Chapter 610: Searching for Entertainment at the Cost of Funds, Is There Anything Good?

Leviathan's Third Shell Layer, 「Playboard」.

While it's one or two sizes smaller than the First and Second Shell Layers, it is still a super-massive, omnidirectional amusement area far larger than any poorly constructed city.

Unlike the previous Shell Layers, what is required here isn't the physical strength to defeat enemies, but rather... the skill to win at gambling.

Slots, Competitive Tactical Mech racing instead of horse racing, roulette, card games, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera... Using their earned Scores as capital, Pioneers have to carve out a path leading to the Fourth Layer floating right in the center of this enclosed cradle of desires.

That being said, it's a cyber-fantasy casino impossible to replicate in real life no matter how hard you try, so playing around a little bit should be fine. I immediately agreed to Survival's proposal, and the three of us—including Rei-shi—scattered with the arrangement to regroup at a designated location in one hour.

───And so, right now, I was in Rabituza.

Huh? Casino? Amusement? You can mess around with that stuff after you clear it. It'd be one thing if there were required items dropped there, but at the end of the day, it's just a stage gimmick to reach the next Shell Layer, which means there are matters of far higher priority.

"Elkeee!! Cancel all of my Connection skills!! Also, I'm doing a standard Skill Pruning for the first time in a while!! It's the only way to reach the maximum number of Sublimations in the shortest, fastest time possible!!"

"Aha-! Thanks for your business〜!!"

Because we are business partners, the trust tying us together isn't based on emotion or love, but strictly on Mani—both I and this money-grubbing rabbit fully understand that. That's exactly why Elke didn't question my reason for suddenly deciding to dissolve all my connections at once, and why I silently stacked up the cash.

This is fine, this is perfectly fine... Simplification pushed to the absolute extreme carries its own artistic flair. The same goes for skills; I can naturally make up for the lack of move variety with my weapons, and any recast times can be entirely covered by The Fool.

"Are you sure though〜? Getting rid of almost all those hard-earned High Connection skills〜?"

"It's fine. What I need right now is an elite lineup of unified quality."

In the worst-case scenario, I can just reacquire them; the Skill Gardener should have a system that lets you re-obtain skills you acquired in the past. I always thought it was a pain to deal with and completely unnecessary since I already had superior versions anyway, but I see, so it's actually useful for times exactly like this.

"For now, lump all the Dual Connections together, I'll have to think a bit about the Triple Connections and up."

Alright, alright. If I do this here, and these two can be combined, then I'll merge them over here... How about this!!

"Alright, perfect."

The total number of skills I have equipped has actually increased compared to before I started messing with them, but I've successfully dismantled all the High Connection skills. With this, I can start raising the proficiency of the base skills themselves... Though, man, this really is rough; I wonder if I can actually manage it before I gain my remaining 2 levels.

"You're short 500 Mani〜?"

"Put it on my tab... Wait, how can you make such a disgusted face over a measly 500 Mani?"

"My least favorite words are 'splitting the bill' and 'put it on my tab'〜"

"Put it on my tab."

"Can't be helped, I guess〜..."

It should be fine, considering I constantly dump a stupid amount of money into her pockets on a daily basis. Forty minutes left until regrouping. Finding something random to beat up as a test run for my skills would be nice, but it'd be inexcusable if I was the only one constantly getting sidetracked during our conquest of the Third Layer. I need to properly search for a clue to clear it.

◆

And so, the place I ended up at was slightly unique, or rather, a facility within the Third Shell Layer showing properties slightly different from the rest—commonly known as the "Tower."

What goes on here is... Fa... Fa? No, wait, I'm pretty sure it was Phi...

"Fieldwork Genesis?"

『It is Phylogenetic Geoglyph. It's the trading card game Leviathan proudly released!!』

That's right, what is played here is a TCG, commonly known as a trading card game.

Trading card games are actually a category I'm rather unfamiliar with. Unlike buy-to-play consumer games, you have to constantly spend money just to keep up with the changing meta, but more importantly, they are classified as tabletop games. Above all else, because player skill is purely based on logic rather than physical action, it's difficult to become outstandingly strong in them.

Since it's Full-Dive, you can freely summon monsters and cause natural disasters in real-time, so of course there are VR-compatible games like this, but...

"With those kinds of games, you usually just scan a deck you built in real life with a reader to reflect it in the Full-Dive environment, after all."

Well, I just don't play them... I hear Takeda-shi has a friend who is still an active player in them right now. Apparently, that person's catchphrase is "TCGs are a money game."

Because of that, I'm not really knowledgeable about TCGs. So if you're wondering why I chose this place... In the Third Shell Layer, which is mostly filled with gambling or physically demanding minigames, this is the only place that can be conquered through pure logic.

It's worth investigating, which is exactly why I stepped in here, but... well, naturally, I quickly realized that without a deck, it's not even worth discussing.

『In PhyloGeo, a pre-constructed deck is distributed for free at the very beginning, however...』

"Yeah, it'd probably be pretty hard to keep winning with just that."

What's required is a deck that can win. A top-tier... Did the TCG scene call it the meta? Anyway, a meta deck, and above all else, Rare cards are required.

"Alright, 'Isana', to kick things off, I'm buying five boxes of these 'Your Experience' booster packs!"

『How bold of you! These packs will specifically dispense cards of the monsters you have personally encountered so far. In other words, you could say it allows you to build a deck entirely unique to you!』

I see, monsters I've encountered up until now, huh? If that's the case, my prime targets would definitely be the Crystal Scorpions, the giant insects of Sigmonia, Unique Monsters, and the like.

In exchange for a massive chunk of my Score, I grabbed the boxes dispensed from the vending machine, sat down at an empty seat in the free space, and immediately started cracking packs.

"By the way, what are the rarities like?"

『From lowest to highest, they are Common, Uncommon, Rare, Extinction, Legendary, and The One!』

No Super or Berry? No, wait, Extinction must mean extinct species, which implies that Rare literally means exactly that, a "Rare SpeciesRare".

"By the way, is there a current meta deck right now?"

『Let's see... The one with the highest adoption rate would probably be the Dragon-ification Meta deck incorporating "Polluted Environment".』

"Dragon... Ah, yeah, 'cause they're practically my neighbors."

Anyway, Pack 1.

・Crystal Scorpion (Common)

・Crystal Scorpion (Common)

・Crystal Scorpion (Common)

・Elder Crystal Scorpion (Rare)

・Unbalanced Diet Environment (Rare)

.........Uhh? Pack 2.

・Crystal Scorpion (Common)

・Crystal Scorpion (Uncommon)

・Starvation Alteration (Uncommon)

・Golden Crystal Scorpion (Rare)

・FM's Chrysalis "War Orphan" (Legendary)

"Ah, I get it. Crystal Scorpions have a low rarity because their population is massive, right?"

『Ah, no... Because "Your Experience" pulls reference data directly from an individual's combat memory, it most likely means you have encountered and defeated them so frequently that they have been reduced to a Common... For other players, they are almost always dispensed as a Rare or Legendary at the very minimum.』

"It's not a reprint pack, you know..."

I was starting to get a very bad feeling about this. And that feeling instantly turned into absolute certainty the moment an Usurper Dragon—promoted all the way to a Legendary Rare—popped out...

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Author's Afterword

Because the rarity of the exact same card can change depending on the person, it's entirely possible for an ultra-rare Usurper Dragon to be born.

Common: A commonplace entity the player has encountered frequently, fought frequently, and defeated frequently. Scorpions absolutely shouldn't have ended up here, but...

Uncommon: An entity the player has a decent amount of experience encountering, fighting, and defeating, but hasn't killed a massive number of times. If it's a powerful monster, it might be promoted to this tier.

Rare: Rare entities. Monsters with incredibly low populations in the world of ShanFro end up here, regardless of their actual strength.

Extinction: Extinct species. Dispensed very rarely depending on the Common, Uncommon, and Rare cards the player currently possesses.

Legendary: Legendary entities, or rather, entities that wouldn't be out of place being called legends. In Sunraku's case, because his struggle rate and encounter experience with it were so astronomically skewed, the Usurper Dragon somehow ended up recorded here.

The One: The singular, highest rarity reserved for entities with a distinctly defined "Individual" identity. They are added to the drop pool the moment they are encountered, and Unique Monsters fall strictly into this category.

However, the drop rate for them is a one-time thing and insanely stingy, and as for their performance... you can guess.