Chapter 11 - Ignorant Innocence
“Tenth one… got it.”
For me, who had already confirmed I could handle them even in a herd, a single boar was nothing to fear. While enjoying the healing sight of Sora’s cute, pouting face, I briskly hunted down the Fool Boars.
“Hmph… The fact that you’re defeating them without a scratch is also contributing to my dissatisfaction!”
“Would you prefer it if I died in one hit?”
“What…? W-Why are you so frail?! And now that I notice, your armor! Why aren’t you wearing any?!”
“Frail…”
I can’t help it with the armor. If I equipped armor on top of my straight sword and great axe, I’d hit the carry capacity limit, which would lead to the absurd situation of not being able to bring back any loot from hunting.
Anyway, when I asked, it turned out Sora, just as I’d imagined, was allocating her stats in a fairly balanced way. I was relieved to see she wasn’t wasting points on useless things like STR for her likely build path, but she was already sturdier than me. She could probably take a hit from a Fool Boar and be fine.
“Well, if I don’t get hit, I take no damage.”
“If you take no damage, I’m the one with a problem!”
No-dame, she said. You can tell she’s not used to saying it. How relaxing.
That said, it was also true that my current build was extremely weak against area-of-effect or hard-to-dodge attacks. Case in point, I was currently stuck on the “first area boss.”
“But then again, willingly limiting myself to one weapon and letting my skills go to waste doesn’t sit right with me…”
Though it may be inferior to a specialized aptitude, 《All-Weapon Aptitude》 and 《Quick Change》 were skills the game had tailored for me, saying they “suited me.”
Since I have them, I want to make the most of them, and I want to see what this avatar can do once it’s been pushed to its limits.
I knew we were a mismatched pair, and I felt bad that I couldn't give her a turn to act, but…
“For now, I’ll stick with the current plan.”
“Hmph… Maybe I should go buy a weapon too…”
In this game, magic apparently isn't affected by weapon stats, so Sora, who had only picked up a ring for casters, was currently unarmed. There were staves and such, but those were apparently for magic knight builds that mixed staff arts with magic.
Sora muttered this while clenching and unclenching her empty hands… but yeah, let’s not? Let’s save your melee debut for after you can swing a weapon without closing your eyes.
When I advised her of this in the gentlest way possible, Sora puffed out her cheeks in extreme dissatisfaction.
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“Huh?”
“Wah!?”
After we had been hunting for a while longer, a sudden and unusual event made both of us cry out in surprise.
It was a faint vibration. Thanks to the detailed sensations provided by virtual reality, we could tell it was “gradually getting closer.” This tremor was probably—
“Haru-san, could it be…?”
“Is this the warning sign…?”
My first encounter had been a real pain, with the boss bursting out from under my feet right after I’d wiped out a herd of Fool Boars… but I see. If we assume the condition for the boss to appear is “killing a certain number of mobs,” it’s highly likely I had met that condition during the battle with the herd.
The vibrations coming from the ground were faint but definitely perceptible. It wouldn’t be surprising if I had missed them while running around in a state of high tension.
If that’s the case…
“I can deal with the initial stun… Sora, I’m going to try fighting it, so stay back a bit.”
“…Could you please consider raising your VIT or wearing some armor?”
“Sorry, I’ll give it my full and forward-looking consideration from now on…”
The healer, who had no job even in a boss fight for the crappy reason that her frontline fighter would die in one hit from anything, was now glaring at me, clearly very displeased.
However, this time, Sora would no longer be a complete spectator.
“I’ll do my part in support, at least.”
“Hmph… 《Spectator’s Cheer》.”
From Sora, whose pout had become a permanent fixture on her face, I received the support skill she had newly acquired.
The skill’s name, which probably meant “cheer of a spectator,” was something Sora clearly disliked from the bottom of her heart, but its effect was quite unique and powerful.
By adhering to a set condition, this skill applied a multiplier to all of the target’s stats, and that multiplier was a staggering twenty percent increase.
For a skill acquired so easily by a new player, it was a pretty insane modifier, but the condition for its effect to activate was the extremely restrictive “the caster cannot participate in the subsequent battle.”
…I wonder whose fault it is that a skill like this manifested. Ah, Sora-san, please stop glaring.
As Sora raised her ring-adorned right hand and muttered the skill’s name, my body, the target, began to glow faintly.
“Ugh… this still throws me off.”
My stats were boosted, and I stumbled at the sudden shift in sensation… but well, I’d get used to it. I could develop the ability to adapt to instantaneous changes in my abilities over time.
I was currently level 18, so my total stat points were 180. A 1.2x multiplier on all of those was equivalent to a boost of nearly 4 levels—if the level cap was 100, and you used this on a max-level player, they’d become a level 120 monster, right?
“Haru-san?”
“Oh, just shuddering at your future potential, Sora.”
“…?”
Just as my multi-weapon aptitude grew into All-Weapon Aptitude, if her 《Spectator’s Cheer》 were to evolve further… I should try not to think about it.
More important than that terrifying thought was the master of the earth-shattering tremor that was now rapidly approaching. Speaking of terrifying and Sora… sora-osoroshi…
“—Dodge the terrible pun!”
“BRRRRMOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!”
As I failed to suppress a chilling thought, the dirt-caked giant I was meeting for the second time finally revealed itself from beneath my feet.
As long as I could confirm the warning signs, I already knew how it would appear. I dodged the forced stun from the vibration by timing a jump!
This bellowing beast, more like a raging bull than a great boar, was none other than the villainous [Buried Great Boar], the one that had combo-locked me as if by right.
“Hk…!?”
I sensed the girl gasp behind me, and I couldn't blame her. If I hadn't been crushed to a pulp within three seconds of meeting it, I probably would have been terrified before getting angry.
It stood well over five meters tall, its dirt-caked fur so thick and tough it made a scrubbing brush seem soft. Its two massive tusks, which spiraled flamboyantly like a wine opener, made me question how it even managed to burrow underground.
It looked like the very embodiment of VIT and STR—so, for starters…
“Let me offer you a greeting—DIE!!”
Having evaded the opening stun-lock tremor in mid-air, I landed on one of its twisted tusks. At point-blank range, our eyes met—its pupils were surprisingly small—and I mercilessly plunged the tip of my straight sword into one.
The straight sword, thrust with the force of my entire arm, pierced deep into its eyeball. The great boar, which had appeared only seconds ago, let out a piercing scream as a torrent of bright red effects, a substitute for blood, erupted from its right eye.
“As expected of [Arcadia]! Of course it has a part-break system!!”
I kicked off its snout as it thrashed in agony. As the critical hit effects subsided, my excitement surged at the sight of the large wound where its eye used to be—oops.
“…………”
I felt a gaze on my back. To be more precise, the kind of gaze one would direct at “something seriously dangerous.”
Get a grip, me. This dark habit of mine, which I had only become aware of last night at the tender age of eighteen, was not something I should be revealing to an innocent young girl.
—Face it, me. Right now, you’re the weird one.
“Cool… stay calm and be cool, me…!”
That mutter itself was already not cool, but this was a side of me I had trouble controlling. I calmed my heart, but kept the torque of my mind revved up so as not to drop my performance—
“Heh, not bad. Now come at me, boss of the idiots—it’s time for a rematch.”
As I forcibly shifted gears and taunted it, the great boar, enraged at having lost an eye so suddenly, scraped its hoof on the ground, declaring its intent to trample me immediately.
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“—Hraaah!!”
From a safe distance of over ten meters, the player dodged the massive, charging bulk—a sight that would make even a non-targeted person like herself freeze—and countered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Is a charge all you’ve got, just like the small fry!?”
His words were arrogant, but… well, his attitude was more subdued than yesterday’s display. Whether it reacted to his taunt or not, the great boar screeched to a halt near him, shook its body, and sent the dirt caked on it flying with incredible force.
It was a game-like area-of-effect attack, a massive barrage of flying clods of earth—and yet,
“—”
Did he react?
“Ngh—”
Was he thinking?
“—Hmph…!”
Could he see them?
“————Hah, dodged ‘em all!!”
He crouched, kicked off the ground, threw his body, leaped, did a backflip, a side flip, a one-handed vault—then hid his body behind the great axe he had deployed in mid-air.
If she recorded this process, which had completely devolved into an acrobatic performance, and showed it to him, would he finally realize it?
“He has the face of a beginner, acting like this is all perfectly normal…”
—He seemed to have no awareness of his own abnormality.
Haru had come to [Arcadia] knowing nothing about it. Sora had only just met him, but she had realized that much right away.
But Sora was different. She didn’t know why Haru was so ignorant and clueless, but this game was by no means a closed world. Even now, three years after its release, [Arcadia] remained the “one and only virtual world,” a constant center of global conversation.
From technical aspects to the smallest in-game discoveries, media outlets scrambled to report on them every day. When a major event occurred, it was commonplace for in-game footage to be broadcast to the real world on a massive scale.
That’s why Sora knew. She understood. The way he flew around so freely was not something a person who had just dived into the virtual world could do.
“Haru-san, what you’re doing is actually incredible, you know…?”
She didn’t quite understand why herself, but Sora found she couldn’t tell him the truth.
Just for a little while longer… even if it was just a pretense on her part, from the same position of “ignorance”—she wanted to watch him frolic in his innocence.
As Sora watched with complex emotions, Haru, who was toying with the great boar, smiled as brightly as a child.