Strongest Gamer; Let's Play in Another World Volume 2

by Shinobu Yuuki

  Contents

  Images

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Final Chapter

  Extra

  Afterword

  Legal

  Prologue

  Why do people fight? What motivates them? It's a trite question. Countless people have asked themselves the same thing, each of them coming to a different answer.

  My reason is simple: It's fun! The rush of fighting a worthy opponent is what gets me going. Maybe that would sound unsettling to most people, but it's a common view among gamers.

  Screw easy mode. I'm not done until I've gone toe-to-toe with the AI on insane. And when I get tired of the AI, I'm going online, finding the highest-ranked player, and challenging them. I'm a PvP gamer, first and foremost. I fight for the thrill.

  Sometimes I think my view is a bit simplistic, so that's why I like asking other people whenever I get the chance: "Say, why do you fight?"

  ◇

  The sun began to set on a lonely patch of land devoid of artificial light. The rocks and trees of the forest were hidden, except when moonlight cast faint shadows on the wild landscape. A narrow ravine crouched in a corner of a vast savanna, a vibrant landscape flourishing within. Streams of pure water seeped from the walls, trickling down and joining larger rivulets before feeding into ponds sprinkled across the bottom of the ravine. Mosses and grasses thrived along the banks. The moss emitted a faint glow in places where the moon didn't shine, bathing the whole ravine in an otherworldly blue-green light.

  And in a corner of that wondrous scene stood a humble cabin, filled with warmth and life.

  "Aoi, three guys on the right. They have crossbows!"

  "Ann, you take care of the ones ahead of us. Leave the right side to me!"

  Only a cabin door separated that fantastical view from the sound of a pair of gamers, playing by the light of a fluorescent lamp. We were hunkered down in front of a pair of LCD screens resting on a table in a corner of the cabin. Each time Ann shouted, I heard her twice, once from right next to me and once at a slight delay through the speakers of my headset, but I was too busy with my mouse and keyboard to care about the echo.

  Yes, that was me, the manager of Labyrinth #228, which encompassed the entire ravine. As the name implied, I was in charge of developing and managing the labyrinth. An unusual facility management company back in Japan had hired me, an ordinary guy and lifelong gamer, to manage this property in another world. The girl sitting next to me was Ann. She was the first person I'd met when I arrived in this world, and she was half kobold. Ann was my only employee in Labyrinth #228, and was considered part of my family. We lived together in the cabin.

  "Think you can take us alone, small fry?!"

  "Damn it, I can't shoot him down!"

  The enemy players' voices crackled through my headset. Apparently we were pitted against a bunch of my countrymen again. It was a little unusual that we kept running into Japanese groups since it was an international game. Both Ann and I were mashing our keyboards for all we were worth, and our avatars danced and dodged across the screen in response, real as though they lived and breathed. Well, not quite. No living being could dodge bullets and knives the way our characters did. I equipped the dagger in my inventory and began working my way through the crowd of enemies.

  "What the fuck, how does he move like that?! Is this guy human?!"

  "Dude moves like a fuckin' snake. What a freak!"

  "Rude. Doesn't he realize we're bustin' our humps out here?"

  The game in question was first-person, so moving around the area quickly made the screen tilt and whirl and flash like crazy. Motion sickness was a very real problem; being good at the game and managing not to puke while playing it were two different matters.

  "Hey, another Japanese guy?! Fuck this dude! Whoa, hey, don't do---

  Aaaaah!"

  I dealt enough damage to stun my target, leaving him helpless, before finishing him off by stabbing him through the throat. Recently, foreign games made you end the match with a flashy finisher, even though you'd technically already brought your enemy down. Some people were into that merciless showmanship angle, and I had to admit, it did make the game more intense. It was nice getting to play with Japanese players every now and then. I wasn't homesick or anything, but there was a different feel to interacting in Japanese rather than English.

  "Ann, how are you doing over... there?"

  I called out to Ann, who was gazing fixedly at the screen, and then looked at her monitor to see how she was faring. She'd finally gotten used to the mouse, but she still had trouble with the keyboard from time to time. I'd been listening to her clicking like mad, so I figured she was doing just fine, but I wasn't prepared for the scene that awaited me on her screen.

  "HOLY SHIT!"

  Ann's pint-size avatar capered across the battlefield, the massive poleaxe whirling in her hands. The enemy soldiers screamed in terror as they tried to dodge her tornado of death.

  "Take this!"

  Each cute little shout from Ann accompanied the sight of her impossibly huge weapon slicing clean through someone's armor, cutting the enemy inside into ribbons. It was pretty entertaining to watch the dying animations of the trail of one-shotted players she left behind.

  "Oh, I'm almost done here, Aoi! Be with you in just a minute!"

  Ann switched her weapon to one hand and gave me the wave emote with the other. It was pretty cute, but I bet I wasn't the only one to find it a pretty brutal display.

  "The cute voice only makes her scarier!"

  Yeah, it sounded like the people on voice chat agreed with me.

  "Hey! It's impolite to call a lady scary!"

  "Oh shit, here she comes!"

  Oh. She took out the last two with a single swing of the poleaxe. Talk about a slaughter. I could hear weeping in the distance through my headset.

  "C'mon, Ann, let's loot them. We went to all that trouble, so we might as well reap the rewards."

  "Sure thing. Leave the heavy stuff and focus on the valuables, right? I'm on it!"

  Our party was a well-oiled machine. I kept a watchful eye out while Ann set down her weapon and rifled through the corpses' packs.

  The two of us were playing a popular FPS/MMORPG called Gun Gust from within our cabin in Labyrinth #228. The game was set in a collection of vaguely British countries, and it boasted thousands of die-hard players. You could choose from a variety of weapons, from ranged weapons like throwing knives, bows, and crossbows, which basically worked just like guns, to close-range mainstays like swords, spears, and axes. The game had both PvE and PvP, so you could play whichever you preferred.

  Today, we were part of a mercenary group supporting an assault on a player-built fortress located in the woodlands in the middle of the main continent. Sadly, we hadn't been able to take the fort, so it had turned into a retreat. The mercenaries, including Ann and I, were protecting the fleeing troops by covering the rear, but the morale of the players in our unit was strangely high.

  "Thanks, my man. You rock. We're all set to kick some tail!"

  "How's it look over there, Mister Blue? I'm almost done mopping up this area."

  "All clear over here. Get me some fresh orders on the double."

  Victorious in the counterattack despite the enemy's overwhelming numbers, our side managed to fend off the enemies and report back to base.

  "I see the next beacon already. Our next target is about twenty minutes away. Busy day."

  "Copy that!"

  I felt a hint of pride at
having been chosen to lead our mercenary group, but I knew the smiles on their faces were all thanks to Ann.

  "Ann, you know what to do."

  "Yep!"

  She was right next to me, both in-game and in real life, so I just whispered to her. With a grin and a nod, she started shouting into her headset.

  "Hey everybody, are you all enjoying the fight?"

  "Hell yeah!"

  "I'm so glad to hear that! Now come on, let's go out there and fight another round. I'll be right behind you, cheering you on!"

  "Aye aye! You can count on us!"

  "Hey, you dogs! Ann is the vice commander. Show some respect! Do it again, and properly this time!"

  "Ma'am, yes, ma'am! One, two! One, two!"

  All right! Ann was a cure-all when it came to firing up our teammates. I'd been coaching her on how to rally the troops. Thanks to her pep talk, their morale was so high it seemed like they'd forgotten all about their fatigue from the last scuffle. As I contemplated the power of her siren's song, a thought crossed my mind.

  With Ann's encouragement fresh in the back of their heads, those players were ready to throw themselves into the thick of battle, even if it meant risking death, for the simple reason that this was just a game world. But what would be enough to push someone to take up arms and risk their life on the battlefield in the fantasy world we of Labyrinth #228 called home? I'd put my life on the line once, partially to protect someone dear to me but also partially because, as a hardcore gamer, I just thought it sounded fun. I was well aware I wasn't the norm. To be completely blunt, I probably had a few screws loose. But that made the question all the more interesting to me: What would it take for someone to risk their life in battle, in the real world?

  ◇

  I probably owe an explanation here about how I got both a top-of-the-line gaming computer and internet access inside Labyrinth #228. That story begins one month earlier, around the end of summer. Karumi had called me to the management office at company headquarters back in my world. We were in that same building near the train station.

  "Seriously, another bonus? I thought you already paid me what you said I'd earned."

  The undecorated office didn't look much different from the last time I'd seen it. Karumi and I were in the lounge, sitting across from each other at a table, and she had a paper cup of instant coffee in hand. Karumi was a real looker. Between her long locks of naturally blond hair and her sapphire blue eyes, she looked like a foreigner at first glance, but the delicate features of her face were unmistakably Japanese. It was an exquisite combination.

  "Yes, we already paid your bonus for your contracted work."

  Her delivery was a low, patient murmur. She was a cool beauty, through and through.

  It'd been a few days since we'd finished sorting all that out. Milt, a village near Labyrinth #228, had been raided, and even though it wasn't part of my duties, I'd gone out of my way to save the villagers. The Great Dark Lord, who was both the sponsor of Karumi's management company and also the ruler of this world, had then sent me a thank you letter as well as a handsome bonus on top of my normal salary. The management chain at my job was still a little fuzzy to me, but I figured what I'd done was sort of like unintentionally bailing out another division of the company.

  Karumi had informed me when the bonus had been transferred to my account and asked me to confirm it, so I did. The number of zeroes staring back at me from my bank balance caught me by surprise, to say the least. I now had enough to buy a decent house in the middle of Tokyo, if I wanted to. All the money I'd saved up in my life, and all my living expenses since I'd gone out on my own, were just a fraction of that huge sum. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, but I settled for a dry chuckle. Compared to other hobbies, especially gambling, a gamer's expenses weren't all that big. Besides, I'd been spending all my time in the labyrinth anyway, so I couldn't even think of anything useful to do with the money. That said, I did need to keep tax season in mind...

  "Here. This is a catalog of special rewards for labyrinth managers. Can you pick out ten items?"

  She handed me a binder with a few documents tucked inside, so I took it and looked it over. The professional-looking catalog even had a bulleted list of features for each item. I flipped to a random page and took a closer look.

  ▫ Set of dungeon management tools which restore stamina automatically.

  ▫ Special paint that expands ten centimeters after it dries and has the endurance of steel. (Five drums. Paint brushes sold separately.)

  ▫ Doorknob with unpickable look. Comes with matching magic key. (Door not included.)

  ▫ Do-it-yourself labyrinth trap creation kit for beginners. (Instructions and tools included.)

  ▫ Three vouchers for official Dark Lord mercenary force engagements, free of charge. (Three mercenaries per voucher.)

  ▫ Windproof watchtower creation kit. Ideal for plateau regions! (Construction workers included.)

  "I see what you mean about these being rewards for labyrinth managers."

  I mean, what would I use a watchtower for in the middle of Tokyo? The order form was a neat little index card where you just ticked off boxes next to the items you wanted, but the catalog was chock full of vibrant photographs. It looked like it should be advertising fancy holiday knickknacks. This was a difficult decision. Sure, intellectually, I could figure out how this stuff would be useful to someone in my line of work, but it was kind of hard to put myself in the right mindset when I was just flipping through a catalog. And there just wasn't anything we urgently needed for Labyrinth #228 in here, nor was there anything that looked like it'd be really useful down the line. Some of the items were oddly specific, and some sounded like they'd come in handy, but did I really need any of them? Any time I stopped and considered that question, I'd end up thinking, "Nah, not really."

  "Karumi-san, there is something I want, but it's not in the catalog. What do you say?"

  "That depends. What do you want?"

  Karumi looked surprised, but I figured she wouldn't be once she heard my request, assuming the employees she scouted were all gamers like me.

  "A standard electric power supply and an internet connection. Also, permission to bring some personal effects into the labyrinth with me. Specifically, my computer."

  It would be inappropriate for the fantasy setting and all, but I missed my PC. We had no video games in the labyrinth. We'd crafted our own card and board games, but anything that required electricity was beyond our capabilities. And that was fine, I thought. All a gamer needed was someone to play with, right? But the moment I was able to go back to Japan whenever I wanted, the new titles and the flash sales called out to me!

  After giving it a good long think, Karumi spoke up.

  "Do you remember the clause in your contract about bringing modern technology into the workplace?"

  "Yes."

  I was only allowed to bring my briefcase and anything I could fit inside it. All the magic stuff was way beyond anything in our world, but the place was pretty underdeveloped, technology-wise. Some things that we could mass-produce with ease required a lot of labor and manpower. That was pretty common in fantasy settings, I supposed. You could probably make a pretty hefty profit, trading raw iron ore from there for steel goods from here, actually, though I imagined their economy would go to hell if I tried to pull something like that. The blacksmiths would lose their jobs overnight, and any progress towards industrialization would grind to a halt. They had all those regulations in place for a good reason.

  "And beyond that one, there's the broader restrictions on intentionally spreading this world's science and technologies, which I'm sure you also recall."

  "Yes, I do."

  There was also a flaw with trying to directly import science and technology. Given the existence of magic, the laws of physics in a fantasy world obviously couldn't be the same as those in our world. Therefore, it was likely that many technologies simply wouldn't work. Among the assets of Labyrinth #228
was a certain giant robot which bore a striking resemblance to a fixture of the local arcade scene, a mech by the name of Comet. However, the one at the labyrinth wasn't a product of science, but rather a golem powered by the magic technology from that world. That said, even though it was magic-driven, the labyrinth manager built it to look and work just like something from our world. That was just the way he wanted it to be.

  "I do sympathize with you, Kousaka-san, but we can't just spread technology and industrial advances at will in that world. If you're so eager to have this world's current level of technology, it would be faster if you built a factory there and hired Japanese workers for it, rather than importing the finished products."

  "Makes sense."

  Though if the Great Dark Lord was going to be bothered by my starting an export company, he'd probably be just as annoyed at me for bringing in Japanese workers. Or workers from anywhere, for that matter.