Shangri-La Frontier – Thợ săn game rác chinh phục game thần - Tàn ảnh của nỗi tiếc nuối xa xôi

Immerse in silence for a while. Mutual eyes met with Rei-san, who similarly hadn't grasped what this mimicry stationery was saying, before shoving a piece of char siu into the mouth, chewing, swallowing...

"Hello, national authority?"

"Stop avoiding reality and let's talk about the game."

"It sounds right, but I feel like everything about it is wrong... Ah well, whatever, a coup means defying authority, right? In that kingdom whose name I forgot."

If memory served, the only entity established as a 'country' in the Shang-Fro world was the single nation that unified the Old Continent. Over on the New Continent, with its colored dragons and insanely massive map, the human races shouldn't have developed beyond mere settlements. Though the merfolk barely seemed fairly developed, but...

"The Einwurtz Kingdom—at least Sunraku-kun isn't unrelated to the current mess happening in this royal family, right?"

"Nnn... Well, yeah, I guess."

The Einwurtz Kingdom was currently going through a beyond-baffling storyline where the first prince, first in line to the throne, staged a coup, resulting in a rare plot twist where the king and the first prin... that person, were exiled.

I (Sunraku) had taken on the Holy Maiden's request to rescue the targeted royal mother and daughter on the New Continent, and ended up beating down that guy with the Climax Sword whose name slipped my mind. Meaning, at this point, I had spat right in the current king's face.

"Changing the topic a bit, do you know Thirdrema is in deep trouble because it's being attacked by a Raid Monster?"

"Umm, yes. I've heard about it."

"Well, yeah."

Forget knowing—we were in a relationship where we threw ultra-high-speed lucha at each other; I was practically best buds with the Wandering Great Plague at this point. Friendship is forged through violence...!!

"Turns out the current king committed a massive disrespect, and the Grand Duke of Thirdrema is absolutely furious. Furious enough to say, 'I won't hesitate to break the alliance formed at the kingdom's founding in this generation!' kind of rage."

"Ah, I'm starting to get the picture."

What she was talking about right now was the world story that progressed due to clearing the Unique Scenario EX. A story about the world itself shifting... or the process of that shift. It was a mess concerning the royal house of the Old Continent... and taking the side of the Grand Duke of Thirdrema likely meant restoring the former king and his daughter to power.

"In short, this coup is about beating up the current king to return things to how they were before?"

"Spot on. Both the current king and the Grand Duke of Thirdrema are probably going to hire players on a grand scale."

Whoa, a war phase involving players too? Part of me felt thrilled, but another part worried that doing that in Shang-Fro would make things insanely toxic.

"...And? What's your angle? You're not the type to move out of righteous indignation, are you?"

"Nnn, I wouldn't mind siding with Thirdrema to earn a favor and maybe get a city or something... but, well, that's not the 'main objective'."

Saying that, Kuon-whoever lowered her voice even further, speaking at a volume utterly impossible to hear unless sitting at the very same table.

"An after-scenario regarding Weatheremon the Tombguard is right beneath the royal castle."

"*Cough*... For real?"

"Weatheremon... the Tombguard...!"

That name was one I couldn't ignore either... and even for a scum stationery whose soul was dyed in villainy, as long as she used the avatar "Arthur Pencilgon", it was a name she could never ignore.

Weatheremon the Tombguard.

In the game Shangri-La Frontier, he was the very first Unique Monster to be defeated, and currently the only Unique Monster that showed zero possibility of a rematch after an EX clear. While the Truth Books suggested that even Siegelwurm might not be dead, this one cleared its scenario through complete annihilation, making it an absolute one-and-only.

"An after-scenario... what do you... mean by that?"

"Nnn, I'll explain to the Wolfgang members later, but... see, remember how I got that flower ornament accessory as a scenario clear reward?"

"Yeah."

"That thing actually has a hidden effect... It acts like a locator pointing to places related to Setsuna, 'Setsuna of the Distant Days'."

It hadn't even been a year yet, but that name felt remarkably nostalgic. Still, the details weren't quite clear.

"Give us a concrete explanation."

"Right... Until recently, it only pointed in a straight line toward the New Continent. I checked it all out, and there's probably something in the western region of the New Continent."

"The west, huh... I only know it's bad news over there."

"Yep. But that's irrelevant right now. The problem is that after defeating Siegelwurm, four additional locations showed up."

Four... additional ones?

"Except for the one shown from the beginning, the flavor text got updated, so quoting directly: 'The blue Shoutei, the red Enku, the white Sakumei, the black Kakutan—the remnant shadow of the Tombguard lingers. The purified dark clouds of regret spread once more...' or so it says."

What on earth is that? As I tilted my head at the unfamiliar names, Rei-san, who was tapping away on her mobile device, gently poked my shoulder with her finger.

"Umm... I looked it up... and the names just mentioned seem to be different variants of Kirin."

"Huh?"

Wait, I knew about the oriental fantasy monster Kirin, but there were color-coded variations? Or rather, in the world of Shang-Fro, "Kirin" meant...

"Strictly speaking, the kanji are different, but four types of 'Kirin'... that means... that, right?"

"The rematch element with Weatheremon, which was thought to be non-existent...?"

The original Weatheremon had already crumbled to dust and vanished. We, who cleared it, witnessed it ourselves, so there was no mistake. If so, what were these four "Kirin" that appeared alongside Siegelwurm's disappearance... and the progression of the World Story?

"Out of the four locations, two pointed to the New Continent and two to the Old Continent. Actually, one of them... Enku, has already been found."

"Huh?"

"Eh?"

According to Pencilgon, the red "Enku" existed at the deepest part of a hidden route that spawned in an area called the River of Shoufuroketsu, reachable via the Age of Gods Iron Ruins route—one of the three routes branching from Thirdrema on the Old Continent.

"Did you fight it?"

"Eh? I'm not like you, Sunraku-kun."

"I'll beat you up."

Don't use me as a bad example.

"What I want to know will be clear once I see it... The New Continent side is untouchable for now, so I want to confirm the Old Continent side. I don't care how many colored fake Weatheremons they mass-produce, but..."

"..............."

Eyes holding emotions deeper than simple game conquest silently looked at me. Silence cut her words off, and the part beyond that could probably only be understood by me and Katzo. This scum, who didn't even view NPCs as player characters despite the non-prefix, had gained one of her few warm memories through an NPC... In short, she wanted to know if a color-swapped version of "Setsuna of the Distant Days" had also appeared alongside the copy Weatheremons. And piecing together the story so far made things clear.

"Don't know which color it is... but the other one on the Old Continent side is directly beneath the royal castle, huh."

"It was rumored for a while, but to think 'there's some kind of field right beneath the royal castle' would be confirmed like this is unexpected, isn't it?"

"Umm... Is it not possible to negotiate with the current king?"

"Eh? If she's down there, sucking up to a king (NPC) every single time just to go to the underground area is a pain, isn't it?"

"Huh? Umm, well..."

T-this girl, looking with such innocent eyes...! I mean, basically, it just means "I want to snatch power so I can pass through the royal castle with a free pass", doesn't it!!

"Besides, leaving the current king alone will almost certainly flag us as enemies with the New Continent side. It's pretty common in fiction, but he seems to be a human-supremacist type of character."

"Are there players who would side with that?"

"Seems they're forcing it through with money and amnesties... At the very least, PKers can clear their Red Names just by joining the faction, and they'll probably get an indulgence to PK the opposing faction..."

"It's suddenly feeling very Bakumatsu-esque."

"A formalized faction concept and a sense of solidarity weaker than straw are customs unique to that place~"

She had a point, so I couldn't talk back. That aside, if karma values were cleared and debts from being PKKd were wiped clean, a considerable number of players would side with the kingdom. PK wasn't the only thing affected by karma values; being a PK was just the threshold where bounty hunters got deployed, while karma accumulation and the resulting hostility from NPCs were a different story. Methods to reduce karma like confessing at a church existed, but there would definitely be players thinking... if they joined a massive power like the "Kingdom" and benefited from a karma debt relief decree...

The realization of a desire that started with Pencilgon alone seemed to directly tie into a massive war involving all players.