CH 25

Dance of the Fairies, the Opening Act PT 2

Leaving Zwei and his guild members’ Fairies with eyes full of love, I excuse myself from the Guild Field.

Today I’m switching gears to crafting items for the food stall.

I couldn’t say it in front of Nora, but in reality the Bear meat stew had come out as Simmered Bear Meat Stew with Quality 8.

If I told her then she would have definitely begged me to let her eat it; I could see it in her eyes.

To run away from that, this time I dared to lie.

—

Simmered Bear Meat Stew

The bear meat has had its gamey quality drawn out, and was afterwards simmered carefully as a stew.

The Bear meat’s deliciousness has spread to the vegetables; the vegetables have a distinct Bear meat flavor.

Quality 8

Fixed Interval ATK Increase (Long Lasting)

—

It takes a long time to prepare, so since it’s difficult to mass produce I’m selling them for 500Glow a piece. For a one-time consumable this is an unprecedented price.

I guess it will probably sell slowly, but it can’t be helped.

Because this is a game, as long as the seal isn’t broken it won’t deteriorate.

It’s a cheat of a property that would never exist in “Real”, but I can take advantage of it here.

While in the middle of cooking, Fairies kept dropping in.

To be on the safe side, I asked the people who came to buy food whether they could see them too.

The result is,

“Ah, yeah, I see them. They’re kind of just dropping ne~,” was one comment, and

“I see them, but I don’t think they’re particularly dropping in here; well, they don’t seem to want to run away either,” was another response, and

“Fairies that haven’t contracted with players? I haven’t seen one,” was another reply.

I got that it’s roughly divided into these 3 categories.

I wonder if there’s some sort of condition to see them.

At least, just because you look for them doesn’t necessarily mean you can see them, and it doesn’t seem to be a bonus from something you pick up either.

Is it simply for roleplay?

But this is a VRMMO; I can’t imagine that they would change the base settings that much.

For this all to be for roleplaying, it’s not really recommended. The issue is the computer specs necessary for this kind of roleplay.

For the necessary specs to make this kind of world, the old games from the past, just barely possible with weak specs, mercilessly pursued better algorithms1 to be able to reach this world.

And then, as PC Specs improved the “Real” costs required got lower all around; the latest of the latest state-of-the-art is probably using the national-class Hyper-PC.

Like that, I can’t imagine them implementing a change to the settings.

Eventually, the reason behind it probably won’t come up on the Info Site.

It’s a pretty insignificant detail of a tiny part of the game, so it would be tasteless to pursue it.

Anyway, the players the Fairies get easily attached to aren’t just me.

I’m relieved once I realized that.

In the game, standing out is worrisome and comes with lots of burdens.

Players who’ve gotten nicknames attached to them have it especially bad.

Well, most of those types tend to go around with a fixed party so you don’t hear much about them getting hounded with invites.

Now my cooking is just about over; the leftovers will go into a vending machine, and after that I’ll head out to the Field to raise [Whip] and [Thief].

While I’m fighting Wolves I can replenish my meat supply … I’m about out of stock.

Heading into the field, I’m seeing a lot of players fighting together with their Fairies.

From what I can see it goes like this; along with Tackle, Fairies with claws or beaks will use them in close-ranged attacks.

After that, according to their element, they’ll either attack with magic or buff their player master.

In addition, it looks like Water Fairies will cast <Water Cure> every once in a while and Fire Fairies will also raise a <Fire Arrow> touch attack occasionally.

Wind and Earth most likely use their buff magics minimally, probably once.

Like this there’s definitely a big difference between having a Fairy and not having one.

I wonder what the people who’ve failed like me are going to do.

Aside from people like me who mainly play solo, and with the effect on crafting still being within reason, I’m mainly concerned with how this affects people in fixed parties.

It’d be good if this doesn’t cause parties to break up …

It’s probably ok not to worry about other parties’ problems.

While thinking about that in a corner of my mind, I strike at a Wolf with my whip.

I’m trying to entangle its legs, but as expected, it’s not going to be that easy to pull a movie-esque stunt like lashing its legs together and watching it fall over.

If I raise [Whip] a little more I might learn something that would make catching something easier, and I’ll probably have to buy another whip too.

Since I’m only thinking in terms of my end results, I never expected it to bring much offensive power.

Since I have a style that covers both extremes, close and far-ranged combat, with [Bow] and [Kick], I chose [Whip] to cover the leftovers.

With the battle over, I take a break in the shade of a tree.

It’s an area where there aren’t active monsters so I can relax.

Even though I was just out on the Field being suicidal, as expected of wooded areas and forests.

Quickly eating a Horned Rabbit Steak Sandwich that I’d brought and quenching my thirst with a potion juice … Without thinking too much about the expenses and making the things you’d want to bring to eat yourself is nice.

While I’m doing that, the Fairies were all dropping in again.

They’re floating softly above my legs while I’m sitting cross-legged and eating the Horned Rabbit Steak Sandwich, flying around me with interest.

It’s very soothing.

Suddenly I realized that there were a lot of Fairies coming close and showing interest in my pocket, so I take out the Broken Fairy Contract Crystal event item.

This is the only think I could think of that they could be interested in.

Like so many floating bubbles the Fairies surrounded the crystal I took out.

At first they touched it timidly, then they started going in and out of it repeatedly.

Are they playing?

Well it’s cute so it’s fine … it’s been after a lot of troubles, so let’s take a video.

There might be people who will enjoy it if it’s uploaded onto an official site.

I’d like to continue this pleasantly peaceful time … but it’s getting closer to the time when I must log out so, even though I think the Fairies flying around and through the crystal won’t understand it, I say, “Hey, we’re closing soon.”2

When I said that, the Fairies that were inside came out cheerfully.

I say a “See ya” and then hurry down the road to the town.

Maybe because I was having so much fun spending my time so peacefully …

At that time I completely didn’t notice it.

Slowly but surely, a change had occurred.

The broken Fairy Contract Crystal … that crystal is no longer transparent.

SKILLS

[Hunting Bow]Lv18   [Kick]Lv46   [Farsight]Lv31   [Wind Magic]Lv32

[Craftsmanship]Lv38

[Cooking]Lv39   [Stealth]Lv27   [Physical Ability Boost]Lv49

[Thief]Lv7   [Whip]Lv9

Reserved Skill(s)

[Blacksmithing]Lv20   [Woodworking]Lv19   [Alchemy]Lv32

EXP 6

The First Half continues still.

The Second Half is still a little longer to go.