Chapter 655: The Scale That Indicates Essence

That is that, and this is this.

Although I had achieved the rather unpleasant feat of completely alienating almost everyone present with my Magibyte count, a certain problem arose... That's right, Emul.

Emul is not from the Second Humanity species; she is a full-fledged Vorpal Bunny... which means the Behemoth recognizes her as a monster. If she hadn't been in a party with me the moment we entered, she might have been forcibly ejected.

So, having accumulated almost a trillion Magibytes, I tried negotiating with "Ivory." I figured, with this much collected, surely she could let Emul accompany us to the next layer? And Ivory's response to that was...

『If she occupies the pet slot.』

The one who voiced a massive objection to this was none other than Emul herself.

She declared: Yes, she was well aware that she was a Vorpal Bunny and not in the same category as humans like Sunraku-san. However, as an intelligent being, her standing was completely equal, and she was absolutely not a pet, NOT A PET!!!!! Listening to Emul's passionate speechfurious rampage and soulful shouting, "Ivory" made absolutely no attempt to hide her 'what is this thing talking about' expression... but no matter how much she tried to persuade her, Emul absolutely refused to throw away her dignity.

Left with no other choice, I had to beg and plead with MotherIvory to somehow allow Emul to proceed to the next layer by fulfilling the same conditions as a Second HumanityPlayer. For some reason, the heavy warrior sucking on a pacifier looked at me as if he were looking at a friend, but unfortunately, I don't have any pacifier-sucking friends in either games or real life, so it must have been my imagination.

Anyway, when we measured her, she fell slightly short of the quota, so we decided to do some shopping at the 'Shopping Mall' on the Sixth Layer. I could probably just hand her something random and be done with it, but well, part of me simply wanted to check out the wares.

"Basically, it feels pretty similar to the Fourth Layer of the Leviathan..."

Except, how should I put this... the lineup is kind of pathetic. No, that's not it. Rather than being pathetic, the massive weapons and the "Key" series that were sold for exorbitant prices in the Leviathan aren't even listed here. The Sixth Layer... in Leviathan terms, this is only about equivalent to the Third Layer. It probably just means they have no intention of offering that kind of merchandise until we reach around the Eighth Layer.

"Emul, how about this?"

"What is that desu wa!?"

"Hmm, well. For example, let's say you place this part over here... and the other part over here, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then, between these two parts, a taut, wire-like string of magic energy is stretched out like this."

"Uh-huh."

"And then, if someone touches it, it violently explodes."

"That's an incredibly dangerous object desu wa!?"

In the general world, I'm pretty sure this is called a Claymore mine... and since it uses a tripwire, it's the indiscriminate type. Well, when it comes to FPS experience, I've played as a Medic and a Medic so damn much that I've both planted and been blown up by these kinds of mines countless times... Ugh, the fact that I know its usefulness firsthand is exactly why I have such a bad impression of it. Still, it is useful.

"No, see, since you're so small, Emul, I think adopting a strategy where you sneakily plant these things around wouldn't be half bad."

"I have a strange, absolute certainty that it's Sunraku-san who'll end up tripping over it desu wa!"

"Don't be stupid, there's no way............. Well, I can't deny the possibility that it might coincidentally happen."

Wire-types have an insanely high friendly-fire rate... you always trip them right after you forget about them. And as is the norm for Claymore mines, their lethality is absurdly high, so you just straight-up die. Situations where you go, 'Who the hell put steel balls in this?! Oh right, it was me!!' are not actually that uncommon. Precisely because it's full-dive VR, it's perfectly normal for realism-focused FPS games to intentionally omit friendly-fire countermeasures.

Glancing over at the pedestal, it seemed another player had cleared the condition. Considering that just a single Noblu Scythelent was apparently worth 80,000 Magibytes, this was honestly the kind of hurdle where you could easily clear it without shopping just by stepping outside the Behemoth once to pull resources from your storage or wherever.

As a side note, Rei-shi managed to crank out an astonishing score of 700 billion. To possess a Magibyte count—an information mass—that rivals mine even when I included an entire ship, she really is a true hardcore gamer. When I asked, she told me that the moment we cleared the Leviathan, she took every single piece of equipment, item, and miscellaneous thing she had deposited in various places and shoved it all into her Inventoria.

Compared to the 'quality' and 'quantity' I had gathered over a few months, the resources Rei-shi had stockpiled over roughly a year fell slightly short... or so I thought. But when I secretly asked "Ivory" about the ratio of my information mass, it turned out that about 40% of it was taken up by that "katana" I was holding onto for Vash.

In other words, my actual information mass barely scraped 500 billion. Yeah, Rei-shi really is insane.

Speaking of Rei-shi, she was currently being talked to by "Ivory" and was pinned in place. She kept shooting glances in my direction... Fufufu, worry not. I understand perfectly well what you're trying to convey, Rei-shi. You want to hurry up and go to the next layer, right?

"Whatever works, just pick something you like."

"Then I'll take this one desu wa!"

"Yeah, sure, not bad. Let's just buy a quick 100 of them then."

"I can't carry that many desu wa!!"

Carry it with guts. No, wait, that won't work, this is about information mass... Ah, right.

"Here, hold onto this."

"This is..."

"A Rebirth Teardrop. This looks like it has a pretty high Magibyte count, doesn't it?"

"I'll hold onto it for now desu wa!"

"Also, these Lapisteria Star Crystals."

"Didn't you just get tired of dealing with this desu wa!?"

Well yeah, of course I did. To be blunt, I just want to move on to the next area already. From what I can see, the Behemoth's Sixth Layer seems to have an even worse lineup than the Leviathan's Fourth Layer. The only people who get super excited over slightly different manufacturer models of the exact same weapon category are guys like Rust and Yashirobird. Besides, the guns in this game aren't superior enough to completely render melee physical weapons and primitive ranged weapons obsolete like they did on modern-day Earth.

Unlike other weapons, the base firepower of a gun itself cannot be externally enhanced. For example, if Rei-shi held a sword and a gun that both dealt 100 damage, and The Professor cast an enhancement spell on her before she attacked, the sword's damage would increase to 120, but the gun's attack would remain at 100.

Even factoring that in, guns still have plenty of unique advantages... but, I wonder. I feel like there's a catch here. Would the devs of this game really create something like a 'meta weapon type'? I have my doubts...

Well, honestly, it's a hurdle that can be cleared just by holding onto something packed with magic. Having shoved a massive amount of Lapisteria into the inventory system she possesses even as a Vorpal Bunny, Emul safely hit the 100,000 Magibyte mark. Rei-shi, who had seemingly finished her conversation with "Ivory," regrouped with us, and we advanced to the Seventh Layer.

---

Author's Afterword

Actually, while this is presented as "Let's shop on the Sixth Layer to reach 100,000 Magibytes!", it's really a gimmick designed to make players realize that "A tempered sword has more Magibytes than a commercially available gun."

It's a trap meant to say, "What's the point of buying out the weapons used by losers!?" Whether or not they notice it depends entirely on the world-building investigation squad of 【Library】.