CH 106

TLN: Hey guys, Reigokai here!

I said before I would take a 3 day break, but screw it, 2 is plenty enough. xDD

Sorry about the delay for the ones who weren’t aware of this.

Anyways, enjoy!

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—Do you know what a ‘patch’ is? 

A patch is originally a word for a cloth used to mend a wound, but in a game, a patch are extra files placed to adjust the balance of the game or fix bugs. 

I don’t know the details for the origin of this word, but I think it is called that because it is technically to ‘close the holes that are the bugs’; a ‘patch’ for programming. 

Within Japan…no, within the VR games sold in the whole world, the game that received the most benefits from these ‘fix patches’ was without doubt Nekomimi Neko. 

Nekomimi Neko disillusioned many players with how faulty it was, but with around 37 patches, it slowly became decent, and it is now possible to barely clear the game if you advance with utmost care.

This is almost completely true, but it can also create a big big misunderstanding here. 

It is true that the game got better with the patches, but there were actually some patches that were atrocious. 

There were actually bugs that were born from those patches, or instances when the balance got worse because of it. 

Whenever that happened, they would rapid-fire patches in order to fix those patches, and you could say that slowly, like really slowly, at a snail’s pace, made things better.

According to rumors, their main programmer escaped before the game finished, and not only the game itself, but a lot of the patches that came after the game was released were lacking in technique. 

As for how half-assed the fixes of the patches were…there were no issues happening in the middle of the game, but they still caused issues in this world. Just remember the incident of the Butcher and you will be able to get what I am saying here. 

Not only that. There were even cases where they would try to fix small issues in weird ways which would create even worse bugs. 

If I had to bring out a specific one, it would be the ‘forgetful knight captain’ which involves an event that you can end up doing twice. 

The ‘Midsummer Night Dream Punchline’ bug that creates an event that didn’t exist because an event flag remained before the fix. 

Because of the evil practice of tinkering with the character data using patches, a bug where the same character would have their appearance change as much as 3 times in the middle of the event was baptized as Franken Baron.

There have been many patches released that have created numerous shocking bugs, but the first patch -ver 1.01- was truly horrible. 

Maybe you will understand better if I say that more than half of the later patches were to fix that very patch. 

Anyways, Nekomimi Neko developers operate on the basic principle of ‘it is fine as long as the visible bugs disappear’, so they tend to not be solved at its core. 

For example; the Midair Jump bug which was called Friday Night Sky Walker, was fixed in a weird way like ‘you can’t use it in midair anymore’. The bug may have been quelled with that, but that at the same time killed any reason to use that skill. 

And one other thing. 

The fix for the Infinite Mirage Prison skill bug which allowed you to jump through walls was also pretty slapped on, and to be honest, pretty incomplete. 

But there’s times when such sloppiness works in the favor of the player. 

This time around, I used a loophole from one of those fixes, the Mirage Prison Wall Jump Bug Ver 1.01, to get into the Sacrifice Altar. 

I used that exploit when I was challenging the door of the Sacrifice Altar. 

Seeing that my current strongest skill, Midare Sakura, had bounced off, I gave up on destroying the door. 

I switched my plan to use the ‘wall jump bug’. 

The wall jump bug using the 8th skill of the Ninja Sword, Infinite Mirage Prison, is the one I explained before that was used for the The Masked Rihito Royal Family. 

The Infinite Mirage Prison is a skill that deals slashes randomly while teleporting, but because it has been made so the player can only jump within a radius of 10 meters that the player can exist in, you can enter places that you normally wouldn’t be able to get into like locked places. 

In the case when you luckily get the last teleport point on the other side of the wall, you can go deeper in without much effort. That’s basically how this exploit works.

But because of a patch fix, even if you were to get to the other side of the wall for an instant with the random teleportation of Infinite Mirage Prison, you will always return to the place you were originally in. 

In other words, the wall jump using that skill became impossible…or at least it seemed to at a glance. 

What was fixed in the patch was ‘you will end up at a different place at the end of the skill’, but the root issue of ‘you can teleport to places in the middle of the skill which you couldn’t go to before’ was still there.

They simply adjusted the end result to reduce the effects of the bug, but you could say the bug itself had not been fixed completely. 

In that case, the story is simple. 

If you return to your original position when the skill is casted to the end, you just have to end the cast in the middle of the skill. 

Us Nekomimi Neko players knew the method to do this long before. 

—That’s right, Knockback Cancel.

At that time when I was facing the door, I first chanted Petitplosion. 

And then, I made it so the Time Activation would be casted once the random teleports of Infinite Mirage Prison began. 

The result was that, right when I randomly teleported to the other side of the door, Petitplosion activated. 

It canceled the skill, and I managed to safely get to the other side. 

By the way, this combo of Petitplosion+Infinite Mirage Prison is a small trick that helped me out countless times in the game days when I was locked up by traps or bugs. 

In the past when I was trapped in the Nekomimi Mansion with Ringo, I tried to use this to escape, but the skills were nullified at that time. 

In that sense, you could say I finally got my revenge here. 

I managed to invade the Sacrifice Altar without hurting the door, took the red stone that was on top of the altar -in other words, the Fragment of the Evil God- and left the room with Infinite Mirage Prison again. 

The only issue with this exploit is that where you move is completely random. 

I tried to return to the other side of the door with the skill, but this time around, I ended up at what’s probably a different corridor. 

Because of that, I got a bit lost there which you could say was a mistake of mine. 

But the demon, who doesn’t know these hidden circumstances, was finding it unpleasant that I could take the Evil God Fragment from the room that I definitely shouldn’t be able to enter. 

“Why?! Why does a bastard like you have that?!!” 

His completely carefree attitude of before flew off the window, and he shouted while exposing his vulgar tongue. 

He didn’t stop there. 

“Could it be that you knew everything about our plans and…” 

The demon was reading too deeply into this on his own, directing a gaze of dread, but that’s a misunderstanding. 

Well, having gotten this far, any half-assed deception will be pointless. 

I stopped the demon who was about to continue speaking. 

“No, I didn’t know this was the Fragment of the Evil God. I was only sure that you guys were going to resurrect the Evil God when I heard it from you.” (Souma)

“What?! Then, why do you have that…?!” 

The demon showed even bigger surprise, and I answered with my chest puffed out. 

Why? There’s no need to even think about it. 

“Because it was left in a pretty conspicuous place!!” (Souma)

It really comes down to that. 

Just imagine it. 

—An unexplored room that didn’t exist in the game. 

—A big altar in the middle.

—A red stone resting on top of it as if suggesting something. 

Of course you would take it! It is common sense! 

Me not noticing it was the Evil God Fragment might be questionable, but please understand that it can’t be helped to a certain degree. 

The moment I saw it, the first thing that came to mind was that it resembled the stone in the necklace of Lipha, so I assumed it was a trashed quest item, but that’s as far as I got. 

Now that I think about it, the central part of the Evil God Fragment was also a red stone, but the size was on a whole other level, and that one was letting out an even more dangerous light. 

Or more like, you normally wouldn’t think that such an important thing would be placed in the open like that. 

…Well, that said, I did think it was a bit strange when I picked it up though. 

I couldn’t put it in my bag no matter what I tried, and it was pulsing like a living thing. 

I also felt as if something was calling me inside my head, but I got used to that in the red room of the mansion, so I didn’t really pay it much mind.

“S-Such a reason…” 

The demon trembled at my words.

Mitsuki’s cat ears curled up as if saying ‘I can’t listen to this anymore!’.

She is so good at controlling them. 

(N-No, but the result is fine!) (Souma)

Maki and Lipha seem to be confused, unable to understand what’s going on, but just looking at the situation, you could say this is close to being ideal. 

I myself also question this development, but thanks to this, the necklace teleportation has technically failed. 

The red necklace that was the source of the demon’s power has broken and we have secured Lipha who is the last sacrifice. 

I can say for sure that this is heavily on our side. 

“…I won’t let this end.” 

But that’s exactly why I was slightly late in reacting to the actions of the demon. 

“As if I will let this end with that reason!” 

A second after his body trembled, the demon raised his head, and that face of his was a decisive one. 

(Is he coming?!) (Souma)

I felt like he was going to do something here, so Mitsuki and I took our battle stances.

Mitsuki stood in a position that favors protecting the whole area, while I cover Lipha at my back. 

But what the demon did was something that far surpassed our expectations. 

It took a deep breath and shouted loudly to the back. 

“Martyrdom!!” 

A single word. 

This turned the situation around again. 

Even when thinking this was bad, it was already too late. 

We can’t act on the speed of sound here. 

It is impossible to stop the voice of the demon from reaching the cultists. 

What we could do at most was look at each other and share the sense of dread. 

“Hahahahahahahahaha!! This is the end! It may not be a perfect one, but the seal of Dis Aster-sama will be undone! The world…will end!” 

The number on the wall changed to 0 as that ominous laugh echoed. 

The last cultist who hadn’t been disarmed by the knights must have taken their own life just now. 

The seal of the Evil God’s Fragment is released. 

The letters Forced Game Over danced in my head. 

“Uwah!” (Souma)

I felt intense heat and a wicked breath from the red stone that was in my left hand.

That turned into an unbearable heat in an instant, and swelled to a degree where I couldn’t hold it in my hand anymore. 

“Please let go of it! Quickly!” (Mitsuki)

I threw the stone that was pulsing intensely in accordance with the rare cornered shout of Mitsuki…

“Dis Aster-sama! Finally, I…huh?” 

Towards the demon that continued laughing loudly. 

The stone drew a parabola in the air as it headed towards the demon with a frozen laughing face. 

The change of the Evil God Fragment didn’t stop even in that timeframe. 

It ignored the law of conservation of mass, and continued expanding ceaselessly. 

A part that looked like an arm grew from the center, something jutted out from the place where a head should be, and black armor began covering those. 

But what stood out the most from that body were the large quantity of tentacles. 

Flat tentacles like ribbons were growing out en masse from the center of the body.

It then began moving as if seeking prey. 

It naturally moved to the closest prey which is the body of the demon. 

“Dis Aster-sa…ma…?” 

That flustered voice became the last words of the demon that offered his flesh to the Evil God.

When those ribbon-shaped tentacles stabbed onto the body of the demon, it sucked the life force from his body. 

The body of the demon lost strength in less than a few seconds, and became light particles that melted into the miasma. 

—It was an unceremonious death for a demon who killed many people. 

We were watching that dumbfounded but…

(No, this ain’t the time to space out!) (Souma)

I immediately scold myself and stand back up. 

Fortunately, there’s no signs of a forced Game Over happening.

But the cluster of tentacles that had freed the body of the demon were moving around, searching for new prey. 

Maybe because it is right before its resurrection, its movements are slow and it is not as big as the hidden dungeon one, but it is by no means an enemy we can be optimistic about. 

(To think I would end up fighting this guy at a place like this.) (Souma)

You could say this is close to the worst situation there could be, but I have to admit it already. 

—The strongest enemy in Nekomimi Neko, which made players go: ‘Its existence itself is a bug’, ‘the developers definitely didn’t do a playtest on this!’, ‘I don’t feel like they intended us to clear this at all’…

Has resurrected.