... ah, so those guys told you. Well, it's true I spent about two days completely isolated from the network."

Even after clearing it, I was busy emailing Takeda-shi and sleeping. When you dive deep into Full-Dive VR, your relationship with sleep and gaming changes. To put it simply, it becomes a state of "even time spent sleeping feels like a waste."
Top-tier gamers are required to possess the skill of dropping into a deep sleep for a short period to instantaneously recover their brain cells... Even if the body is resting during a game, the brain is still running. If your brainwaves get too chaotic, you're hit with a 24-hour login ban, so it's common courtesy to accurately identify the red zone and push it to the absolute limit.

"Wait, so you're saying all the colored dragons, including Siegwurm, are heading to the frontline base?"

...No, isn't that weird? I could understand if it was just one of them, or if they were attacking the frontline base one by one in order, but there's no reason for them to invade all at once.
Even a boss rush lines them up in order; an all-at-once encounter is just a straight-up trash game. No, wait, would the management here really put out such a sloppy story development...? No, it's more natural to assume that the original intended format was distorted for some reason, right?

"If the flapping of a butterfly's wings can change the future, then a route branch occurring for some reason isn't entirely impossible, huh...?"

"...U-Um?"

"Ah, no, it's nothing, just rambling. More importantly... it seems like you get unique dialogue if you go meet Vash before challenging a Unique Monster."

"Is... that so?"

He's always saying suggestive things, and it feels like he might drop more detailed information as the World Quest progresses.
Besides, Sunraku, Psyger-0, and Akitsu Akane... the processes leading up to this point and our current standpoints are all different.

Vash's deductive reasoning is a bit abnormal. I don't know the mechanics behind how the whole Wimp situation was instantly exposed, but practically speaking, it feels like he's referencing our action logs.
Rei-shi, who seems to be harboring something related to the Genesis lore; Akitsu Akane, who is a walking disaster hazard in progress; and me, whose concealed disaster hazard got exposed... If possible, I'd like to collect all of our individual dialogues, but apparently, that guy is currently heading to the frontline base while in hiding... Wait, are you seriously tagging along with this Noirlind guy's log-ins and log-outs?

"...Seems like a lot has progressed while I wasn't looking."

"The other players also... seem to be making various moves..."

Is that so? Then maybe I should also make various moves in preparation for the decisive battle.
With Emul joining up, I practically have unlimited fast travel to the Villa, Tearplaten, and the frontline base. In that case, the most important thing is figuring out what to bring, I guess?

"...Nn, we're at school already."

"Ah... Um, it seems... we've arrived."

Time really does feel shorter when the conversation is lively.

And then.

"Hm?"

Is someone coming this way? There shouldn't be any reason to go out the main gate during morning arrival time... More importantly, their gaze is aimed straight at us.

"Who's that... A friend of yours, Saiga-san?"

"Eh? No, we aren't... exactly friends... but, but..."

You're being awfully evasive about it? While I was tilting my head in confusion, the man walking toward us had closed the distance to where I could clearly see his features in detail.

How do I describe him... He looks like a guy created by asking thirty people for their definition of a "handsome guy" and turning the results into a composite sketch.
When you play games all the time, you naturally get plenty of opportunities to see beautiful men and women characters... and he sort of looks like them, but also doesn't. It's rude to think this about someone I'm meeting for the first time, but... he's the type of handsome guy whose face is hard to remember.
The type where even if you try to recall his face, other characters pop into your head and his actual face becomes blurry.

"Hey there, Saiga-san."

"H-Hello... Isurugi-san."

"I caught sight of you, and I just couldn't sit still..."

Huh, am I being ignored here? Well, it's our first time meeting, so I guess this is normal. If he suddenly started talking to me, it'd actually be creepier.
Also, his face tier is ridiculously high. Even taking into account that she's a hardcore game addict, Saiga-san's specs as a human being are in the upper tiers, but this Isu... Isurugi? His specs are pretty damn high too. He's taller than me; isn't he over 180 cm?

"It's rude to ask first thing in the morning, but... have you reconsidered...?"

"...As I have told you previously, I must decline."

"Alright then, I'll be going on ahead."

"How can you say that! An outstanding talent like yourself..."

Ah.

Instantly, my hand caught Isurugi-shi's wrist as it reached out toward Saiga-san, stopping it in its tracks.

".........Ah."

"...What are you doing all of a sudden?"

"Don't move, unless you want to die."

Whoops, my bad, I got a little too intimidating because I was roleplaying the President. Well, whatever, the situation is urgent.
While keeping my grip on Isurugi-shi's wrist, I kept my expression stiff and slowly, carefully reached my other hand toward Isurugi-shi's neck.

Without provoking it, without showing hostility... but gently urging it to leave a place it shouldn't be.........

"Would you let go of me... Gah!"

"Ah."

Isurugi-shi's body stiffened, and he forcefully shook off my hand. Perhaps moving so suddenly was a bad idea, or perhaps it interpreted a minute change imperceptible to humans as "hostility"... In the end, the guy sporting the absolute most dangerous yellow-and-black stripes in the natural world shifted into attack mode and exercised martial force against Isurugi-shi's neck.

"Ouch!!?"

"Um, there was a bee, so........."

I shooed away the buzzing bee—whose form was clearly different from the roundish ones like honeybees or carpenter bees—and when I turned around, Isurugi-shi was standing there with a pale face.

"A, Anaphylactic Sho, Sho... It hurts!"

"Have you ever been stung by a bee before?"

"H-Hospital! Just call an ambulance!!"

"You're overreacting. Just answer me, have you ever been stung by a bee before?"

"N-No...!"

Ah, then he's probably fine.
Bee venom is usually only in the dead zone from the second sting onward, and from the quick glimpse I got, it looked like a paper wasp, not the King of Dangerous, the giant hornet. Both suck, but it's better than a poison cocktail.

"You're... quite knowledgeable, aren't you?"

"Eh? Ah, yeah, well... A lot of things happened."

There was a time when my mom got really into collecting beehives... We actually have a hornet's nest bigger than a bowling ball in our house. Fighting to stop my mom's ambition when she drunkenly schemed to set up a beekeeping facility in our yard with the whole family mobilized is a fond memory... Actually, no it's not.
My mom's burst DPS is way too high. She's the most dangerous person in our house.

"Just in case, you should probably go to the nurse's office. The pain will probably subside by tomorrow or the day after, but... stop crying, you can walk perfectly fine, can't you?"

"U, Uuuh...!"

Watching Isurugi-shi waddle away, I realized the shocking fact that I was already having trouble remembering his face.

"How should I put it, he was an interesting guy... whoever he was."

"That person... is the Vice President... of the Student Council, you know?"

Eh, seriously? I don't even remember what the Student Council President looks like. Was it a woman?

Author's Afterword
If Iwamaki-san were here, she would definitely be doing a fist pump right now.

Q. Why is she declining?
A. Because then she wouldn't be able to stalk him.

Writing romance is way too difficult... Even when I try to adjust the pacing of the story, the Happy End Yakuza living inside the author's heart starts having an allergic reaction... It hurts... It's seriously impossible, I'm just going to save up Fil... [*1]

Translator's Note

• [1] Granblue Fantasy. The author is saying "I give up on romance writing, I'm going back to gacha grinding."