by Sakon Kaidou
Fox: “Is he acting weird ’cause the other two aren’t here?”
Xun: “...WhatevEr. Let’s just dO the announcemEnt.”
Fox: “Okie.”
Xun: “Volume 9 of Infinite Dendrogram!”
Fox: “Planned for release in February 2019!”
Fox: “So yeah, keep buying, y’all!”
Xun: “The beAr and the cat’re coming bAck next time. To be hOnest, I had no idea it’d gO so well with just us twO.”
Fox: “Same. We should plan out a downsizing to give ourselves more spotlight, and—”
Xun: “StOp.”
A Break for the Orchestra
Paladin, Ray Starling
It was the day after we arrived at Quartierlatin.
Azurite was having a private chat with the countess, so I whiled away the time listening to Veldorbell’s performance.
To say that the music was pleasant on the ears would’ve been a gross understatement.
“Man, this is good,” I muttered.
“Mm-hm,” nodded Nemesis. She even stopped eating just to listen.
The music had tons of variety. You had famous movie theme songs, foreign TV series openings, western game BGM, and even music from anime — both well-known theater classics and late-night shows.
After a few songs, they took a break. The children took the chance to go to the bathroom, grab a snack, drink some tea, or play around with Veldorbell’s Embryos. Wind the cat sìth and Percussion the kobold were especially popular.
I walked over to Veldorbell. “Sir, that was just amazing.”
“Why, thank you,” he said. “I seldom play for audiences of mostly little ones. I won’t lie, I was a bit tense.”
I really doubted that, but it didn’t seem like he was lying.“Don’t orchestras usually play classicalmusic, though?”
“Symphonies are long. You may split them into movements, yes, but a group of children would prefer a few shorter tracks, don’t you think?”
Well, that makes sense. I nodded.
“You covered a wide range of genres, too,” I said.
“You think so? Those tracks have something in common, though.”
“They do?”
How? Movie scores and anime themes are worlds apart. What kind of link can they have?
“Do they all start with a ‘re’ note or something?” I asked.
“That... isn’t what I had in mind, but yes, they actually do. I’m impressed you could tell.”
“Um, I just guessed and got lucky. Don’t think too much of it.” Unlike Shu, I wasn’t a born musician. “And, uh... I’m drawing a blank for any other links. What’s the answer?”
“Oh, it’s nothing special,” he smiled. “They were just composed by the same person — a humble man by the name of ‘Otto Engelberg.’”
“Ah, so I shouldn’t have excluded that.”
I’d actually considered that it could be the composer, but I’d thrown it out the window because of the late-night anime themes.
So there’s actually a guy whose music can be heard in both Western flicks and Japanese anime? That’s something.
“I’ve heard enough to tell that this Otto person is great at his job,” I said. “The children like his work, too.”
“Heheh,” Veldorbell chuckled. “I’m certain he’d be overjoyed to hear that. Speaking of the children, they seem ready for more. I’ll go back to playing, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Go ahead.”
All smiles and baton in hand, he walked to the bright-eyed children and resumed the ensemble.
The End
The Gold-Eating Bear
Duel City Gideon, knight offices, prison cells
“Unbearablllllle...”
Odd as it may have seemed, one of the cells in Gideon’s knight offices contained a bear.
At first glance, he looked like a caged zoo animal, but upon closer look, you would realize it was just a costume.
The wearer’s name was Shu Starling, the one and only King of Destruction, and he was one of the few Superiors serving Altar.
He had been locked up after defeating the Superior serial killer known as “Gerbera.” Eccentric that he was, he’d rushed to her while destroying dozens of buildings in the way.
That was obviously a heavy crime, but as the hero who had ended Gerbera’s spree, he wouldn’t serve any time. He’d be let go as soon as he paid for the damage.
Of course, the amount had to be calculated first. The officials worked fast, but it would still take a few days, and he’d have to wait behind bars during this entire time. Although his new cell was better than the one he’d been in while a suspect, a cage was still a cage, so...
“Man, I’m so beary bored...”
He could’ve been killing time offline, but for reasons unknown, he was choosing to stay in the boring cage.
Noticing the hero’s ennui, the jailer sat down next to his cell and took something out of his inventory. “What would you say to a game of chess?” he said as he presented Shu a chessboard.
It was the foundation for one of the many tabletop games popularized centuries ago by the famous game inventor known as “Boardgame Cat” — a name which made quite a few Masters raise their eyebrows. The jailer saw it as a good way to keep Shu entertained.
Shu thought the same thing. “Chess, huh? Been a while since I’ve played it,” he said as he got comfortable. Playing through the bars might’ve been weird, but it still made for a nice picture. “Ah. How ’bout we bet a little money on it? It’d make the game a bit more hairy, doncha think?”
Those born and raised in the city of duels had little to no aversion to gambling, so the jailer didn’t hesitate to accept.
However, he would soon come to know that it was a grave mistake...
Come the next day, things had completely changed.
“My turn!”
“Whoa! It’s Anthony! The chess champ of the Gideon Knight Order!”
“Beat him! Avenge us, Anthony!”
A crowd had formed before the cell.
“Bring it on! I’ll bear it all!” Shu said proudly, chess piece in hand and a tall pile of 10,000 lir coins next to him. That was the money he’d won playing chess.
At first, the bets had all been just 100 lir coins, but after Shu’s winning more and more games, more and more challengers had appeared from all over the knight offices, increasing the betting rate a hundredfold.
Also, unlike in Earth, chess matches in Dendro were mostly speed rounds.
This meant that mental and movement speed bonuses from AGI were an important factor, making the game double as a way to hone your battle tactics... which probably wasn’t something intended by the inventor.
Because of that speed, Shu had already garnered over 200 victories in just a day.
“GHAAAAAHH!”
“ANTHONYYYYY!”
“Hyahaah! I’ll have that, thank you beary much!” Shu cheered, victorious once again.
Thus the Legend of the Gold-Eating Bear was born.
The End
Miss Marie’s Lesson for Newbies — Guns
Duel City Gideon, Sixth Arena
Rook and Marie were having their first few mock battles in a while. His trainer, Shu, had been jailed for severe property damage, so Marie acted as a temporary replacement.
As the sparring went on, Rook suddenly became curious about something. “I have a question. May I ask it?”
“Sure thing! Ask away!” she said gleefully.
“I haven’t seen many gun-users besides you. Guns in general don’t seem to be very big in this game. Are they?”
Even if he included Hugo’s Magingear, the number of gun users Rook had encountered wasn’t high.
“To be frank, I’m not sure I really count as a gun-user,” she said. Sure, her Arc-en-Ciel was gun-shaped, but it was actually an Embryo that fired bullet creatures. “But no, guns are actually pretty darn big. Just not in Altar, mostly ’cause you can’t get ’em here.”
> “Because no one produces them?”
“Yeeep. There are no Gunsmith job crystals here, and you don’t have any ruins with magic-based guns lying around.”
“’Magic-based’?” Rook echoed.
“Guns come in two forms: gunpowder-based and magic-based. The former are like the ones we have in real life — substance goes boom, bullet flies. The latter, though, use the user’s magic.”
“I imagine they’re really different.”
“They are. The gunpowder guns pack the same punch no matter who uses them, while magic guns rely on the user’s stats. Because of this, most gun-users start out with gunpowder and switch to magic when they’re stronger.”
Gunpowder-based guns fired bullets using chemical reactions. There was no room for stats there, so the power wasn’t affected by whether the wielder was a skilled adult or a clueless child. In fact, you didn’t even need a job for them. Of course, sense skills like Firing and Sniping increased accuracy, and job skills like Quick Draw helped with speed, but nothing was actually essential to use them.
On the other hand, magic-based guns were dependent on the MP the wielder used, as well as their max MP. While still guns, they had much in common with magic implements.
Also, gun jobs had magic gun-exclusive job skills which increased the projectiles’ power or gave them elaborate trajectories, among other things.
“When it comes to power, gunpowder guns are pretty limited,” shrugged Marie. “Unless you bring a cannon, you won’t even scratch a proper END build, and AGI builds like me can just dodge it all.”
Bullets would never be able to catch up to someone moving at supersonic speeds. In fact, even higher subsonic fighters would be nearly impossible to hit.
“I see,” Rook nodded. “But gunpowder guns do have their positives.”
“Ah. You noticed?”
“Since they’re like magic implements, magic guns eat a lot of MP, don’t they? In that case, gunpowder guns are better for drawn-out battles. If you have the funds and a good inventory, you can basically have an endless supply of bullets and spare parts.”
Rook figured this was why Hugo’s Magingear used a gunpowder gun. A mech needed a lot of MP just to move. Adding another power sink would only lower their already-short operating time.
On a related note, tank Magingears could be boarded by several people — a driver, a gunner, an operator, and a commander. This workload division allowed the gunner to focus entirely on the weapon, so these machines often used powerful magic-based cannons.
“Good observation,” nodded Marie. “Magic-based guns are hard to craft, too.”
“Why? Gunsmiths can’t make them?”
“Hmm... it’s a teeny bit complicated,” she said as she took out a sketchbook and started drawing a simple diagram. “Gunsmith is a low-rank job, and it has a few high-rank jobs above it — Great Gunsmith, Cannonsmith, and the rare Magic Cannonsmith. As I’m sure you can tell, the first two are for gunpowder guns and cannons, while the third is for magic cannons.”
“So... no one’s found a job for magic gun-making?”
The part of the diagram where that job should be was empty.
“Yes. It’s a lost job. Apparently, it was around a long time ago, and they always had fresh magic guns in the market, but now, newly-made ones might as well not exist.”
There were lost jobs like those, ones that currently weren’t owned by a single person. They didn’t appear in the Catalog, and you couldn’t know their conditions until someone chanced upon and took them.
“Some people are trying to make them without the job, but the success rate is so low that it’s silly, even if you have the other jobs from the grouping. The failure rate is over 99%, and you can’t even make recipes.”
“Well, that’s stern...”
“The materials tend to be pretty expensive, too, so the few guns that somehow get made are stupidly expensive. The chances of making one are so poor that most people just opt for searching for old ones in ruins. And that’s a gamble in its own right.”
“I see.”
“It’d be super if someone found some gun-filled ruins nearby. But as far as I know, Altar doesn’t have any ruins at all.”
“Now that you mention it... no, we don’t.”
“It’d be extra great if the guns aren’t single-fire... or are just straight-up miniguns like the bearman uses. Those are rare, hard to make, and really expensive. You could make a killing selling them. Ohh, could someone please find me some ruins?”
“The odds of that happening are negligible, if you ask me,” Rook smiled wryly.
“True,” Marie chuckled, ending the chat.
On a slightly related note, while they were talking, Ray was on his way to Quartierlatin. The first thing he encountered was a minigun-wielding robot that had come from the nearby ruins.
He went on to blow it up.
The End
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Copyright
Infinite Dendrogram: Volume 8
by Sakon Kaidou
Translated by Andrew Hodgson
Edited by Emily Sorensen
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Sakon Kaidou
Illustrations Copyright © 2018 Taiki
Cover illustration by Taiki
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2018 by Hobby Japan
This English edition is published by arrangement with Hobby Japan, Tokyo
English translation © 2018 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
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