by Nikita Thorn
“If you keep playing in a way that deviates from the original ability, the game gives it to you. I eventually got Precision on my X-cut near the end of Beta. But I’ve never heard of a variation that comes with the ability right off the bat. This is…” The samurai seemed to fail to find a suitable word for it. “Okay, that’s crazy. What were you trying to do that required that much energy? Were you going for the kill in the duel?”
“What duel?”
Ippei looked surprised. “Didn’t Shousei challenge you to a duel and you had to hit him once after you figure out how to trade health for energy?”
Seiki had no idea what his friend was referring to. “No, in my case he was trying to… kill Genta.” It did not quite capture what had transpired, but he decided to leave it at that.
Ippei raised an eyebrow. “One of your guys?”
“Yeah. Well, unless I told him where Okamoto went.”
“That’s it! Okamoto.” Yamura turned to Mairin. “That’s the name of the guy Seiki was chasing from the shrine. See, I told you it was something like Komodo.”
“And I told you there’s no way an NPC is gonna be called Komodo,” said Mairin.
“Actually,” began Kentaro. “If—”
Ippei raised his hands. “Okay, wait. You’re telling me Shousei actually interacted with your troops?”
Before Seiki could answer, Koharu chimed in. “Oh, Captain Okamoto. That’s the guy who was wrongfully executed by the Shogun.”
Mairin fluttered her eyelashes. “And why do you know that?”
Seiki was equally surprised.
The obake girl turned to her friend. “Well, that’s the person Chamberlain Giichi didn’t want to talk about in front of the Shogun. Right?” She looked quizzically at Seiki.
“And who the hell is Chamberlain Giichi?” Yamura perfectly voiced Seiki’s thought out loud.
Kentaro frowned in disapproval. “Come now, people. He’s the guy who hands out civil missions every week.”
“Oh,” said Seiki.
“Oh,” said Yamura.
Koharu furrowed her brow. “I thought Captain Okamoto was dead?”
“It’s, uh… Captain Okamoto’s son,” said Seiki, feeling a little strange discussing his class quest NPCs in such a manner.
“Okay, wait a minute,” said Ippei, for the third time, raising his hand to stop the conversation. “So you’re saying Shousei interacted with your troops and they didn’t phase out when the quest started?”
From Ippei’s cautious tone, Seiki started to suspect something else behind the question. “No,” he said slowly.
“Ryuta’s troops phased out when he got his Blood Rush. So did mine when I got the Level 15 Mounted Strike. I mean, it was back in Beta, so things could have changed. Personal abilities and war units are separate things, and they… don’t happen in the same instance.”
“My guys phased out when I got my Level 15 Fast Regen thing a few weeks ago,” Yamura said. “They all bailed as soon as they saw the monster. Now I guess it’s kinda funny, but back then I was like, what the hell?”
Ippei, still with a concerned look, glanced toward Genta and Saburo, who were standing idly a bit further away. “Two are missing right now.”
“The Rogami killed three of them before the quest,” Seiki said. “Saburo just respawned. But, you mean, you think Shousei could really have killed them?”
“I don’t know.” Ippei shook his head thoughtfully. “Long time ago, there was this ryoushi guy I used to run with. He claimed he permanently lost some troops during an encounter with a rare demon monster, one nobody had even heard of before. He had around fifty guys at the time in his unit. Of course, no one believed him. The people who did thought it was a glitch. He even reported it to the Bureau.”
“Come on, they wouldn’t do that to you,” said Mairin. “Kill your troops? That’s just mean.”
Ippei smiled. “Remember you already signed away your right to sue for emotional trauma.” Seiki was not sure if he was entirely serious about the statement.
The samurai turned to Seiki. “Did you get a quest for it?”
“Only after I—”
Seiki’s breath caught. The realization had struck him like a flash of lightning that hinted at elements that had remained hidden in murky shadows so far. And for the first time, he could glimpse a thread that linked them all together into a much broader picture.
His two latest quests had been unlabeled. His encounter with Shousei had progressed logically from his confrontation with Okamoto, which had directly led from his decision to follow the boy from Mani Shrine in the first place.
His friends had quizzical looks on their faces. Even Kentaro looked up from the map.
“Let me think.” Seiki closed his eyes as he slowly retraced his memories.
So far, his past class quests had seemed like unrelated happenings. He had thought the story details were built in just to give some context to the encounters. The latest quest, however, with the unexpected appearance of the thief Mitsue, had suddenly opened up a bigger narrative and explained her involvement in both his previous class ability quests—first, during the Level 10 Upslash at the Mani Shrine where she posed as a young priest; then, during the Level 12 Vertical Spike at the bell tower where she was looking for hidden treasure.
Seiki checked his quest log again. This last quest, after all, was titled The Missing Connection.
Squeezing his forehead between two fingers, Seiki found his heart picking up speed as he tried to recall every incident that had led up to this day. Perhaps the clues had been there all along, and he had simply missed them. Seiki realized he had seen the ancient map before. In fact, several similar documents had been strewn across the floor when Mitsue attempted to down the underground library in Mani Shrine. The map must have been what she had stolen then. These encounters were all different parts of a bigger whole.
Seiki thought back as far as he could to his very first days in Shinshioka, and another realization struck him. At the very core, directly or indirectly, every single one of Master Tsujihara’s quests had been about saving Okamoto. First it was from a knife, then a fire, then treason—the last of which the old man had ended up giving his life for. It was not a wild leap to make that later quests still followed the very same pattern. Ultimately, everything revolved around attempting to fulfill that particular wish of the old master, even far beyond the limit of his death. Seiki shivered, thoroughly, right through his soul. At that moment, he felt at once understood, absolved and rewarded.
Opening his eyes, he filled his lungs with the cool night air, refreshingly new under the calm moon. The ronin class was allegedly about personal loyalty. He had been given all the signs, he had made all the connections, and now, perhaps, he had finally found what he had been looking for all along: a meaningful goal.
All around him were expectant faces, as his friends patiently waited for him to finish piecing together his thoughts.
“I think…” Seiki began. “I’m on a whole unlabeled quest chain for ronins.”
Unlabeled quests gave no hints to their objectives, but he no longer needed any, as he now knew exactly what he wanted to do. “So I need to get to that cave and finish it.”
There was a long pause of awe as his friends absorbed his words, before Yamura broke the silence. “Okay. You’re on a what?”
Seiki explained, trying his best to answer the flood of questions everyone was trying to ask at the same time. Fortunately, since the rest of the group—save for Koharu—had witnessed an unlabeled quest themselves at the Nezumi Temple, they were not difficult to convince. Especially after Seiki recounted in detail what had happened after Okamoto had taken his mother’s hairpin from the altar.
“I see.” Mairin looked thoughtful. “So in an unlabeled quest, they give you clues but no explicit instructions, and only when you do something you’re supposed to, you get the confirmation. Like that?”
“I think so.” Seiki
was not sure if there were indeed separate options within the quest line, or whether different decisions would lead to different quests being completed. But since there was no way to find out, he saw no point in bringing up the question at the moment. Now that he really thought about it, he realized the class quest that had first separated players into samurai and ronins had been pretty much the same way.
“It’s weird, though, that the Society doesn’t know anything about this,” said Yamura.
“Maybe there aren’t that many ronins to start with?” said Kentaro.
“I don’t think the Society actually tells you everything,” said Seiki, recalling his brief conversation with the Shinshioka Scientific Society clan leader. “They know about unlabeled quests, but they never made that public knowledge.”
Ippei was looking at him. “You know what this means?”
Seiki nodded. One unlabeled quest could have been a mistake, an unintended glitch. Three suggested deliberate design, and the possibility that there were more of them, perhaps many more.
Mairin drew a deep breath as she stopped to think. “So if you get over to that cave, you’ll be on another unlabeled quest down the quest chain?”
“That’s what I believe.”
Yamura stared at him. “Can we come?”
Koharu laughed. “It’s allegedly a ronin quest chain.”
The ryoushi let out a sigh. “I know, but, man, the XP.”
“Actually, I think we might be able to.” Ippei looked at the group, a spark of wonder in his eyes.
Mairin lifted an eyebrow. “What? On someone else’s class quest?”
Ippei pointed a finger at the document in Kentaro’s hand. “We can see the map, we can touch the map, Kentaro can even put it in his inventory. Wait, can you?”
The houshi tried, tucking it in his chest pocket, before nodding.
Ippei seemed satisfied. “It looks like it so far. You know, you usually phase out when you enter your class quest instances, but the fact that we haven’t…”
Mairin’s eyes lit up. “Okay,” she cried, her level of enthusiasm nearly matching Saburo’s. “We’re doing what again? Kill some demon, kill that sadistic swords guy, and then Master Tsujihara’s boy will come back from the dark side?”
“Uh, something like that,” said Seiki.
“I doubt they would let you kill Shousei,” Ippei said. “But wouldn’t that be sweet? Maybe you’ll get to do that at Level 30. Maybe that Zengoro guy will finally get to kill him now that he’s done with all his class abilities.”
“All right. Come on, people, let’s not waste a Friday night.” Mairin started to activate her fox form back and forth. “Let’s go, let’s go. We need to get across. You’re jumping across?”
Seiki was grateful for her fervor. “It’s tricky, though. Even two full energy bars wasn’t enough, so maybe I’m meant to use potions, or maybe…” A thought suddenly occurred to him. “Maybe a Heal during the stunt would do the trick?” Kentaro could top him up on the go, and Mairin’s multiple spirit foxes could even give him extra energy in the air. With the Infinite variation on his Blood Rush, he would have access to a nearly unlimited amount of energy for a short while, and that thought alone was getting him rather excited.
“It’s still a very big gap,” said Kentaro doubtfully.
“Maybe with a gust of wind in the right direction,” said Koharu. Obake took no fall damage and were less affected by gravity, so they could potentially get carried over on air currents.
“For my class perk, it was a similar kind of challenge,” said Yamura. “They give you an arrow with a rope tied to it and you have to hit this spot really far away on the other side of the waterfall. Let me see the map for a sec?” He took the document from Kentaro. “Since, look, on here they drew the bridge with only two ropes, so maybe that’s all you need to build a new bridge.”
“And how are we going to get ropes in the first place?” said Mairin. “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one in the game. Have you?” she turned to ask Koharu.
“Only NPCs have access to ropes,” muttered Seiki.
The kitsune looked at him. “What’s that?”
Seiki shook his head. “Uh, nothing.”
“Or maybe you sort of swing across, with some vines?” Yamura said.
“Or maybe you don’t really have to jump at all.” Kentaro pointed to the map. He had taken it back from Yamura and had spread it out on the ground for a clearer view. “Because there’s an identical cave mouth right here on the other side of the mountain.”
Indeed, on the bottom right of the ancient document, drawn onto the western side of Renkan Mountain Range was a triangular spot of ink that happened to be a perfect mirror image of the one on the cliff, down to the tiny curved line at the top where the cartographer must have lifted the brush.
“See here?” The houshi sounded pleased with his discovery. “It even shows you how to get there, so you go a bit north, follow this path around this hill, and here it marks this tiny path between two rocks and a tree, so I’m sure…” He looked up from the map at the lack of expressed approval from the rest of the group.
“Oh, oh, I see,” the houshi figured out upon reading their expressions. “You all still want to jump.”
“Sounds a lot funner,” said Mairin apologetically.
“It looks like you can jump,” said Seiki. “I was really close. So with a bit more health to trade…”
“Yeah, and if I charge my shot I’m sure I can hit the other side,” said Yamura.
Koharu frowned as she turned towards the ryoushi. “What does that have anything to do with getting across?”
“I don’t know. Might trigger something, like, oh, like a rockslide. Then you get a slope we can climb up.”
“Collapse the whole mountain?” Mairin giggled. “That would be kinda cool, but I’m sure they wouldn’t just let you destroy scenery like that.”
The ryoushi shrugged. “It’s Seiki’s instance, right? So it’s just gonna be destroyed for him so he can get to the cave.”
It was admittedly an interesting idea, but given the size of the gorge, Seiki doubted it would be possible.
“It doesn’t really work that way,” muttered Ippei.
“Your instance, your call,” Kentaro said.
Despite agreeing that Kentaro’s solution sounded the most sensible, Seiki still found himself hesitating. “Well… The last time I was literally three feet away.” If he were to be honest, he was now very eager to find out what he could do with the Infinite variation on his new ability, especially now with two personal healers.
“One jump,” he said to Kentaro. “And if it doesn’t work, we do your suggestion.”
Ippei tilted his head to the side with his eyebrows raised, as if not expecting that response. After a second, he started to laugh. “Okay, go ahead. Knock yourselves out.” He waved his hand toward the cliff. “This is just like the hell’s crack glitch in Beta, where everyone kept trying to jump with their mount, and no one ever made it.” He paused for a moment. “I never thought I’d ever say this, but this might be a good time to start leveling my Woodcrafting again.”
Shaking his head in amusement, the samurai sat down and picked up a wood block that he had been using for his Level 8 Woodcrafting bowl. “Level 9 tonight,” he said.
“Oh, come on,” said Seiki with a smile. “One jump. How long can that take?”
CHAPTER 18
It should come as no surprise that Ippei turned out to be completely correct in his prediction. Seiki had not taken into account the fact that there was something incredibly addictive about the feeling of being just about to make it, and so to stop after a single jump was as likely as eating a single kernel of freshly-made popcorns.
Thanks to Kentaro’s seemingly unlimited supply of potions, there was no need for Seiki to wait for his health and energy to replenish between attempts. And while that helped save them a significant amount of downtime, it also
convinced Seiki to keep giving it just another one last go.
With Kentaro’s discovery of the identical cave mouth on the map, Seiki really did not expect to be able to make it over to the other side, even with Blood Rush. But passing up on a chance to test out his new ability was very much like letting a new toy sit idly in the post box after it arrived. He was curious to see how far he could actually get with Slide with this kind of energy.
Instead of cancelling the move at the cliff’s edge and using inertia to throw himself over, he learned that he could indeed spend more energy to extend the Slide’s guiding path beyond the solid ground, before cancelling it once he was in the air—right before he started losing speed. Of course, it required a lot of precision, which he did not yet have. So, most of the time, it still ended with him at the bottom of the gorge.
On the sixth try, Seiki managed to close the distance to a mere three feet away from the opposite ledge, helped by Kentaro’s timely Heals, plus Mairin’s Kindred Spirit foxes. At the last second, however, an inexplicable gust of wind coming from the opposite direction slammed into him and instantly dropped his speed, sending him down the familiar fall.
Seiki reported the experience to his friends after climbing back up to the instanced grass ledge.
“Invisible wall,” said Yamura, who claimed to be struggling with the same issue. The ryoushi had been trying to hit what he said were loose rocks above the mouth of the cave, which no one else could actually make out without the Eagle Sight ryoushi class perk.
“Look.” He let loose another arrow. “Right there, see? Wind.” He aimed again. “Then if you think you can compensate, so let’s aim a little left, there. See? Now the wind’s going in a different direction to stop it.”
Seiki nodded, despite not really being able to tell apart the finer angles that indicated the interaction between wind and arrows.
“But we were really close just then,” said Mairin. “Okay, how about I try to get across first? Seiki can throw me, when you jump, and maybe I can Dash when I’m in the air.” She sounded inexplicably excited about the idea.
