3 bar menu

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 386 Part 1

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 386: Side Story 7 – Extremely noisy, but unbelievably peaceful (Compared to normal times) – Part 1

* * *

Hyuhh…… For some reason my body felt really sluggish and heavy, as if I was slowly drowning in the puddle of mud.

「Oooh! You must be Kyogoku-chan! The very same Kyogoku-chan who went down in that spectacular explosion alongside the “Only Sword” and “Thousand Needless”, right!? Fancy meeting you here!」

「Whoa! What a way to go down! On one hand it was extremely crappy and anti-climactic, but on the other hand it was so cool-looking!」

「How about you try to break dance with us all? Since our bodies are nothing more but spirits now, it’s oh-so-easy to pull off now! See? Just look how light we all are! Now, spin and turn around and forget about anything else!」

「But still, it’s kind of a bummer that we have no food to eat here. Not that we would be able to eat any in the first place, but still……」

「Huh, don’t you know, buddy? We can’t eat normal food like all the others, but if you go to the shrines located on the graveyards, there are special areas for offerings where you can find food items that even ghosts like us can eat! The only food items that you can find there are called “Ghost buns”, they might look really fishy, but at least you can eat them no problem!」

「No, I heard about the offerings in the graveyards, but…… Ah, won’t you look at that! We can offer items in here as well!」

「「「Ahahahaha! What the hell is wrong with that bun!? Just look at it! …… Look how moldy it is!」」」

Ah, could you all shut the hell up for a moment? God, it is so noisy in here, can’t really focus my thoughts on anything.

Originally she was going to stick to Sanraku and keep on cursing him, but that soon got really tiresome and proved to be way too much of a bother for her to keep up with it. So Kyogoku went somewhere else and tried to mingle with the ghosts there, only to find out that the places where the ghosts were hanging around was way noisier than she would have ever imagined. She frowned her brows upon making that discovery.

They are ghosts. This means that they have all died once and they cannot die again, no matter what. This means that they also cannot be revived and rejoined the event. Faced with that simple truth, it seems that the ghosts here decided to forget about their usual psychopathic and blood-soaked routines and focus on more silly things that were giving them joy and pleasure outside of combat. Hence the goofiness all around her. Also, some of the ghosts were excited to observe the struggles of surviving players and making best, but the former was way more common.

「Speaking of which, Kyogoku-chan? You seem to have known “Matsuribayashi”, right? Or was it only my imagination?」

「Matsuri…… Aah, you mean Sanraku? It’s not that I know him all that well, but you may as well call us acquaintances? It’s really hard to define the kind of relationship the two of us have going on. Anyways, we have met in some other game and he was the one who recommended this game to me. And that’s about it.」

「What is he, a demon or something? Who in their right mind would ever recommend a game like that to anyone else?」

「Nah, man, it’s not about that. Seeing as Kyogoku-chan fights and behaves on the battlefield, I can tell: she has a knack for this thing! This atmosphere in this Bakumatsu Online fits her like a glove!」

「Yeah, she even went down screaming: “I’LL GET MY REVENGE YOU SON OF A BITCH! JUST YOU WAIT AND……!”」

「Welp, I think that the next time the two of them meet on the battlefield, this other guy is going to be a dead meat for sure.」

「But you see a whole lot of players like that lately…… You know, those sharp and conniving ones who keep on targeting Rankers specifically, just like a mad dog would stalk its prey.」

「But they are certainly growing sharper and more manipulative. How knows? If they continue to evolve their tactics like that, maybe there will come a time when they will be able to dethrone even the Raid Boss himself?」

「This feels much like a monkey that first managed to learn how to use primitive tools, and now managed to learn how to make fire……」

「So, it’s kinda like Paradigm Shift of sorts?」

The gathering of ghostly players here was so cheerful and so talkative that it was actually hard for Kyogoku to believe that they were the same kind of people that were slashing each other to pieces on a daily basis, screaming like a bunch of bloody maniacs while being at it.

Seeing those players behave like that, Kyogoku was starting to get a feeling that with behavioral changes like that this game would very soon balance on the brim of becoming depopulated. Also, seeing some players here that she herself sent to the afterlife, there was a feeling that was slowly starting to rekindle itself deep down inside of her chest. That feeling was the smoldering fire of hatred.

「Hey there, everyone!」

「Oh, look who it is! Only Sword-san! Hi there!」

「I knew that you can utilize the gunpowder to your advantage in this game, but I had no idea that the effects would be so powerful! I knew it, gunpowder is one of mankind’s greatest inventions!」

「Also, where were your favorite dumplings? You use them for healing, right? Should have stopped by a tea shop to resupply instead of chasing after the enemy like that! That was the cause for your downfall!」

「That’s right. But in return I managed to get my hands on some of “Thousand Needles’” ammo supply, which is a fairly good trade if I do say so myself.」

With two Rankers joining the ranks of the ghosts, the place was becoming even noisier than ever before. Especially since those two Rankers were relatively high in the top ten ranking and there would normally be no way for them to fall out of the race so soon.

「Yeah, like, we were trying our best at the auctions at the “Golden Demon” with buying the gunpowder and moving it all to one place while keeping silent about it. We wanted to originally make a siege net with it, but look just how horribly it has backfired on us now.」

「You don’t say!? However, I heard that the explosion was that caused by the fireworks warehouse, and not something like that? So don’t you think that the two cases are somewhat unrelated?」

「Goods from the “Golden Demon” pawn shop. I have always wanted to try going to auction there at least once, since all of their items look so good!」

Pawn shop happened to be a special place with various sales in this game.

Paw shop in this game happened to be the equivalent of the auction houses that you could find all over every other MMORPG. The system works in such a way that you could make a deposit of some of your items and receive a monetary equivalent of it in exchange, but then you needed to make sure that you are able to give back the rented amount precisely on the appointed day. Failure to deliver money on the due date would result in both the money being taken from you and the player losing the right of ownership to the item that was deposited. Also, from time to time the pawn shop would organize the auctions, trying to sell various items they managed to confiscate. It was that kind of a peculiar system.

And because some of the items offered at the pawn shop were really good or really rare, it was always a good strategy to keep your ears opened for any sort of rumors pertaining to the pawn shop and the rare goods that might be for sale at the given time.

This system even allowed for other to be able to obtain some truly Unique weapons, the ones which would be impossible to steal or obtained as a battle drop for killing other players. And since it was only natural that Rankers during events would be at each other’s throats, it was always a good idea to lurk around the pawn shop at that time, for there was always a possibility that some of their unique equipment might actually resurface there, all for the taking for other players.

The best thing here is, however, that players could actually use their own items and money they have obtained for themselves as bargaining chips during the auction. So it was often the case that with the minimum of investment you could have gotten your hands on something so good that its value was momentarily returned to you. It’s a system that you needed to be experienced at, but the one that guaranteed the best profits possible.