Part 5

Previous Page | Next Page

Volume 1

Chapter 1

— 5 —

“Yah!”

With a shout, I swung Shiranui at the monster in front of me: a Zlime, famously known as the weakest monster in Nekomimineko.

Of course, being a mid-game weapon, Shiranui sliced through the Zlime like butter, removing it from the fight.

But just then, another Zlime approached me from the side.

“Hah!” I intercepted the jumping Zlime with Shiranui, halving it in mid-air. However…

“Uu!”

Being cut in half still didn’t stop the Zlime’s tackle. The pieces threw me a little off-balance as they struck me. Losing their momentum, the pieces of the Zlime fell to the ground. I finally lowered Shiranui only after confirming they had begun to disappear.

“I was a bit careless at the end.”

In Nekomimineko, killing monsters during their attack animations didn’t interrupt their attacks. That was a strange feature of this game, and something players needed to keep in mind at all times.

I thought I was keeping my cool, but it looked like I’d become rather tense without realizing it.

…Still, it didn’t hurt at all.

It looked like this expensive armor was doing its job. I took no damage from the Zlime’s tackle.

By the way, these two Zlimes I’d just killed didn’t drop any items. You could double the drop rate by landing the killing blow on weak points known as critical points, but it wasn’t really worth the effort for Zlime drops, so I didn’t bother.

“Next, let’s fight something a bit stronger.” Nodding to myself, I headed off towards a different area.

***

After the crushing blow my spirit received from that young girl, I decided to head out of town to recover my lost confidence.

Dashing to the armor store, I bought a set of mithril light armor: the strongest armor you could buy in Ramlich.

Once I got to the store, first I had to endure the suspicious gaze of the store clerk when I said I wanted to buy mithril armor while wearing newbie gear; I also had to ask for help putting it on because I had no idea how to do it myself. Then I made some small adjustments, like stuffing paper in the cracks between the armor to improve my chances of survival, and I didn’t miss the chance to strike a cool pose in front of the mirror. All in all, I was able to finish my shopping trip without major problems.

With this gear, I wasn’t likely to die around here. Eager to try it out as soon as possible, I ran straight to the field without bothering to grab any accessories or recovery items.

In the plains to the north of town, I fought the weakest monster in Nekomimineko, the Zlime, and its relative, the Ugly Zlime, but they were way too weak. It only took a single strike from Shiranui to kill them. On top of that, the store-bought mithril armor was a high-class item for the early-game and absorbed the Zlime’s attacks like they were nothing.

If I attacked, I one-shot them; if I got attacked, I took no damage. That was as one-sided as it got.

It was good to know that I could slay monsters without feeling guilty about it, but fighting monsters that posed absolutely no threat to me didn’t tell me anything about how well I’d fight in a desperate situation.

I should probably go to an area with stronger monsters and try fighting for real. Right now, I was in one of the weakest areas in the game—the Beginner’s Plains, north of Ramlich, where the enemies were around level 3. West of here was the Forest of Beginnings, where you could find enemies around level 5–6, but from the looks of things, they wouldn’t be much of a challenge either.

I crossed to the other side of town, heading towards the Plateau of Sealing south of town where the enemies were around level 25.

Right now, my level and weapon mastery were low, but the quality of my gear was high. I knew from experience that my attacks were as strong as a level 40 player even without using skills, and my defense should be around the same as a level 20 player. Level 25 monsters were by no means out of my league.

That said, it would be no laughing matter if I were too careless and got killed. I decided to try and stick to the easy monsters…

“Dang, I’ve already been spotted!”

The moment I left the town, my eyes met with those of two monsters. They wore red hats—the demi-human monster Redcap.

Redcaps were a stronger variety of Goblin, a level 5 monster from the early game; they were much more aggressive, and their level was also much higher. If I remembered correctly, they were level 24.

Perfect to test out my abilities.

I hesitated for a moment, but decided that I could handle it if there were just two, and got ready to fight.

I’d be at a disadvantage fighting them simultaneously. Before they could rush me, I set my sights on the one on the right and activated Step. Long-cancelling that Step, I linked it into another Step with a short-cancelled Slash.

“…Gi?” The Redcap finally reacted, but it was too late. It was already within range of my Slash.

“Take this!” Slash! The Redcap didn’t even have time to scream as Shiranui effortlessly bisected its body.

“—Ugh!” I was unable to prevent an involuntary sound from escaping my throat.

I did feel an aversion towards killing a humanoid being. Thankfully, however, the feeling of slicing through the enemy wasn’t too gruesome; it felt more like a game than reality.

Still, this was no time to be calmly reflecting on my mental state. Before the other Redcap could strike, I once again Step-cancelled to my right. Hiding behind the defeated Redcap, I waited for the after-cast stun to end.

By the time I was able to move again, the first Redcap’s body had just finished disappearing, leaving me and the other Redcap face-to-face.

Next, I’d try fighting without using skills.

Now I knew I was able to gain the initiative and even one-shot them with skills. In that case, knowing I had a backup plan to rely on, I might as well take this opportunity to test my limits.

“Gigiii!”

The Redcap approached with a grating scream, swinging its knife, which I evaded by backing off, pointedly not using skills. I felt a tiny shiver of fear as the knife swung violently past, but I successfully dodged it.

I avoided the vertical slash and the jumping strike that followed, again using no skills.

I can do this!

Though I felt nervous and scared thanks to everything feeling more realistic than the game, I was still able to move like I had back in the game. Their attacks were slow enough to react to, and more than anything, the attack patterns were remarkably simple.

It would seem that Goblins still only have two tricks here!!

The Goblin-type monsters in Nekomimineko knew all of two moves: approach and attack with a vertical swing, or leap at the target with a jump attack.

I had been slightly worried because the female bandit NPC’s behavior was different from back in the game, but the normal monsters still seemed to have the same movesets, at least. This would be a very important piece of information to keep in mind.

Goblins weren’t the only ones. Monsters in Nekomimineko had a pretty limited set of attacks in general.

Compared to human movements and the AI, which were used in various VR apps and thus quite easy to get and customize to fit your needs, movesets and AI for monsters that only appeared in fantasy games were usually created from scratch in order to fit those specific games.

Lacking completely in the techniques and know-how for VR game development, Nekomimineko‘s monster animations were quite a mess, but I was rather thankful for that at the moment.

“Now!” Seeing the Redcap begin its jump attack, I dodged to the side as I struck its defenseless head with Shiranui.

A clean hit!

Even so, I backed away, mindful of what happened with the Zlime earlier, but the Redcap didn’t attempt a counterattack and merely vanished, as if melting into thin air.

Finally, the only thing left where the Redcap had just been was its trademark red hat. My first drop item. It was a rare drop from Redcaps that you could sell for money. As expected, stuff like this seemed to function as it had in the game.

Furthermore, after defeating an enemy stronger than me, I could feel power swelling up inside my body.

Level up.

“It seems like I should be able to treat this just like the game.”

Picking up the red hat, I scanned my surroundings for my next prey.

***

I stuck around the Plateau of Sealing for a while longer, confirming that I was able to fight with no problems in this area.

However, I actually felt pain when struck by attacks in this world, and if I took too much damage and my HP fell to 0, there was a chance that I would die for real. I couldn’t be too complacent.

I had learned that while fighting a dog-like monster called a Mad Hound. Taking a hit due to its high agility, I was surprised by the heavy impact and pain I felt. Still, it only knocked the wind out of me for a moment and didn’t affect my ability to keep fighting. But if I treated this the same as the game, where taking a burst of near-fatal damage felt no more painful than a slight numbness, then I would be in for a rude awakening.

Some time had passed, and I became accustomed to fighting in this world, gaining quite a few levels in the process. Even the battle instincts that I had developed in the game were slowly coming back to me, and I was able to determine that, in addition to Slash, I now had access to another basic skill: Sideswipe.

You could say most of my strength was because of this weapon, though.

“Ahhh, Shiranui is the best.”

Its attack power was obviously great, but my familiarity with it was even more important. In the game, I mainly used sword-type weapons, so Shiranui, being the same length, felt very natural in my hands.

Weapons were separated into classes such as swords, spears, etc., and the length of a weapon was determined by its class. The main reason for this was because, in true Nekomimineko fashion, the effective range of each skill was set at a fixed value and had nothing to do with the actual reach of the weapon.

The implications behind this might not be immediately obvious, but if you thought about what would happen if you could use the same skill with two weapons of different lengths, then the problem became clear.

For example, imagine you had a really long sword and a really short sword.

The long sword would have a vastly superior reach compared to the short sword for regular attacks, but due to Nekomimineko‘s shenanigans, skills used with either of them would have the same range.

What this meant was, when using a skill, there could be inconsistencies like enemies not taking damage despite appearing to be in the long sword’s reach, or enemies taking damage despite being visually outside of the short sword’s reach. That was why they decided that swords would all be one length, spears would all be another length, and so on.

In addition, many weapon classes had a corresponding advanced version. For example, there was the ninja sword for the dagger, the lance for the spear, and the katana for the sword.

Each of the advanced weapon classes were also classified as their base classes. So every ninja sword was also a dagger, and could use both ninja sword and dagger skills. Of course, that weapon’s reach would also be the same as a dagger.

Therefore, since Shiranui was designed as a katana, it possessed the same reach as a sword and could also use sword skills.

“As long as I have this sword, I’m— Whoa whoa whoa?!”

Absorbed in my thoughts as I walked, I tripped over a lump on the ground.

I involuntarily collapsed to my knees…

“U-wah…”

And found myself face to face with a glaring Demon God.

Fear shot up my spine.

“This is…a sculpture of the Demon God.”

The thing that I tripped over was a relief of the Demon God, which you could often find in areas under demon rule.

The reason there were so many monsters in the Kingdom of Licht, the setting for Nekomimineko, was said to be because the Demon God lay sealed nearby. The premise was that, in order to revive the Demon God and obtain its powers, the Demon Lord set their sights on this country and sent its minions to conquer it.

My joyful mood was instantly shattered.

The last boss of the game, the Demon Lord Of The End, was level 250; the secret boss, Demon God’s Fragment, was supposed to be over level 300.

Though it didn’t appear in the game, if this world was faithful to the game’s lore, the main body of the Demon God might just exist somewhere in this world. If that were the case, would we humans stand a chance against it?

My delight at defeating a few level 25 enemies suddenly looked quite foolish.

“I really need to think carefully about my next moves,” I muttered to myself as I stood up.

In fact, this was something I should have thought about much sooner. Instead, I let myself become absorbed in the game world and avoided the issue.

Even though I already knew this was no time for celebration.

There wouldn’t be any problems if this were just a normal game. I could slowly raise my level, steadily become stronger, farm enemies, and live out a leisurely life with my earnings. But the world of Nekomimineko wouldn’t allow for such a laid-back playstyle or a safe and secure life; an unavoidable bad end when time ran out, destruction of the towns due to monster invasions, the collapse of the country due to rampaging NPC wizards, a special monster encroaching on the world…

Countless events led to irreversible situations if left alone and the danger of sudden death lurked around every corner.

However, to try and overcome this with the same approach I used in the game would also be dangerous.

The reason I had been able to clear the game was because of the <save>, <load>, and <reset> functionalities, which brought me a sense of security from knowing there were no real consequences even if I messed up. Now that this world felt no different from reality, clearing the game wasn’t a realistic option.

More importantly, even if I somehow managed to defeat the Demon Lord, there was a good chance it wouldn’t help my situation. Nekomimineko was a game with a strong focus on side content. While defeating the Demon Lord technically counted as clearing the game, that by no means marked the end of the game. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that this game did not have a definitive ending.

I remembered it vividly. After defeating the Demon Lord and sitting through over five minutes of unskippable credits, I was suddenly brought not to the scene of a special ending event, nor to the title screen, but instead straight back to where I’d fought the Demon Lord. When I returned to town, there were a few follow-up events, but from then on, the topic naturally shifted to the secret dungeon. But even once I cleared the secret dungeon there weren’t really any new events.

To summarize, defeating the Demon Lord and clearing the game did not ensure that this world would become any safer, and the likelihood of that being a trigger to send me back home was also low.

Even if I worked hard and defeated both the Demon Lord and the Demon God’s Fragment, who was to say that the real Demon God wouldn’t be lurking in the shadows? I didn’t think for one second that I would be able to defeat an enemy I hadn’t even seen in the game before.

“I really need to find a way to get back.”

I loved games, but that didn’t mean I wanted to live in the world of a game. Using skills and magic was really exciting, and fighting monsters was an exhilarating experience, but, if you asked me whether I wanted to live in such a world at the expense of risking my life, I’d say, “Absolutely not.”

The many different ways I had died in the game flashed through my mind. I’d been literally smashed to a pulp by monsters, swallowed whole by a slime, and even slowly tortured to death after being paralyzed or petrified by traps.

It didn’t bother me that much in the game. Most of the pain was blocked out, and I just had to reload my save and try again. But if I were to meet such a fate in this world…

A shiver ran through my body. The hand holding Shiranui trembled.

“Hell no! I’m getting out of this wretched place as soon as I can!”

Luckily, I had come up with a single method that had a possibility of getting me home. There was no guarantee, and it was risky enough that it might get me killed in the worst case. But it still gave me a higher chance of survival than staying in this world forever.

“But to do that, I can’t waste my time lazing around here!”

In order to attempt that solution, I needed more power. Either to become more powerful myself, or to gather powerful allies. I couldn’t accomplish either of those things if I just holed myself up in this town, though.

“So, I should— Huh?”

Just as I was about to reach an answer, I noticed something strange. “What the…? Dust?” A dust devil? Did something like that even exist in this world? But an even more disastrous possibility came to mind.

“Wait, wait a moment. Just how long have I been grinding here?” I asked myself, but no answer came. The menu that would have provided me with the time didn’t exist here.

But, if that dust storm was what I thought it was, then I was in big trouble.

I scrambled to get away from here but, “Pl…ea—! —elp…me…!”

When I heard that faint voice carried by the wind, I realized that it was all too late.

She was coming. The one and only character to hold the impressive achievement of dominating both the most popular and least popular NPC rankings. Her overwhelming presence brought her the affection of many players, as well as the resentment of an even larger number of players. She was…

“Train Girl is coming…!!”

Previous Page | Next Page