It’s finally over.
“Thanks for your hard work. Next time, I’ll prepare some sweets.”
“Okay! See you later!”
After chopping wood at some nice auntie’s house, I replied to her as cheerfully as I could and left her house.
I’ve been going around chopping wood for about four hours since noon, I had to match the quest form and the map, and after I finished chopping wood in the sixth house, I walked through the village to the next house.
“I don’t know if it’s because most of the people are older, but they treat me like a child.”
<She’s 21 years old>
<Well, that lady just before is over 100 years old>
<If you’re a human, it’s about the age difference of your great-grandchildren, so it’s just right to treat you as a child, no?>
<Kohaku-sama seems to be younger than 50>
<Sukuna is using her youth card.>
<NPCs here have a history>
Even the gatekeepers in the towns and villages have names and personalities, and each NPC has its own history, rather than being an AI-infused…, it’s as if a person’s soul really resides in them. {tln1}
Since the player has a virtual avatar with consciousness, I wonder if the NPCs also have a person inside.
“By the way, I’ve been quietly chopping firewood for all this time… I’m fine since I enjoy doing it, but isn’t it boring for everyone else?”
<Unexpectedly fun>
< It’s cracking beautifully, so it’s satisfying to see.>
< It’s almost like background music for work.>
< It’s not often you get a chance to watch someone chopping wood for hours on end.>
<There are games where you just have to keep leveling the mountain.>
“Oh…., that’s what Rin-chan used to have her maids do.”
<LOL>
<LOL>
<Because it’s annoying LOL>
<Abuse of power.>
<Unforgiveable!>
<ROFL>
<Do it yourself LOL>
In open-world crafting games, clearing a mountain or digging it down to make a flat area was not uncommon.
If I were asked if I wanted to do it in VR, I definitely wouldn’t, but in consumer games, it’s normal to do that.
If you dig up a mountain, you can get materials for it. It may not be efficient, but at least it’s not a waste of time.
After a while, you will get some sense of accomplishment, so it wasn’t that bad.
By the way, when Rin-chan had the maid help her flatten the mountain, she was scolded by Toki afterward because she practically slowed down the maid’s work.
Similar to flattening the mountain, I also got an experience point and a few items called [Moonlight Tree Woodchips].
I’m sure it could be used for fuel or something, but at the moment, I don’t know what this is for.
“The next stop is over there…?”
As I checked the map for my next destination, I saw a white fox walking through the village.
“Hey, it’s a white fox.”
< You’re right.>
<Cuteee!>
<I’m not familiar with the village’s variety of stray animals.>
<It’s a rare character that sometimes appears in the village of oni, but this is the first time I saw it.>
< It’s really pure white.>
“Rare character?”
I’ve never seen one before. If there were other players around, I could have asked them, but unfortunately, there were only NPCs around me right now.
From a distance, at least, it didn’t look like a monster.
The inhabitants of the village only occasionally follow it with their eyes, exactly a reaction when someone sees a stray cat, just as the viewers said.
It’s cute. I hope it won’t run away when I approach it.
I was born to be feared by the animal, you know?
It frustrated me so much, and I’ve never been in contact with an animal before, to the point that it feels like a miracle for me when the water dragon at Trillia spoiled me.
“I want to touch it.”
<Go.>
<I’ll comfort you if it runs away.>
<Don’t kill it, okay?>
“There’s no way I’m going to kill it!”
I won’t kill animals that don’t try to attack me!
“Okay, here comes nothing!”
<I got bad feeling…>
<Run! RUN!>
<The memory of her slaughtering the Wolves suddenly comes to mind…>
<a tragedy was to take place that would be told for generations to come.>
“Aren’t you guys too quick to turn on me?”
You talked about comforting me just a second ago…
I ignored the viewer’s teasing and made my way towards the fox with firm determination, and to my surprise, the fox noticed me and made its way towards me.
I crouched down to adjust my gaze to the fox’s height, and the fox sniffed eagerly as it circled around me.
I knew that in the game, animals were not afraid of me. Still, I’m happy when this happens.
It spun around in the air. Just as I thought it was being trained to do the trick, there was a puff of smoke, and then the fox turned into a beautiful woman.
“…… smells good. You smell very, very good.”
A pale blue kimono embroidered with snowflakes. She has lustrous black hair and beautiful jade eyes.
She does not have ears in the same position as a human but instead has two fox ears standing up on her head and a soft tail around her hips.
It’s what they called animal ears(kemonomimi)? And she is beautiful. A woman with an appearance that would charm anyone, she then smiled.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Sukuna.”
“Alright, Sukuna-chan. I’m Sekka {Yukihana -Snow Flower}. Nice to meet you.”
When I accepted her hand, she made a suspicious movement.
I’ve been getting a lot of skinship through my hands today, whether it’s from Akagane or this woman.
While I was thinking about this, Sekka sniffed me again, as she continued, her cheeks turning red, and said,
“You smell so good. It’s almost debaucherous.”
“Yes…? does I stink that much?”
WLO is an amazing game that recreates smells, but I’ve intentionally cut out about 90% of my sense of smell, so I don’t know what my own smell is.
But there’s no sweat or anything like that in the game. I guess the players could smell it just dirt, dust, and iron.
When I questioned her about this, she said it was a mistake to take it so seriously.
“Yes. You smell really good, Sukuna-chan. You have a very intense smell of money.”
I couldn’t help but reply in reflex.
“Smell of money.”
<Money.>
<LOL>
<LOL>
<ROFL>
<I’m really laughing now.>
<What are you? Gold Nugget?>
While watching the audience laugh out of the corner of my eye, I sighed softly, wondering what to do with the captivated fox-eared woman in front of me who was almost drooling.
☆
“…… I see, so Sekka is from the youko tribe (fox demon).”
I was taken by the sniffling Sekka to her store in the corner of the village.
“Un~. The oni tribe and the fox tribe get along well, so we can come and go as we please. Myself, in particular, is a sorceress, so I regularly come to the village to sell my talisman(Jufu).”
“I see. It’s just like what Kohaku told me.”
I had forgotten all about it, but when I first met Kohaku, she used protection [talisman] to protect me from magic.
At that time, I remembered that Kohaku told me that the oni tribe and the youko tribe have a good relationship.
And now I realized I did intend to buy some by the time I reach oni village.
“Do you know Kohaku-sama, Sukuna?”
“Yes, Kohaku my [Oni no Mai] Master.”
I think I’ve heard the name “Kohaku” a lot since I came to this village.
It’s given because she’s an important NPC with many settings: she’s the princess of the oni village, which is also a Shrine Maiden family with Kishin blood running through their vein.
“So you know a lot about sorcery?”
“Only a little. Anyone can use it if you use the talisman made by youko sorceress…”
“Hmm, that’s pretty much right. This is not exactly a talisman but a “spell mark.” Though it doesn’t matter what you call it, so you can call it whatever you want.”
What Sekka took out were five spell marks of different colors and patterns.
I see. It indeed seems to be different from the Charm (Gofuda) you can find on shrines. It’s just my feeling, though.
“You know Sukuna-chan, this [Sorceress], It’s a profession that uses a skill to put all kinds of techniques into a talisman and materialize it. Most of the spells inside talisman are sorcery, but depending on the user, even magic and warding can be made into a talisman.”
“If it depends on the user, does that mean that you cannot create a talisman that contains magic if the user cannot cast it?”
“That’s right. Basically, it contains magic that can be used by the sorcerers who created the spell mark. Since the foxes are a race of sorcery, not magic, their spell marks usually contain sorcery.”
Hmm, so that’s it. If the user is a sorcerer, they can create sorcery spell marks. If they are a magician, he can create magic spell marks.
“What’s the difference between magic and sorcery?”
“First, they both use MP. The only difference is that sorcery is much more effective as support than magic. For example, this one.”
Sekka pulled out one of the talismans she was holding and threw it.
At that moment, smoke began to billow out of the talisman.
“This is a spell that contains a rudimentary sorcery technique called [Youen] {Youkai Smoke}. It can be used to escape from monsters or to surprise your target, so it won’t notice you.”
“It’s too expensive to use for a simple hunt, though.” Add Sekka, crushing the burned-out spell marks.
But magic is basically a combat-oriented technology, so there’s not much to play with. There are some fun techniques in sorcery that seem rather useless.
As she stroked the newly retrieved spell marks, snowflakes flew around the store.
“This is [Oboro Yuki]. It’s just an illusion, but isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes. It’s really not cold, and you can’t touch it.”
“It’s just an illusion. Well, this one only used for fun…”
“That’s true.”
It’s beautiful. However, it seems difficult to put this to practical use in battle. At least if it’s a hallucination of fire or something, I could think of some use of it.
But still, sorcery. Compared to magic, it seems to be more Japan-like, but as long as it uses MP, oni folk won’t be able to use it. This was the first time I felt disappointed that my magic skills were so low.
“You said earlier that sorcery is good at support, but do they have an offensive spell?”
“Of course there are. It’s just not as versatile as magic.”
She didn’t demonstrate because she won’t use offensive sorcery indoors, but she probably had some in the talisman she hadn’t shown yet.
“It’s time to do business. Sukuna-chan seems to be very rich, so we’ll have more than enough to go around.”
When Sekka operated the menu card, the empty shelves in the store were lined with spell marks.
Even at a quick glance, you can see more than a hundred different kinds of spells. It’s not like there’s one of each kind, so if you look at the number that was lined up, there are probably many times more.
“The number and quality of the items in this store vary greatly depending on who comes to sell them. Sukuna is very lucky because you were able to visit this store on the same day I did.”
She said this with a smug look on her face, but my first impression of her was that she was a disappointing beauty who lusts for money.
When I gave Sekka such a look, she grinned and handed me a menu card.
Basically, only you can operate the menu card. The status displayed on the card and the list of items in the inventory is also invisible to others.
However, since this is only a privacy issue, you can set a card to show its contents to others. Only you can control it, though.
When I received the card, expecting something she wanted to boast, my eyes widened when I saw what was written on it.
Even only her status on it was enough to surprise me.
“Highest-level magician…. Sekka of the [Zekkai] {Absolute Boundary}?”
Her displayed level is 221.
“Fufufu, my spellbook is a bit expensive, okay?”
Seeing my surprised expression, Sekka smiled like a child whose prank had succeeded.
===.
A note:
So she’s finally out, the sorceress tribe and the magician.
By the way, the sorcerer tribe is also long-lived, so if you look at Sekka and Kohaku, Kohaku is about three times younger than Sekka. I want to get younger…
Tl note:
Shut it, author, who didn’t want to stay young forever…
And I believe I won’t need to explain what kemonomimi is… right? Well, you can google it if this is the first time you have heard that word. Nothing too weird there, just the Japan thing.
Tln1, yeah, I feel like that too. At some point, I even suspect that this is actually an isekai story with technology involved.
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