ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 383 Part 1
ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 383: Side Story 5 – Isogenic Dragon Cells – Part 1
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「Speaking of which, what does it even mean “TO MOLD”!?」
「Honestly? I have no idea.」
「Huh? Rust!? What gives!?」
Although the duo comprising of Rust and Mold was mainly focusing on playing Nephilim Hollow at the moment, there was no way that they could also ignore their responsibilities in ShangriLa Frontier. That is why they had to split their time in between these two games.
That is exactly why when one of the players who belonged to the same Guild as them brought in certain information, Rust and Mold knew that they had to act. So they did just that: in order to prepare themselves for the activities that were surely to come in the nearby future, they went towards the village of the People of the Forest located on the new continent so that they could release the level caps on their respective avatars…… That is, they were trying to do that, but then it turned out that Mold’s level and his personal interests would get in the way of them doing just that.
「…… And what do you think this is?」
「It’s a Player…… or at least I think they were.」
「Ooh, ooohhh, yeah……」
And it just so happened that right in the middle of the Elven Forest both Rust and Mold came across the most peculiar of finding: a dead player, looking like a squashed mosquito.
「I had no idea that there may be other players here. And this one looks as though he was killed not all that long ago…… Shit.」
「…… So? Am I supposed to believe that was the exact reason why you cut down Mold’s HP by eighty percent in one go, without even bothering to see who it was that you were attacking? Is that it?」
「I know that this is a game, but why am I always the one who gets to be sacrificed as a meat shield like that! Have some mercy! Do you even realize how that makes me feel!?」
The player that Rust and Mold have happened to come across after that apparently was called Vigilance. It was a strange encounter, because he looked to be in trouble, but upon coming closer he jumped at the two, claiming that if they won’t give him the very best items that were in their possession, he would end up sending them to the afterlife after shaving both of their HP bars, which he aptly demonstrated on Mold’s example.
「You see, that was…… Oh well, what the hell, surely I am not the only one afflicted with this? That was the passive effect of the racial affliction that I happen to have contracted. It’s called Dragon Blood Demon. You might also heard about it being called a Vampire.」
「Race……?」
「Dragon Blood Demon?? Vampire??」
「Dragon Blood Demon is a condition that you can be afflicted with as a result of coming into TOO CLOSE of a contact with certain enemies. When you get afflicted with it, you receive a unique skill called “Blood Charge”…… I am pretty sure that you know what is the effect of such a skill, right? I mean, Vampires can suck the blood of their enemies and heal their wounds as a result, at the same time accumulating a thing called “Blood Suck Gauge”……」
When you are a Vampire, you need to keep a constant look on the Blood Suck Gauge. If you manage to get it higher and higher it will result in you status being strengthened more and more. However, if you allow the gauge to drop below fifty percent it will revert your status to normal and even influence it in a negative way. And if you let it drop below thirty percent, you are going to start receiving continuous damage over time until you bring it back up.
So playing as a Vampire in this game is like a very dangerous high risk high reward playstyle, or like a constant race against time. But Rust could understand the concept well here, since back at Nephilim Hollow she would sometimes make similar mechas, but instead of blood they would require fuel to operate properly.
「Plus, I’m mostly a solo gamer, so…… I was hoping that there would be some monsters in the wilds, so I would have get my gauge filled on them no problem……」
According to the words of the Vampire player, Blood Sucking is a skill that has a high chance of failure against the high level monsters, but if you wanted to go an pray on the low-level monsters, you would only get about ten percent of the usual amount of blood sucked.
Not to mention that the NPC seem so have some sort of a horror scanner build in them, for they are able to recognize the Dragon Blood Demons and perceive them as monsters without fail. So Vampires cannot really negotiate with NPC to let them get their blood sucked, and the only remaining option let for Vampires is to hunt for unaware NPCs and players in the wild. So it clearly was not the most graceful option out there, but it was an option still. Better that than having to starve and start receiving continuous damage over time as a penalty.
「Now, fortunately thanks to your “assistance” right here, I was able to get back about eighty percent of my gauge. So thanks a lot for that.」
「…… Yeah, right. Assistance, he says.」
「No matter how you tend to look at it, it was about to turn into a solo player kill. And a pretty efficient one at that.」
While Vigilance put his hand on his forehead and let out a huge sigh of relief, Mold suddenly jerked up as if he remembered something. Then, he asked Vigilance a question that was only natural to be asked under those circumstances.
「How come that your race got changed like that? Is there some sort of a quest to receive it? Or maybe an NPC that you need to talk to?」
There are still way more ways in which the race change could have happened, but the two examples above tend to be the most common ones in video games. …… There is also the “Conversion” option available, but if the player was yet to reach the village of Beastmen in the new world, there is no possible way that they would know about said system in the first place. To begin with, the only way in which Rust and Mold knew about it is because one of the members of their Guild was a player who managed to converge her avatar in that exact way.
It was the most possible explanation that both Rust and Mold could think of at the current moment. However, much to their surprise Vigilance shook his head in denial, his face growing awfully pale all of a sudden.
「No, it’s not it…… It’s actually because I have been cursed by the Black Dragon, Noirlind.」
「…… Muh.」
「Hmmnh.」
Normally a reaction like that would have caused Vigilance to grow angry at the ones who did it, but this time around he continued speaking as if nothing happened, most probably because he attributed this sudden shock to the fact that the players before him heard the dreaded name of the Black Dragon, Noirlind.
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