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ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 387 Part 1

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 387: Fishbowl Monster Part 1

「Is it dango? Or is it daifuku?」

「It’s yokan.」

「I like the sound of that. Yokan.」

I am here. Somehow I really ended up coming here. Now, I would like to rather avoid making and parallels between Union Rounds and Bakumatsu Online, but it was such a magical moment that it was actually impossible for me not to do that…… No. The two might have been the same, but the thinking process that brought me here was fundamentally different.

But anyways. No matter how crazy I may seem or how similar this game’s battle royale-like event seemed to other game, I was not going to simply waltz straight into the last boss without any kind of preparation beforehand.

Besides, the only reason why I was able to act so swiftly and managed to retain a cool head was only because I have already experienced a similar thing in ShanFro. That is why fighting two might opponents one after another was not something that would be a new experience for me.

And that ShanFro experience, alongside all others accumulated during the years of playing shitty games was about to prove pivotal in me undertaking the task that was now standing right in front of me…… the player with a difficulty rating so ridiculously high that he earned the title of “Raid Boss” for himself: Yura.

「…………!!!」

「…………???」

「…………!!!!!!」

Even though the ghosts that were surrounding us both were silent, I knew that on their side they must have been making a whole lot of noise. After all, the moment when the Numer One player in the entire game meets with the Provisional Number One of the event, there is just no way that you would not want to just sit back and want to enjoy the show.

However, I can’t worry about the ghosts at a time like this. I can feel that some of them have a huge grudge going on for me, but I must not let that feeling of intimidation cause me to lose focus of the opponent that is right in front of me. I feel that if I were to do that, my head would surely fly off my neck on the spot. But no matter how hard I try to fight this raising anxiety back, I can’t seem to get myself rid of it.

「Matcha……」

I guess that this is exactly what a Matcha is. However, every possible battle strategy I could think of here ended up in my own death. And that is to say after consulting the “Raid Boss Cheat Sheet” that some of the brave souls from this game managed to conjure up after repeatedly coming into contact with the raid boss in order to see if there are any patters to his battle behaviors.

In the first place, this raid boss is unlike anything I have ever seen before, mostly because he’s human and unlike an AI he won’t indiscriminately come right at me with the intention to kill. Surprisingly enough, so far he’s been rather passive.

There are also testimonies of people who claimed to have meet him just like that on the road or at the crossroads, but after exchanging a polite greeting they would simply walk their respective paths without any combat occurring.

「Green tea is fine with me. I’m not someone so pretentious as to argue what kind of tea I would like to have alongside my snack.」

Let’s try to assess the situation for now…… Okay, I’m safe for now. I still can’t fathom what this guy is thinking about, but if my head was not severed from my body until that point in time, I should be safe for now.

However, according to the verification team, this particular Raid Boss has a whole lot of flags buried deep inside of the conversation options you decide to take. I have no idea what’s the “algorithm” behind those conversations is, but it is safe to assume that depending on your answers the following battle is going to be either much harder or much easier. There are also other patterns here: make a wrong choice, you get slashed. Stumble upon your words, you get slashed. Wait too long with your answer, you get slashed. There is also a possibility that an answer unrelated to the conversation’s topic is going to get you killed instantly.

「That’s one hell of an amazing score you have there.」

「Thanks, but I don’t really think that it is all that amazing.」

This raid boss surely is unmatched, but at the same time he is not invincible. After this event, there is sure to be a large scale “Anti Raid Boss” operation to be carried out here, and even if there will be no way of obtaining the event rewards from this operation ,the promise of overwhelming the raid boss and possibility of taking it down is going to be more than enough for people to jump at it. After all, no boss can hope to fight against many opponents all at once.

When it comes to Full Dive games, usually there is an equality sign between the appearance and the contents, you would actually be surprised how popular this raid boss is, with his child-like face and voice that is a perfect match for it.

That is exactly why some people conduct extensive research into the Raid Boss day and night. If only one person admired the Raid Boss it would not apply in here, but I say that if at least four people admire someone, that person is sure to be remembered for eternity in glory.

「Hmm…… Are you perhaps aiming for the first place?」

This is bad, I need to speed up my thinking process.

「…… I mean, we will only know that once the event ends and the results are in, right?」

I wait for the response while biting my lip. Could it be that I have stepped on a landmine just now? Was that some sort of a hidden “Giant Killing” switch? Maybe it would be better to launch my offensive right here right now? No, that would be suicide, since this place is rather cramped and we are within each other’s reach. I must stay calm and wait until I will be sure that there is a surefire way for me to win this.

「Hmm……? Is that so?」

Pauses and interruptions like that are truly dangerous times during conversations. There is a theory out there that assumes that the raid boss has a certain “rhythm” to himself, and that rhythm might just have been interrupted.

In short, you keep up with his rhythm with correct answers and you get bigger score and combo gauge. However, you miss a beat, it all goes away and you get Divine Punishment. Talk about a high difficulty quest, huh?

The Haori of the Restorationist dyed in the color of falling cherry blossoms and the blue Haori of the Shinsengumi, all lining up pretty nicely with Japanese sweets and tea. I bet all those would be really sweet, but since this is the game, you can only feel the texture…… this makes me feel somewhat empty. But it cannot be helped. After all, flavor is something that would be extremely hard to replicate inside of a game.

「So…… does that mean that you wish to beat me?」

Gah, this is so confusing! No wonder that people are getting Divine Punished into oblivion by this guy! You can barely even keep up with him at this rate!