198 – Recollections and the Next Goal
March 15, 2022
Chapter 5 begins!
After the battle with the moon wolf.
Drago and A-chan that are still lying on the ground are surprised when they suddenly hear footsteps approaching the precinct.
For a moment, I thought it might be Hisui, but the footsteps didn’t belong to her.
And not long after, the face revealed from that ascending stair is exactly who I imagined.
“Good work…. All of you.” She grinned.
Haruru walked in, carrying an unusually heavy two-handed hammer in one hand… Ummm, it might be more appropriate to call it dragging than carrying.
Is that your weapon?
“What’s the matter? Why did you come all the way here?”
“I’m here to collect her… because I almost knew this would happen…….”
“Oh, I see. Haruru was the one who called Rou, didn’t she?”
Haruru pointed at Rou, and I understood what she meant.
Rou had come to join us at Haruru’s request. Then, she abused her skills without any regard for herself and leaving her with only one arm in this fight’s aftermath.
Although Nocturne had removed the curse caused by the dead skills, that did not mean that the injury was healed.
“I sent her in as a helping force, so it’s my duty to save her after the job is done… right…..?”
Haruru looked a little happy as she said this, and after pouring the potion on Rou, who is still lying on the ground, she roughly picked her up and carried Rou on her shoulder.
“I’ll discuss the Moon Wolf material later this week….. I’d like to have Konekomaru present as well by that time …… And I know Sukuna will probably have other things to do for a while……”
“You know about that?”
“Yes…… of course… I’ve been following Sukuna movements to a certain extent, so…….”
I know that Haruru watches my stream, and I am not hiding the fact that I will be attending be at the upcoming game convention.
So it is not at all strange that Haruru knows about it. However, it was a little surprising that Haruru knew about my schedule, while most people might not know about it since I hardly talked about it in my stream.
“Well then, I’ll leave you for now…… and thank you both for your hard work …….”
‘Yes, take care. See you again, Rou.”
“…yeah, see ya.”
I might hear it wrong since I’m quite tired right now, but I feel like her tone has become very indifferent.
But then I caught a glimpse of Rou’s figure at the end, and she had a very nice smile on her face.
“Drago, A-chan. Let’s go home too!”
After watching their backs disappear into the lost forest, I called out to the two who had no intention of getting up and decided to return to the Oni village.
===*
After we returned to Oni village, there was a celebration held by the NPC and players waiting for us.
In the middle of it all, I got into some terrible mess after I told Kohaku that I had seen a Shuten again. …… But that’s a story for another time.
☆
After I logged out, I fell asleep almost right away, then I woke up late at night to chat with Rin-chan and do some stream.
And the next day, I woke up and immediately noticed that Rin-chan was not next to me. Then I realized that the clock’s hand had pointed itself to number 10. It seems that I was overslept.
“Good morning!”
“Good morning. You’re full of energy today, aren’t you?”
“Yeah! I guess I slept a lot.”
When I opened the door to the living room, I found Rin-chan sitting comfortably on the sofa, playing with her tablet device.
It seemed that she had already eaten breakfast, and only my portion was placed on the table.
I took a chair at the table and ate a full piece of French bread from one end to the other.
“Nana, that’s bad.”
“dwonwowwyavootit.”
“Don’t be like that, Nana. I have a bread knife, so use it if you need it.”
“Ng…… it’s already eaten, so it’s fine.”
“That’s more like drinking than eating… chew your food properly!”
“French bread is a drink, so it’s okay.”
“I’m sorry. You’re out.”
“Eh, why?”
While exchanging such light-hearted conversation, I decided to ask Rin-chan why she had been peering intently at her tablet device from a while ago.
“Thanks for the food. What have you been looking at since a while ago?”
“The outline for the next tournament, the WGCS All-Stars National Finals.”
“Oh….., it’s the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?”
World Gamers Championships, commonly known as WGCS.
Consisting of five of the most popular and highest-rated games around the world, plus one new title that will make its WGCS debut for the first time.
In total, there are six game championships will be held simultaneously, making it the world’s largest super-gaming event.
I’ve been busy in WLO lately due to my curse and fighting Nocturne, but I know there will be a tournament the following weekend ever since I went to Rin-chan’s parent’s house last week.
The members of our team are me, Rin, Touka, and one other person.
The four of us will form a team and participate in our first tournament as HEROES.
“Do you want to watch, Nana?”
“Let me see. Let me see.”
Sitting next to Rin-chan, I peek into her tablet and look over the outline of the tournament.
The name of the tournament is “BATTLER”.
In contrast to the name’s simplicity, the logo is quite flashy. Whoever made this logo has good taste.
“Hmmm…. The competition is a two-day, four-round, winner-take-all system, and only the top two teams that won the WGCS will qualify for the main competition and …….”
“You understand what it means? “
“I know all I have to do is win!”
“Well, you are not wrong….”
Perhaps knowing that I didn’t understand much, Rin-chan put her hand on her cheek as she said this.
“Is there anything you don’t understand?”
“To be honest, almost everything.”
I honestly have no idea what the rules are for game competitions. And that’s because I had never thought about taking part in one myself.
I had watched the games with Rin-chan, but I was more of a spectator, watching from the side as she got excited about the competition.
And even if I had been watching the tournament, I doubt I would have understood what the rules were. It’s hard for people to remember what they are not interested in.
“I guess I’ll have to start from here.”
She said while giggling and explaining about the competition.
“The game’s title used in this battler is [Zero Wars VR]. Nana has played Zero Wars before, so you should know the gameplay.”
“Yeah.”
The game genre of the Zero Wars series is a TPS battle royale game.
The game is simple and straightforward: fight until you are the last standing person or the last standing team within a certain safe area. That’s how you climb your way to victory.
This battle royale genre was an explosive hit when VR did not yet support full dive.
In the beginning, you are given only minimal equipment. You decide your own starting position within a certain range and then pick up weapons and armor as you kill each other.
In the early days of the genre, many titles were released, and as a result, only a few games that were particularly loved by users are still in service today.
Zero Wars is one of them.
“Zero Wars, which can be played on a console or PC, is a TPS…… which means you can control the character while looking at his or her entire body, but VR shooting is more like an FPS genre because the player’s perspective is reflected directly. The actual game is more like the military simulation Nana used to play at my parent’s home.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“It’s not as complicated as Zero Wars 4 because it’s basically used the same system that was used in Zero Wars 3. There are no Livestream videos outside of the official tournaments, but there are a lot of replay videos, so I’m going to have you watch those first.”
“Roger that.”
Rin-chan is basically the type of person who takes on competitive games after gaining knowledge about them.
So, with the exception of the RPG genre, where spoilers can affect the enjoyment of the game, in competitive games like this, she head-start it by familiarizing herself with all the “set stones,” “strong characters,” “strong positions,” and “winning strategies”. Rin’s reason for doing this was because it was more efficient if you had a good grasp of what those conditions are.
Knowing Rin-chan’s way of doing things, I nodded my head and agreed to her method.
“Let’s get going, then. We don’t have much time.”
“Go where?”
We already have an environment for playing VR games, and we have a large monitor in the living room for watching game videos.
I don’t understand why we need to go somewhere else, but Rin-chan clasped her hand as if to say, “Oh, right.”.
“I don’t remember ever showing THAT to Nana. There’s a floor downstairs for game practice. I used it until I became the best in the world. It’s my secret base.”
Rin-chan pointed to the spot directly below us.
After giggling at my still confused look, Rin-chan-chan happily pulled my hand away.
===*
Sukuna told Kohaku that she had met Shuten and what happened was… [REDACTED].
Next time, full coverage of Rinne’s secret base!
By the way, this fifth arc will be such a story, where you will get to know more about [Takajou Rinne and Touka”.
Tl note:
There’s some bad news about this series that I’ve been keeping to myself for quite a while, namely ‘hiatus’, but it turns out that I’m worried for nothing!
The author was just posting a new chapter, so I guess it’s safe… for now.
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