Paying to Win in a VRMMO: Volume 2

by Blitz Kiva

  “But it turned out that Iris’s Skill level was quite low,” Ichiro continued. “The fact that she did not meet your standards made you emotional, and you had just reached your breaking point when I returned. However, I am serious when I say that I want Iris to make my armor.”

  “You slapped us in the face!” the man shouted.

  “Nonsense,” Ichiro said. “I would never exert such effort without cause. It’s more as if you ran into my hand.”

  Well, Ichiro could certainly use a slap himself, with that personality.

  “From an objective point of view, I can understand the logic behind why you’re angry with me,” the young heir said. “But then, let me ask you this: What is it you want me to do?”

  Edward froze, trembling. He appeared to be struggling to restrain his anger and remain logical.

  Iris didn’t know what kind of person the Machina Edward’s player was, but she was starting to worry about his blood pressure. She wondered if he was receiving alert messages about changes in his health condition.

  Iris could think that way now that she felt safe herself, which was a bit self-serving of her.

  “I want to make you apologize to my boss! I’m sure even you are capable of asking for forgiveness!” the man burst out.

  “I am physically capable of it, but I don’t wish to do it,” Ichiro said.

  “Then I’ll force you to do it! Remove the battle prohibition in your guild house! You’re the leader, so I know you can!”

  “Oh, not today. We can do it another time, can’t we?” Ichiro said in the tones of a man watching the weather to decide whether to put his laundry out to dry.

  Iris began to feel anxious as she watched the conversation go further and further down its dangerous path.

  Edward wanted Ichiro to apologize to his boss. As a gamer, he likely had great respect for that Dwarf, so it was only natural that he interpreted the young heir’s actions as a show of disrespect towards him. It was a misunderstanding — Ichiro had been looking for something else from the beginning — but Edward didn’t understand that.

  Iris couldn’t find it in herself to laugh at his narrow-mindedness, either. They were two of a kind, and she empathized with his anger all too easily. Even if he could be made to understand, she doubted it would quell his rage. His pretense of wanting Ichiro to apologize for the disrespect to his master was gradually being displaced by another, deeper feeling.

  Edward had probably spent his entire time in the game believing that Bossman was the only crafting player better than him. Ichiro had shaken that worldview. In exchange, Edward wanted to smack him down, hard.

  “After all, I believe I’ll have all my armor finished within three days’ time.”

  “Huh?!” Iris croaked, forced from her calm analysis of Edward’s mental state. “Wait a minute, you can’t just decide—”

  “If you wish to cast down your gauntlet, I’ll gladly pick it up then,” Ichiro continued.

  “You’ve already picked up quite a few things, Master Ichiro...” Under Kirschwasser’s narrowed eyes, even Ichiro was forced to cringe a little bit.

  “Yes, such as the ire of others...” he admitted.

  “So you do realize it,” Kirschwasser sighed.

  “So, what do you think?” Ichiro turned back to Edward, who fell silent in response.

  No matter what else, there were strict local rules in guild houses, which meant that they couldn’t fight or duel there without the permission of the leader. It would be much the same outside.

  If Edward really wanted to, he could jump Ichiro from behind once he got out into the field, but that wouldn’t be very satisfying.

  “All right... You can show me this ‘armor’ you’re making then,” Edward said. His voice, with its usual mechanical overlay, trembled, the result of the emotional tracer faithfully reflecting all the tension in his voice.

  Edward still had the wrong idea about what kind of armor Ichiro wanted. When he saw the final product, perhaps he would accept that and stand down, or perhaps he would go through with the fight. Realistically speaking, it would probably be the latter.

  “Allow me to walk you out,” Sir Kirschwasser offered.

  “No, thank you,” the man said coldly.

  “Don’t be that way...”

  Accompanied by Kirschwasser, Edward left the building.

  Immediately, Iris’s anger exploded. “Are you stupid?!”

  “Is this my thanks for saving you?” Ichiro asked.

  “Yeah, I’m very grateful. But that’s irrelevant to the question of whether or not you’re stupid!”

  “True enough. But I am not stupid. If I were stupid, it would make everyone in the world—”

  “Cut that out! It’s nonsense!” Iris banged on the wall in frustration. “I’m asking if you’re serious about fighting Edward!”

  “I am,” Ichiro confirmed, without a second thought. “Iris, don’t tell me you think he’s going to beat me.”

  “It’s the opposite, actually...” Iris let out a big sigh. “Listen... I’ve heard that Edward is really strong. He’s probably the best fighter out of all the crafting class players. But he still can’t beat a combat specialist with a mountain of microtransactions behind him! Which means you’re just going to take him on and beat the hell out of him! It’s immoral!”

  “I believe he lost the moral high ground when he decided to barge into someone else’s guild house and begin screaming at a girl,” Ichiro began, glancing at the failures piled in the corner of the room. “And while it is true that I need not compromise my morals in the face of the low moral standing of another... still, I choose my own morality. If he knows he can’t beat me, he doesn’t have to fight me. If he decides to fight me anyway, knowing that, then it must be because he feels this is something he cannot yield on.”

  “So you’re just gonna beat the hell out of him, then?” Iris demanded.

  “I am. The fact that he cannot yield is irrelevant to whether or not I will lose a challenge I accepted.”

  “Iris, Master Ichiro is always this way,” Kirschwasser said as he returned to the room.

  He had said he was Ichiro’s servant in the real world, hadn’t he? Which meant he must see this sort of thing an awful lot. She felt sorry for him.

  “Anyway, you should keep your voice down,” Sir Kirschwasser continued. “The system does not treat a building’s exterior and interior as discrete maps. You appear to have dealt a significant blow to Lord Edward’s pride.”

  “Ah...” Iris clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Edward had already heard everything she said, including her belief that he couldn’t possibly beat the young heir.

  “Sir, did he say anything else?” Ichiro asked.

  “That he was going to ‘crush the armor the girl made into powder.’”

  “How bold of him,” Ichiro commented. “Then, Iris, you must make me splendid armor that will not be crushed into powder. I only have the components for the shirt and the jacket, but we have one hour before you log out. Feel free to fail up to fifty times on either.”

  Burning with embarrassment, Iris really wanted to throw her own fist into the young heir’s smiling face.

  ◆　◆　◆

  Felicia’s smile had stiffened. Edward had averted his eyes awkwardly, while the young heir’s expression was as calm as ever. Unbelievably, he was actually sipping the tea Kirschwasser had brewed as he gazed out the window.

  “Um, Itchy, are you really incapable of reading the mood?” Felicia asked.

  “Nonsense. I...”

  “He can read the mood; it’s just that, after doing so, he still does whatever he wants,” Iris shot back. “See? He’s about to say ‘I can read the mood, but what I do with it is up to me to decide.’”

  “...Iris said it all, so I shall not repeat her,” Ichiro said calmly.

  Cutting him off at the pass was the only way for Iris to get through these interactions with any satisfaction.

  “I’m impressed t
hat you knew that,” Kirschwasser said, sounding impressed.

  But she didn’t want to know that. She didn’t want to know this man at all. And yet, in the few days they’d known each other, she had come to know him in nauseating detail.

  “By the way, that armor of yours, Itchy... it’s butterfly wings, right?” Felicia asked.

  “The Radiant Morpho, yes.”

  “Did you really hunt that many of them?”

  “Hmm...” Ichiro turned his eyes to the ceiling. He seemed to want to correct Felicia’s words, but was thinking up the shortest way possible to do so.

  “He didn’t exactly hunt them.” The gentle response came instead from Kirschwasser. “Master Ichiro was reticent about killing the butterflies, so he used ‘Steal’ to get the necessary components.”

  “Isn’t ‘Steal’ a Thief Art?” Felicia tilted her head.

  She was a Thief character herself, so this was common knowledge to her. As the name suggested, Steal was an Art that let you steal item drops from monsters. It was limited to Thieves — or Scouts or Shinobi that fulfilled the right conditions — so not many people had it.

  Ichiro’s classes were Magi-Fencer/Fighter, Kirschwasser’s were Knight/Fighter/Acolyte, and Iris’s were Alchemist/Blacksmith/Mage, so none of them should have been able to use Steal.

  Should have, that is...

  “The Art Jewel,” Edward muttered.

  “What’s that?” Felicia asked.

  “NaroFan is nearing its one-year anniversary, so the developers have begun offering up some interesting pay-to-download kits. The ‘Experience Another Class Item Pack’ was one of them. Players can get up to three of them for free.”

  Felicia’s eyes widened at Kirschwasser’s explanation. “Um, what the heck? I didn’t hear anything about that.”

  “It was offered only during the week when you couldn’t log in due to your tests,” Ichiro explained. “I believe the kit currently on offer is ‘Skill Booster.’”

  “And starting next week, it’s ‘Barrier Feather,’” Kirschwasser continued. “I expect that to make quite a stir, as well.”

  The contents of the anniversary player service kits would change every week. The first three were free. The fourth came with a cost, and players who had just gotten started could have up to five free. It really was utterly reckless of the devs.

  Items like the Art Jewel and the Skill Booster were way too useful, which had earned severe complaints from the community. The price, 500 yen per pack, which was not too expensive but not extremely cheap, either, further spurred the criticism.

  “It’s like saying you’d better buy as many as possible during that one week. It’s not fair.” Felicia’s pout summarized the outcry precisely.

  “So, I bought up a great number of Thief Art Jewels, and used those to steal the Radiant Morpho’s drop items,” Ichiro said.

  “I thought so!” Ichiro’s outrageous statement caused Felicia to pound a fist on the table. “How many did you use?!”

  “How many?” Ichiro asked. “Iris, how many wings did we go through, again?”

  “You think I remember?” Iris said, partly in exhaustion.

  Felicia was livid. “It’s people like you, throwing all that money at them, that make the devs act so crazy! Edward, say something!”

  “Oh, sorry,” Edward said. “I actually spend quite a bit, too...”

  “You too? You too?!”

  “What do you expect?” Edward asked. “Thistle is a small business, and they have high server and maintenance costs for the massive amounts of data they need to store and process. Offering up donations is part of our duty, as fans. I don’t know how old you are, Felicia, but that’s how online games have always worked.”

  “Let us debate the merits of microtransactions another time,” the man who had started the argument said with a cool expression.

  “U-Um. Right. The story was just getting good!” Felicia said, managing to switch gears smoothly. “Um, so, what happened with the duel?”

  “I won,” Ichiro said, as if it went without saying. Another one of his more odious traits.

  5 - Noble Son, Display

  “Erk...”

  The strangled noise came just as they were about to resume the story, following the sound of the guild house door opening. They all turned around to see a man in a black coat in the process of spinning around and leaving.

  “Hey, it’s Kiryuhito!” Felicia called out.

  And it was indeed him. Narrow Fantasy Online’s second strongest solo player, a.k.a. King Kirihito. He was a rare sight among the people in that lobby, so his appearance sparked something of a buzz around the room.

  “It’s King Kirihito...”

  “I’ve never seen him in the flesh before...”

  “Is it true he fought Tsuwabuki recently?”

  It was as if some rare beast were walking among them. And in terms of encounter ratio, perhaps that’s what he was.

  “What are you guys doing here?” King Kirihito asked, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  Ichiro was as unfazed as ever, drinking the tea that Kirschwasser had brewed. No one had counted how many cups he had drunk, but it was clear it had been quite a few. You couldn’t get full and be forced to stop in the game.

  Ichiro turned to King. “Just having a sort of discussion circle. You?”

  “My weapon durability’s getting low... Oh, there you are, Edward.” He hadn’t exactly been called out, but now that he’d been seen, King Kirihito must have realized that trying to leave now would make him look foolish. And so with as brazen an attitude as ever, King called to the seated Machina. It seemed they knew each other, as well. “I need you to re-up XAN’s durability.”

  “R-Right... Got it.” With the subject being what it was, it was unsurprising that Edward was feeling low-energy. But he quickly put on a relieved expression (of a sort) and nodded. From his perspective, it probably seemed like a great excuse to leave the conversation.

  He took the unadorned straight blade proffered by King, then retreated quickly into the workshop in the back. Considering that they would be dredging up the story of his loss, it had been in rather poor taste of Ichiro to invite him to join the discussion in the first place.

  Iris had pointed something like that out, but the young heir himself had dismissed her concern as “nonsense.” In truth, Ichiro had merely wanted Edward to join them because he liked him. But it was still in poor taste.

  “A pleasure to meet you, King.” Kirschwasser offered a cup of tea to the still-standing man. “Thank you for taking care of my master the other day.”

  “Ah, thank you.” King took the cup, and stared in disbelief at the silver-haired Knight. “‘Master?’ Are you the old man’s wife?”

  “Ha ha ha. I am his attendant. His servant.”

  Not even Kirschwasser could speak without a little strain after that. Felicia had also jumped to her feet, leaving Iris as the only one who didn’t know what was going on.

  Only Ichiro and Felicia knew Kirschwasser’s true gender, as far as they knew. They had no way of determining if King’s words were a joke or not.

  “So you come here too, Kiryuhito?” Felicia said, adjusting her position in her seat. “They call you the lofty solo player, so I always assumed you never talked to anyone.”

  “I need to recharge my weapon’s durability, and there are players that will stock items cheaper than NPCs. So there are a few stores I frequent,” King said, showing absolutely no intention of joining them in a seat. “My weapon has a high rarity and repair difficulty, so the only ones who can repair it are Bossman and Edward. Of course, they charge accordingly. That Bossman’s a real skinflint.”

  “Hmm...” Felicia mused.

  Behind his glib words hovered the faintest trace of admiration for the game’s top crafting players. That seemed to surprise even Felicia.

  Iris poked her in the shoulder. “Um, Felicia?”

  “What?”

  “I seem to be the only one who do
esn’t know who this is...”

  “Oh, right.” Felicia nodded, then cleared her throat and pointed to King. “That’s Kiryuhito.”

  “A more substantial explanation, please?”

  “Um...” She flicked her eyes around the room, looking for aid from “Kiryuhito” himself, but he merely sipped his tea with an indifferent expression.

  In exchange, Ichiro responded (while also drinking tea with an indifferent expression), “Kirihito, also known as King Kirihito. He’s one of the game’s most famous top players.”

  “Huh, I’ve never heard of him...”

  “Well, I’m only famous among a certain set,” King said, showing no sign of being hurt by Iris’s words. Maybe he had a reasonably healthy self-image. In that respect, he was just like Ichiro. “So, what were you talking about?”

  “What I was doing before I met you,” Ichiro said.

  “Oh, the fight with Edward?” King asked. “Matsunaga told me about that. I saw his blog, too.”

  “That’s right, it must have been hard on Sir Matsunaga, with all the ‘no reprinting’ drama lately...” Kirschwasser murmured.

  “He likes to choreograph his own stories in the game anyway, so I’m sure he wasn’t hurt that badly by it,” King responded. “Lately he’s been aggregating Twitter reactions.”

  When Kirschwasser joined in the conversation between Ichiro and King, it led to a very in-depth conversation. Iris, with realization, and Felicia with half-realization, both shouted “Ah!” and hit their fist into their palm.

  “That’s right, you said it was on Matsunaga’s blog!” Felicia cried.

  “So I did,” Kirschwasser agreed. “But the article was not favorable towards Master Ichiro, so I did not believe you would enjoy reading it.”

  “Yeah, so you said I shouldn’t!”

  “R-Right... The article on vsoku aggregate...” Iris said, joining the conversation at last. It seemed she had read the article, too.

  Ichiro opened up the Miraive Gear’s exclusive net browser and called up the page of the aggregate blog in question: vsoku@VRMMO aggregate blog. It was an information site run by Matsunaga, a NaroFan player and leader of one of the three great guilds, the Dual Serpents.