Chapter 146: Roaring Beacon of Destruction Part 2
Right now I feel more like a gold digger rather than a player. So much stuff, so much gold, so many materials…… Just think of the things I could afford with so much gold and resources! Thinking about that caused me to smile in a nasty way and let out a laugh that would put a true villain to shame.
「…… What’s that, talk about an evil laughter.」
「Uwah, whoa there!?」
Hearing those words so suddenly I turned around and looked behind me, at the same time thinking “Well, talk about an awkward situation!”. Right there was Rust, and the one accompanying her was not Mold, but Sickle of all people.
「Oh, well if it isn’t Rust…… Took you a while to get back to us.」
「With that much roaring and screaming going about the place, who wouldn’t want to check it out? But I must say, I’m surprised that you took this thing down all on your own.」
Ahh, now that you mention it, I guess that’s right. With a monster so characteristic and so big, there’s no way that others wouldn’t notice its presence, especially since it was rampaging so much. And if there was anyone in here who would figure out the cause of that monster’s appearance, that would be Sickle alright. My guess is that even if he wasn’t a Samurai, he would still rush to Emul’s side to help him, since they were family and all that. That’s actually really nice.
「Sanraku-dono, is Emul safe?」
「Yeah, I stumbled across him when he was running away from that dragon-thing earlier. For now I took him to my temporary base, so he should be safe in there for now.」
「Is that so……? That’s a relief……」
He knew that a monster of that size would not come out if the situation wasn’t really dire, but upon learning that Emul was unharmed Sickle relaxed in a visible manner. I would even shed a tear or two for this display of familial bonds, but…… I had loot to collect, so that will have to wait.
「That giant monster…… Did you use the Mecha to defeat it?」
「Sadly, no. Due to some circumstances, I cannot use it for now.」
That is because the Aether Reactor needed to power up the armor was still recharging after our fight against Luukan. Once put into INVENTORY it would gradually charge up by collecting magic particles from its surroundings, but the process was painfully slow and for it to fully recharge, about a week would need to pass.
Just like with the gauntlet, the technology in it had no upper limit so technically I could store enough energy in the reactor to allow me to use the armor for about an hour or two, but wasn’t the charge time here basically a construction flow?
「By the way, could you show it to us?」
「I’d love to see it……!」
That’s why I decided to summon Suzaku, but since it was out of juice it wouldn’t move. I could have summoned any other machine to show, but for now I decided not to do that, as to not reveal my cards too soon.
「Indeed…… Wonderful…… Splendid, magnificent…… The metal is so smooth and cool to the touch…… ShanFro really is the best……」
「Well, Nephilim Hollow is good as well, but it has its number of compromises……」
If you were to pull out weeds in this game, not only the soil attached to them would be cool, but those weeds would also have roots. For comparison, every game released about a year before ShangriLa Frontier was lacking such details, giving off a feeling of virtual reality rather than reality itself. In that aspect, a game with the level of detail like ShanFro was unheard of, unprecedented even…… It was like comparing childish doodles with a piece produced by a professional painter. A whole new world and a gap that couldn’t possibly be breached.
「That Dragon-thing…… Apparently its name was Arctus Regalex…… What’s up with putting a name so cool on a monster that was so weak?」
Thinking about it now, lots of names of different animal species are cool-sounding. But they are based in Latin, right? Or was it German? Either way, their names sound cool , and that makes them cool as well……
「Meat…… I heard that it tastes delicious in ShanFro, but I haven’t really tried it……」
I wonder if there’s a fish somewhere out there in the real world that looked similar to that monster? And if so, what would it taste like? I guess Dad or some of his friends would know. …… Maybe I’ll be able to have a taste of it some time in the future, who knows?
While I was wondering about that, I cast a glance at the city’s landscape, now pretty much ravaged by the Dragon-thing’s savage thrashing about. In the meantime, Rust and Sickle were busy gazing at Suzaku in pure adoration.
「It was a good thing that this whole place is underwater, you know? Otherwise, if that thing could fly out of my reach, it could have been that hellish raid all over again………… Hm?」
My eyelids fall and raise, creating a blinking effect. In VR games, blinking is not an action that is necessary, and people perform it purely out of reflex. However, during that split second it takes you to blink, vision gets slightly interrupted.
Just then --
「Oi, oi, you cannot be serious……」
In just a blink of an eye, I witnessed the scenery changing drastically, being restored to its original shape and all of the destruction caused thus far being reverted. It was almost like a miracle or magic. And I know who was responsible for that.
Kutanid of the Abyss, whose power can even interfere with the game’s system just like that…… Can it really be beaten just like that?