Infinite Dendrogram was said to be a game of absolute freedom, individuality, and possibility.
It provided a world that was almost indistinguishable from real life, yet provided more freedom than reality, as well as Embryos and other unique things that let players live however they liked. Players even had a lot of freedom in how they would interact with the world’s tians.
This level of freedom had resulted in countless players whose individuality was in full bloom, and as a result they had garnered somewhat of a name for themselves. Many of these Masters were affiliated with the Kingdom of Altar.
There was the Over Gladiator, Figaro. He was the current duel champion and someone who regularly engaged in the absurd, nearly impossible, no-lifer feat of descending into the Tomb Labyrinth all by himself.
There was the High Priestess, Tsukuyo Fuso. She was the leader of the Lunar Society—a clan that doubled as a religious group that boasted over a thousand members, the largest in Altar.
There was Lei-Lei. She was a bar star who taught newbies caution by giving them drinks that were as much poison as they were booze.
There was The Unsheath, Kashimiya. He was the head of a PK clan and a duel-ranking PKK, or player killer killer.
There was the Star Chef, Darshan. He ran a business on the main street of Altar’s capital, enchanting players and tians alike with his culinary delights.
However, even in the company of such unique individuals, there was one player who still stood out.
He was always clad in an animal costume, engaging in role-play where he peppered his speech with puns referring to that animal.
There were many rumors about him. They said that he’d been seen with children clinging to him and kicking him as he gave them candy. They said that he always helped people who accidentally went into newbie trap dungeons. People even claimed to have spotted him being flung through the air as if by a massive explosion.
Eventually, so many people in Altar had seen children climbing on him that he’d earned the internet nickname “child mountain.” But even after all that, his true identity remained a complete mystery.
A certain high-level player in the scout grouping of jobs had once tried to use the Reveal skill to see this mysterious Master’s name and stats. However, the skill failed, and the player had said that all the information he’d tried to gather remained obscured.
This made some people speculate that the costumed Master’s level might’ve been really high, and half jokingly suggest that he might have actually been the mysterious “King of Destruction” who sat at the top of the rankings.
However, people didn’t pry too much and treated him as just nothing more than an enigmatic playmate for children, and ultimately he was nothing more than a famous player who hung around the capital.
Anyway, this mystery player...
“But whyyy?!”
...was now lying on the deck, all wrapped up.
“...The hell is this?” Riella said as she looked down and watched him roll around.
What she’d thought was some discarded cargo was actually a living creature. The crew used Reveal on him, but the stats and everything else were blacked out. That made him seem so suspicious that she had her crew immediately tie him up—but he just started rolling around, which greatly irritated her.
Rather than rope, they used their spare anchor chain, but that didn’t stop him from rolling.
“It...does seem to be a person,” said Asam.
“There are people like this on the land?” There were various kinds of humanoids inhabiting the continent and the surrounding seas. These included centaurs that were horses from the waist down, as well as ox-heads that had, well, the heads of oxen. Riella herself had an orca-like aquatic demi-human in her ancestry, and though she had no visible fins or anything like that, her internal anatomy was well adapted for long periods underwater.
However, Riella had never heard of humanoids that looked exactly like stuffed bears.
“You said somethin’ about Tenchi. That where you’re from?” she asked.
“He seems closer to a Legendarian than someone from the land of strife...” suggested Asam.
“I’m fur-om Altar! Please take off the chains and hear me out!” the bear shouted, still rolling around.
Riella looked at him and pondered for a moment...
“We won’t free ya, but we will listen to ya. So talk.”
...and offered a compromise.
“Ngh... It’s a long, paw-nderous, and tear-jerking story...”
And so, the bear explained how he’d ended up in this position.
Once he was done with his tale, Riella and Asam exchanged a dubious look.
“Okay, so to summarize... In Tenchi, ya beat a monster they called a ‘godbeast,’ but while doin’ that, ya burned down the forest it was in. And since it was owned by the daimyo family of Kuroha, they got mad and sent someone after ya. To make things worse, for some reason the Technical Apex caught ya in their sights. Ya then went to a black market trader and paid a whole lot for a one-person ship, and though it helped ya escape Tenchi with your life, the ship capsized when ya entered the South Sea. You’ve been drifting for three days since. Do I have it all right?”
“More or less.”
“All right. Let’s hand him over to Tenchi.”
“But whyyy?!” the bear said as his rolling intensified. “Fur whaaat?!”
“I mean, you’re a fugitive.”
“Ughhh. I can’t believe I’m in the same position as that slime...”
“Slime...? Wait, what are ya, anyway? Tian or Master?” Riella asked. She couldn’t even tell that much and still suspected he might be a monster.
“A Master.”
“Masters can go back to your own world and move to your last save point, right? Ya didn’t actually have to drift in the sea for three days, did ya?” By “your world,” Riella meant reality. That was how tians understood Masters logging out.
“Well, you sure know your stuff... But I have a reason for not doing that.”
“That bein’...?”
“Kuroha’s after me, but they still dunno who I am. That means I’m not on the wanted list, and I can still use their save paw-ints.”
Masters who committed a crime were rendered unable to use the save points of the country whose laws they’d broken. If the crime was sufficiently bad, they could become wanted everywhere and end up unable to use any save points. If given the death penalty in a state when they were wanted, they would then be sent to the “gaol.” Since Masters could come back from death, taking away their freedom was perhaps the greatest punishment they could suffer.
“If I logged in through that save point, I’d end up back in Tenchi,” the Master continued. “And it’s open season on bears over there now.”
“And that’s why ya drifted around for three whole days?”
“Well, I did log out fur bathroom breaks and to clean myself. Also didn’t furget to eat and take afternoon naps.”
What’s the point of cleanin’ yourself if you’re just gonna end up back in the ocean, anyway? Riella wondered, but stopped herself from pointing it out, since it wasn’t a terribly delicate thing to say.
“Ya don’t even have a spare ship?” she asked. Infinite Dendrogram had Inventories and Garages—different items with lots of space for other things inside them. Because of this, there were many who prepared spare ships to use if their main one was damaged or they encountered some other emergency. That required a certain level of wealth, though...
“Uhh... I do have a spare one...but I can’t use it.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s an amphibious hovercraft. It’s hard to control on the sea, and the way the air hits the water attracts lots of monsters. It eats a lot of paw-er too, so it’s hard to run it fur long.”
Riella pictured the small hovercraft the military fleet used for land operations and thought, Yeah, that’s not somethin’ ya wanna be in while out at sea.
“Why would you have that as your spare?”
“That’s my main boat, actually... But anyway, it’s hard fur me to get anywhere like this, so please take me to a non-Tenchi town with a save paw-int. I’ll repay you.”
“I’m not about to make that big of a detour,” said Riella. “There’s a monster I gotta beat.”
“A monster?” The bear tilted his head, noticing the weight she put into the word.
“‘Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder.’ It’s a UBM rampaging around the South Sea...and the thing that killed my old man.”
With a face that showed many and varied emotions, Riella launched into a story of her own.