It reminded me of some ancient MMORPGs where players or guilds who crafted ultra-rare items would get publicly paraded around by the system. I’d been on the edge of my seat there.
Fortunately, the announcement just said a player got the skill and nothing more.
Anyway, let’s check out my skills again... Yep.
Fishing Mastery, Dismantling Mastery, Trapping Arts, and more. Pretty much every skill I’d focused on was gone, and I hadn’t met the conditions to learn them again.
Yet, the sensation I felt—more so, the bonuses—when holding a fishing rod didn’t seem to have dwindled at all. If anything, my senses felt sharper than ever before.
And since my equipment only had a minimum Energy requirement and didn’t need any specific skills to equip, that wasn’t an issue.
Now then...let’s look at this Exclusive Slot item.
Hunting Gear Weapon Slot: Beginner’s Hunting Gear
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Description: A special beginner’s weapon granted to the player who acquired the Unique Skill Hunting Gear. Possesses the power to link corresponding weapons with a mysterious force.
So does that mean I have...more weapon slots? How does that work?
Curious, I pulled it out of my inventory and found something like a glassy orb in my hand.
“What’s this?”
This is Hunting Gear?
Please set a corresponding weapon.
It pulled up a list of the weapons I had on hand. It seemed I could input dismantling weapons, fishing rods, and bows.
Maybe there were other compatible weapons, but that was everything from what I had on hand.
Pickaxes and drills could not be slotted.
Well, maybe that was obvious; those were for excavation, not hunting.
Ah, I got an item called Hunting Gear Manual. Reading the instructions is important.
Hunting Gear allows you to instantly shift between hunting weapons by setting them in the Hunting Gear Core. This eliminates the lag when switching weapons and allows you to swap simply by focusing on a skill that requires a different weapon type.
By swiftly switching weapons, you can chain skills that previously could not be linked.
So basically, it’s a weapon that lets me use skills without going to the trouble of swapping between a fishing rod and a dismantling weapon. For now, I’ll set a few things and give it a test run.
I opened up the slots and inserted my Munagi Bone Rod and Blue Shark’s Ice Knife... Ah, looks like you can’t put in duplicate weapon types. So they’re not going to let me do the ultimate fishing rod, fishing rod, fishing rod loadout. How stingy.
That was a bit inconvenient. There were times when it was better to change between weapons of the same category to better match the enemy. Not that complaining to the system was going to do anything for me.
Oh, but I can put Energy Blade in there.
That felt like a bit of an overlap, but apparently the system didn’t mind. It felt a bit sloppy, to be honest.
Beginner’s Hunting Gear
■ Munagi Bone Rod
■ Blue Shark’s Ice Knife [Sinner of Thieves]
■ High-Density Enhanced Energy Blade Attachment V
That looks about right.
“Okay,” I muttered.
Immediately, the glass orb turned into a fishing rod. The orb had embedded itself in the center of my reel.
So that’s the transformation gimmick?
“Maybe the stats changed...?”
I gave it a few test swings...but that wasn’t enough to tell. Still, the fact I could use it without Fishing Mastery meant it wouldn’t be an issue.
“Hate & Lure.”
I fired off the skill at no one in particular... That was a skill that hadn’t been reset. It still worked just fine.
“Into Cleaver.”
The lure zipped through the air and vanished as soon as it made contact with the wall; in that instant, my weapon shifted into the ice knife and unleashed Cleaver.
“Hmm...”
So that’s how it works... It’ll take a bit of getting used to, but being able to instantly fire off a different skill might give me an advantage. But what about charge skills?
I switched back to the fishing rod and focused on using Blood Flower.
And then...it began charging, still in rod form.
“I see... So I can charge it while using a different weapon... That might be handy. Hate & Lure.”
The rod’s Hate & Lure shot out as per usual.
“Blood Flower!”
And this was immediately followed by a transformation and Blood Flower’s animation with barely any downtime.
That’ll remove some gaps in my defenses.
The only issue I was seeing was...that this would be far more effective in the hands of someone like Shouko or Tsumugi with lightning reflexes.
Next up is combat skills. Let’s see... Hiding Hunt?
“Hiding Hunt.”
My body faded into a semitransparent state.
Hmm... I guess that means I’m hidden? I mean, hunting is all about approaching prey without being noticed. That’s about what I’d expect from a basic beginner-level skill.
I knew concealment skills and spells existed—Yamikage used them.
“Kizuna.”
Oh right, I’m still in a chat with Shouko.
I’d pushed her to the edge of my mind while I focused on testing.
“It looks like I can slot multiple weapons and change between them without any downtime.”
“That does sound convenient, doesn’t it? And you can use it on top of holding another weapon in your off hand?”
True enough.
“But honestly...it might be more useful in someone else’s hands.”
I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of guilt, having claimed a Unique Skill limited to only one player. It came with this...vague sense of pressure. This feeling that I’d have to perform well in events and live up to everyone’s expectations.
“It was a difficult skill to obtain,” Shouko reassured me, “so there’s no point in worrying about it. More importantly, I think our activities from tomorrow onward are going to be a little more interesting.”
“Yeah. Sorry for keeping you up at night.”
“Not at all, I should have gone to your room directly.”
That one’s not on her. I stumbled upon the skill by chance and called her up for a quick word.
“Should I inform everyone?” Shouko asked.
“Nah, Yamikage’s asleep already, so it can wait until tomorrow. It’s nothing to make a fuss about.”
At most, I could head to the port for some night fishing as part of my testing.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, so anyway, sorry for bothering you, Shouko. Just take it easy.”
“Not at all. Thank you for coming to me. Well then, I’ll excuse myself.”
With that, our chat came to an end.
“All right...time for a little night-fishing test run.”
I grabbed my gear and headed out.
Cal Mira was still lively in all the usual spots, even at night...but I maxed out Night Vision before taking Hunting Gear, so my range of vision was a lot wider than I was used to.
The darkness barely bothered me anymore.
“I hear someone’s already picked up a Unique Skill.”
“Hunting Gear, right? Kinda weird name for one, huh?”
“You’re telling me. Sounds more like a concept than a skill. And that ‘one of a kind’ business is just nasty.”
“Based on the broadcast, it sounds like there’re twelve of them in total... I wonder who snagged this one.”
The voices of gossiping players reached my ears more clearly than before. Was this also a bonus from Hunting Gear? Something about my senses just felt different.
My build had shifted heavily thanks to the Unique Skill. I just knew I’d need some time before I grew into it.
That was when I noticed silhouettes off in the distance, trying to watch me in secret.
Looks fishy to me.
I stared at the figures watching, stalking while maintaining a set distance.
“Hey, is it just me, or is Kizzy looking at us?”
“There’s no way, I daresay. We’re merely keeping a warm and protective eye on her to ensure no ill-intentioned folks approach. I’m sure Shouko or Yamikage are simply in our general direction.”
“I’d love to watch her fishing all buddy-buddy with Shouko.”
“Yeah, I hear they’re fishing together these days.”
“We’ll snap some screenshots and use them as reference for the books we’re making together. Nin-nin.”
Yeah, definitely my so-called fan club. No doubt about that. So they’re watching me in secret? I don’t want to get anywhere near them, but I’d really appreciate if they didn’t lurk like that.
Still, the skill was pretty convenient...seriously. It came with detection too.
I considered giving them a warning if they got too close, but... How about I startle them with a new skill?
“Hiding Hunt.”
I faded away and started moving.
“Sh-She vanished?!”
“Did Kizzy pick up a stealth skill to keep out of the spotlight?”
“Even if she did, there’s none of the usual tells of stealth—no shadows or faint footsteps. If even my Presence Detection can’t pick her up, maybe she used a return item to warp back to the castle?”
Hmm...so my level of stealth is pretty high. I can feel my movement speed’s gone up a bit too. All right, enough testing for now.
In any case, I slipped away from the fan club and made it to the pier at the port.
Fishing alone is a bit...dull. I’ll call out Chris and Brave Pekkle to keep me company.
I summoned the Pekkles and instructed them to fish; it wasn’t long before we were all immersed in a tranquil motion by the water’s side.
I didn’t find any lords or any big catches, but my sense for fishing was the same as it’d ever been.
I met the requirements to relearn Fishing Mastery, and once I did, the rod felt snappier in my hands. It was like my technique had leveled up.
It was deep into the night by the time I was done with my relaxing fishing time. I returned to my room at the castle and fell asleep.
The next morning...Kanade, L’Arc, and Therese had vanished.