Those Who Bind the Possibilities

by Sakon Kaidou

  With that thought in mind, I came to Alejandro’s place, did my shopping, and stood before the gacha to make my daily roll.

  “...Let me ask you something, Ray,” said Nemesis. “The fortune in your hands allows you to buy most of the things you require, no? What compels you to roll the gacha?”

  “It’s the unknown,” I replied.

  “...I’d prefer it if you didn’t try to make it sound so cool.”

  Was it wrong to find something attractive simply because you didn’t know what it will give you?

  Anyway, it was my turn, so I threw in today’s 100,000 lir and made my roll, which gave me...

  “...An ‘A’?”

  The capsule was marked with a letter denoting the second highest level of rarity — not quite a jackpot, but close enough. However, my excitement was drowned out by my confusion at the capsule.

  The S one that Rook had received had looked like a rainbow-colored mineral, while, aside from the obvious rarity, the X capsule I’d gotten Silver from had looked perfectly normal. But I definitely couldn’t say the same for the capsule now in my hands.

  It was black in color, the “A” on it was blood-red, and, for reasons unknown, the letter was written in a “melted” font. Not only that, but the capsule’s surface was covered in lines much like blood vessels. To top it all off, it had letters on it saying, “WARNING: Please don’t open when children are nearby.”

  ...What the hell? was just about all I could think about it.

  “What you hold in hand is a wealth coffer of hex and malediction,” said a voice coming from my side.

  I looked away from the capsule and towards the source, where I saw a girl wearing gothic-looking dress armor.

  “Oh, Juliet,” I said. She was an acquaintance of mine.

  Juliet the Black Raven was one of Figaro’s fellow duelists, and the fourth in the kingdom’s duel rankings. She was one of the two Masters who had fought in the semi event before the Clash of the Superiors. I had come to know her through Figaro and sparred with her several times now.

  Despite appearances, she was very easy to get along with, and since she was younger than me IRL, I could talk to her with no reservations to speak of.

  “Heh heh heh,” she chuckled in a curious manner. “We haven’t been in one another’s presence since our last immortal battle two nights ago, Light and Dark-Wielding Hero Clad in Violet and Crimson.”

  Sure, she talks a bit strangely and uses one of my weird nicknames, but she’s an okay person, anyway.

  “Oh, yeah, I haven’t seen you since our sparring match two days ago,” I said. “So, do you know something about this capsule?”

  “Verily. The coffer seals a maledicted artifact soaked in blood and tainted by grudge. The mark of rarity speaks volumes about the treasure’s power, but alas, that power might prove to be a double-edged blade that gnaws at the wielder’s heart.”

  Mhm...

  Basically, she was saying that “There’s a cursed item inside. The A means that it’s something good, but it also means that the curse is powerful, as well.”

  “Mh...” Nemesis looked at me in silence.

  “When balance thrives, the one to suffer the malediction will be the wielder alone,” Juliet added. “But when the stars of ill omen shine bright in the heavens, the calamity will fall upon those environing them, as well. Never banish this memory to oblivion, lest you bring about a new tragedy.”

  I see.

  She was saying that “Normally, the curse only affects the one equipping the item, but it might sometimes extend to the people around you, so be careful.”

  “Mhh...” Nemesis continued quietly looking at me.

  “All right,” I said. “Then I guess I’ll go open this somewhere with no people around. Thanks for the warning.”

  “Heh heh heh,” Juliet chuckled. “My advice needs no gratitude. But if you so desire, O Light and Dark-Wielding Hero Clad in Violet and Crimson, we may partake in yet another immortal battle.”

  “Sure, let’s spar again sometime.”

  With that, Juliet and I parted ways.

  All right, so I’ll go open this where there aren’t people around, and...

  “...Might I ask you something?” Nemesis said with an indefinable expression on her face, finally breaking her silence.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “How can you talk to her so smoothly?”

  “What? Juliet? Sure, her gear is a bit scary, but she’s a good, approachable girl.”

  “That’s not what I... Oh, never mind. If you don’t get it, I won’t push it.”

  ...What’s with her? I wondered.

  Anyway, we moved to the usual place: Nex Plains. Ever since I’d gotten Gardranda, this seemed to have become my go-to testing area for new items.

  Upon confirming that there were no people within 100 meters of me, I opened the cursed capsule.

  Inside, I found upper body armor called “CBR Armor,” where “CBR” stood for “Cursed Bloody Regeneration.”

  It was a piece of light armor that was blood-red in color and generally looked very sinister.

  It gave +200 to defense, making it even tougher than Gardranda — the hardest piece of equipment in my arsenal.

  Additionally, it came with a level 3 skill called “Bloody Regeneration,” which restored three HP per second. That didn’t seem like much, but it was completely passive and didn’t use a bit of my MP or SP.

  Though not as unbalanced and broken as a special reward, CBR Armor was definitely a decent piece of equipment. However, it was called “Cursed” for a reason.

  The item said:

  CBR Armor

  Armor mass-produced by a wicked alchemist.

  Provides the user with regenerative abilities born of the grudge seeped into the steel through the blood of the victims.

  This unstable source of power afflicts the wearer with various curses.

  Curses: Bleeding, Doom, Weakness.

  I was all too familiar with the effects of the debuffs named.

  “Well, this thing sure doesn’t have a pleasant background,” I said. “And wearing it makes you bleed out, renders you immobile, and cuts your stats by half... Basically, this is just a damn blood bag generator.”

  I can’t use this at all, I thought. The decent positives don’t make up for the insane negatives. What the hell was the guy thinking when mass-producing these?

  Not only that, but it had a total level requirement of only 50, most likely to make it equipable so that it could curse as many people as possible, and if that wasn’t kindness nobody wanted, I didn’t know what was.

  What do I even do with this...? Can I sell it...? I don’t think I’m getting my 100,000 lir back, though.

  “A Dark Knight could probably wear it without a problem,” I said.

  Jobs from the dark knight grouping, like Juliet’s Fallen Knight, had a skill that weakened the negative effects of cursed items.

  Because of that, this armor would’ve been good for a Dark Knight, but I happen to be a Paladin.

  “Eh?” Nemesis released a confused-sounding voice.

  “Eh?” I responded the same way, confused by her confusion.

  “...Oh, right,” she said. “You are a Paladin.”

  “You shouldn’t forget your partner’s job,” I said.

  “Well, your battle style and clothing are a far cry from ‘Paladin-like...’ And to think you used to shine so bright.” She put her hand over her mouth, so I couldn’t make out much of what she was muttering.

  But man, whoever thought that an armor that gives you Bleeding and Weakness was a good idea... Hm?

  “Isn’t that one fewer curse than before?” I asked.

  I still had the armor’s description window open, and it felt like the text there had changed a bit.

  The three debuffs became two, didn’t th—? Oh, it dropped again.

  Now it was just Bleeding, but soon enough, that one disappeared, as well. Not only that, but the skill level on
Bloody Regeneration had dropped from 3 to 1.

  It now said:

  BR Armor

  Armor mass-produced by a wicked alchemist.

  Provides the user with regenerative abilities born of the grudge seeped into the steel through the blood of the victims.

  It used to afflict the wearer with various curses, but they vanished when the grudge was dispersed. This weakened the armor’s regenerative abilities.

  Even its name and background were different.

  “...Why?” I asked.

  “How curious,” said Nemesis.

  Why had the grudge just gone and “dispersed”? Had it gotten sucked out or something?

  “Ah,” Nemesis and I simultaneously exclaimed and looked at my feet... towards my Grudge-soaked Greaves — an item that could absorb and store the surrounding grudge.

  Unlike Gardranda, who I’d talked to while out cold, it didn’t appear to have any remnants of consciousness, but I couldn’t help but feel that it felt satisfied and well-fed.

  Apparently, it had absorbed the grudge from the CBR Armor.

  “...I had no idea you could be used like this,” I said.

  The curses had been caused by the grudge, and with it gone, they’d vanished, as well. As a result, the unusable CBR Armor had become the usable — if slightly weakened — BR Armor. It was definitely better than the armor I was wearing just to fill the slot, so I didn’t hesitate to put it on.

  “Hey, it looks spiky, but it’s actually pretty easy to move in,” I said.

  I quickly took a liking to it. With the good defense value and Bloody Regeneration, I had no reason not to use it.

  “Mh...” Nemesis looked directly at me, clearly wanting to say something.

  “What?”

  “...Nothing. You’ve made your choice, and I won’t say anything against it.”

  “Hm?”

  Nemesis wasn’t as articulate as usual today.

  “Is something troubling you?” I asked.

  “I’d be lying if I said ‘no,’ but it’s not something I can tell you,” she replied.

  I could only assume that it was some girl thing, so I had no business pushing her any further.

  “Fine by me,” I said. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “...Very well.”

  And so, elated thanks to my new gear, Nemesis and I returned back to Gideon.

  ◆◆◆

  Dryfe Imperium, Triangle of Wisdom headquarters

  That day, a certain man in a lab coat — namely, the Giga Professor, Mr. Franklin — was checking the footage filmed by the spy monsters he’d sent to Gideon’s surroundings.

  He’d been gathering information this way for a while now, but things had changed recently.

  Following Franklin’s Game, Gideon had become filled with skilled counterespionage personnel, making it impossible for Franklin’s spy monsters to enter the city. Because of this, nowadays, he was only sending monsters to the city’s surroundings.

  Of course, Franklin had no intention of executing any more plots in Gideon, but the city was the main haunt of the one he considered to be his archenemy, and he wanted to observe him to the best of his ability. This loathsome person happened to appear on one of his monster’s footages as Franklin was casually eyeing them.

  In the Nex Plains, he opened a capsule he’d gotten from a gacha machine, received a cursed piece of armor, spent some time thinking about something, then equipped it and returned to Gideon.

  Upon seeing that, Franklin began to ponder.

  “That appearance...”

  A demonic bracer on his right hand.

  A gnarled hook instead of his left.

  A pair of boots fashioned from the dead.

  Clad in armor rife with curses.

  “...He honestly looks more like a Hell General than our actual Hell General.”

  Ray’s fashion sense was staggeringly heinous, but the boy was completely oblivious to it.

  Franklin was aware that someone who constantly wore a lab coat wasn’t all that much better, but even he felt like there was a thing or two to say about Ray’s appearance.

  “Did no one tell him about this?” Franklin mumbled as he looked at the archenemy in his monitor with a hint of pity in his eyes.

  Franklin’s question was nothing but reasonable, and the answer to it was, “No. No one told him.”

  Ray was surrounded by people such as Shu, who was always in an animal costume; Rook, a guy in a Slime coat; Marie, who wore a suit despite being in a fantasy world; Figaro, who only cared about stats and wore a mishmash of gear because of it; Xunyu, who had prosthetic arms and legs far too long for anyone; and Juliet, who wore a highly-adolescent set of gothic dress armor.

  Other Masters weren’t all that different, so tians tended to simply ignore it, thinking something like, “Well, he’s a Master, so...”

  There was no one who could tell Ray about the state of his fashion, as anyone wanting to do so would be rendered incapable of doing so when they simply looked at themselves.

  And so, spurred by their silence, Ray’s fashion took a turn toward the dark side.

  Extra: Reiji’s Everyday Life / Ray and Nemesis’s Everyday Life

  March 29th, 2045, Reiji Mukudori

  About two weeks had passed since I’d started playing Infinite Dendrogram.

  I’d spent a lot of this time in the game, and thanks to its tripled time feature, those two weeks had felt way longer than usual. Then again, all the stuff I’d experienced so far would make even a whole six weeks seem short.

  I’d rescued Milianne during Liliana’s quest, encountered Marie in Noz Forest, met Figaro in Tomb Labyrinth, fought against Gardranda, met Hugo, rescued the children with him, struggled against Gouz-Maise, and defeated Franklin, ending his plot to break the kingdom’s spirit.

  All those events had happened during a span of just four real-life days, and I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d ended up with such an event-heavy start in that world.

  The days that came after were relatively peaceful. I did quests with my party, sparred against Figaro and his fellow duel rankers, tested Shu’s cooking, and raided the Tomb Labyrinth with the three girls we’d met during Franklin’s Game — all of which made for a pretty standard MMO experience.

  According to Nemesis, “This is merely the calm before the storm. I’m certain that you will soon be involved in even greater trouble,” and I could only hope that she was wrong.

  Still, I couldn’t deny that I had a tendency to get caught up in all sorts of incidents.

  There was the car accident Shu had saved me from. Then there was the trip abroad that my sister had dragged me into, during which I’d gone through things that’d made me question whether it was actually real or I’d just dreamed it all.

  Oh... just remembering that made my body tremble, so yeah, it had been very real.

  That aside, there was something I had to do regardless of whether my new adventures in Dendro would be normal or not.

  I had to go through college enrollment preparations.

  Starting next month, I would be a college student. I’d spent half of the month remaining before college diving into Dendro so much that I’d rarely had time to go outside. In fact, I’d been online longer than I’d been off, and it wouldn’t have been surprising for me to forget the important things in my life.

  Still, I wasn’t negligent enough to miss the days during which I had the necessary college-related procedures, and I’d already gone for the briefing, the cooperative, the textbook selling, the physical examination, and so on.

  Today was the final such day — the one in which I’d settle everything related to the humanities course I was going to take.

  Being fresh out of high school, I couldn’t help but wonder whether this process really had to be so complex and split into so many parts, but this might’ve been normal here in college.

  Well, it wasn’t like my apartment was all that far from the place. I could get there in less than half a
n hour on bike, so I had no trouble being on time and going through whatever I had to do.

  I’ll be back by evening and log in to Dendro then, I thought as I walked towards the apartment building’s elevator.

  On my way, I passed a fellow resident.

  “Hello,” I greeted her.

  “Ah, hello,” she reciprocated with her slightly awkward Japanese. She was a foreigner living on the same floor as me.

  This apartment building was luxurious and secure, even by the city’s standards, so it had no shortage of female tenants.

  However, the high rent was a huge barrier preventing the common college student from living here, meaning that most of the collegians in this place were the children of particularly wealthy people. I was an exception to that, since I lived here thanks to Shu.

  “Wait, that woman...” I muttered to myself.

  The one I’d just passed was probably only a few years older than me.

  Her lack of mastery over Japanese made it safe to guess she was a transfer student in some college. Even Shu had told me that there were lots of rich foreigners in this building. Since she was able to live here, she was probably a member of an upper class family.

  No use thinking about a stranger’s private life, I thought.

  “But... what was her name, again?” I murmured.

  When I’d moved in, I’d followed the cultural practice and greeted the neighbors on my floor with some soba. We’d introduced ourselves back then, and the fact that I couldn’t remember her name bothered me so much, I stopped to think about it.

  “It went something like Fra... Fra... Franklin? No, no, no, no.”

  Hearing “Fra” instantly made me picture that mad scientist lab coat bastard, but that was just wrong in all possible ways. Confusing that guy with that pretty blonde lady would be nothing if not rude. Her actual name was...

  “Oh, right,” I said as it came back to me. “It’s Francesca.”

  Refreshed from having this weight on my mind lifted, I left the apartment building and went to college.

  ◇

  During my high school years, I’d always thought that all educational facilities were nearly empty during spring break, but a few visits to campus had quickly changed that.