kscans

Chapter 156 - Gah, Kill Me!!

It was a Saturday night in the first week of October. At the secret base on Okutama Island, a rather unusual group had gathered. Saku-chan, the Arima brothers, and the junior high combo. Well, the main reason it was unusual was the Arima brothers. Those guys never hang out with the kids. Anyway. The reason this particular group got together was...

"Alright, I'd like to start the first session of our real-life TRPG! Okay, applause!!"
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It was to play the real-life tabletop RPG I had been planning for a while. I invited some other people, but our schedules didn't line up. As a result, this is the group we ended up with.

"Hey, hey, Uncle, this huge globe-like thing is..."

"Yeah. It's a re-creation of the world for the TRPG we're about to play."

We're going to throw the characters we made in here and play.

"...A miniature world, is it? You've created something incredible again."

"Not really. It's like creating a virtual environment on a computer."

I handed out rulebooks and character sheets to everyone. Just as I was about to say, "Alright, let's all make the characters we want," Saku-chan tilted her head with a "huh?"

"Hero Uncle, are you playing too?"

"Huh, what? Am I getting left out?"

"No, that's not it..."

"Isn't Sakuya-kun talking about the GM?"

"Right, a TRPG needs a GM and players, doesn't it?"

Ah, so that's what they meant.

"I have one all ready."
<<...Ready?>>

When I snapped my fingers, the living room door opened. What appeared was a robot with a drum-like physique and a decidedly classical design.

"This is Robo Woman, the GM robot a friend of mine made."
[I AM ROBO WOMAN. NICE TO MEET YOU.]

I had Kawasaki build her. The design is just Robo-Tai with a ribbon stuck on, but she has a different kind of charm that makes her very cute. By the way, since she's just a copy of Robo-Tai with a GM function added, she can also do housework.

"...Sh, she's cute."

It seemed to strike a chord with Sarna-chan in particular. She put a hand to her mouth and started trembling.

"Does that answer your question?"

"Oh, um... I guess anything goes now..."

"Alright, let's make our characters."

Well, I don't even have to think about what kind of character to... A quick glance at the Arima brothers told me they felt the same way.

"""Of course it's gotta be an elf!!"""

We had absolutely no hesitation in creating our ideal female elves. No matter how many times our fantasies are shattered, we will dream them again. Because we are human. ...Well, Mao isn't human, I guess. Yeah.

"Ayase-san, have you decided what kind of character you'll make?"

"Yeah. I'm thinking of a dreamy girl who left her countryside home to become an adventurer."

"Ooh, another classic. Oh, but you're making a girl."

"Haha, well, it's a rare opportunity. I thought I'd try playing as a different gender."

"I know what you mean! I'm planning to make a male character too!"

In response to Rika-chan's words, Saku-chan asked what kind of character concept she was going for. Rika-chan then let out a confident "fuffuffu" and began to describe her character's backstory.

"His name is Jack Dreamer. He's twenty-eight years old. He was born in a small fishing village, and hating the idea of growing old in that cramped place, he ran away at sixteen. He made it to a decent-sized town and became a waiter at a tavern, but he quit after about six months. After that he took on other jobs, but none of them lasted long, so he just bounced from one job to another."

That's the pattern of a total loser.

"Jack has a sense of pride that doesn't match his abilities, and because of that, nothing he does ever works out."

The cringiness is off the charts. This is basically The Moon Over the Mountain. I can see glimpses of his timid pride and arrogant shame.

"I'm not the kind of man who takes orders from anyone! I'm meant for bigger things!! He had a sudden burst of resolve and became an adventurer on his twentieth birthday, but that didn't go well either, and he's been smoldering at the bottom ever since. He knows he's at an age where he needs to seriously think about his future, but facing reality is too painful, so he escapes into alcohol..."

I can't even watch. Why did you decide to go with such a pathetic backstory?

"Whether or not he can turn over a new leaf on this adventure will determine the rest of his life, so everyone, stay tuned!!"

""We can't... all we feel is a sense of melancholy...""

"With my character's backstory, adventuring with someone like that is going to be too painful..."

"W, well, you could always use him as a cautionary tale."

Sarna-chan's attempt to smooth things over is just sad.

"But there's a problem with this. The ability scores are based on dice rolls, right? I'm worried about whether I can manage to roll low numbers."

So her priority is the role-playing.

"You can make three potential characters for character creation, right?"

"Yeah. Make three different versions and pick the one you like best."

"Please, oh goddess of the dice, do not smile upon me...!!"

The goddess is probably pretty surprised to hear a request like that.

"By the way, what about you, Sarna-chan?"

"I was also thinking of creating a male character. The concept is a retired veteran adventurer who has returned to the field for certain reasons."

Ah, I see. She wants to play an older veteran, but their initial stats would be low, so she's using retirement as a cushion to justify it. If the low stats are because he's been away from the front lines and has gotten rusty, it's a perfectly believable reason.

(Man, that's deep. The junior high combo has some strong preferences.)

The character creation process continued in a friendly atmosphere, and once everyone was finished, I handed out what looked like lumps of clay. I instructed them to touch the clay while imagining their character's appearance and voice.

"Whoa! Amazing! It created the useless guy from my brain perfectly!!"

She's calling him a useless guy, but the stats on Rika-chan's character are actually pretty good. She must be incredibly lucky to have rolled high numbers all three times.

"Hey, Satou, how do you make these things talk?"

"You'd better have perfectly re-created the voice actor in my head."

I went to great lengths to get this right. The dolls can indeed speak. To speak as a player, you just use your own mouth, but to make your character speak, you think the word "link" in your mind. This temporarily connects your thoughts to the doll, so you just need to think of the words you want your character to say. To disconnect, you think "cut".

""I see... Then let's do it, Link!!""

I told you to do it in your heads. As the Arima brothers connected at the same time, their two dolls scowled and shouted.

[[Gah, kill me!!]]

I knew they'd do that.

"Amazing..."

"It'd be nice if we could make them move however we wanted too."

"If you want to go that far, you might as well just play one of those full-dive games in the underground."

This is a TRPG, after all. There's no such thing as player skill. The set numbers and the roll of the dice are everything.

"Alright, is everyone ready? Let the adventure begin!!"