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Chapter 6.2

 

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Translator: Einbedo
Editor: Weasalopes

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「What’s your take on all of this?」

Hiroshi was busy merrily hacking away at the walls, Haruna was having a violent emotional episode meanwhile Makoto and Mio hadn’t moved an inch from their initial location, instead opting for a leisurely chit chat.

「Haruna’s in a bad spot.」

「Why makes you think so?」

「Knowing who Hiroshi’s paired with must’ve cornered her emotionally.」

Makoto found herself agreeing with Mio’s surprisingly rational take on the situation. Ever since the whole hot spring debacle Haruna’s been on edge whenever the two were in proximity of one another. She was concerned in more ways than one.

「I think there’s reasonable grounds for concern there, even when taking Haruna’s personal stake in the matter out of the equation.」

「They complement each other nicely and even if things were to turn south in that sense it’d do him good.」

「Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.」

Makoto blurted out just as Mio had barely finished her morally dubious sentence. In her mind such drastic measures were crossing a moral line when dealing with someone with a deeply ingrained phobia.

「Mako there’s always a limit to over-protectiveness, if we don’t take action and pressure him into developing at least a modicum of immunity to physical contact with the opposite sex he’ll never be able to take full control of his life and here we have an opportunity that just presented itself on a silver platter.」

Mio’s verbose rambling left Makoto completely dejected. It appeared as though the admonishment she received for her take on the assassin incident had fallen on deaf ears.

「Didn’t we have this talk already?」

「I get it, time fixes all problems and whatnot but we’re in a fantasy world.」

「Your point being?」

「Think slimes, ropers, succubi.」

「I see what you’re getting at now.」

Makoto could easily see things going south if any one of those happened to appear at an inopportune time, especially the last one which was essentially a death sentence to HIroshi.

「All of them are fairly commonplace in fantasy settings, not good.」

「I’m glad you’ve caught on.」

「Just one teeny tiny question, what corners of the internet did you have to scower to get acquainted with all of those at your age?」

Mio placed two fingers against her lips in the shape of a V and pretended to be smoking while blankly staring off into the distance. Despite her attempt at avoiding the issue it was pretty clear that she was into media not by any means suited towards a first year middle schooler, the kind that’s 18+ and chalk full of graphic scenes that don’t shy away from depicting any of the juicy details. Her parents provided her with all the freedom in the world considering she’s hemiplegic but wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect them to draw the line somewhere? Like any responsible adult would.

「Would you look at the pot calling the kettle black.」

「I’m a fully grown adult, it’s only natural I’d be acquainted with these, as are most of our group members asides from Haruna, possibly.」

Needless to say most of the members were otakus. While VRMMO’s did gain significant traction and went on to become widely accepted across society it’s only fair to say that most of the people who’d seriously consider trying their hand at one of those were more than likely otaku’s or at least otaku-inclined. In that sense Haruna was the oddball of the group since she started playing at launch despite not being actively interested in any otaku related media.

That being said she didn’t, by any means, look down on others who were different from her in that regard. Whenever faced with raunchy jokes or topics she’d never actively chip in nor ever politely ask anyone to refrain from bringing such subject material up. She knew that healthy adults were just instinctively wired to hold an interest in such manners and thought nothing of it. Truly a shining example of mature wisdom.

「That just sounds like you’re being hypocritical.」

「If you were, say, in your second year of middle school I’d begrudgingly let it slide but before all this went down you were a primary schooler.」

「Age isn’t relevant.」

「There’s got to be an ethical line drawn somewhere and you know that…」

Mio’s future prospects were concerning. It’s not just her hemiplegia either, even if she was to somehow completely overcome it her perspective on life would likely lead her to some… rather unconventional places, to say the least.

「A bit off topic but I’ve got this feeling that you’ve been assigning all of us roles based on dating sim conventions.」

「…」

Makoto’s observation was met with the exact same attempt at avoiding the issue as earlier. It didn’t fool anyone.

「I’d be willing to bet Haruna’s either the fan service character or the side heroine whose love was never meant to be in your eyes.」

「The former’s Artiem, the latter’s unoccupied for now.」

「Gotcha.」

Mio had fallen for the obvious bait. She could’ve attempted to bring back the conversation to what it was originally about but that was a last resort solution at best since openly avoiding confrontation would’ve implicitly confirmed Haruna’s jokey suspicions to be true, which was to be avoided at all costs. Mio therefore decided to go along with the joke and purposefully come off as suspicious as humanly possible. She began by blowing air out of her lips in a shoddy attempt at whistling but that didn’t cut it, so she took it one step further and began recreating what seemed like a really botched imitation of traditional tai chi movements.

In reality those weren’t just any movements slapped together with no rhyme or reason, they were a reference to a certain infamous dancing, if you could call it that, sequence in this one heart-wrenchin…gly below average coming of age dating sim’s opening cinematic. The game was so old that the platform it originally released on can only be found in museum’s nowadays and yet Mio, at her age, was apparently deeply enough involved in the subculture to be in on the joke. This, amongst other things, made Haruna seriously contemplate the possibility of age fabrication going on.

What was evident from this short episode was that Mio was, without a doubt, the most far gone within the group of Japanese folk.

「Are you done yet?」

「Ackchyually if I had to go on a limb and pinpoint Haru’s type, she’d definitely be that one main heroine from the stone age of dating sims who’d awaken the latent existential dread within the deepest recesses of the souls of players who attempted clearing her route without a walkthrough by requiring them to successfully clear over five random events a day while simultaneously making sure to avoid all and any events pertaining to other heroines, no matter how trivial or inconsequential they might be.」

「That’s… surprisingly accurate, I’ll give you that much but if you think I’m letting you off the hook that easily you’ve got another thing coming.」

「Isn’t it odd how Mako’s keeping up with the conversation? I suspect age fabrication’s in play.」

「No, it’s not odd at all, one of my guild mates just happened to be from around that time and it occasionally popped up in conversations. Oh and I’d like to remind you that what you’ve just fallen for the pitfall of circular logic.」

Makoto wasn’t going to drop the matter that easily, she was out for bloo… answers.

「I’ll have you know that humans are too complicated to be put into boxes oh and if you thought for even a second that I’ll turn a blind eye to your 18+ media consumption habit you have another thing coming, miss.」

「The dominoes have already fallen into place.」

「We’ll see how long that stays true once we get back home.」

「At least let me try out the popular new releases.」

「If they’re popular enough they’ll get an all years version eventually, have some patience.」

「But to some the 18+ bits are integral to the story…」

「That’s exactly why you keep clear of them! Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?」

Makoto noted getting Mio back on the right track as one of her main priorities despite having derailed herself some time back. To be fair to both of them the industry surrounding otaku interests is well known for leading people off the straight and narrow.

「How about we have this conversation some time later?」

「Consider yourself lucky, for now. While I’d love nothing more but to get to the nitty gritty, now’s not exactly the time nor the place.」

Makoto begrudgingly yielded to Mio’s desperate attempt at changing the subject. If it wasn’t for the fact that they were in a dungeon Mio would have most certainly not gotten off the hook that easily.

「How do we proceed here, Mako?」

「Let’s get a good grasp of our surroundings first before we get to anything concrete.」

Mio had decided that leaving all the planning up to Haruna, who was much more experienced in dungeoneering, was the best course of action.

「Just to be sure is anyone within your detection range?」

「Nope.」

「That means there’s at least a kilometer of distance between all of us.」

Mio’s detection range, enhanced by her high perception stat and various detection abilities, was off the charts. Even without the use of magic and even in an environment where there’s a lot to pick up she could still narrow down her options to only what she wanted to find at the moment. Taking Mio’s word on this one was a no-brainer so it was safe to assume that the group had been separated at least a kilometer away from each other.

「Can you cast healing spells?」

「Can do minor heals, barely. Unlike Tatsu and Haru my spell power isn’t high so it’s really weak.」

「Could you be more specific?」

「It’s about on par with class six potions.」

「By class six potions do you mean the randomly dropped ones or Hiroshi’s handmade ones?」

「Somewhere in between.」

Considering their current capabilities it certainly lacked oomph but potion reserves were limited and there’s always a risk of poisoning, not to mention that they’re impractical to utilize in a dungeon environment. In that sense a minor heal with next to no cast time and a short cd was immensely useful, even if not particularly potent.

「How many times can you cast it?」

「About thirty times without going over my mana per minute and over ten thousand times if I was to completely empty out my mana reserve.」

Fairy Tale Chronicle’s ability costs and regen were all fixed values, with some abilities there was an element of randomness to the cost but none of them scaled off of the users max mp or hp values. With all of her stat boosts combined Mio’s mana per minute regenerated close to one percent of her total mana, which was enough to continuously cast crafting skills for six seconds at a novice level and two minutes at an intermediate level. In other words it was pretty resource intense the lower one’s proficiency was at a skill.

「That doesn’t sound all too bad.」

「I wouldn’t put too much faith in that if I was you.」

「Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, have you acquired any new offensive abilities by chance?」

「Nope.」

「That about settles that then, don’t see any change in weapon choice either so there’s another box that we can tick off.」

「I’m not sensei levels of bonkers, I can’t just fashion any old Hunter tree into a bow like it was second nature.」

There was an undeniable experience gap between the hardcore players that have been playing since launch and the semi-hardcore players who shirked on certain skills. Mio’s case was special and she managed to rack up a lot more hours than most but there were only so many hours in a day.

「Don’t think it’s a good idea to approach the core of the miasma in our state.」

「Compared to the other groups only our hp is at a good enough level, everything else is lacking.」

「Well I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve to cover those blind spots, not to mention that we also have the added benefit of thief skills on our side.」

「I’d rather you not put too much faith into them, I’ve next to no experience in this particular kind of dungeon.」

「So long as they’re intermediate or higher I don’t see a problem with that, makes a whole world of difference.」

Mio was still largely unconvinced, a perfect example of how fickle a concept objective self-evaluation was.

Haruna wasn’t exaggerating by any means, thief skills, a la crafting skills, had a world of a difference in usability between novice and intermediate ranks. Novice level thief’s could only reliably disarm the kind of traps that any old Joe could safely set off with a long enough object and a little bit of patience while intermediate level thief’s were already dealing with the types of traps that couldn’t be set off with such primitive methods. Advanced level thief’s could swiftly deal with and set traps of a magical nature. Needless the say the applicability goes up exponentially with the ranks.

There was a catch to all of this, however. Thief skills were infamous for being incredibly tedious to acquire and on the whole they were exclusively geared towards a very specific kind of player, those who couldn’t comprehend the system intuitively were pretty much screwed, not to the extent of crafting, but screwed nonetheless. Makoto was just on the cusp of intermediate and has been for a while now but that’s not because she had given up on the pursuit she simply hasn’t had the opportunity to interact with traps in any meaningful way for some time.

「Have you noticed anything strange about this dungeon?」

「The walls are moving.」

「Are they really?」

「Yup.」

Mio whipped out a ten foot pole and poked a nearby wall. Makoto, upon seeing clear signs of movement, frowned.

「This makes things interesting, doesn’t it?」

「It sure does.」

「Hopefully it won’t pounce on us at least.」

「That variable is unclear at the moment, although if we go by clichés it would’ve done so by now.」

Makoto nodded in agreement.  Even if the walls were to attack they’d likely pick a more opportune moment.

「In any case we’re lacking in resources so we should probably be better off avoiding moving directly towards the miasma.」

「A detour it is?」

「You know it.」

「Follow my lead.」

The two, led by Mio, began making their way towards where the miasma wasn’t as prevalent. Unlike Hiroshi’s gung-ho approach the two decided to take their sweet time. The path behind them began quickly disappearing but that wasn’t much cause for concern since they had been expecting as much from the very get go.

「Got to wonder what awaits us.」

「Anything but one of those obscene traps, I hope.」

Mio responded with an out of place comment. At the very least it proved just how calm and collected the two were about their predicament.

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