“Welcome back.”
“...You,” I said.
Upon arriving back, I saw that the food on the table was all different. It appeared that he’d eaten everything that had been there initially.
...For him to eat all that food by himself... is my brother really a bear? I wondered.
“Waahh?! The a la carte I was looking forward to is gone!” As I logged in, Nemesis materialized and let out a scream.
“Don’t worry,” said my brother. “There’s still plenty of food left. What you’ve seen so far is only about 10% of it.”
“That’s too much! Just how many people is this for?” I exclaimed.
If Nemesis hadn’t been born, then it would’ve been just the two of us. Why did he prepare so much?!
“...Oh well,” I said finally. “By the way, Bro, I still have a few things I want to ask you.”
“How I got this costume?”
“No... well, I am a bit interested, but no.”
There were two system-related things and one thing about Liliana that I was curious about. I guess I’ll start with the easier questions.
“Embryos change form as they evolve, don’t they?” I asked.
“That’s right. My Baldr increased its weapon-y-ness. It also got beary much bigger.”
I thought that Gatling gun was quite large, but... that was only its second form, right? Anything bigger than that and I don’t think you’d be able to carry it.
“By the way, I wasn’t able to show it to you, but the fourth form I used today is a tank,” he said.
“A tank?!” Is that even allowed? “So Nemesis will also eventually turn into something different from her current human form... like maybe even a tank.”
Nemesis, who was eating beside me, became scared and said, “Th-That’s so ominous.”
“How they evolve depends on their Master, but in your case, Nemesis will probably always be a Maiden,” said my brother. “Although the ‘with Arms’ part might change to a different type.”
“Speaking of that, Nemesis turned into a sword. What would she be regarded as?” I asked.
“Like I was saying, she’s a Maiden Embryo that turns into an Arms. Maidens are generally hybrids... A mix of various types.”
“Really?” I asked. That seems like kind of a bargain.
After I thought this though, Nemesis complained, “What do you mean, I’m a cheap girl?!”
“There’s one person I know that has a Maiden Embryo,” my brother explained. “She stayed as a Maiden while the ‘with’ part changed into various things. It’s even become a Superior Embryo now.”
A Superior Embryo?
“The first to third forms of an Embryo are called low-rank, while the fourth to sixth forms are called high-rank,” explained my brother. “And then the current highest level that can be reached, the seventh form, is called a Superior Embryo. It’s called this because it surpasses the limits of the high-rank forms.”
“The final form... Superior Embryo,” I murmured. I wonder if Nemesis will reach that one day. She’s still in her first form, though, so I don’t know how long it’ll take to reach that.
“By the way, out of all the players, there are fewer than a hundred that have reached this form,” my brother added.
The game has over 100,000 active players, and yet there are less than a hundred?! I thought. Just how difficult of a path is it?
“Those people are way too hardcore,” I said.
“It’s not like they all achieved it solely through their play time,” my brother said. “There are a lot of players who started on release day and still haven’t reached it, while there are those who were able to do it in half a year.”
Does that mean it requires some special conditions?
“Oh yeah, Bro, you started playing on release day,” I said. “So how far has your Embryo evolved? What form is it up to?”
“That’s a bearied se-cr-et.”
That’s annoying.
Also, Bro Bear mostly spoke normally when he was explaining things, but used bear puns when he was teasing me. It was irritating, now that I had caught on to this.
While Bro Bear and I had been talking, Nemesis had cleaned off all the food on her plate before I had even realized it.
...We were talking about you, you know.
“Okay, on to my next question,” I said. “It’s about our standing in this world.”
“And by that you mean?”
I was thinking over how Liliana had spoken and acted. “Liliana called me something like ‘a Master chosen by an Embryo,’ and not a player. I don’t really get what the circumstances are regarding that... or what the status for us as players is within the setting.”
Somehow, I didn’t get the feeling she was thinking of me as a player in a game.
“Hmm,” said my brother. “You can find out about that by reading the background setting on the official site, but... you’ll lose several hours of time if you do, so I’ll give you the short explanation.” My brother then began his lecture on the world’s setting.
“In this world there are Masters and tians. All of us players are called Masters here. The meaning is something like, ‘One chosen by an Embryo.’ So a Master is someone who raises and uses an Embryo that possesses infinite possibilities. Due to this, a Master’s power is enormous, but in exchange, they are burdened with one condition.”
“Condition?” I asked.
“Their bodies are frequently spirited away to a different world.”
...Hm?
“A Master may vanish from this world for as little as a few minutes, or for as long as several months,” said my brother. “Also, there are times when they return to the place where they vanished, as well as times when they are flung to a special location called a save point.”
Wait, isn’t that...
“At the moment before death, a Master can also use the power of an Embryo to send their body to another world and survive,” said my brother. “However, if this happens, they will not return for at least three days.”
“So what that means is that logging out and the death penalty for players have been incorporated into the foundation of this world?” I asked.
“That’s right,” he said.
“...Wow.”
As far as I can tell from interacting with Liliana and Milianne, the way tians think is at the same level as real humans, I thought. So in order to allow those tians to go about without realizing this world is a game, they’ve defined how players return to the real world and their immortality as truths of this world.
I see. There’s a lot more to it than I thought.
“By the way,” my brother continued, “sometimes there are players that go around saying, ‘this world is a game,’ but the tians view them as ‘pitiable Masters that have gone mad from being sent to different worlds.’”
“...Ahh,” I said.
“Also, since Masters disappear so irregularly, for the most part they don’t take on important positions in the kingdom,” he added. “Even if you join the knights in order to get the job Knight, you won’t be given regular work. Instead you’ll get tasks specific to Masters.”
In other words, you’re given jobs where it’d be fine even if you disappeared during it.
“Well,” said my brother, “in terms of strength, we’re stronger because of our Embryos, so the jobs that get sent our way usually pay higher rewards than the ones for tians.”
I wonder if I’ll be asked to go slay a monster by myself, I thought. Well, okay then, that resolved the bigger questions I had regarding the game’s system. Which just leaves...
“Bro, did something happen between you and Liliana?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t try to dodge the question. Liliana clearly knew who you were.” And if I were to add to that, it didn’t feel like it was a good impression she had, either. “What did you do?”
Surely he didn’t make a move on her, right? For example, saying something like, “Yaay! It’s a real female knight! I just can’t get enough!” and then hugging her?
“I didn’t do anything.” Contrary to my expectations, my brother answered in a serious tone. “It’s because I didn’t do anything... that she probably resents me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It’ll be another long story,” he said. “And unlike before, it’s not going to be a fun one.”
“I don’t mind.”
After I said this, my brother let out a sigh and then began to talk. “Two months ago in real time, half a year ago in Dendro time, there was a war. The machine Imperium Dryfe invaded the Kingdom of Altar.”
The machine Imperium Dryfe: it was one of the nations a player could choose when first starting. It was at odds with this fantasy world as it had an advanced mechanical civilization.
...Although I don’t have the right to talk about being at odds, given that I have a tank-riding bear in my family.
“The reason given by their nation was to obtain the Kingdom of Altar’s fertile land,” my brother said. “As for the game’s side... it was a war event.”
The manual had mentioned war events. They were large-scale battles between nations, and big quests with the fate of each nation on the line.
“It was a large battle involving Masters and tians,” said my brother. “Well, it was a type of event that doesn’t happen very often and one of the game’s bigger features, but...” he sighed. “The result was a crushing defeat for the Kingdom of Altar. A third of our territory was lost, and among tians, the court magician Arch Wiseman, half of the knights, and the king died. Put simply, many of the key people running this kingdom perished in battle.”
“...Why did they lose so badly? Is Dryfe that powerful?” I asked.
No, that’s hard to believe, I thought. It’d be different in real life, but since this is a game, I’m sure they’ve taken measures to balance this.