Chapter 12: Common Sense Is Just Free Ideas Not Bound By Theory (Loosely Speaking)

The first round ended in a draw but I lost the duel since I was utterly thrashed in the next two rounds.

I didn’t think those bugs would be so severe.

「Really now, you have my thanks! It’s been a while since I was able to practice my skills in PVP! I’ve been only trying them out on NPC for some time now.」

「And I had no idea that all of those scattered textures would count as getting hit!」

「It’s a double-edged sword, since if you miss with your attack you might be the one who receives a huge amount of hits in…… Dying because of that really is humiliating.」

「LOL」

I never would have expected something like that to slip past my Iai-jutsu, but there was so many off them that I really thought I was going to die there for a second.

While watching the life feed from other players’ duels Modorokatsu and I enjoy a little chat.

「But why did you suddenly decide to come back? Was it because you saw that there was a tournament approaching, or……?」

「Not really. I just started to play ShanFro just recently……」

「Really? Huh, who would have thought?」

Since we are friends I was going to forgive him for laughing at me like that, especially with that kind of face, as if he heard a joke that he never would have expected to hear. And seeing that I wasn’t laughing together with him, his face got serious

「Really now? But weren’t you always saying that the more buggy and sh*tty the game the better? From what I understand, ShanFro is at the total opposite of the criteria you would always list. 」

「I guess you can say that “Sh*t Chronicles Online managed to burn me out……So I wanted to play something that is generally praised by the public.」

「But for all that we know, even “Crap” can be considered a Godly game in a day or two, or somewhere in the future.」

Was he trying to say that he thought it was impossible for me to play anything other than a sh*tty game?

It is true that I wasn’t enjoying the sh*tty games as much as I used to, but at least I wanted to try something different. Modorukatsu, on the other hand, was someone who was sticking to his chosen niche no matter what, and refused to try anything else. And there was nothing that could change his mind.

「No, no, it’s not like I’m not enjoying these games. It’s just that…… You know…… I wanted to try something good for a change. Something without game-breaking bugs or glitches that would cause you to die instantly.」

「Ahh, so in other words you wanted to try something decent just so that you could be fully aware of how sh*tty the shiity games are next time you try them out?」

「Something along those lines.」

It was really hard for me to imagine that this game here could ever reach the level of ShanFro, both in level of responsiveness and general game design.

I’ve been dealing with “Sh*t Chronicles Online” for so long that I think it sort of dulled my gaming sense. So I wanted to regain that sense before my abilities as a gamer would drop even further down.

「Who would have thought that snakes would end up throwing their sh*t at players?」

「Isn’t such an attack pretty appropriate for a sh*tty game?」

「Hahaha, nice one. And a really good one, too.」

「But it’s an example that comes from ShanFro…… If I had any real friends it would be a game like that that I would recommend them if they ever asked me.」

Then the game would end up being spread around even further, earning its rightful place in the mind of the general public.

And it would be really nice if we could get people to recognize that not every single game out there is “unhealthy” and “won’t bring any benefits to the ones who are playing it”. Because that is not always the case.

After watching a few more matches and chatting with Modorokatsu, I decided to log out of the “Crap” for the day.

I have a drink of water, then have something to eat and then I switch from the sh*tty game to the godly game.

I wake up inside of the Sekandill’s inn, as the perverted, half-naked and bird masked Sanraku. After confirming that the penalty for death was lifted I started to wonder what should I do right now.

「For now, I think it would be best to buy some armor……」

Now I understand that running half-naked without any armor on will be really problematic really soon.

Even though the poison attack didn’t do any damage in and out of itself, if I didn’t receive so much damage during the fight I might not have been dead upon reaching Sekandill in the first place.

Without any armor on, my defenses were literally paper-thin.

But what’s more important, with a proper armor, my recovery rate would surely increase.

「But before having a look around town…… I really should organize my inventory first.」

It was a really enjoyable game with a lot of things to do in it, but because of exactly that feature I could hear that some of the players were complaining about it all the time.

It’s like with doing household chores. It may be hard if you are not used to it, but if you make a habit out of them, they might be rather enjoyable in their own right.

「Now then, should I head out?」

The protagonist and Modorokatsu are the sh*tty games friends that met in one such game one time. They have never met one another in real life, but their friendship is on such a level that they often exchange texts and e-mails.

Unlike the protagonist, who usually tries to play anything that strikes his fancy, Modorokatsu enjoys more “specific and utterly broken” titles. He sometimes introduces the protagonist to some of them.