Shinobu Iijima
Past the snowy terrain, along a grassy road, small clouds dotted the sky.
A lot had happened, and Alice and Gabriel were with me. We were traveling by carriage back to the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters in Amrogild.
It was nice to see scenery that wasn’t covered in white for once. I didn’t grow up in a snowy place, so the lack of snow itself was enough to make me feel like I’d gone back home.
“Man, being level 99 is super handy,” I mused absentmindedly.
“That it is, Master Shinobu,” answered Gabriel. “You even obtained just enough Recovery Orbs to defeat the Ancient Flower as well...”
“Yeah, that’s suspicious no matter how you look at it.” I’d thought about that a lot since defeating the Flower. But the more I considered it, the more one theory kept coming up. “Whatever it was, I’m pretty sure it was trying to get me to use up my Orbs. I had the perfect number of them.”
“As you mentioned earlier, it appears as if this is the very intentional will of something.”
“If there’s a governing system to this world, that probably has something to do with it.”
The only clue I had was the entity called “OBSERVER: TM.” They must have set this whole thing up.
Alice suddenly pulled the trigger of her anti-materiel rifle. The sound of the explosion boomed.
A few seconds later, she turned to me with a happy smile.
“Master Shinobu! I leveled up!”
“Yeah? What’d you kill, Alice?”
“I saw a siren over there, so I shot it in the head!”
“A siren? But... I’m pretty sure we’re over ten kilometers away from the sea.”
“Yes! It was flying about twelve kilometers away, over the water!”
My voice caught in my throat hearing that. As we’d intended, Alice was now able to nail precise, long-range shots. But over ten kilometers away?
Seriously, is she Go*go 13?!
That’s how disgusting her shooting abilities had become. In fact, I was pretty sure even Go*go 13 couldn’t shoot things that far away. Sure, her weapons were buffed by magic and so their ranges were greatly expanded, but still.
“So now I’m level 29!”
“Nice” was all I could say. I poured some tea out of a flask and took a sip. Alice looked sad as she watched me do so.
“You’ve been working hard,” I sighed. “Great job.”
When I patted her head, a smile bloomed brightly on her face.
✦ ✦ ✦
She’s always looking for validation and really wants to be praised. I guess that’s what happens when your whole family gets murdered and you get horribly bullied at school.
“How’s your weapon debuff training going, Alice?”
“Well...I’m now somewhat able to do it with curse-breaking magic, but what’s the point? All it does is make my weapons weaker.”
“That’s the reason I gave them to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know that most melee and mage classes use magic and skills to raise their defense, right?”
“Of course. Depending on how useful the skills are, one could even take on enemies much higher level than them.”
“For melee classes, defense granted by skills will often be automatically raised by one’s spirit and magic. As for mages, whether they put up physical or magic barriers, both will become defensive walls for them after they cast their spells.”
Alice listened intently with an “mm-hmm.” Her wagging tail was so cute that I had to resist the urge to grab it.
“Now, here’s the question: if someone wasn’t buffed with magic or fighting spirit and then they got hit by an attack from afar that they couldn’t sense, what would happen?”
“They would have no means of defending themselves.” She took some time to ponder that. “Oooh! You even thought that far ahead, Master Shinobu?”
“You may have a base defense stat, but depending on the situation, it might only be enough to bluff.”
We hadn’t tested how useful this would be in a real battle yet, but Alice had tried some practice shots on me. I knew they were coming so they had only felt like pinpricks, but if she’d shot at me while I was unaware, I probably would’ve fainted from the pain—level 99 or not. I’d probably had some sort of defensive skill active at the time. At this point, Alice could most likely aim directly for someone’s eyeball and blind them, at least temporarily.
Gabriel tapped me on the shoulder as I stared out the window. “It’s in sight now, Master Shinobu.”
“Yeah. Amrogild feels pretty nostalgic at this point.”
The first thing we had to do was report our completion of the quest to Ms. Kaori.
Our carriage sped on to the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters.
†
When we arrived, the receptionist was extremely polite to us. Members of the Crimson Moon Brigade treated their top brass with the utmost respect, so it was only natural. Against all odds, I was now a member of the Brigade too, after all. But that didn’t stop me from feeling creeped out by having someone I didn’t know bow their head so low to me.
Ms. Kaori had gone out for a bit, so we were taken to the fancy parlor to have a meal and wait. As we drank our tea, a reincarnator from the Brigade came in.
“Terribly sorry for the wait. Our guildmaster was out on urgent business.”
“No problem. I’m grateful for the delicious food.”
“Please come this way. Our guildmaster has finished her preparations.”
We got up and followed them. As we progressed down the hall, I had to tilt my head.
“I thought we were going to the guildmaster’s office?”
“We are going to the large underground meeting room. We will be introducing you to the members of the Crimson Moon Brigade.”
In that case, should I really report what happened with the Ancient Flower to Ms. Kaori? I still wasn’t sure how much I could really tell her. I’d logged in way after everyone else, and I was the only player who’d participated in a raid event. There were too many suspicious things happening to me. Even if it didn’t set Ms. Kaori off, the other grand guildmasters would be a different story.
We began our descent down the stairs to the basement.
“This staircase sure is long.”
“The basement of this guild doubles as a bunker against magical bombs. Most basements in this world are equipped with similar tough material.”
No seriously, this staircase is super long. Judging by the height of the building itself, the basement was probably three or so floors down.
We made it to the bottom, passed through a long tunnel, then opened a door to a wide room. Inside was a round table and two other doors. We were instructed to take a seat.
From one of the other two doors, men with swords and spears marched in all at once.
“Master Shinobu,” Gabriel’s brows furrowed. “What is this situation here?”
“I’d say they seem pretty ready to kill us.”
The sound of all the doors being locked from the outside resounded throughout the room.
“Okay then, Gabriel.”
“Yes, Master Shinobu?”
“I’m sure you’ve predicted several different scenarios, but it looks like we hit bingo with the worst one possible.”
Alice’s eyes darted wildly around the room. “M-M-Master Shinobu... Why is this happening?!”
I grabbed her hand to stop it from shaking so hard. Its tremors calmed down quite a bit.
“I told you—I never really trusted the Brigade to begin with.”
This situation was also within my expectations. It tracked that Ms. Kaori was nowhere to be seen. There were many reasons why this could’ve been happening, but I figured I’d just come out and ask.
“Is Ms. Kaori safe? Or did she put you up to this? Which is it, Mr. Saito?”
The bald guy I’d wrecked at arm wrestling glared at me and gave a vulgar guffaw, just like last time. “Mr. Imabayashi ordered us to bully you and put you in your place, so prepare yourself. That’s the short version of it.”
Damn, this guy might actually only have one brain cell. I didn’t think I’d find out the mastermind was that bastard so quickly.
“So what happened to Ms. Kaori? I don’t think she’d agree to something like this. I also don’t think she’s on good terms with that bastard.”