by Sakon Kaidou
Shu ended up not hunting any event monsters.
The encounter with Hannya was so emotionally and mentally draining that he lost all motivation.
He and Figaro were now riding Shu’s Baldr back to the capital.
On the way, Figaro decided to ask Shu the question he had about Hannya and Sandalphon.
“Category-based personality analysis?” Shu raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Figaro nodded. “What would Apostles represent?”
“Hm...”
“Proactive people?” Figaro asked.
“I’m pretty sure there’d be more if that was the case.”
“Ah. True.”
Shu was genuinely impressed that Figaro could look at that woman and see proactiveness, of all things, as the defining feature.
“Well, I can’t make any conclusions with just a single sample, but I have a guess,” he said.
“Which is...?”
Shu’s guess was based on two factors — Hannya’s words and actions, and the extreme rarity of Apostles.
It was...
“They hate Infinite Dendrogram.”
...a real contradiction of an answer.
“I see. So that’s why there are almost none of them.”
Most people started Infinite Dendrogram because they were interested in it — they liked what it supposedly had to offer.
Sure, there were those who experienced something as they played and began to hate it, but those who hated it right from the start — before their Embryos hatched — were practically nonexistent.
Unless, of course, it was a woman who’d started Infinite Dendrogram to get revenge on an ex she’d lost to this game, and the homewrecker who’d taken him from her.
“Now that I think about it, Sandalphon’s quick evolution wasn’t caused by some Apostle quality, but by her obsession,” Figaro added.
“Well... Maybe, maybe not,” Shu answered.
In Shu’s mind, Apostle Masters were contradictions right from the moment they started.
Masters who hate Infinite Dendrogram, yet still start it, must be a really troublesome bunch, he thought. Imagine the sense of duty they’d need to dive in here...
“She’s also the second person I’ve seen who’s ahead of me, the first being Tom,” Figaro said. “I need to work harder.”
“Yeah, do your best, Figgy. I’m cheering ya on. You’ll hop up to the top in no time.”
Though things hadn’t gone as planned, seeing his friend become all fired up made Shu satisfied. All that was left now was to ride Baldr back to the capital.
“Hm?” Shu raised an eyebrow as he noticed Figaro eating something.
It was the chocolate Hannya had just given him. He probably didn’t want to exchange a gift, so he was deciding to eat it himself.
Shu silently thought about them both. He was perceptive enough to understand that Hannya’d had feelings for Figaro from the moment she’d handed him the chocolate.
Hannya was currently a mix of love and hate.
While her hate was directed at RockPanther, her love had ended up targeting Figaro — the man who was almost completely dense about matters of love.
Shu felt that Hannya would eventually cause even more love-related trouble, but this time related to Figaro.
Honestly, I think that would be good for Figgy, he thought.
Even if there was some sort of misunderstanding that led to PvP between them, Figaro would probably welcome it with open arms.
“Hell, you really need a lesson in just how complex and scary women can be,” Shu added.
“Hm?”
Figaro tilted his head, not really understanding what his friend meant, as he bit into the chocolate.
“Ah,” he added, suddenly realized something. “If only couples can kill the event monsters, how did Hannya end up having this?”
“Who knows?” Shu shrugged, feigning ignorance.
He knew full well that it had been dropped not by the event monsters, but by one of the couples Hannya had killed.
You could very well call it “murder chocolate.”
Shu knew that Figaro probably wouldn’t care, but he also saw no need to tell his friend that the chocolate he was eating had a bloody history.
And so, with the evening sun on them, they rode the tank back to civilization.
◇
Following this encounter, Hannya changed her country to Legendaria and used the DIN’s info to start searching for her targets more seriously.
Thus, on the final day of the Valentine’s event, she found both RockPanther and his new lover, and got her revenge on them, making a huge mess of the town they were in.
But then, a tian Special Superior Job and a group of ten Legendarian rankers defeated her, and she was sent to the gaol due to the severe property damage and tian injuries she’d caused.
However, by some miracle, no one had died, so it didn’t count as murder, and she would get to leave the gaol in only three or four years, Dendrotime.
After getting locked up, Hannya, feeling completely refreshed, began to get her real life in order and fix all the problems that had arisen while she’d been focused on revenge.
She also occasionally logged in to Dendro. Whether to get rid of stress or to prepare for when she was released, she trained in the gaol by trampling all over the other Masters locked up in there.
She also promised to meet Figaro again, and they regularly exchanged emails.
Now, to evaluate the Valentine’s Day of 2044.
Shu didn’t get to hunt.
The Masters in the area were unjustly PKed.
The destructive drama was nothing but a disaster to the Legendarians who were caught up in it.
And finally, RockPanther — who could be considered the root cause of this — had ended up breaking up with his new girlfriend. Admittedly, she’d had problems with him to begin with, so you could say it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Most of those involved in this incident had gotten nothing good out of it.
The only exceptions were Hannya and Figaro.
After settling the score, Hannya began a new life and got a new love, while Figaro believed he had found a new duel buddy.
That was all he thought of it.
In his emails to her, he wrote things like, “I want to see you.” (So we can duel.) “I hope you’re released soon,” conveniently forgetting to type out the bracketed part, as if it were obvious, and letting Hannya interpret it in a completely different way.
Hannya’s love for Figaro grew larger by the day, but Figaro, who’d never loved before, had no means of noticing it. This severe failure in communication continued for over a year in real life and over three years in Infinite Dendrogram.
It eventually led to a certain incident, but that was a story for another time.
Episode Four: Consultation
April 4th, 2045, Prism Rider, Ray Starling
I looked through my mail, had a meal, and logged in to Dendro.
Even though it was night in real life, the sun was still high up in the sky here.
“You’re back.” Nemesis popped out of the crest and welcomed me.
“Well, I have college tomorrow, so I can’t stay online for more than a day here,” I said. “There’s no helping it. Life on the other side is important, too.”
Now if that ain’t something Fuyuki should hear, I thought, rolling my eyes. Still can’t believe that guy skipped the first day of college.
“Also, it’s not like we have any major trouble here right now,” Nemesis added.
“True.” I nodded.
We’d had problem after problem for the first few days after coming here, but things had calmed down after that.
There was no sign that anything was about to happen now, and the local quests reflected that — there were only tame ones like ruin investigation and town restoration.
“We’ll hang around and do a bunch of those before returning to Gideon,” I said.
“It feels like
it’s been so long since you were kidnapped by that fox,” Nemesis commented.
Well, it’s been an impressive journey, I thought. We went all the way from Gideon in the south to Quartierlatin in the north.
“I actually miss Gideon quite a bit,” said Nemesis. “I’d love to be back soon.”
“Same here,” I said. “It’s pretty far, though. Even getting to the capital takes a while. We’ll go back to Altea on Thursday the 6th, then go to Gideon over Friday and Saturday.”
We’d have to talk it out with Azurite, though. She was still working here in Quartierlatin.
“Wouldn’t we return faster by riding Silver through the sky?” Nemesis asked.
“The skies above the capital have the occasional Pure-Dragon flying around,” I replied.
“Now that... is troubling.”
If there was one thing we’d learned from Gigaknight, it was that we were weak against enemies who didn’t rely on any gimmicks, but were simply strong.
We were bound to fare badly against flying dragons who would fight from outside my range and use various breaths.
Sure, I’d beaten a Pure-Dragon-tier worm near Gideon before, but it wasn’t a good comparison to the sky beasts above Altea.
“Riser told me that you could even come across UBMs there,” I added.
“Mm-hm... Let’s avoid needless deadly battles. You’ve had too many of those recently.”
“Seriously.” I wanted some peace and quiet right now.
I’d probably get more than enough of that if I just didn’t log in, but that would leave a bad taste in my mouth.
“Anyway, we’ll think about the way back later,” I said. “For now, let’s just take care of our business for today.”
“You’re planning on going to a craftsman, right?”
“Yeah. They offered, so I might as well.” A local craftsman had offered to make something out of the metal powder I’d acquired from the whale. The place wasn’t far from the local save point, so we went there right away.
It was a mix of workshop and store. It specialized in equipment, and there were two counters: one for buying ready-made equipment, and one for ordering custom-mades.
“Now that I think about it, all the equipment you’ve ever had has been either monster loot, ready-mades, or gifts,” Nemesis commented.
“True.”
All I’d ever gotten in the past was either store-bought gear, MVP special rewards, gacha pulls, or gifts from B3.
“A custom-made certainly won’t hurt,” said Nemesis.
“I do have the money and mats for it,” I nodded. “It’ll be my first one.”
Speaking of order-made gear, I knew someone who knew a lot about that: Juliet.
Her gothic dress-armor and many other things she wore were order-mades.
We’d even talked about the subject once...
◇
A few days before Miss Eldritch kidnapped me from Gideon, Juliet and I had a mock battle.
If you ignored Figaro, a Superior, and Marie, who primarily used ranged attacks, Juliet was the sparring partner I had the most trouble with.
This was due to her build being extremely balanced. She could move at the speed of sound, fly, had powerful physical and magical attacks, intense debuffs through her curses, and a knight grouping Superior Job, Fallen Knight, which gave her great defense.
Sure, I could turn her debuffs into buffs by using the second form’s Reversal, but that barred me from using Vengeance, which overall just made it worse for me.
On top of that, I didn’t have my left arm, so I couldn’t use Purgatorial Flames. And Nemesis was in her second form, as I wouldn’t get Monochrome until I went to Torne later.
I lost the overwhelming majority of my mock battles against the rankers, but Juliet was easily the one who beat me the most times.
This was simply due to the fact that we were often online at the same time, and thus sparred the most.
Apparently, she was a middle-schooler who also lived in Japan. We were in the same time zone, and just as I’d started Dendro on my pre-college holiday, she’d started her spring break right after Franklin’s Game, so our online times coincided a lot, and we had many mock battles because of it.
Well... my online times coincided even more with Shu’s and Marie’s, who were not only living in Japan, but were also unemployed, but we didn’t spar a lot because Shu was busy with his popcorn stand, while Marie had an important job as a mediator between Count Gideon and the ninjas now working there, among other things.
Well, back to the main matter. While Juliet beat me more than anyone else, I was also learning a lot from her.
Though I still wasn’t perfect at it, she was the one I had to thank for teaching me how to counter those moving at supersonic speed, and since my battle style incorporated rare things such as Counter Absorption, Vengeance, Silver, and MVP special rewards, she also ended up learning a thing or two.
That was what she said, anyway. My guess was that she was preparing to fight someone who used unique battle styles and special rewards.
At first I’d assumed it was Figaro, but by now, my guess was that it was Rosa, who was just below Juliet in the rankings. That was probably the reason why she’d shown me her most secret move a whole bunch of times now. It was like she was testing it on me.
Now, since Juliet and I sparred a lot, we tended to have many post-spar chats over lunches or tea. On this particular day, we talked about fashion.
The reason for that was the fact that, just a few days ago, I’d pulled the BR Armor from the gacha. The once-cursed, spiky armor that had melted in the battle against Monochrome had really intrigued her.
“Although no longer bound by the abyssal shell of malediction, it continues to shine an obsidian black,” Juliet said.
That roughly translated to: “That spiky armor looks cool even without the curse!”
I liked it myself. It was better than glasses, animal ears, or crossdressing, anyway.
“Is this truly a praisable design?” asked Nemesis, clearly not sharing our sentiment.
Looking back at it, Nemesis had been very critical of my fashion even before we’d met Azurite.
“Goblin bracers, corpse greaves, an iron prosthetic arm, spiky curse armor... where are you even going with this?” she muttered.
“’Tis naught but the wondrous and mysterious hand of fate,” Juliet said with shining eyes.
Nemesis sighed in response, but I couldn’t tell if it was because she didn’t have anything to say or didn’t understand Juliet’s words, which, by the way, meant: “You got this design set from MVP rewards and the gacha! You didn’t even try for it! It’s gotta be fate! Wow!”
She then added, “If you wish to resist fate and reveal yourself to the world in a new form, you must resolve to sacrifice material wealth in exchange.”
“Hm?” Nemesis raised an eyebrow.
“She’s saying that if you want something with a specific design, get it custom-made,” I translated.
According to Juliet, though it was based on their stats and skill levels, craftsmen could slightly alter the designs of the gear they were making.
From what I’d been told, before people like those in The Triangle of Wisdom — that lab coat lunatic’s clan — had come along and made things like humanoid robots, most items crafted by Masters had been exactly that: just slightly-altered non-originals.
Still, the increase in Masters that could create new things hadn’t decreased the demand for design changes, and even now, you had many Masters who came to craftsmen to forge their own unique look.
Juliet was one of them. She regularly used the money she won in duels and materials she got from kills to order various new gear from her favorite craftsmen. She probably liked trying out new clothes. You could even see her walk around the normal clothing shops.
Not too long ago, I’d seen her in front of some shop’s show window, talking to Chelsea and some other girl I didn’t recognize. They must have been having
a hearty chat about fashion, like the girls they were.
“My false eye itself was wrought by the hands of those with art and ability,” Juliet said as she reached for her right eye and removed its surface.
It was a contact lens.
I’d always thought that both her eyes were red, but the one under the lens was blue.
“You can even have custom-made colored contacts?” I asked.
“Certainly. This one bears the powers of Identification and Reveal.”
That reminded me of when I’d met Franklin for the first time. He’d been wearing a penguin costume and mentioned that you could get glasses with skills on them.
I guess contact lenses are the same, I thought. Do they count as accessories?
“The truly exceptional false eyes have the power to throw your foe’s condition into disharmony,” Juliet added.
Oh? There are contact lenses that give debuffs by just looking? That’s pretty strong, I thought. Still, you can probably negate them with the right level and resistances.
“Why is that one colored?” I asked.
“I began having eyes of a different hue, bewitching in purity, but it came to be known that the foes see such a quality as an ill omen,” she explained.
“...I see.”
So at first, she’d used transparent contact lenses, but since her avatar had heterochromia, her enemies would be wary of something in her eyes despite the transparency, so she’d switched to one colored contact and one transparent one, to make her eyes appear the same color.
Every now and then, you would see manga with characters who hid their heterochromia — and with it, some sort of power — behind contacts, but in Juliet’s case, the contact was the power, while her avatar’s heterochromia was just a bit of fashion.
But now, you couldn’t even tell that she had heterochromia, so the fashion factor was gone.
I was guessing that this had caused an inner conflict between her as a fashion-loving middle schooler, and her as a high-ranking duelist.
“Did you just imply that heterochromia is merely a bit of middle schooler-like fashion?” Nemesis asked telepathically.
What else? I replied.
“This false eye also demands the remains of a crystalline Pure-Dragon, bestowing upon it an immense value,” Juliet added.
