CH 172.5

“…So it ends up like this after all.” 

I looked at the guildmaster, Iaski, and spit out my dissatisfied emotions.

I planned on doing my best to not kill Iaski, but he came at me no questions asked once the ritual was over. 

Inside this tower that you can’t use teleport inside of, with even the entrance sealed, he had no choice but to yield. 

Even if you lower the HP of the other party until it is in critical state, an event doesn’t happen, so I had no choice but to kill him. 

“If I knew this would happen, I should have done the revolt event in the middle of it.” 

It took me a lot of time to reach this last event since becoming a member of the Mage Guild. 

I mutter this idea that I thought countless times in the middle of it, but this time around, for a different reason. 

When I close my eyes, I can recall the many unreasonable events of the Mage Guild. 

First, at the time when I was being recruited by the guild.

You have to take something called a baptism ritual in order to become a member of the guild, but at the time when you are forcefully equipped with the apprentice robe at the baptism ceremony, there’s a bug where the equipment you had on at that time will disappear, so I had to reset it with tears in my eyes.

It has been patched now and changed to you being able to equip it before beginning the event, but I really would like them to stop placing such dangerous traps in an event that is not dangerous no matter how you think about it. 

After that, I was made to become the helper of an eccentric mage (most orders were to bring this here, but it is completely RNG. If you fail, all your progress will pop like a bubble), would be made to do unreasonable errands countless times (at that time they would ask for items that were not included in the game, so there would be cases when it would be impossible to clear), you would be caught up in weird experiments that would decrease your stats permanently (moreover, there’s no notification when it is lowered, so if it hadn’t been an unchanging number like Stamina, I would have saved without noticing), and you would be told to sell a magic book at an unreasonable price (you obviously won’t be able to, so I had to take out from my own pocket and gave it to them). They really made me go through hell.

Every time Iaski made unreasonable orders, I would think countless times about doing the revolt event. 

Even after going through so much trouble, you would have to raise your level all the way to 150 in order for Iaski to like you as the level supremacist he is, and then I finally managed to become a guild executive. That’s when I can finally take the last quest. 

The last guild event of the Mage Guild is a chain quest: Siren of Purging Drama. 

In order to do the forbidden ritual that’s the last objective, you need to do 3 quests.

First, the quest to destroy the houses of the Mages from the opposing faction which are against Iaski and the others from the radical faction.

I don’t know why this is a necessary quest for the chain event, but it is a prerequisite quest, so it can’t be helped.

You can’t destroy houses in the game, so you have to use a sketchy thing called a Sorcery Golem, but this was horrible. 

Even though it moves with magic, it has zero magic resistance, and it would get destroyed in the blink of an eye if it gets hit with concentrated magic attacks.

Moreover, you will fail the quest if you move away a certain distance from the golem, so you have to go to the houses of the opposing faction and incapacitate the enemies beforehand, then hurry and take the quest in order to finish this one. 

The next one is to secure the necessary magic book, Nekuranomikon, which assists in the ritual. 

The ritual requires managing an outrageous amount of mana, so an item is necessary to control it, and that’s apparently the Nekuranomicon.

This is sleeping in the basement of the library, but you have to clear an unreasonable quiz event, and I reluctantly had to clear this one with the Wiki.

The last one is getting the mithril which will serve as the catalyst for the ritual.

Not only is the control of the mana gathered from the city difficult, there’s the need for a whole lot of catalysts, so there’s apparently the need of a mass amount of mithril.

As a result, you end up having to do an item request that requires you to buy 1,000 mithril pieces of armor which you would question the sanity of. 

Moreover, when you buy mithril items, they run out of stock for a while, so I even touched upon the malice of the Nekomimi Neko developers who are detailed in only the annoying spots.

I had no choice but to do the ‘Mithril Statue 1,000 Visits’ which is hell just thinking back on it, but anyways, I somehow managed to get 1,000 mithril pieces of armor. 

After finishing those painful preparations, the ritual event finally began.

The talk prior to it was that this is a ritual ‘to purge the opposing faction that is inside the guild, and the potential opposing children who don’t understand the worth of magic all at once, and let the world know the authority of the Mage Guild’.

But once all preparations were done, the guildmaster, Keimona Iaski <translates to Animal Ear Lover>, said this next:

—Good work. With this, I can surpass humanity. 

In other words, Iaski wished to do this ritual all for his own selfishness to begin with. 

The fame of mages was of no importance to him. 

Iaski is a level supremacist to begin with and had the tendency to blindly accept power. 

But I couldn’t tell that that was foreshadowing that linked to this point. 

Even if so, I still helped out Iaski without much choice. 

If I was going to stop the event midway, I would have just triggered the revolt event from the very beginning. 

I can’t turn back anymore anyways. 

In that case, I just gotta go all out. 

I doubt anything worse than this can happen.

I did this ritual with those half-hearted feelings and have seen a trace of success.

No, can this be called succeeding? 

This forbidden ritual to ‘overcome human limitations’ stopped with just the birth of a disgusting creature. 

Iaski turned into a dreadful appearance, and the moment the ritual ended, he attacked me in order to test his strength, and ended up easily falling instead. 

It is not like your insides will evolve just by changing your appearance. 

Talk about all bark no bite. 

Making so much preparation, chanting a grandiose incantation, and even making flashy effects, and yet, the closing of curtains is this. 

“…Let’s go back.” 

This ritual is located at the highest floor of the Sorcery Tower. 

It seems like the magic circle of the Mage Guild used for the baptism ceremony was also used as the teleportation circle for the ritual, so I could come here in one go thanks to the magic of Iaski, but now that Iaski has died, I can’t use the teleportation.

The teleportation spells and items aside from that don’t work in the Sorcery Tower, so there’s the chance that the map has no connections. I can’t even use Infinite Mirage Prison to come in and out. 

I have no choice but to walk my way out. 

I slowly went down the tower while feeling exhausted from being made to tag along in a stupid event. 

I went down to the 1st floor, and the moment I opened the entrance of the Mage Guild, unexpected cheers welcomed me. 

“Oooh! Our new leader, Sagara-sama!” 

“Glory to Sagara-sama!” 

The Mage Guild members including the ones that should have been on the side of Iaski began to extol me. 

I don’t know how this conclusion was reached, but I am supposed to be the next guildmaster after defeating Iaski, and I am the hero since I took over his role and finished the ritual.

“Sagara-sama, as the only person in the whole world who has succeeded in the ritual, you are the hope of mages.

From today on, the Mage Guild is yours. This is the Ruler Stick that will serve as proof of that. 

Please accept it.” 

The vice-guild master Dekill gave me a stick, and I grabbed it. 

What happened to the opposing faction that was desperately trying to stop a mere ritual like this?

In the end, even if they called it a purge of the opposing faction, the most they did was destroy the houses they were holed up in. 

What was this farce about? 

I frowned at the sloppy story development. No notification of an end or credits; a quiet finale for the Mage Guild event. 

I barely felt anything off at first.

The first time I felt something was off was when I went to the Item Shop to replenish my healing items. 

“Hm…?” (Souma)

There wasn’t anyone at the store. 

A pointlessly energetic mob clerk-san would normally greet me with a pointlessly energetic tone when I enter the store.

And yet, the store is inactive and there’s not a single sound.

But that’s weird.

At the times when the store is open, there aren’t any cases where the clerk is away, most likely in order to prevent thefts. 

The only exception would be…

“…This…” (Souma)

When I peeked at the shop’s counter, there was a red ribbon on the floor. 

The terrible thing about this is that I have seen this before. 

It is an item that the Item Shop clerk always had on.

I obtained confirmation of my bad feeling from this dropped item. 

The only possibility for there being no one in the store: it is when the clerk has been killed for some reason.

Since the previous patch, people will drop event items when they die. 

The dots would connect if this ribbon is for some sort of event. 

“What happened here…?” (Souma)

I have been dumbfounded by the way too cheerful attitude of that girl, but I did take a decent liking to her. 

Even if her death doesn’t affect the story much, it still makes me a bit sad. 

If you advance the story normally, there will rarely be any occasions where a mob character like this would die, but Nekomimi Neko is the type where it does still happen even if rarely.

That said, I don’t remember having done such a big event that would kill an NPC.

Did I unknowingly step into a landmine?

I went outside to gather information and…

“…Eh?” (Souma)

That’s when I finally noticed.

The fact that there’s not a single soul in this city. 

“Oi oi, you gotta be kidding me!” (Souma)

From there, I not only ran to the Weapon Shop and the Inn, I even entered private houses and mansions of nobles, and even went to the shrine. 

The moment I easily entered the castle that is always protected by soldiers, I had a clear picture of the situation.

—Basically, the people of the city disappeared…no, they died.

I know the reason. 

There’s only one thing that comes to mind.

It is the ritual that Iaski did. 

A ritual for the sake of ‘purging the opposing faction that is inside the guild, and the potential opposing children who don’t understand the worth of magic all at once, and let the world know the authority of the Mage Guild’.

Also, there was the explanation that it is a ritual that gathers the mana from the city. 

I just assumed that the purging would be caused by the effect of the ritual.

But that might not have been the case.

The ritual simply created a disgusting creature that wouldn’t benefit anyone.

Honestly speaking, its effect was really meager. 

But what if the biggest effect of the ritual wasn’t the result of it, but the process? 

The process of gathering a massive amount of mana for the ritual serving the role of purging would make the dots connect. 

They would end up connecting. 

That ritual gathered the mana of the people in the city…no, the living beings in the city, and then, the living beings that had their mana forcefully stolen died.

The only ones who came out of this safely are probably the people who were in the Mage Guild at that time.

“What’s with this?” (Souma)

I felt as if everything in front of me went pitch black.

Even if it is a game, in just a few hours, the greengrocer old lady, the Inn old man, the king, queen, the annoying idiot mage; everyone died. 

And I contributed to such a ritual. 

There was no deep meaning to it.

I simply rode on that boat and unreasonably took away the lives of these many people. 

Thinking back on it made me even want to vomit. 

But…

“…Something like this is within the realms of speculation in Nekomimi Neko.” (Souma)

My playtime in Nekomimi Neko is no joke.

If this had been me in my first playthrough, the me before experiencing the Demon Lord Blessing event, I might have panicked here. 

However, this is technically my second time. 

I already have resistance.

The residents in a whole street are all gone, and you could say the casualties are higher than before, but it is not like there was a forced Save. 

I can escape from this situation by simply loading the data before the ritual.

I operated the menu screen and was about to load, but…

“Latest patch…?” (Souma)

I saw an announcement that wasn’t there before. 

An official announcement from Nekomimi Neko notifying the players of a new patch.

I lost to my curiosity and opened that page. 

What was listed there were the many bug fixes and changes, and at the end…

“Reset of the effects from the Warrior Guild and Mage Guild events?!” (Souma)

I could only call this timing godly. 

“We have received reports that, after ending the guild event, it is difficult to continue your playthrough. We have implemented a rescue button to return your character to just before the last event…” 

The information written in the announcement is very short. 

But from what I can read here, if you do the effect reset, you can rewind the event progress as well as the player, characters, and the state of the buildings to just before the last event. 

Oi oi -I whisper this under my breath. 

Is it okay for it to be this convenient? 

But this in itself really might be the help of the heavens. 

I tried to operate the patch application with a trembling hand and…

“Crap…!” (Souma)

I immediately groaned. 

You have to close the game once in order to apply the patch.

Even if it is the latest in VR games, it can’t apply the patch while you play. 

“What should I do?” (Souma)

The problem is whether I should save in this situation.

I think back to the last time I saved. 

…I don’t remember having saved in several hours. 

If I were to quit the game without saving here, I would have to do this mentally exhausting event again which is something I would like to avoid. 

That said, I am a bit uneasy about saving this situation. 

“Oh well, it should be fine.” (Souma)

I should be able to manage somehow if the patch is applied. 

I tried being positive here, and ran to the Monolith to save my data. 

I then choose the quit game option without hesitation.

Choosing to quit the game doesn’t mean the VR machine will stop immediately after. 

This VR machine also has an exclusive browser that can let you browse the net. 

“Patch! Patch!” (Souma)

I was so excited here that I ended up speaking to myself here while I fiercely went through the menu. 

Several 3d windows appeared in an instant through my Order. 

At the same time, the VR App that Maki installed as a joke materialized the ‘Patch! Patch!’ in deformed letters, crashing onto the window, and disappearing into bubbles.

I was literally spreading my monologuing inside the virtual space while surfing on the net with the avatar exclusive for this use, calling up the official pages of Nekomimi Neko at light speed, and started applying the patch.

“Alright, done!” (Souma)

It must be because a little time had passed since the patch was announced, I managed to access it in one go. 

Even though it is not that big of a size, the bar was not moving at all and it was giving me anxiety.

But that’s the usual. 

Instead, using this time to confirm the details of the patch has become part of the fun lately for me, and you could call it a time of bliss too. 

With an exalted feeling of mixed impatience and anticipation, I scrolled the announcement page that I had opened on a different window, and confirmed the details of the patch.

I skip over the many explanations of bug fixes that I would usually read slowly, and went immediately down to the very lowest entry about the effect reset of the guild event. 

The technique for the effect reset is simple.

Right before the last guild event where there’s an irreversible effect -for example; in the Mage Guild event where you are teleporting for the ritual- something similar to a quick save will be made, and if you do a specific process after clearing the guild event, that data will be loaded, and everything will be returned to the quick save state aside from the player’s stats and items. 

And the specific process for it is…

“Sleep on a bed? Isn’t that…” (Souma)

—In other words, a dream punchline. 

I chuckled at the sense of the Nekomimi Neko staff as I continued reading.

As for the reset of the Mage Guild’s effects, after the success of the ritual, if you go to a sleeping state at the bed that was added above the ritual stage, the effects will be automatically reset. 

For the Warrior Guild, it is simple. After the guild event, you can go to sleep in any inn to reset the effects. 

By the way, the sleeping state is a status ailment that you can choose from the game menu by tapping the ‘sleep’ while you are lying on a specific location like a bed for a set period of time. 

Also, as a change annexed to this, you cannot leave the guild once the ritual of the Mage Guild event has succeeded, so you have no choice but to reset the effects. This makes sense if you think about it. 

Dead NPCs drop quest items. 

If there’s people who aim for that and go out of the Mage Guild to retrieve the quest items of the dead people before doing the effect reset, you can easily obtain the quest items that you normally wouldn’t be able to. 

It is most likely a countermeasure for that. 

I really have to question the dream punchline, but they really think about the small details as always -is what I was thinking as I continued reading, and I finally reached the last part. To the point where the ※ (that means important) was written…

“Hm?” (Souma)

I felt as if some weird trash-like letters entered my eyes all of a sudden, so I rubbed my eyes. 

…But now that I think about it, there’s no way trash would enter my eyes in VR.

There’s no such program that benefits no one in this avatar. 

I see, so it is not trash, but a visual bug, huh -is what I thought as I once again confirmed the last part. 

※As such, due to the way the data is dealt with, the ones who have finished the guild event before the application of this patch won’t be able to use the rescue function, so please keep that in mind. 

“Uuuh…” (Souma)

A weird sound came out of my mouth. 

The letters ‘uuuh’ flowed into the webpage, but I didn’t have the leeway to worry about that. 

One time…just one more time…is what I thought as I closed my eyes and slowly opened them.

※As such, due to the way the data is dealt with, the ones who have finished the guild event before the application of this patch won’t be able to use the rescue function, so please keep that in mind. 

“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!” (Souma)

Those merciless words made me continue spitting out gigantic lines of letters in the VR space.

And then, 1 hour after that.

“Frikin dammit!!” (Souma)

I swung around my rusted sword in the path of the Forest of Beginnings, and showered the female bandit with blows to vent my anger. 

—That’s my experience with the Mage Guild event. 

—And the case where I had to begin my 3rd playthrough of the game.