3 bar menu

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 544 Part 1

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 544: Epilogue: Returnees from Tannhäuser Gate Part 1

「Fumuh……」

After carefully reading through the World Truth Book that was given to him, the Professor lets out a long sigh like that. The tension visibly left his body and the wrinkles around his eyes and nose finally loosened for a bit.

Although he might have looked young in this game, the Professor’s real life age was slowly approaching the number at which the everyday activities and things that would take a young person only but a moment would take him much longer to accomplish. But even if it was not due to overworking his eyes, you could say it was all due to the tiredness from his daily habits.

「First of all and before anything else, congratulations on defeating the Orchestra of the Gloomy Melody, Mire-san. I wanted to be the first one to congratulate you for achieving this feat.」

「Heh, thanks a lot. But don’t mention it.」

「Fufu…… Why, you do not look all that happy about that. Shouldn’t taking down the Unique Monster fill you with a sense of accomplishment?」

It was not only about Mirei and the Professor here. Truth to be told, ever since Mirei left the chamber where the Unique Monster boss arena was present and shared with everyone the World Truth book, the expressions on everyone’s faces were just about the same. So even though it was supposed to be a triumphant return, the atmosphere around the place was anything but.

Defeating the Unique Monster in battle and clearing the Unique Scenario EX related to said Unique Monster grants the player the World Truth Book, a volume that describes the Unique Monster in greater detail and gives the player some more lore information to consider. It also causes the World Quest storyline to progress even further.

So far, the players managed to acquire three World Truth Books: one from the Gravekeeper Wezaemon, one from the Kutanid of the Abyss and one from the Siegwurm, the Heavenly Emperor…… And this time around, with Mirei’s defeat of the Orchestra, the players managed to obtain the fourth World Truth Book, the “Gloomy Melody Chapter”.

However, there was a certain problem pertaining to that particular World Truth Book. Or rather, the contents that were inside of it.

「“The World Truth Book: The Gloomy Melody Chapter”…… This is basically pseudepigrapha, wouldn’t you all agree?」

「No, I mean, it certainly looks that way at the first glance, but…… It was not really that we did not expect something like that to happen in case of this particular Unique Monster. And I do not think that there will be much room for variety in case of this particular World Truth Book.」

Yes, that’s right. Because as it turns out, the World Truth Book that Mirei managed to bring back with herself after the battle has ended up to be neither the complete strategy guide against the Orchestra, nor possess any kind of lore surrounding that particular Unique Monster…… That is why it was hence dubbed “Pseudepigrapha”.

Of course, this does not mean that the book in itself was worthless or that it was a fake that somehow managed to replace the original World Truth Book.

As far as Mirei was able to read it, it was not about the Orchestra battle that she herself managed to experience. The identity of the Orchestra was also never mentioned there, and even if it was it was nothing clear and all that useful to the players, as it would not give them any idea about anything at all.

I see, if they had seen it without any prior knowledge about the similar items to this, even if it was the Professor they would have obediently accepted that thing as the genuine article and just went on their marry way. However, since the members of the “Library” already knew just how the World Truth Books tend to look like and what their contents may be thanks to their agreement with the “Wolfgang” and their personal campaigns against the Unique Monster, they were all able to decipher the proper meaning of this text just from a single glance at it.

「I am only going to say one thing here: the one who decided to write this thing surely had one hell of a twisted personality. And maybe way too much free time available on their hands.」

「Yes, I must completely agree here. What’s even more disturbing here is the fact that this thing is so well-made that at the first glance nothing seems to be wrong with it. You would only know it’s not the genuine article if you have seen one of those things before.」

「Does that mean that it’s now canon that only this Sanraku guy is able to obtain the genuine World Truth Books!?」

「It would seem that way, at least from our standing. Not to mention that apparently he is way ahead of all of us, witnessing things that no one else was able to witness, like that Tsuchinko-type of snake……」

「It is possible that the information contained in this thing are going to be of use to us? Anything worth considering?」

「Not really, no. I mean, if the recipe for hors d’oeuvre is what you are looking for, then sure. But otherwise? No.」

「But still, isn’t there anything more that we can investigate as far as the Orchestra is concerned? Maybe there is a further gimmick somewhere around the battle arena? Something that Mire-san happened to omit by accident?」

「No, no, no. Maybe there is some sort of a clue hidden away inside of the Leviathan? It’s certainly a possibility, right?」

「Could it be that we need to make an impression on the Brave Fish? Or basically treat it like a dating sim? Is that what this is all about?」

「I don’t think that’s actually the case here. In the first place, the Brave Fish acts in the same way towards everyone she meets. This means that her “likeliness” parameter is probably set on a specific value for all the players out there. So trying to butter her up won’t actually get you anywhere.」

「Or maybe it’s the Conquest Dolls that are hiding something? Should we try to interrogate them?」

「No, I do not think that this is the case here, either. And even if it was, there would be no need for drastic measures quite like that. If I understand this correctly…… The job of Conquest Dolls is to keep watch over us primitive human beings and make sure that we do not advance too much and too fast. Otherwise we could end up dropping the atomic bomb on our heads and end the whole world, wouldn’t you agree? And this entire Orchestra Protocol quite honestly seems like something that is design to keep us all in the dark for as long as possible.」

「…… I wonder if there is something that can be done about that blasted music player out there? It certainly looks mighty suspicious if you were to ask me for opinion.」

「Yeah, this theory is way more plausible. At least way better than the theory that the right setting will unleash a small mecha onto the battle arena out of the blue.」