Chapter 33 - Chapter 31: After the Festival
Day 9 (Monday)
"Okay, see you later."
"Mm…"
Watching Mion totter towards her seat, I sat down at mine.
"Morning."
"Morning, morning. Yesterday's festival was amazing, wasn't it?"
Festival? Ah…
"The uninhabited island fire festival, you mean?"
"That's the one."
In the end, I couldn't play IRO after that, so we all watched my archive, which turned into a 'grilling session'…
No, I wasn't really grilled, but I did get a lot of questions, and I had questions too, so it worked out.
"By the way, I didn't check this morning, but is the maintenance over?"
"Looks like maintenance ended at 6 AM this morning. Apparently, characters that were deleted due to the trap, for which applications were made, have been restored."
"Huh~, the operations team must be having a tough time… But did Natto have an acquaintance who deleted their character?"
Given he's such a cheerful person, I feel like he already has a lot of friends in-game.
"Nah, my friends were mad about the maintenance announcement, but they wouldn't fall for something like that. I saw on the official forum this morning that deleted characters were restored."
"Ah, the official forum, huh? I haven't looked at it at all…"
I'm avoiding it because I might see spoilers. Besides, it's about towns and quests, things that seem completely unrelated to me.
The only relevant topics would probably be about production skills?
"Well, if you're worried about spoilers, it's better not to look. I haven't looked at anything quest-related either."
"Aren't there some quests that are 'impossible to clear without prior research'?"
"It's only been two weeks since launch, so there are no quests like that yet. IRO's official statement is 'only story quests cannot be retried'."
"Hoh~."
Come to think of it, Miki said something similar. That the main story would start after the new player restrictions were lifted following stable operation.
Well, it probably has nothing to do with me, living on an uninhabited island…
*
From what I gathered from Natto during break, it seems there's no talk of Mion and me being at fault. At least, not on the official forum.
"Basically, it's wrong for a virtual idol on a game strategy site to encourage character restarts without verification, and it's also the fault of those who fell for it."
That seemed to be the general consensus, which was a relief. We were discussing this in the Club Room.
"Is that so? I'm relieved."
"Right. If we got blamed for staying silent, it would've been a total headache."
"Can I see the official forum too?"
"I think it's only available to IRO players… but Mion already has a character, so I feel like she should be able to see it."
Even if she hasn't started playing, as long as she has an account, it should be fine, right? She'd decided on 'Mion' as her character name.
"May I go take a look?"
"I think it's fine, but since we declared that announcements would only be on the channel, I don't think posting comments would be okay?"
"Yes. I'll just look."
"Also, there might be insults written there, but…"
"It's fine."
Saying that, Mion went to look at the forum from the official website.
I wasn't planning on looking, and I had time until Bell-buchou arrived. Come to think of it, how many views did Mion's uploaded video get…
"Whoa, seriously?"
The first video had over 300,000 views, and the next one had over 120,000. Subscriber count has exceeded 5,000, huh~.
"You two are fast."
"Well, I am their homeroom teacher~."
Bell-buchou and Yata-sensei arrived and took their respective seats.
"Regarding yesterday's emergency maintenance incident, it seems that for now, no blame is falling on either of you."
"It seems more like people are worried about them~."
They were talking about that while looking at the channel… where? Ah, it must be the comments on our announcements here.
Comments had increased on that side since around the time of yesterday's maintenance.
Many were worried that Mion might stop uploading videos. Also, a few comments like, 'Thanks to watching the video, I decided against an Uninhabited Island Start' were popping up…
"Well, after watching that video, no one would think, 'Me too!'"
"And we've also learned from this incident that latecomers can't join as collaborators~."
"Is it okay to post the next video on Tuesday?"
"I think so. Let's do it during club time tomorrow."
Tomorrow's video is up to the part where I save Lupi, right? That alone seems like it'll excite animal lovers…
*
"Woof!"
"Good morning, Lupi. Just a moment."
As usual, I started a livestream, restricted to Mion. Soon, the viewer count reached 1.
"Shou-kun, Lupi-chan, good evening."
"Welcome, Mion."
"Woof-un."
Well, I have about an hour until club ends, so I guess I'll quickly continue checking traps and collecting clay.
"By the way, about processing hides…"
"Oh, did you find anything?"
"Apparently, there's a skill called [Material Processing]. It processes monster drops that can't be used as is, turning them into usable materials."
"Ooooh!"
Wait, did she just search for it on the official forum for me? Hmm, it feels like I'm causing trouble for her because of my stubbornness about avoiding spoilers.
Anyway, I opened the skill list… where's [Material Processing]? Found it. It only costs 1 SP, so I acquired [Material Processing: Lv1].
When I picked up the skin I had left in the tent, it seemed I was short on processing agents. Processing agents… can I manage that with Alchemy?
"Is it no good?"
"It seems like I could do it, but it says I don't have enough processing agents for the skin."
"When you say processing agents for skin… it seems like it involves soaking it in tannin, or something similar."
Mion told me this, so she must have looked it up. Tannin… that's like persimmon astringent, right?
Persimmon… I think I've seen something like it somewhere…
"Ah!"
I took out a Papu Fruit and used Appraisal…
[Papu Fruit]
Fruit from the Papu Tree. Very astringent.
Cooking: Delicious when astringency is removed by drying or other methods. Alchemy: The juice removes Paralysis. Material Processing: The juice can be used as a leather processing agent.
"This is it! This is essentially a persimmon, right? It feels like the troublesome parts are skipped to fit the game."
"That's amazing!"
"No, no, it's thanks to you, Mion. Alright! In addition to checking traps and looking for clay, let's go Gathering Papu Fruits!"
"Woof!"