“The data crystals you want are for your dream build’s weapon, right?”
A dream build.
Creating a second character was forbidden in the DMMORPG Yggdrasil. As a result, in order to make the most of their one avatar, the average player would develop their characters through trial and error. The aim of most players was power, or to fully develop the abilities of a non-combat profession such as cooking or alchemy or the like.
But among them were people who proceeded in a way, towards their dream builds.
This was the title given to those people who proudly declared their romantic streak, who eschewed the pursuit of power and sought to role-play.
For example, in order to make a barbarian who sang in battle, they would not gain levels in the vanguard classes which suited barbarians, but instead levelled up in classes like Dragon Priest or Bard, which was considered a waste.
By the way, most people disdained dream builders.
In Yggdrasil, the maximum size of a raid was five parties of six people each, or 30 people in total. Apart from exceptional cases like guild battles or fighting a World-Class enemy, people who were over the limit would be subjected to friendly fire. In other words, they had to take on bosses with just these 30 people. If there were joke characters among them, it would reduce the amount of fighting power they could bring to bear.
Because of that, it was popular for most dream builders to form guilds with others who felt the same way as them.
Then, what about Momonga?
The clan he was in was not filled with dream builders, but at the same time, they were big-hearted enough to accommodate those people.
“Yeah. That’s why it’s hard to bring it up. I don’t know if that dungeon drops any data crystals that other people want… well, from a different point of view, you could always say that nobody’ll fight with me for the drops.”
“Where did you find that out?”
“I went to Nyaru-chan.”
After hearing the name of that famous intelligence website from Momonga, though his face did not move, Peroroncino displayed an emoticon of uneasiness.
“From Nyaru, huh. Those free sites tend to have a lot of fake news. They’re probably in cahoots with paid sites, so the best way to get useful info is to go to those paid sites. There’ve been cases where they spread false info on purpose, in order to draw people away from places that drop rare data crystals, you know.”
There were many websites with false information on Yggdrasil, especially the ones where contributors could freely edit in their information.
All this was because knowledge was power in Yggdrasil. As a result, most players would not disclose what they had learned to the masses, whom they did not know or trust. Therefore, if one saw a piece of valuable, highly sought-after information, one could be sure that there was some kind of scheme behind it.
“Ah, I know that too. But this information looks reliable. You know how there’s a top-tier guild called Seraphim, the one which only allows angel-types to join? They say the info came from them.”
“Ah. Well, if that’s the case, it may indeed be credible, after all—”
At this point, the two of them had finally reached the double doors at the end of the tunnel.
Momonga opened the doors, and let Peroroncino go first. Naturally, this was the courtesy one would expect of a salaryman. Incidentally, if a situation like this happened again, according to etiquette, it would be Peroroncino’s turn to open the doors.
“Thank you very much.”
After Peroroncino stepped through the door with those words, Momonga followed after him.
The room on the other side of the doors was built of concrete. If this were a guild homebase, perhaps it would not have been so plainly made, but given that this place had been rented with in-game currency, they did not have the luxury to spend data on useless things. Still, there were advantages to such a bland room. Since the amount of data used was exceedingly small, the room could be made very large.
There were several sofas and chairs scattered throughout the room, with quite a number of heteromorphic characters — there should have been 18 in total — seated at their favorite places in their favorite poses. A wave of welcomes and smiling emoticons appeared as the two of them came in.
Momonga popped several smileys of his own in response.
“Where should we go?”
“How about there?”
Momonga and Peroroncino sat themselves down on a couple of chairs, which they moved to face each other.
“Ah, now where were we?”
Momonga thought about their prior conversation in response to Peroroncino’s question.
“Ah, I think we were talking about reliable information.”
“Yes, that’s it! That’s it! Like I was saying, you have to determine whether or not information can be trusted with your own eyes. Tell you what, if there’s no clan activities today, I’ll go there with you.”
“Eh?! Is it really all right, Peroroncino-san?”
“Of course, Momonga-san! My sis says she’s coming too — well, she might not be here yet, but we can bring her along too. Besides, a party needs a tank.”
“Thank you very much, Peroroncino-san.”
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing. It’s okay as long as it’s Momonga-san. Although next time, you’ll have to go hunting with me.”
“Gladly!”
“Well, if that’s the case, we’ll have an Attacker, a Tank, and a Wildcard. For a perfect party, we’ll need three more people — a Healer, a Seeker, and another Attacker.”
“Oh, and where do the two of you plan to go hunting?”
They looked to the sound of the third voice, and what they saw was the organizer of this clan.
“Ohh, it’s Touch-san. Good evening~”
“Good evening.”
“Ah, good evening.”
There stood a warrior in silver. Below his appearance of a Paladin was an insectile body.
He wore a red cape that looked like a scarf.
Although there was no wind, it still swayed like there was one. However, Momonga-san had long since ceased to be curious about that. It must be some sort of cash item. All he felt now was admiration — the desire to have a fluttering red cape like that if he ever wore a suit of armor.
The man called Touch Me sat beside Momonga with a grunt of “yoi~sho~”, like he was an old man. Under his command, the cape settled down. Perhaps he felt that it got in the way,
“Clan leader, are we supposed to go anywhere today?”
While the leader of a guild would be called the Guildmaster, this was not a guild. Rather, it was a step below a guild, or a clan. Therefore as the leader of this clan, Touch Me was called the clan leader.
“No, actually. There’s no plans yet. Although, I think we have to carry out the usual meeting.”
Momonga’s clan held regular meetings on a weekly basis. Although there were quite a few people who did not — or could not — take part, those members were also asked to look at the clan’s message board.
“Oh, in other words, you were planning to go, then?”
Meetings were a chance for most of the members to meet, and thus chances were high that they could conduct large-scale activities like hunting. If there was really nothing planned later on, it would be the best place to recruit members for a party, so they planned to chat up some people and suggest that they go along.
In response to Peroroncino’s questions, Touch Me simply went “Hmm—” and looked at the ceiling.
“…Well, not exactly, there’s some things, this or that, which I want to change, that…”
Momonga and Peroroncino looked at each other as Touch Me drifted off into mumbling.
This was completely unlike Touch Me. He was a very straightforward person, the kind who was very direct in his words and deeds.
Just as Momonga was about to ask him about it, he saw the door open from the corner of his eye and Bukubukuchagama[2] entered the room.