Chapter 62: Chapter 55: Momentary Thoughts Part 3 Part 2

I have always thought that Saiga-san looked like a girl from a good house and that in her spare time she would do some typical Yamato Nadeshiko-style things, not playing video games. …… It was certainly a surprise.

「I…… If you would…… like! T, togesher wish meh……」

Ah, I just got a mail.

「I’m sorry. Something urgent came up.」

「Ahyiii!!!」

I knew it, it was from Pencil Warrior. What is it…… “Finished already?” Don’t give me that Spartan treatment, let me do my shopping in peace! Uwah! Another mail from him! And equally useless and garbage like the last one! Uwah! They were coming by the minute!

「Ah, I’m terribly sorry, Saiga-san! I’m meeting with a friend and he’s starting to get impatient.」

「Ah, right! Sorry for keeping you!」

Apparently Saiga-san was a very humble person, but there was no need for her to apologize. No, or maybe it was what exemplary members of society would do at a time like this? While she waved her small hand at me, I started running back home.

「Ahh, that’s right.」

If Saiga-san was playing ShanFro for real, I should have asked her for her player ID.

Continuously nagged by Pencilgton’s emails that were balancing on the line of simple harassment, I logged back into the game and woke up in my bed in Rabbitz.

「Good morning!」

「Uhm, yeah, good morning.」

Seeing Emul’s face, I suddenly remember Pencilgton’s words.

「Once killed, NPCs will not respawn……」

When talking about games, the function of a respawn is something that is basically treated as a given. If it wouldn’t be possible to play it more than once, it wouldn’t be called a game. There were difficulty settings that would erase a save file upon death, but you could always start anew. Such a feature as one play only was simply unheard of.

I look at Emul, whose design and expressions were more realistic than anything I have ever seen in a video game. I am certain that he would accompany me to our fight with the Gravekeeper that was scheduled to happen in two weeks’ time. And I was sure it would be even more intense than my battle with Night Prowler Luukan.

But if I take Emul with me, it was extremely probable that he would die on the spot. And even if that wasn’t a thing, his presence would give the Gravekeeper even more of a boost, jeopardizing Pencilgton’s entire plan. Should I talk to Emul about that right now, or maybe wait?

「Look, Emul, there’s something that I need to talk to you about.」

「And what would that be?」

「I was invited to challenge the Gravekeeper Wezaemon in two weeks’ time. I’m afraid that for the duration of the fight we will have to temporarily disband our party.」

Instead of and answer, the only thing that I managed to get out of Emul was a series of more or less articulated noises, that sounded more like animal calls than anything else.

Then, after freezing for a few seconds in one place, Emul jumped so high in the air that he hit the ceiling and bounced around the walls for a few times before eventually falling onto the bed with stars circulating around his head. Did he managed to knock himself unconscious?

「HAAAAAAAAA………!?!?!?」

「A, are you okay? Need some medicinal herbs?」

「W, W, Wezaemooooooon!?」

「Y, yeah.」

「I, I must let Daddy know about that right this instant!!!」

「O, oh. Alright.」

Emul then left the room at astonishing speed, even though he himself would put a stress on the fact that he hates to exercise. He also kept mumbling “Desu wa…… Desu wa…… Desu wa……” under his breath like crazy. Huh? Did I accidentally step on a flag or something?

「Nnh, damn that Pencilgton…… When this is all over I will need to apologize to Emul for all that.」

Also, I had a hunch that I just triggered some kind of event, but I had no idea as to what that event could actually be.

It was roughly five minutes after Emul ran off after screaming “I must inform Daddy immediately!”.

I understood that in a fit of panic he went to his Father, Weissash to inform him about my plans.

This is bad…… Did I step onto a landmine by a complete accident? Oh well, should anything happen, I can just pin it all on Pencilgton.

「Ohh…… I’ve heard that from Emul, but now I want you to confirm it, lad…… That you are going to pick a fight with that Gravekeeper…… Is that true?」

「Ohh, yeah, I guess so. But strictly speaking, it is my friend who is going to challenge him. I am just going to be there to help out.」

Picking a fight with a Gravekeeper? Honestly speaking, I didn’t know that much about him to begin with. Aside from the fact that it was supposed to be a Unique Monster just like Luukan.

「You do realize it, don’t you, lad? That you are still nothing but a weakling?

「You’re right about that.」

Being a mere level thirty one, without any preparation done on my end, I am going to get killed for sure when the day of the battle finally arrives. And with weak stats like that, I won’t even be able to call myself a meat shield.

But this is important. The questions asked by the NPCs and the answers given to them might actually affect the events of the game and raise a flag to new events on some occasions. I can power level all I want during that two weeks’ time, and it still can’t help us win the fight if we don’t manage to discover the victory conditions.

So the best thing to do here would be to get into the role of someone from this world and roleplay from here on out.

Now then, what would my answer be? First of all, to confirm my current situation…… How do I actually convince someone who is a whole lot stronger than me to not kill me on the spot? That’s a good problem to ponder. But the actual question was how to do that in practice. No, wait, relax, you’ve got this. Remember: you conquered “Sh*t Chronicles Online”. You struggled with all of that sh*t and emerged victorious. Compared to that, this was nothing.

It wasn’t about memories, social standing, or even opinions of others. The key here was none other than Vorpal Soul!

「…… I don’t think that questioning myself is needed here. I don’t think we can win. I KNOW we can win.」

「Hoo?」

Words are being spoken, sentences formulated. Now, let me show you all just what kind of role-player I can be!