Paying to Win in a VRMMO: Volume 1

by Blitz Kiva

  While Felicia froze up in the face of the unexpected question, Ichiro immediately guessed Matsunaga’s scheme. Even so, he said: “If she wants to come, I won’t stop her.”

  “Wait,” Gorgonzola’s dreary tones emanated from the hood of his robe. “What good will having her along do? I’m not taking responsibility for anything that happens to her, either.”

  “Aw, let’s take her along!” Amesho said with a grin, her reaction the polar opposite of Gorgonzola’s. “It’ll be easy-peasy with so many of us around! And having more people is always more fun!”

  Amesho was correct, of course. Ichiro was confident that he could reach the bottom floor even by himself, and now he was surrounded by fellow elites. They should have no issue protecting Felicia.

  Of course, there was no reason at all to bring her along...

  Felicia was likely well aware that she wouldn’t add anything, but after a minute to process the suggestion, she said, “I want to go.”

  “Yay!” Amesho cried, jumping up and down. “Friend me, okay, Fellie? Hee hee hee, 3,001!”

  Amesho strode up to a very disoriented Felicia and pumped her hand enthusiastically.

  Ichiro, in that moment, could do no more than speculate as to why Felicia had agreed to go. But whatever the reason, if the once-ambivalent girl was now making decisions for herself, he had to respect those decisions. Such were Ichiro’s thoughts as he watched Matsunaga from afar, the man grinning as things had once again gone as he had orchestrated.

  The dungeon crawl proceeded smoothly.

  The spam plan had worked like a charm, keeping the powerful mobs to a minimum, and the rest of their fighters were so strong that even without Ichiro, they probably would have had smooth sailing.

  “My arms are moving all choppily...” Felicia said.

  “I know, right?” Amesho exclaimed.

  Felicia and Amesho had apparently become fast friends. Being cast into the crowd of elites had made Felicia nervous, but making a friend with a relatively similar mentality appeared to have loosened her up.

  “VRMMOs are just like mobile games, huh?” Amesho added. “With lag and slowdown and stuff... Going through that in virtual reality is no fun!”

  “Amesho, do you play mobile games a lot?” Felicia asked.

  “Aw, I’ve played ’em for a couple of years... That’s right! Lemme show you something neat.” Amesho assumed the dignity of a top player, showing off one rare item after another that most people wouldn’t see in a normal playthrough.

  When Felicia asked how she acquired the rare items, the answer was merely, “Connections!”

  In other words, people had given them to her.

  With the majority of the dungeon raid party consisting of the taciturn Dual Serpents and the dour Elf Mage Gorgonzola, the two vibrant female players stood out all the more. A few members of Gorgonzola’s group sometimes looked like they wanted to join in on the conversation, but the chemistry between them projected an impenetrable wall of femininity that not even the game’s strongest magic users could surpass.

  Matsunaga cast a glance at the girls, then turned his eyes forward again.

  Ichiro hadn’t been terribly surprised by Matsunaga’s suggestion that they bring Felicia. He had more or less guessed at what he was planning, and Felicia’s presence — despite being a drag on the party — fit right in with it.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Tsuwabuki?” Matsunaga asked, turning back. He must have felt the other man’s eyes watching him.

  “Hmm, let me see if I can guess what you’re thinking.” Ichiro held up an index finger, reciting one of his favorite phrases.

  Matsunaga did not hide his scowl. “Please don’t.”

  “You’ve been obsessed with the idea of creating ‘myths’ on the internet,” Ichiro continued, with at least enough consideration to keep his voice low so that no one else could hear. “We could call them legends, or folklore, if you prefer... or gossip, in more vulgar terms. Then, one day, you found King Kirihito. I don’t know how you learned about him — and I don’t really care — but you’ve been writing articles about him, trying to craft the legend of Narrow Fantasy Online’s ultimate solo player.”

  Matsunaga said nothing in response.

  Ichiro remained at his side as they walked diffidently down the corridor, and he continued. “Was that your reasoning behind creating the United Guild, as well? Was your insistence on dividing up the Knights to keep them from defeating the Grand Boss? That way, the Knights will lose, or find themselves on the verge of death, only to have King appear and slay the boss... That’s the scenario you’re after.”

  He didn’t say it out loud, but Ichiro believed Matsunaga had actually laid even more groundwork. Perhaps he had convinced one of the Knights to throw the fight, which would make it even more dramatic. The Knights’ membership seemed to really enjoy roleplaying; if any of them was less concerned than Stroganoff with the glory of defeating the Grand Boss, they might go along with such a suggestion from Matsunaga.

  “Then I, of course, was in your way,” Ichiro added. “Like King, I could easily make it to the bottom floor of the dungeon on my own. If you left me to my own devices, I might have just reached the Grand Boss before King, and defeated it. You couldn’t have that.”

  “Impressive,” Matsunaga said, and sounded like he meant it. “You’re exactly right. Really... But now that you’ve figured out that much, there’s no point in hiding it, I suppose.”

  “You wanted someone to figure it out, didn’t you?” Ichiro asked.

  “Am I that transparent? What a shock.” Matsunaga’s trademark smile appeared on his face. “I’ve been an internet denizen for 20 years. I’ve been running affiliate blogs for about ten of those years. I’ve found that the world of the internet is fertile ground for the creation of myths.”

  Matsunaga’s voice was surprisingly calm, without a trace of anger.

  “You often see the words ‘God’ and ‘Festival’ thrown around to describe people or events. It’s a sort of mass hysteria — though that may be a quirk of the Japanese user. Internet folklore, to use your word... I’ve always wanted to try to craft such a story for myself. The joy of watching your copypasta reprinted in insomnia threads or watching the views on a video you’ve posted skyrocket... Do you understand that? Maybe not... You seem rather above that kind of thing.”

  “A desire for recognition?” Ichiro asked. “I understand the logic behind it, but I’ve never felt it, personally.” His words were tactless, but Matsunaga showed no sign of anger.

  Ichiro Tsuwabuki had met “producer” types like Matsunaga before. As the sole heir to the Tsuwabuki Concern, he had had much experience with them. His father had been very lucky that Ichiro had been born a genius with no obstacles in life.

  That, of course, had led to patrons, and it was men like Matsunaga, producers, that had helped Ichiro make a name for himself in the business world at such a young age.

  Ichiro had enjoyed the treatment at first, but he’d tired of it in time. They had set up expectations for Ichiro, and he had met those expectations easily. In a way, it was a formation of a myth.

  Ichiro hadn’t been affected by being elevated to the status of myth, but some people might be. Even more so for people already struggling with inferiority complexes.

  “Do you know anything about the person behind King?” Ichiro asked.

  “I have some idea,” Matsunaga responded. “I myself am an outcast in society, so I can tell he’s of a similar breed.” Matsunaga sped up very slightly to walk ahead of Ichiro, hiding his expression. “Perhaps that’s one reason I want to see King declared the strongest.”

  Felicia more or less knew what Ichiro was thinking.

  Just as Sera Kiryu wanted to settle things with Ichiro, Ichiro wanted to settle things with King Kirihito. When she put how Ichiro was acting together with what she knew about him, that was the only conclusion she could come to.

  She had talked to Sera Kiryu in the real world just a few hours
before. Felicia still didn’t fully understand the meaning behind the way her friend had smiled at her, but she did know why Sera wanted to settle things with Ichiro. It was a sort of groping in the dark — a search for any way to find the strength to face the real world. In Ichiro Tsuwabuki, Sera had finally found a barometer for that.

  Felicia had witnessed King Kirihito’s strength firsthand. Even if it was only in a game, she had to acknowledge the immense skill it took to play that way.

  But what if...

  What if Ichiro effortlessly beat King Kirihito?

  Would Sera just brush it off, or plunge into heartbreak and never recover?

  The unwavering cool she had always admired so much in Itchy... she had never hated it as much as she did right now. Could she ask him to go easy on someone, just this once? Even if she did, he probably wouldn’t listen to her, and it would make him think of her as a child, too. She decided to make no mention of it.

  “What’s wrong, Fellie?” Amesho asked.

  Felicia had been absorbed in her own thoughts for a while, but as Amesho called her back to attention, she pasted on a smile. “N-Nothing!”

  There were a few reasons why Felicia had accepted Matsunaga’s offer to join them in the underground expedition. One was that she wanted time to think.

  King Kirihito would surely be appearing in the Grand Quest soon — though above or below ground, she couldn’t be sure — which meant that it wouldn’t be long before Ichiro and King met up again.

  She had to figure out what she should do before that happened. She needed time to think about that.

  Her other reason was the possibility that events here might help her make up her mind. At the moment, she had no idea where the dice would fall.

  About two hours after the beginning of the raid, the group arrived at the final floor.

  Moving further in, they came upon an altar room with a stone monument. There was a small group already there, standing in formation around it — either spectators, or challengers trying to complete the event first. Since the party was made up primarily of spellcasters, there was a high chance they were the latter.

  “Hey.” Ichiro was the first to speak, without any trace of shyness.

  The party around the stone monument all turned to him at once and took a few steps back.

  “Making progress?” he asked. “If so, we’ll take over.”

  “We’ll take over.”

  “We’ll take over.”

  “Let us take over.”

  Ichiro heard the string of voices coming from the group of top players behind him. Scary.

  Even if the mob spawn rate was bottlenecked, the group had still made it to the bottom of the dungeon with just one party. They must have also been in the top 15% of all players. They weren’t that eager to withdraw.

  At Matsunaga’s signal, the line of Dual Serpent archers in the back readied their bowguns, with poison-tipped arrows made from Hades Silver.

  “Wow, rare arrows!” Amesho cried.

  “They’re easily crafted through alchemy, provided you have enough Hades Silver,” Matsunaga spoke, the lightness of his words belying the threat behind them. “They’re ideal for PvP.”

  “Itchy, this atmosphere is getting kind of dangerous...” Felicia said nervously.

  “I think this is just how conversations go between men of great talent,” Ichiro said. “Of course, it’s all nonsense. What’s the problem, Matsunaga? Set the weapons down.”

  “Hmm,” he answered.

  With another signal from Matsunaga, the entire ranged squad lowered their weapons. They were like marionettes, all acting in precise unison. If this was also part of their roleplay, it was extremely impressive.

  The threat likely wasn’t serious, but Matsunaga’s “joke” had been more to take the wind out of the other party’s sails. They now knew that arguing wouldn’t get them anywhere desirable.

  “Um, shouldn’t the first party to arrive have some right to go first?” Felicia asked.

  “Yeah, seems like good manners to me,” Amesho agreed.

  The early bird got the worm, after all, and respecting the order of arrival was the Japanese way. Anyway, the glory of clearing the quest went to the one who beat the Grand Boss, not the one who activated the event. Felicia couldn’t see what was wrong with letting the first party do it. But Matsunaga just let out a condescending little chuckle.

  “Ah, but it’s clear... They’re at a standstill. They don’t know what to do.”

  “Matsunaga, the way you laugh is so creepy...” Amesho said.

  “Is that a compliment?” Matsunaga turned his serpentine gaze to the advance party, whose members simply shrugged resignedly. It seemed he was right.

  All that he had written on his blog and announced on the broadcast was that spellcasters were needed to activate the event. The setting fluff had suggested that they had to seal away a Devil Zombie created by the Necromancer. It was only natural, then, that some top level players might try to put these things together, gather up some spellcasters, and see if they could trigger the event.

  To Felicia, though, this just suggested a fundamental nastiness on the part of Matsunaga’s character.

  “Well, you probably can’t read the stone monument,” Matsunaga said. “That requires a high-level investigator class. You need a party that can read the stone to trigger the next event flag. Our team is made up of three parties, and each has members that can read the epigraph, so we have no worries in that regard.”

  The advance team slumped in disappointment.

  “Well, then.” Matsunaga began tossing his dagger — his specialty weapon — playfully in the air as he walked up to the stone monument, the dress of his hide coat flapping about him. “If all of our spellcasters use enchantment-type Arts on the stone, it should trigger the event.”

  “Hmm.” Gorgonzola was the first to comply, and the other spellcasters followed his lead to approach the monument.

  There was nothing for Felicia to do, so she just lined up beside Ichiro and Amesho to watch the spellcasters form their magic circle.

  After quite some time, a flashy light visual began to wreath the monument.

  “Ah, the event has triggered,” Matsunaga said.

  “It took long enough,” Gorgonzola intoned.

  “Good work.” Ichiro plucked a fatigue restorer out of nowhere and handed it to him. It was probably another microtransaction, but Felicia didn’t feel like yelling about it anymore.

  The fast-spinning disc of light hovering over the monument began to contract. Then, suddenly, it turned an ominous color. The faint pink light took on points of black and red, then became a torrent of eerie darkness which rushed into the monument all at once. A moment later, the monument began to vibrate.

  “Gwahahaha!!!” A voice with an exaggerated reverb effect echoed through the stone chamber.

  That escalated quickly, thought Felicia.

  “Foolish adventurers, I thank you! Your magic has unleashed the full breadth of my power! The Devil Zombie that was once sealed in Delve will now be unleashed!”

  “Wh-Wh-Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?!” Amesho and the lead-off party sounded off in perfect chorus.

  Felicia could have sworn she saw someone conducting them.

  “Is this the Necromancer that destroyed Delve in the past?” Ichiro asked.

  “Likely so,” Gorgonzola nodded.

  Oh, yeah, Felicia thought. That was the backstory. Since she wasn’t a hardcore Achiever, she wasn’t that familiar with the details of the Grand Story.

  “Adventurers. Allow me to grant you a... reward for your assistance,” the Necromancer’s voice continued.

  “Not that I mind, but they’re not even hiding the fact that the explanation on the monument and the story contradict each other, are they?” Matsunaga commented.

  “The previous Grand Quests were like that, too,” Gorgonzola agreed.

  “True enough. Let’s headcanon that the monument was just a ruse by the Necromancer.”

&
nbsp; “Yes, your reward is... eternal death! May you sleep forever in my catacombs, your bodies fodder for my ambitions!” the voice cried, the story proceeding bombastically despite the disinterest of the players watching.

  As the shaking in the stone monument died down, fissures began to open in the walls around them. Polys mixed with rubble visuals went flying as a foul stench rose up from all corners. The sound the system sent directly to their brains was like resentment itself, shrieking up from the bowels of hell.

  Felicia froze up in fear. The terror she had witnessed in the dungeon two days ago reared its head before her once more.

  A Zombie Legion.

  The advance party and the bowgun squad, both standing against the wall, readied their weapons with accustomed reflexes, as one would expect from top-ranked players. Ichiro stood in front of the frozen Felicia to protect her.

  “Well, I’ve come to expect this from the game by now,” Matsunaga said casually. “Sloppy script-writing, isn’t it?”

  “But I do enjoy this kind of thing,” Ichiro answered.

  “I suppose the Devil Zombie must be reviving up on the surface right around now,” Matsunaga said unconcernedly. Nevertheless, he readied the dagger in his hand. The other players also prepared their weapons in reaction to the monsters that came pouring out. “Well, we’ve accomplished our goal, so we’re free to do as we like. It’s a good thing we have quite a few recovery items.”

  “Nonsense,” Ichiro responded as he bought a Monetary Blade from the config menu. “Matsunaga, the Grand Quest is not over yet, and I have not yet achieved my objective. This may be a fine warm-up, but the true challenge still awaits me.”

  Ah, I knew it, thought Felicia as she heard Ichiro’s calm words.

  She knew why he had intentionally followed Matsunaga’s plan and gone underground. In the end, it was something so simple.

  “Not that I haven’t been already,” Ichiro murmured as he readied the Monetary Blade to face the zombie horde, “but I’m going to do what I want.”