The Hope They Left Behind (Premium)

by Sakon Kaidou

  “I feel the same way,” I replied.

  This is great. I’ve gotten something that both has good stats and matches the rest of my equipment!

  I looked to my side and noticed Nemesis, staring at me in silence.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she replied. “As long as you are satisfied, then... Yes, don’t mind me.”

  What’s with her? I wondered.

  With vacant eyes, she murmured, “I completely forgot that B3’s equipment was in the same vein as his... Can’t expect her to point it out...”

  So she’s thinking about my and B3’s equipment...? Oh! Does she also want something else she could wear in her human form? I guess I should find something for her... but wait, this is an antique store. I should visit something with newer clothes for that...

  ◇◇◇

  While Ray was pondering that, this was what went on in Nemesis’ head:

  I appreciate his sentiment, but the problem is with his clothing — not mine. That set... That armor... No matter how you look at it, it’s the attire of a villain. Of course, I’m aware that it came from a clan of villain roleplayers, so that is only to be expected. Still, unlike how he looked with the pirate hook and the spiky armor, there’s far more consistency here, making him appear even more sinister than before.

  She heaved a heavy sigh before concluding:

  I feel like his appearance makes him look far more evil than Sol Crisis.

  This somewhat worried her... but she had no idea that her worries would soon come to fruition.

  Chapter Two: “I Ran Into Someone Shady” x2

  Paladin, Ray Starling

  After B3 gave me the VDA, the shopkeeper brought out four kinds of anti-Steal inventories — bags, wallets, rings, and small side-pouches.

  I opted for the last one, because it was easy to take stuff out of it and because it matched the rest of my equipment. It looked somewhat like a deck case worn by characters from card game anime, and it reminded me of the president of EGRS.

  One thing about this inventory, though: in exchange for its resistance to Steal and other types of destruction, it had a limited number of item types it could carry.

  Though it had about as much space as my other inventory, it could only carry ten types of items. Strange as that seemed, adding resistance to Steal came at the cost of storage variety.

  Because of this, I would continue using my previous inventory for general storage, and use this new one for whatever was really precious, like Silver.

  By the way, this inventory cost me 10,000,000 lir, which was... kinda expensive, but the fact that I was even able to afford it spoke volumes about how much my situation in Dendro had changed over the past month.

  As for Nemesis’s clothing... we didn’t find anything that suited her perfectly, so we decided to leave it for another day.

  With the shopping done, we saw B3 off as she logged out to prepare for her visit back home, and then we headed out to our destination.

  I considered taking a monster-slaying Paladin job quest to make the most out of my trip, but for some reason, there were no job quests relating to the ruins in Quartierlatin County.

  I had expected there to be something, considering that new ruins seemed like a big deal but, apparently, that was off the mark.

  Giving up on the job quest, I just headed straight to the Quartierlatin County.

  Surrounded by a pleasant heat, Nemesis and I rode Silver on the path to our destination. Though he wasn’t running at full speed, he was at least twice as fast as he’d been when pulling the carriage. We’d probably be at the town of Quartierlatin by evening.

  Silver was clever, so he automatically made his way to the destination and avoided all obstacles and passersby as long as I held his reins. He even knew when to slow down and speed up.

  Looking at him again, he really was something special.

  I’d never really put much thought into him before, but having heard B3’s words made me somewhat curious about him.

  The ruins we were heading to right now were a place where you could get a job related to Prism Beasts, so it was likely that we could find info on them there, too, and I was reasonably excited about that.

  “Now, Ray,” Nemesis spoke up. “Silver is moving automatically, so why not check how it’s doing?”

  “‘It’?” I raised an eyebrow, not sure what she meant.

  “Shining Despair’s charge.”

  Oh, that.

  “Right-o.” I opened up the menu, went to my equipment details, and picked the Black Warcoat’s equipment skill, Shining Despair...

  Shining Despair: Releases the light accumulated through Light Absorption to melt all things with a scorching beam of despair.

  Active Skill.

  Charge: 3%

  “It’s only increased by 1% after a whole four hours.” I heaved a sigh.

  This skill was no doubt the devastating beam attack used by Monochrome. I knew its power better than anyone else. It’d shattered two of my Counter Absorptions, yet still delivered enough damage to almost kill me.

  Being able to use it myself would be... pretty good, to say the least.

  However, we had a problem in the “charge” part. It displayed how much of the necessary light the coat had absorbed so far. And despite me wearing it ever since I’d gotten it yesterday, it had only gathered 3% of the amount needed for Shining Despair.

  “Basic math tells me that I’ll need a whole month before I can fire it for the first time,” I complained. Considering that I’d be logging out for college and so forth, that was probably quite off the mark, too.

  I can’t even try it out like this, I thought.

  “If only you could fire it with small amounts of charge,” Nemesis commented. “The fact that it can only be used at 100% makes it quite inflexible.”

  And it makes actually using it kinda scary, I added.

  Though it would be significantly weaker than Monochrome’s original beam, you couldn’t know what to expect. The original had almost blasted away all of Torne. Though toned-down, the coat’s version was bound to be something fearsome.

  “What can we do about this, anyway?” Nemesis asked. “Merely letting it burn in the sun is far too inefficient.”

  Considering how the Light Absorption skill functioned, Shining Despair was probably based on the premise of gathering light from light-based attacks, rather than charging through exposure to the sun. However, opponents who used light-based attacks weren’t exactly common.

  “What about Figaro’s Fang of Gloria: Overdrive?” Nemesis suggested. “That seems like it could charge it up in an instant. If you take only the beam, you wouldn’t suffer the blade damage, so you would only need to do something about the residual heat, no?”

  “I’d rather not...” I said.

  That sounded like it was one slip-up away from suicide. Not to mention that Figaro was currently soloing the Tomb Labyrinth.

  “Perhaps you’re right... I wonder if it would work with strong light that is not necessarily of the light element?”

  “Strong light, eh?” I muttered. “Ah!”

  I actually did have something that fit the bill.

  Not wasting any time, I used Purifying Silverlight on the Black Warcoat. Normally, equipment affected by this skill emitted a silver glow, but the coat stayed all black, probably due to Light Absorption.

  In other words, Silverlight was being absorbed. It was of the holy element, rather than light, so I had my doubts about this working, but if basic sunlight counted, perhaps this result was only obvious.

  With this, I could charge the coat with both sunlight and Silverlight, which ought to speed up the process a bit.

  “It’s pretty smart, if I say so myself,” I muttered.

  “Agreed,” Nemesis nodded.

  High and proud, I continued riding Silver while using the skill.

  An hour later...

  “Man, am I tired...” As Silver’s movement sho
ok me, I lazily hung my head.

  “You look like you have summer heat fatigue,” commented Nemesis.

  “It’s probably close,” I muttered.

  I was wearing the Black Warcoat’s hood to both hide from the sunlight and absorb more of it, so I couldn’t fault Nemesis for thinking that I looked like the heat was doing me in.

  “I am unsure if it’s because of Light Absorption, but the Black Warcoat’s hood makes your face really dark and hard to see,” she commented.

  “Really?” I couldn’t tell by myself. The hood didn’t limit my vision or anything.

  “Mm-hm,” Nemesis nodded. “It’s like the darkness is hiding the upper half of your face. You look somewhat like a ghost-like monster, and even though I know it’s you, it makes me a tad scared.”

  “Just wearing a hood makes me look like an undead?” I raise an eyebrow.

  “Oh no, I wouldn’t say it’s just the hood...”

  “Is that so?”

  Well, my appearance aside, what we had to consider now were my summer fatigue-like symptoms. They were caused by my continued use of Purifying Silver.

  It had greatly increased the Black Warcoat’s charge speed, and it was now at 6%. However, doing this wasn’t good for my MP, and I’d already run out of all the MP I’d had at the start.

  I still had the MP my Grudge-Soaked Greaves had accumulated during yesterday’s Monochrome incident, but I decided to keep it just in case I needed to use Wind Hoof.

  Because of this, I had continued using Silverlight by restoring my MP with Potions, but after a while, it was making me feel a weariness much like summer heat fatigue.

  Considering I was just riding Silver, this wasn’t all that bad, but I couldn’t say the same if I somehow got into a battle, so I decided to stop.

  But how else can I charge it? I thought.

  “Ah!” I lightly exclaimed. “Maybe I should buy lots of light element attack Gems and fire them at the coat?”

  The idea sounded like it would eat a lot of my money, but if I was careful with how I used them, I wouldn’t be harming myself.

  I should’ve thought of that before leaving the capital, I thought. I guess I’ll have to buy them in Quartierlatin before exploring the ruins... Hm?

  “What is it?” I muttered as I felt that something was wrong.

  Unlike B3, I didn’t have any skills like Killing Intent Perception, but I still had my natural intuition.

  I couldn’t guarantee its reliability, but I couldn’t help but feel like something disquieting was happening nearby.

  “Nemesis,” I said.

  “Aye.” Instantly understanding, she transformed into a greatsword and went into my right hand.

  “Over there!” I shouted as I heard a faint sound coming from the dense broadleaf forest at the side of the open road.

  The sound was followed by a scream that made me gasp.

  Realizing that Silver couldn’t go through the forest all that fast, I returned him to my inventory and started running on my own two feet.

  Ten-odd seconds later, I found the sources of the sounds.

  “Ah... aahh...” One was a girl, scared to the point of being unable to stand.

  And the other was a mechanical humanoid approaching her. “Threat le-vel — E. High-ly op-ti-mal. Se-cure tar-get.”

  It appeared to be a monster, as evidenced by the name above it — Teal Wolf.

  “In what world is that a...?!”

  I knew full well that Teal Wolves inhabited the north of the capital. But this thing before me was metallic, rather than furry; bipedal, rather than quadrupedal; and used some gun-like arm attachments as its weaponry, rather than claws and fangs.

  It was nothing like the Teal Wolves I’d fought before.

  In fact, this thing was more like a Magingear.

  “De-ter-min-ing threat lev-el.”

  The mechanical Teal Wolf (?) noticed us and made its helmet-covered head turn to me.

  The way it talked was blatantly robotic, but upon closer look, I noticed that it had animal fur sticking out through the spaces in the helmet and the mechanical parts.

  Is the text actually right, then? Is that really a Teal Wolf? I thought.

  “Threat le-vel — B+. Pri-or-i-ti-zing e-lim-i-na-tion o-ver re-triev-al.”

  My observation mattered little to the Teal Wolf (?). The gun-like attachment on its arm began spinning.

  The sight gave me a sense of deja vu and made a chill go down my spine. I instantly jumped to the side.

  A moment later, countless bullets pierced the space I had been in, turning the trees a distance away into swiss cheese.

  “A Gatling gun,” I muttered. “First time I’ve seen someone other than Shu use one.”

  Even Hugo’s Magingear had used a single-shot gun.

  Though this Teal Wolf’s (?) Gatling gun wasn’t nearly as menacing as Baldr, it still wasn’t something you’d want to face.

  “Pur-su-ing.”

  Making all its metallic pieces clang, the mechanical beast turned its weapons towards me.

  I continued moving, effectively dodging all that came my way.

  The bullets flew in a straight line, and they didn’t have a particularly powerful impact. They didn’t chase after me, have needlessly high penetrative force, blow up the surroundings, or become manga characters.

  Compared to my mock battles against Shu or Marie, this was actually really tame.

  “Hold on... is that the smell of gunpowder?” I asked.

  I suddenly realized that the weaponry wasn’t based on magic, but some sort of explosive chemical substance.

  “Then I can use that!”

  The monster had even moved away from the girl to focus on its attacks on me. The situation was perfect.

  “Gardranda,” I said as I raised the left arm I’d regained just yesterday and, for the first time in over a month, brandished the left Miasmaflame Bracer. “Purgatorial Flames.”

  It had always been my main weapon against monsters, and I didn’t hesitate to use it on the Teal Wolf (?).

  A moment later, the construct underwent a dramatic change.

  The flames scorching it quickly ignited the chemicals inside its weapons, causing it to swell... and blow up.

  “Fire safety’s important, you know?” I grinned.

  As I looked at the smoldering mechanical remains, I was relieved that my idea had worked. It had been entirely possible that the weapons were fireproof, just like Baldr. Then again, the fur sticking out had made that very unlikely.

  “What was that, anyway?” I asked.

  The exploded, blackened remains of the Teal Wolf (?) were spread out on the ground.

  I walked up to take a better look at the machine’s interior.

  There was some open space inside, but there was nothing there — not even the owner of the fur that had been peeking out. During the explosion, I’d seen some light particles, so I could only assume that it was dead. However, the machinery, despite being all burned and broken, was still there.

  It didn’t look like it was about to drop something — it was now just scrap metal spread out on the ground.

  I picked up a piece of the scrap and opened the menu for a description, but all I got was, “The remains of a mysterious machine.”

  Still, the fact that it got an item description and the fact that there was no name above its head meant that the remains didn’t belong to a monster.

  “What the hell is this?” I wondered out loud.

  Machines and monsters made me think of Dryfe... particularly, Franklin. However, I had a feeling that he wasn’t involved in this.

  That lab coat asshole would’ve been way more nasty with his work. At the very least, he’d have made sure that burning it would’ve caused a far bigger explosion, or a release of some poison gas.

  “Well, there’s no point in thinking about it now.” Albeit still curious, I put the remains in my inventory.

  The fact that I can do this is conclusive proof that it’s
not a monster... right?

  “All right. Now...”

  The girl who’d been attacked by the Teal Wolf (?) was now unconscious because of the shock from the explosion.

  However, it didn’t look like she was hurt in any way, so it was safe to say that this little bit of trouble was over. Still, even though that weird Teal Wolf (?) was dealt with, I couldn’t really leave an unconscious girl here in the forest all alone.

  I walked towards her to see if she was all right.

  But then, as though to stop me, a blue flash ran before me.

  “Nh?!”

  It was a sword. It separated me from the girl... then changed its course, and went for my neck.

  In haste, I raised the left Miasmaflame Bracer to block the blade. It was more of an act of instinct, rather than thought, but it worked.

  Thankfully, the blade stopped after digging just a little into the bracer. If I hadn’t been so lucky, I could’ve lost my left hand... if not my head.

  “Who’re you?” I asked, as I assessed the trajectory and threat level of the attack. It had clearly been meant to kill me instantly, which reminded me of Rosa. It shook me so much that my heart began to race.

  Wondering what I’d done to deserve this attack, I turned, puzzled, and looked at the attacker... only to be taken completely aback.

  The attacker looked that shocking.

  It was a swordswoman with long, azure hair and a mask on the upper half of her face. Her noble-looking clothes were partially reinforced with metal, and in her hands, there was a blue blade with a strangely pressurizing presence.

  There was only one thing I could say about a person who looked like that.

  “Shady!” She and I simultaneously spoke the same word.

  Excuse me, but why?

  “That sinister apparel...” she continued. “A perfect fit for a shady scoundrel rotten enough to assault a helpless girl in broad daylight.”

  “Assau— ‘Scoundrel’?!” I exclaimed.

  I’m not sure how to feel about a shady masked woman who attacks people out of the blue speaking such baseless slander about me.

  “What do you mean, ‘a perfect fit’?” I sputtered. “Do I look like some villain to you?!”