87-annihilation reward




'It's already been 20 minutes. ......'

 The entrance on the other side was also closed, as it should be, and I sat down in front of the entrance (exit?) with some resignation, if not disappointment. It's already been 20 minutes since I sat down in front of the entrance (exit?) with some resignation, if not disappointment.

"Rinne, take it.
"You're not dead, are you?
"Nana will be fine. ...... Maybe.
"Yes, I'm sure. ......
"Meibii.
"Up, say something.

'Hey, ......, are you trying to cheer me up?

 These are the words of listeners who are not encouraging at all.
 It's true that I'm feeling a little better thanks to the comments made in the usual atmosphere.
 It seems that when it comes to Nana, I'm weaker than I normally would be. I was feeling too anxious and impatient to dismiss it as just an incident in a game.

 Still, as the comments said, it's not all bad.
 Even though 20 minutes had passed, Nana's HP, which I could see as a party member, had only decreased by about 30%, and she didn't seem to be affected by any abnormalities.
 Her HP hadn't decreased much since it had dropped by almost 20% in the first five minutes or so.


'Oh, ......?

 Gack.
 While I was playing with the listeners, worrying about Nana, there was nothing I could do, when the familiar sound of operation reached my ears again.
 The door to the monster house opens. I don't have time to wait for it to open completely, but I run into the room as soon as it's big enough to fit through.
 Nana was sitting on something in the middle of the room, waiting for me. She didn't seem to notice that I had come into the room, because she was a little droopy.

'Nana!

'...... Ah, Rin-chan.'

 She didn't look excited, nor did she seem to have cooled down. The slightly dazed look was unmistakably Nana's.
 When I saw Nana sitting up and looking up at me, I ran out.

'Wapu!

'You're okay! Did you get hurt?'

'Lin, we're in a game, remember?

'Crap, yeah. ...... Good, good, good.'

 I was so relieved to see her safe and sound that I hugged her and laughed as I realized how much I had panicked when Nana pointed it out to me.
 She had really eradicated that number of monsters.

'Hey Rin. Look at this.'

'Hmm? Speaking of which, what are you sitting on?

'A treasure chest. It came out when I killed all the monsters.'



 The chair that Nana was sitting on looked like a rusty treasure box.
 I'd like to think it's not a jewelry box, but what is it really?
 The decorations that could be seen beneath the rust were quite gorgeous, and considering that it was the reward for breaking through a monster house of that scale, it was inevitable to expect a little.

'Lin, you can open it.

'Is it okay?'

'Yeah, I'm not really interested.'

 Nana said this vaguely, but she didn't look at the treasure chest, as if she really wasn't interested.
 In fact, she didn't even see me try to open the treasure chest. She looked away a little and seemed to be looking somewhere else. .......
 It was then that I heard a sound from Nana's direction that I have rarely heard before.

'...... is ...... ah'.

 It was the breath leaking from Nana's mouth. A tiny little breathing sound.
 No, no, no. It's not that Nana's not interested.
 Right now Nana is 'tired'. So exhausted, in fact, that she has to sit in a treasure chest and rest after a fight.
 No wonder. Defeating over a hundred monsters is just too out of the ordinary.
 It's impossible not to get tired. The current Nana was so exhausted that she would have forced herself to log out.

 Indeed, even in a large room full of monsters, it would have been easy for Nana to move around.
 Unlike roguelikes with turn-based battles, the monsters were restricted in their movements to some extent, so Nana may have been aiming for a good fight.
 Nana had her Red Wolf costume and her special "Moon Camellia Solo", so she might not have had to worry about SP.

 But there is a limit.
 There was no way he could do it. You can't destroy over a hundred monsters while taking only thirty percent of their damage.
 Because there are many monsters that use magic in this dungeon. That's why most of them are fatal blows to Nana, which also proves that she didn't take a single magic hit in the fight earlier.
 Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to defeat all the monsters without using a single recovery item.

 Unless you know the movements of all the monsters.

'......!

 I was horrified.
 My hand on the treasure chest trembled.
 How much concentration does it take to do such a thing?
 The Nana I know is much more .......

'...... Lin? Aren't you going to open it?'

'Er, yeah, sorry. It's rusty and it's hard to find the key.'

 Nana's words shook away the unpleasant thoughts.


 It's not that Nana is a big gold star ......, but she's done a great job. That's fine, that's fine.
 We'll have to see Nana's play archive later. I think I can get a huge number of views just by posting it on a video site without editing.

 By the way, a play archive is what you should call a non-delivery recording setting.
 Players who purchase the full delivery option, the highest grade, will be forced to pay a reasonable amount of money every month, but they will be able to record their entire play even when they are not delivering.
 The price is 50,000 yen per month. The recording data can be stored for only a week. Well, it's still cheap considering the huge amount of VR video data.
 Nana's monthly salary is more than three times as much as her monthly salary when she was working part-time, so she should be able to afford 50,000 yen a month.
 Well, my own pocket money is enough to pay for that. I don't need Nana to pay for it.

'Come on, let's open ......!

 You open the rusty treasure chest with a creaking sound.
 There was no glittering light, no solemn atmosphere.
 The contents of the opened treasure chest are a 'piece of transparent stardust' and a 'thick book'.

'Hmmm ......?

'A book? That's unusual, I don't think I've seen many of those in this game.

'I guess so.

 Perhaps feeling a little less tired, Nana also came to take a look at the contents of the treasure chest.
 Satisfied with Nana's reaction, I pondered over these two items.

 The shards of stardust look like kompeito, and when you take them out of your inventory, their individual colors are rather random.
 Most of them look like pure white with translucent white, just like kompeito.
 In contrast, this piece of stardust was as clear and transparent as glasswork.
 As for the other book, I have no way of understanding it. For now, all I knew was that it was an old, hardcover book.

'I'll have a look at the book.

'Please. I'll look at the pieces.'

 For the time being, he started to look at the books that Nana was unlikely to read, and gave the pieces of stardust to Nana.
 The book I put in my inventory is called "Skill Book: Diva's Embrace". The effect of the book was, roughly speaking, that the user could learn the rare skill "Diva's Embrace".

'A skill book for a rare skill...'

 A skill book. In itself, it's a rather standard item.
 Most of the initial skills are learned using the skill book, and the way to learn skills in WLO is to develop them to get more powerful skills.
 For example, the skill books for the weapons you can choose at the beginning of the game can all be bought at the store for about 1000 Iris.
 It's almost as if you're buying the skills as they are, and most players may not even realize that the skill book is a book because it's only one command to use.
 On the other hand, there are times when you can get a skill directly without a skill book in between.
 In the case of a drop from a powerful monster such as a named boss, the skill itself will be added to the player's skill column.



 Why do we separate them when they are similar?
 Basically, it is because of the difference in value of each skill.
 In the case of a skill book, you can learn the skill by getting it from the owner, but in the case of a drop, you can only get it by defeating the player.
 As with Nana's "Hungry Wolf" and my rare skills, it is the intention of the administration to encourage players to obtain strong skills by actually killing strong monsters.

 However, it seems that there are skill books for rare skills, like the one I have now.
 Well, I just found out about them. But this "Diva's Embrace" skill ...... is more for Nana than for me, judging from its effects.

'Lin, this is also great in a subtle way. It was just a piece of stardust, but look at how many there are.

'Which one is ......?

 I couldn't help but let out a strange sound.
 On Nana's menu card, the words 'stardust pieces x5000' shone brilliantly. I wonder if the color of the stardust shards changes when you collect them by quantity.
 According to Nana, the current number of 5000 is not the same as the one you have now, but is the result of thawing out the transparent stardust shards.
 The transparent piece of stardust that I had earlier was an item that could provide the equivalent of 10 rounds in just one.

'Nana, this is for you.

'What? Is that okay?

'It was originally won by Nana on her own. If it was a magic skill, it would have been too good to pass up, so I might have taken it.

'You're right, even if I learned a magic skill, it would be a waste of money.

 She smiled and said to herself, "I guess I'm not tired anymore.
 It's easy for people to focus on Nana's low magic defense, but her MP and intelligence are endlessly devastating. It's just that people don't say that because they don't usually need it.
 That's why she needs to improve her skills in areas other than magic. The skill book I just returned was definitely something Nana needed.

'A diva's embrace. ...... I wonder if it has anything to do with the Sirens.'

'I'm sure there is .......'

 As I watched from the side as Nana used the skills book to learn the skills, I agreed with what Nana had said.
 The Sirens are originally the name of a monster related to singing. I seem to remember that they were monsters with legends of causing accidents at sea or something like that.
 It's hard to imagine that the name "Diva's Embrace" has nothing to do with Sirens.

'Hmm ......, you're short on skill slots ......'.

'What skills are you wearing now?'

''There are seven: ''Striking Weapons'', ''One-Handed Mace'', ''Two-Handed Mace'', ''Barehanded Fighting'', ''Detecting'', ''Starving Wolf'', and ''Throwing'', plus the ''Instant Displacement'' skill I got at level 50.''

''Is this the kind of thing that comes out when you increase your proficiency in multiple weapons?

'Probably. It's easy to equip a throwing weapon in an instant.

 I see, I was wondering how you were taking out the throwing items, but I see you've acquired that skill as well.

 I believe that 《Instant Displacement》 is a skill that can be obtained by attaining 50 proficiency in three or more weapon skills. It's not difficult to obtain, since the condition can also be achieved with derived weapon skills.


 As I recall, if you have a weapon in your inventory, you can re-equip it without any motion by consuming SP.
 I hadn't realized that this effect extended to throwing items, but it was only natural since the throwing skill itself was so unpopular that it hadn't been developed at all.

 In the first place, the instantaneous conversion itself is a skill that only players who can handle multiple weapons with a certain level of skill can relate to.
 It is the usual way of VR to focus on a single weapon rather than to half-heartedly improve your skill and player skill like that.
 Furthermore, even if there are 30,000 people who use both of these weapons at a practical level, the fingers of one hand may not be enough to handle the instantaneous conversion that requires a variety of skills from the user, and the throwing skill that is completely dependent on player skill.
 To be honest, I think Nana is the only one who can use both of them at present.

 Even so, Nana's discovery is a revolution for those with throwing skills. Wearing a throwing weapon or taking it out of your inventory is more of a hassle than you might think.
 The instantaneous conversion itself is not difficult to obtain, and may become a stacked skill for those with throwing skills.

'What should I do?

'Nana, it's a passive skill. You only have Kagewo right now anyway, right? Why don't you replace either the two-handed mace or the bare-handed fighting?''

'Passive?

'You mean an always-on skill.

 In any skill-based game, there are two kinds of skills: active skills and passive skills.
 Active skills are the basic skills that you can choose when to activate at will. Skills that allow you to use Arts are usually in this category.

 Passive skills, on the other hand, are skills that are always active, such as those that affect status or resistance.
 For example, if you raise the "One-Handed Sword" skill to 100 proficiency, the skill effect of '1.1 times attack power when equipped with a one-handed sword' will be activated.
 This is a type of skill that is always active as long as it is equipped, so it is a passive skill.
 On the other hand, arts that are actively activated, such as "Slash," can be considered fully active skills.

'I mean, you know about passive skills, don't you?

'Ehehe.'

 Nana smiled embarrassedly when I poked her.
 There was a time when Nana was so devoted to games that she didn't even know how many games she and I had conquered together. I'm sure she has a good amount of knowledge about games.
 Well, I was the one who made him play games back then, so it's understandable that he's not very aware of it.

'Hmm? Lin, could this be ......'?

'Yes, it's perfect for Nana right now, isn't it?

 I smiled a little proudly at Nana, who seemed surprised to see the effect of my skills and tugged at my robe a little.