The forces of darkness dwelling in her fortress let out a howl, pounding their weapons and shields to make noise. Yoko herself let out an evil cackle. In a movie or anime, this is when a thunderbolt would ring out and a full orchestra piece would play over a scene transition, but here...
“Hey, hey. Can we turn Pinckney to a ruin?” Mizuki asked plainly.
“No. The city’s a peace zone,” the black-clad witch responded sadly.
Meanwhile, back at Zama’s party...
The game imposed serious penalties for dying, but it wasn’t impossible to bring someone back—it just cost more money than your typical player could afford. The cost of resurrecting Issei after returning to Pinckney from the wasteland was exorbitant, but Shinji paid it. However...
The moment he was resurrected at the church, Issei immediately resumed fighting with Sousuke. Sacred statues toppled. Priests were running about willy-nilly. It was only a matter of time before the NPC guard would come running.
“I’m saying it’s all your fault!” yelled Issei.
“You erred first by not healing yourself,” Sousuke replied.
To avoid catastrophe, Shinji cast a paralysis spell on the feuding duo with a sigh. They’d never get anywhere if he let them go on like this.
“Sorry for all the trouble... Ha ha ha...” Kaname said to the priests as she and Shinji left the church behind, dragging the paralyzed pair. “Um... Sorry, Kazama-kun...”
“It’s fine. I should’ve been more careful,” Shinji said with a wince. “But what do we do? Resurrecting Tsubaki-kun took most of our money. I was hoping to buy everyone enhanced weapons and armor...”
“We’ll have to earn more. I’ll contribute what I can.”
“But to work up the money we need will probably take about a month,” he said regretfully.
“What?!”
“Games like this are way more stingy with money than normal RPGs.”
“R-Really?”
“The max level is 99, so everything past that comes down to purchasing power,” Shinji explained. “If we had 500,000 gamel apiece, I could buy us equipment strong enough to face Yoko... but I only have 10,000 on hand right now. I don’t know what to do.”
Just then, they noticed a large crowd forming on a street corner. It seemed a player had opened a new shop and was holding a sale.
The salesgirl called out, “Come one, come all! The pharmacy you’ve heard of even in the capital, Masumoto Hiyoshi, has opened a branch in your town! Tons of wares at low, low prices! A Masumoto Hiyoshi in your very own town! Everything is on sale for the grand opening! Act now and get a dozen healing potions for only 80 gamel!” That price must have been cheap, because people were coming from all around to buy.
Kaname and Shinji peeked into the shop out of curiosity and saw a bespectacled elf in an almost nurse-like costume doing the selling. Her character name was KYO. She said, “Ah, Kazama-kun! Hey!! >w<”
“Tokiwa-san. You’re still playing? ^^;” Shinji asked.
A few customers around them said, “Zama’s real name is Kazama, eh? Noted, noted...” but Shinji just ignored them.
“Yeah. I found a good job,” said Kyo. “By the way, who’s that weirdo? You didn’t get a new girlfriend, did you?”
Kaname gazed in disbelief at “Kyo,” who was clearly her friend Kyoko. “Kyoko,” she said, “it’s me.”
“Huh? Is that you, Kana-chan? So you did start to play! @@”
“Yeah. I figured, why not?”
“O-Ren-san! Kana-chan’s here!” she called to a girl inside the shop.
The girl’s costume was clearly from the eastern side of the continent, and her long black hair was adorned with delicate ornaments. The name over her head was REN, exactly the same as her IRL name. She was dealing courteously with the customers who had formed a long line at the register when she looked over at them, along with the customers.
“Kaname-san? Oh... and Kazama-san is with you. Who are those two frozen people behind you?” Mikihara Ren asked curiously as she looked at the still-paralyzed Sousuke and Issei.
“Oh, them? You can just ignore them,” Kaname told her.
“Oh, I see,” Ren said, and did just that.
“Now... Kyoko and O-Ren-san, why are you salesgirls?”
“Oh. I know that Kazama-san invited us to play, but... neither Tokiwa-san nor I seem cut out for fighting,” Ren explained, “We were wandering around when we ran out of money and had trouble finding food and lodging.”
“Uh-huh...”
Ren began crying waterfalls. “In the end, in desperation, I was forced to the brink of selling my body just to obtain a crumb of bread. Mock me as a fallen woman, if you like...”
“Um... I don’t think you can do that in a game like this?” questioned Kaname.
“You can,” Shinji whispered to her.
“Huh?”
“Oh, never mind.”
“No way,” said Kaname, “this game goes that far?!”
“No, no, no! But you can mess with appearance data and use the chat to do... you know, stuff,” Shinji whispered in embarrassment.
“Do you do that too, Kazama-kun?!”
“Of course not!” he responded, excessively indignant.
“...Well, okay,” Kaname said, turning back to Ren. “So you guys ended up getting jobs here?”
“Yes. I eventually thought to throw myself in the river, unable to stand my poverty... but the master here rescued me.”
“I was subsisting on mushrooms I found outside of town, lol,” said Kyoko, “and then O-Ren-san invited me along.”
“I’m impressed by your dedication to roleplaying yourselves as starving peasants...” Kaname said in disbelief.
Kyoko then showed off her pristine nurse outfit. “But hey, look at the great uniform I got now! This is the sixth pharmacy branch we’ve opened. We’ve made a ton of money here in just a week! ^^”
“Oh? The owner must be a shrewd businessman.”
“I’m honored by the compliment,” said the approaching alchemist, who was tall and pale, with a calm air about him. He wore a robe with a high collar, had gray hair tied in an old-fashioned samurai’s knot, and wore intellectual glasses. The name over his head was ATSUNOV. Though he appeared quite decked out, he was only level 5.