Chapter 239: Painful Stagnation Part 1

Chapter 239: Painful Stagnation Part 1

「Hmm…… Nfufufu, well I can’t say I did not expect the sly foxes to try and negotiate with Sanraku-kun alone at some point. But I would never expect them to go out with in the open like that.」

「So? What are we going to do about that?」

「If you were to ask me for opinion, if it means getting the oh-so-great Library on our side, I would say that some expenses are well justified for that end.」

Even though I did nothing all that remarkable during the negotiations, there was a wide smile on Pencilgton’s face that would just not go away for some reason. I mean, if she says it’s fine, then that’s it, but if you were to ask me, is it not dangerous to just give away precious information just like that? This might come to bite us in the ass later on.

But I must say, it was really clever out of her to just leave Katsu and Kyo-Timate out of it for a moment. I guess that her infamous tactical genius is not just for show……

「I wanted to stay out of it and just stay put to see how it goes, but I must say that the results turned out even better than I would have anticipated. Nfufufu…… I was hoping to rope in the guys from 10 P.M Army as well, but I guess this is good in its own right…… After all, beggars can’t really be choosers.」

「Oi, keep talking like that and I shall go back to Solo Play without even looking behind.」

「Ara, you can do however you please. So by any means, go right ahead. However, please do not come back after a day or two with tears in your eyes, alright?」

This whole event was starting to shape up to be like a genuine war in between Guilds, so it was not really all that unreasonable to try and rope in others to help us. We need all the help we can get.

Maybe it would not be such a bad idea to try and enlist the help of both Rust and Mold, or maybe even Akitsu Akane. However, on the other hand I would not want to drag all of my game friends into such a messy interpersonal conflict. I would like to avoid doing just that for the time being.

Truth to be told, I already tried to test the waters and see if they would be interested in participating in this, and incidentally all of them said that they would rather not. Not that this surprises me at all.

That is why the three of us will be all on our own with this mess.

Until that time rolls around it is probably best to just leave Pencilgton to her own devices…… As for me, I am going to just play the game however I want to, without worrying about anything.

And even though this is highly unlikely turn of event, if worst comes to worst, I might even quit playing ShanFro for a while.

Now, even though I said all that.

「Eh? Big Bro Vash…… Is not here?」

「That’s right! Father is currently out, seeing one of his lifelong friends!」

When I have returned to Rabbitz via a disposable magic scroll, I wanted to go straight to Weissash in order to give him the Delta Devices. This could have given me a lead to the new Unique Monster, but…… apparently my timing was bad and we happened to pass each other by.

「Ah, I see……」

Things like that do happen in games from time to time. Still, even though it is not something that can be blamed on anyone in particular, it is really inconvenient. Now I would have to sit around and wait until I would be able to push the quest forward.

And since ShanFro is linked to the real world time so much, it is highly unlikely that Weissash is going to reappear here simply by me exiting and reentering the palace. In that case…… Right! I know what to do!

「Time for me to go to sleep!」

「In that case, pleas have a good night’s sleep!」

Good night’s rest!? It’s not even dark outside yet!

I do not feel like playing ShanFro when I have nothing else to do in there for the time being. So in order to have a change of pace, I decided to give a go to that one game that I have purchased recently.

「“Ryuuguin Fugaku’s Collaborative Work! VR Kendo Classroom Course!” I must say, those are some strong sounding words for something that is essentially a teaching software.」

From the look of it, the production of this game was supervised by a strong-looking old man who was also a

And you might have guessed that already, but…… The secret boss that Iwamaki-san was talking about was apparently Ryuuguin Fugaku himself. How cool is that?

It seems that the guy has long since passed away now, but apparently during his lifetime he was cooperating with UCE in order to develop a really elaborate Trace AI, one that would be able to preserve his Samurai Spirit and allow it to be passed on to the next generations in this digital day and age.

There is a technology nowdays that is called Trace AI.

At one point in time, there were scientists and realists who were all crazy about the technology of cloning and the ethics associated with that particular branch of science. Here the many theories are all needlessly complicated, but to summarize them into terms that could be well understood, the Trace AI is the kind of AI that would in theory be able to recreate the mind of a certain person and their thought processes as closely and accurately as possible.

The way in which it works is fairly simple: you just wear a specific VR set and carry on with your usual routine in the cyberspace. The AI records and analyzes both your thought patterns and behavior, creating the virtual image of the person wearing the set and making it as close to the original as possible.

So it is just asking yourself the question: how would that person behave in a situation this or that and pushing it to the limit. Of course, there is no way that an AI like that would ever acquire an ego of its own, and since it is nothing more but a program, it has no human rights.

And the result of this technology for the advanced AI creation was “Fugaku”, the secret boss of this game.

「You get lessons from Fugaku during the course of the game, but in order to unlock his high end boss version there are some conditions that you must satisfy……」

If you play the game normally and as it was intended to by the developers, you would fight in one on one duel against Fugaku as a final exam of sorts. However, as your rank goes higher and higher, different letters start to appear on the kendo scroll hanging on the dojo’s wall. If you collect all the letters and place them in the right order on the game’s main menu screen, the secret boss battle shall be unlocked.