kscans

Chapter 520 - The Continuation of the Continuation

—She said her job as my instructor for the day was over. But, as expected, there was no way that Ashe would just say her piece and leave with a simple "good night."

Still, she must have been being considerate of my fatigue. I'd been keeping her company as she chatted on with a slightly more subdued energy, and about an hour had now passed.

"...I see. So it's that tough to keep running."

"At the very least, doing it with your stats maxed out is more than tough; it's impossible. If anyone could do it, that tower would have been conquered long before you came along."

Now that I thought about it, it was unusual for us to be talking about the virtual world... Well, no, Ashe and I always ended up talking about Arcadia, but our topics were usually on a much grander scale.

Things like aiming to clear the game, or defeating the Colored Monsters to do so.

So, for us to be talking like this—

"But still, couldn't you do it, Ashe? If you were solo, you'd have your unique title's constant thought acceleration, and you could easily adjust your stats with a quick change of clothes."

"If I could have, there would be no reason for me not to have done it. I may be blessed with a 'gift,' but I'm far from perfect."

"I heard it finally got its own name the other day, something like 'Almighty.'"

"I'm not happy about it. If I were truly all-powerful, I wouldn't lose to anyone. ...Yours was given a name too, wasn't it? 'Recollection,' I believe."

"Doesn't it get super embarrassing when they start adding ruby text to it?"

"Really? I don't mind this 'culture.' It makes the sense of specialty easy to understand."

"Calling it a culture just makes the Japanese part of me feel even more embarrassed..."

—from a smaller perspective than usual, talking about 'the game' as just two players, might have been a first for us.

"...In any case, I was unable to conquer the [Spiral Crimson Tower]. The last time I challenged it was about a year ago, but I'm sure I still couldn't do it now."

"Is that so..."

"Fufu, you don't look convinced."

And so, as we casually bounced from one topic to another, we landed on the subject of the unconquered dungeon. Or rather, the formerly unconquered dungeon.

Honestly, I was being presented with a lot of eye-opening information and insights, and I was genuinely getting engrossed in my chat with Ashe.

"The action of a person running at a speed beyond human comprehension while maintaining their human form is more advanced and difficult than you might think. The balancers humans are equipped with by default become almost completely unreliable, and the situational awareness required from moment to moment easily surpasses that of high-speed close-quarters combat. A single step might be manageable with a split-second of control, but a continuous run is difficult."

"Hmm..."

"That's why people normally rely on Skills. As you said, thought acceleration and other support skills that automate posture control are the main ones, but..."

"Well, since you're relying on skills, you can't keep it up indefinitely, right?"

"Exactly. And I'm no exception. My [Braver, Lone Hero] certainly grants me the cheat of constant thought acceleration, but the acceleration multiplier itself isn't that great... so it's not enough to handle the processing for a long-distance run on its own."

"I see... I guess?"

So why can I do something as simple as running with my stats maxed out? That must be where my 'Recollection' talent comes in.

Mind you, in the beginning... well, even now, I still occasionally end up as a stain on a wall or the ground. I've had my fair share of accidents with superhuman high-speed maneuvering.

And my avatar, apparently, remembers every single one of them.

It's a fitting description, one that hits the nail right on the head, but with the talent the world has named 'Recollection,' 'Recollection,' and 'Recollection,' I unconsciously trace the optimal solution with every action.

Therefore, in the virtual world, my body does not make mistakes. Whether it's a success or a failure, once I've experienced something—thinking about it again, this is so broken it's almost embarrassing.

"On top of that, you're required to deal with the bullet hell from those killer rabbits. Impossible."

"Ah... yeah, they don't just aim at you; they have spread shots, too."

"That's where your 'Recollection' fits in as a perfect meta—'remember everything and run at full speed' is, in a way, the orthodox method of a frontal assault."

"...As the one who cleared it, I have to say, I think they got some of the settings wrong."

Incidentally, it's a secret that I could now clear it without even thinking, just by sprinting at full power.

The borderline is a top speed equivalent to roughly 700 AGI. If you can build up that much speed and run through without crashing, you can leave that rabbit hell straight out of heaven behind and put on a proper victory lap.

So, if anything, I feel like that's the more orthodox method. Players who stack everything they can, be it skills or whatever, and eventually reach that speed threshold were probably meant to have the honor of being the 'First Conqueror'—

"Ah, by the way."

"Hm?"

Ashe herself says it's "impossible," and I can accept that. But another person who embodies inhuman speed comes to my mind.

"My mas—... Ui-san, I mean, Her Ladyship the [Sword Saint], has she ever tried challenging it—ah, eh, wait, I'm so sorry, did I just step on a landmine?"

"...Have you never asked her yourself?"

"N-no, I haven't..."

In an instant, her tone of voice dropped noticeably.

I recoiled at a reaction I'd never seen from Ashe before. It wasn't so much displeasure... as it was a look of frustration that crossed her face. The [Sword Queen] let out a sigh.

She must have realized her own uncharacteristic reaction. She rubbed her cheek with her fingertips as if to chastise herself—another uncharacteristic gesture—and said,

"I made it sixty percent of the way. She made it seventy."

"...Uh, um..."

"I went at it with my 'Extra' equipment, my 'Anima,' all my skills and titles unlocked, and made it sixty percent of the way. The [Sword Saint] went in with all of that sealed, with nothing but the clothes on her back, and made it seventy percent."

Perhaps she was, at her core, an incredibly sore loser. The girl spoke dispassionately, an undeniable hint of sulkiness coloring her voice.

And so... we were still in the dark, with only the moonlight streaming in from the window illuminating her composed face. But no matter how I looked at it, that face did not seem expressionless to me.

"...Haru."

"Yes?"

"What are you smiling about?"

"Nothing, it's just your imagin—HEY, I knew it, I object to this use of force to hide your embarrassment! Y-you, stop, stop, the time and place for this are no joke!!"

She saw through my leaking, amused smirk in a second, and this was the result.

And as Ashe, with the flawless initial movement of a master, silently swept aside my arms (my guard) and pushed me down, I desperately resisted to protect my reason, my beliefs, my chastity, and everything else... or at least, I tried to.

"—Hh... Fufu."

An expression I had never seen before.

A genuine smile, like that of a child in innocent play, rained down on me from above.

"...Uh..."

In the end, torn between pushing her away without mercy or not, I was completely had. I turned the dial of my struggling down to 'weak.'

Well, you know. With Ashe, I'm usually the one who gets flustered, or rather, I just can't stand up to her, which is why the number of times I've allowed physical contact is extremely low compared to Sora or Nia, or rather, when she closes in, it feels genuinely dangerous, so I have no choice but to keep my distance, but then again, is it fair for her to be the only one I treat that way? That's something I've been reflecting on lately, not that I haven't been, but then again, is it right for me to be trying to control things with fairness and what not? But that's where I have to remember that I've declared my stance of being the villain, so I'm going to ignore common sense and public opinion and just prioritize the three of them, which is what I've decided to do—in short,

As long as it remained within the realm of her simply “being needy”... the option to push her away no longer existed for me.

Alright, it's your turn, reason. Stay strong.

—Thirty seconds later, however.

"..."

"...U-um, Ashe-san?"

"..."

"Hey, w-what's wrong? Stop that. Stop staring at my face like that."

"..."

"Ashe? Iris? Alicia White-san?"

"..."

"Hh—okay, don't move, that's far enough. Stop, hands up, there's a line for these—wait, wait, wait, I didn't agree to that!! I didn't agree to go that far, sto—!?"

And as a result of accepting her playful advances...

Whether she got carried away or just went berserk, I found myself engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the princess. But that's another story.