Infinite Dendrogram: Volume 3

by Sakon Kaidou

  “KIEEE!” (“Hey, turtle. I’m gonna try and get Anthropomorphization, too.”)

  “VAHMOO!” (“What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing.”)

  Audrey and Marilyn seemed to be quite impressed by what Rubiella had just shown us.

  “Well, what do we do now?” I asked. “The meeting with Marie is the day after tomorrow, Ray doesn’t seem to be online yet, and I don’t really have any plans.”

  My only personal business for today had been to say hi to Catherine and get a new tamed monster. Needless to say, I’d already done both of those things, leaving me with nothing to do.

  “Then why don’t we go and level up?” asked Babi, to which I replied with a nod.

  We had yet to fight with Audrey and Liz in the group, so that was a really good idea.

  Also, I felt that our party would end up fighting some truly great foes in the future, so I wanted us to be useful when that time came.

  “Good idea,” I said. “I want to become stronger, so let’s go get some levels.”

  Audrey cried, “KIEE!” (“Boss! I know where to find the prey around these parts!”)

  Audrey had originally been the mount of Gardranda, a creature that lived around the Nex Plains, so it was only obvious for her to be familiar with the surroundings.

  “Can you show us, then, Audrey?” I asked.

  “KIEEEE!” (“Sure thing, Boss! Hop on!”)

  “So, Marilyn, you’ll have to go in the Jewel for now,” I said. “We’re hunting once we get there.”

  “MHOOO.” (“Understood.”)

  “Will you protect me, Liz?” I asked.

  “...” (“Of course. Don’t you worry.”)

  “Babi, are you ready?” I asked.

  “Always am!”

  And, of course, I was fully prepared, as well.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  “Yes, Master!” they all replied in perfect unison as we took off.

  [ROOK STORY, END.] To Be Continued in the Next Episode...

  Side Story: A Day Off in Gideon — Noon

  Journalist, Marie Adler

  “Here are your luxury box tickets for tomorrow’s event,” the tian scalper told me. “100,000 lir each makes 300,000 lir. Instant payment.”

  “Okey dokey,” I replied as I gave him the money. I’d already confirmed the legitimacy of the tickets by using my Truth Discernment and Identification skills.

  I paid from the reward money pool the three of us had decided to split as a group yesterday.

  “A pleasure doing business,” said the scalper. “You’re in luck, lady. Those are the last box seat tickets I had.”

  “Quite a popular event, isn’t it?” I commented.

  Not every show can get scalpers to sell out while pricing their tickets at three times the original cost, I thought.

  “Well, obviously,” he nodded. “After all, the thing going on at the central arena tomorrow has never happened before.”

  “True,” I agreed. “It’s only to be expected for a battle between Superiors to get this much attention.”

  The tickets in my hand had the words “The Clash of the Superiors” written on them. That was the name of the main event that was happening at the central arena tomorrow.

  The participants were two Superiors.

  One was a Superior of the Kingdom of Altar and the undisputed champion of the central arena: Over Gladiator, Figaro.

  The other was a Superior from the hermit Empire of Huang He, summoned here to participate in this event: Master Jiangshi, Xunyu.

  The idea of seeing a match between such distinguished personalities excited both players and tians alike.

  Despite Dendro having hundreds of thousands active players, the total number of Superiors didn’t even exceed a hundred. Due to that, opportunities to see two Superiors fight were few and far between. Since none of Altar’s Superiors had participated, not even the war with Dryfe had had such a fight. Though Figaro’s battles were a common sight at Gideon’s arenas, all of his opponents so far had been either tians or non-Superior Masters.

  As far as I was aware, Superior fights involving the kingdom’s Masters had never gone beyond rumors that the furball (AKA The King of Destruction) had fought Caldina’s “Magically Strongest” (The Earth), and one of the Great Seven Embryos of Granvaloa. Those fights were said to have happened in a secluded mountain area and in the middle of the ocean, meaning that there were few people who had seen them. Due to all that, this event was a golden opportunity for people to witness and find out just how intense Superior fights were. It was only natural for the tickets to get sold out. In fact, when they had officially gone up for purchase two weeks ago, they had been snapped up in less than ten minutes.

  I silently looked at the ones in my hand and tried imagining what would happen if either of the participants boycotted the event. Count Gideon, the one managing the arena, would surely flip. Of course, considering that I’d spent most of the reward on these tickets, my situation wouldn’t be too good, either.

  I really hope the event happens without much trouble and that Ray and Rook enjoy it.

  “Take care, now!” I said.

  “You too,” replied the scalper. “Come to me any time you need a ticket for something.”

  Silently praying that the event would start as intended, I left the scalper.

  It was now past three in the afternoon, and I no longer had anything to do.

  My job as a Journalist wouldn’t start until tomorrow’s event, while my other job didn’t have any activity at all right now. I checked my friends list and found out that Rook was offline, while Ray was somewhere outside Gideon. I didn’t have any other friends here in the kingdom.

  Even if I wanted to do some observation and kill time while on a basic party quest, I couldn’t get one because they normally rejected all Journalists. The job was of no use in battle, after all. It was a wonder why Ray had even accepted me.

  Not having anything to do, I walked around the fourth district’s bazaar while eyeing the wares with Identification. Every now and then, you could find some real bargains here, but nothing I saw today really caught my eye.

  After a while of such walking, I saw the shop belonging to Alejandro, the man we’d met during yesterday’s quest. I considered stopping by and saying hello, but the building seemed to be ridiculously crowded. From what I could hear the people say, the gacha machine there had just dropped an MVP special reward, causing many who were feeling lucky to try and hit another one.

  Having only two special rewards in my possession, I could fully understand what drove them.

  Yesterday, Ray had happened to become the MVP in a UBM fight when we’d run into Gardranda. But it rarely went as smoothly as that.

  Encountering UBMs was rare even if you searched for them, and even the Epic-tier ones were really tough. Masters with high-rank Embryos and jobs would have to form a proper party just to stand a chance, and it was unthinkable to take them on solo without having a Superior Job. Even then, battles against Legendaries and Ancient Legendaries would be truly challenging.

  Indeed, getting a special reward was no small task. Soloing UBMs while being like Ray — a high-rank job with a low-rank Embryo — was nearly unheard of, and it happened mostly because of luck and compatibility.

  Nemesis’s abilities were heavily focused on battle, countering, and giant-killing, making me quite excited to see how they’d grow.

  Anyway, with the store being so crowded, going in just to say hi would probably make me nothing but a nuisance, so I decided to leave it for another day.

  “I’VE WASTED A MILLION! AAAAHHH!” I heard someone scream as I slowly distanced myself from the shop.

  As I aimlessly walked around and began thinking about killing time in some shop popular with cute boys and girls, a certain sound entered my ears.

  A young girl was shouting something from behind the corner, in a secluded back alley between the buildings. With my curiosity piqued, I approached the source o
f the voice, stuck my head out to take a look and was presented with one of the most cliché scenes ever.

  Four vulgar-looking men were surrounding a girl who didn’t even seem to be ten years old. Though the blonde, coiled, drill-shaped hair made it obvious that she was Western, for one reason or another, her face was covered by a Japanese fox mask.

  “Let’s take this brat. She looks noble. Selling her off will get us some serious gold,” said one of the men as he grabbed her wrist.

  “Unhand me, you insolent cur!” the girl shouted as she did her utmost to struggle, but she simply wasn’t strong enough to resist.

  How cliché, I thought. Truly the most of generic of incidents.

  It was even embarrassing to interfere, since that would make it even more cliché. However, that was exactly what I did.

  “Now, wait just a moment, fellas,” I said as I walked out from behind the corner. “Are you seriously trying to take this helpless loli away? Should I be concerned?”

  “The fuck are you?!” one of them shouted.

  “Just a passing Journalist,” I answered while getting a better look at the men’s faces. “Yep, those are the expressions of true criminals. Could you morbid-looking folks leave the loli alone and go home? Or would you like to go straight to jail?”

  As I expected, my provocation made one of the men’s foreheads twitch as he charged at me with a raised fist.

  “A Journalist?! Who do ya think you’re talking to?! C’mere and I’ll...!”

  “Aaand... there.” I grabbed the man by the wrist and did a one-armed shoulder throw on him.

  Hitting the stony path below instantly made him lose consciousness.

  As always, this move is very useful against tians who don’t know about judo, I thought. They can never land safely.

  Of course, it would probably do little good against those who were aware of martial arts or simply had high stats. But these hoodlums weren’t much better than the usual newbie.

  “B-But she’s a Journalist!” one of them exclaimed. “How can she fight?!”

  “Oh come now,” I said. “Journalist or not, everyone is capable of throwing people.”

  Not to mention that I’m... Oh, there’s no need to say it, I thought. Then I repeated the same thing with the other three.

  As a result, the four hoodlums who had been about to kidnap the girl were all spread out across the alley.

  “Heh,” I chuckled. “Once again, I went and threw something worthless.”

  “Amazing! You’re so strong!” said the blonde girl as she looked up at me. The blue eyes I could see under her mask seemed to be gleaming. How adorable.

  “Y-You bitch! We’re not done yet!” Staggering, the hoodlums stood up and were about to charge at me, but...

  “Hey! It’s time to get paid! Stop messing around!” another hoodlum from outside the alley called.

  There were more of them? I asked myself. Five hoodlums, huh? Why couldn’t it be five heroes, instead? That would’ve been far better in every possible way. Also, “paid”? Are they the underlings of some mafia or something?

  “Crap... We’ll let you off this time! I know your mug now! Remember that!” one of them shouted a particularly stale phrase as they all ran away.

  “Do they have some debuff that forces them to keep saying overused phrases?” I said as I casually waved them goodbye. I really didn’t want to see them again. Not only were they awful as characters, but they were far too basic to be useful to me.

  “Wow, that crest is the sign of a Master! I know why you’re strong now!” said the girl upon noticing the back of the hand I was waving.

  Oh, the purity in her gaze is far too dazzling for a creature like me, I thought.

  “Oh no,” I said. “That was just judo. Anyone can learn how to do it. Even you.”

  I’d only taken a few real-life classes, for instance. For a while, I had dabbled in a lot of various martial arts for my work. I was now unemployed... and dropping such sports certainly wasn’t good for my weight.

  “Truly?! I can learn that?! Could you teach me?!” asked the girl.

  “Of course. First, we...” Suddenly, I realized that a stony pavement definitely wasn’t a suitable surface to teach judo.

  We should find a patch of grass or get a soft mat and...

  “We found her!”

  “She’s over here! There’s a suspicious-looking woman with her!”

  Before I could finish my thought, a few guards ran into the alley and shouted those things.

  How rude! I’m not suspicious-looking! I wore a black men’s suit, had a properly-tied necktie, covered my eyes with sunglasses, and always had a grin on my face.

  All right, okay, I look suspicious.

  “Oh no! We must escape!” said the girl as she grabbed my hand and started running away from the guards.

  “And why am I being dragged into this?” I muttered as I realized that things could get really messy if we got caught. But I quickly decided play along with her.

  I took the girl into my arms, faced the wall, and jumped upwards, instantly putting us on roof-level. Then I jumped from building to building to get as far away from that alley as was necessary before going down to street-level in a place where no one could see us.

  “That was riveting!” said the girl, bright-eyed and looking like she’d just gotten off a roller coaster. “I felt like I became the wind!”

  “Oh, it was nothing, really.”

  “Could you do it because you are a Master or because you are a Journalist?”

  “The latter. Journalists are amazing. We can fly, carry buildings, and reverse time by making the Earth spin in the other direction.”

  “Wow!”

  Okay, fine, that’s limited to a certain man who is particularly “super,” I thought. “By the way, about those guards...”

  As I was about to continue, I heard an adorable sound coming from the girl’s tummy.

  “Shall we eat something?” I asked.

  “We shall!”

  And so, I decided to help her fill her empty stomach.

  Coming out as we were and letting the guards see us wasn’t the best idea, so I had to do a little messing around. Using two of my skills, Disguise and Illusion, I changed her appearance, making her look like a plain girl of a normal upbringing. People with Truth Discernment, Reveal, or Mind’s Eye skills would be able to see through the disguise, but it wasn’t like every guard here had one of those, so it didn’t matter too much.

  As for me... Saddening as it was, I had to remove my sunglasses. With that, I was no longer a “shady woman in shades.” Truly a shame.

  We walked out of the empty alleyway and made our way towards the stalls on the main street. It was a popular place, so, naturally, there were food stalls, as well.

  “Do you have anything in mind?” I asked.

  “I want something I never get to eat!” she answered, and then noticed something. “There! I want those clouds!”

  Clouds...? Oh, the cotton candy, I thought. What an adorable choice.

  I went and bought some of the white cotton candy, which looked exactly the same as the ones we had on Earth. The only real difference was that they weren’t covered in wrapping displaying some character.

  “Enjoy,” I said.

  “Very well! Thank you very much!” she said as she took the cotton candy, took off the mask and began eating. “Such sweetness and fluffiness!”

  “Heh heh. Glad you like... it...?” I paused.

  Her exposed face was very cute, making it more than obvious that she would be a real beauty someday. But the fact of her adorability meant nothing next to the fact that her face was familiar to me.

  I reached into my inventory and took out my Information Notebook, a must-have item for Journalists that allowed the filing and managing of info, and followed the index to a certain part of it. Specifically, the list of this country’s important people and the entry about the second princess, Elizabeth S. Altar.

  It had al
l the information I’d collected about her and displayed her portrait photo, which showed a little lady bearing the exact same facial features as the girl right before my eyes, the one still eating cotton candy.

  “Well, this sure smells like trouble,” I muttered as I became fully aware that I’d gotten myself into something both exciting and dangerous.

  “Hm? But it smells sweet,” said Elizabeth as she smelled the cotton candy, making me momentarily discard the bad thoughts and merely enjoy the adorable presence of Her Majesty.

  A journalist and a princess... Reminds me of a certain movie, I thought.

  ◇

  Anyway, we’d distanced ourselves from the crowds, and it was time for me to take in the situation.

  I had been strolling around.

  A girl had been about to get kidnapped, so I’d helped her.

  She’d gotten attached to me.

  I had been about to be caught by the guards.

  I’d taken the girl and ran.

  The girl was actually the second princess of this country.

  And that was the jist of it.

  Conclusion: I was now officially a kidnapper of not only a child, but an extremely important person.

  Oh, dear.

  “In the worst case scenario, I might even get sent to the gaol,” I muttered.

  “Gaol?” the princess tilted her head to the side.

  The gaol was a separate area where players were sent if they committed one too many grave Dendro crimes. Grave crimes in Dendro were primarily those against tians. Player killing and the like didn’t count, and for me that was nothing but good news.

  Going in and out of the gaol was completely impossible, and so far, not a single player had left it. According to what those who were sent there wrote on discussion boards, the gaol had equipment and dungeons, just like the rest of the game, allowing them to have a proper Dendro experience.

  However, leaving simply wasn’t an option.

  No one knew its location, making many assume that it was the only separate Dendro server besides the worldwide one, but the truth behind it was still unknown.

  Anyway, it took more than grave crimes to send a player to the gaol.