by Sakon Kaidou
There were lots of people here, even though it was late March. Some went to seminars, some paid visits to labs, while others were busy with club activities. The most passionate people were the ones ready and waiting to invite new members into their clubs.
“Clubs, eh...?” I mumbled to myself.
I was about to become a proper college student, so it might be a good idea for me to join one, too.
To my eye, the people promoting the sports-oriented clubs were the most enthusiastic of all. The mixed martial arts club, for one, was full of men with physiques larger than Shu’s, showing off their muscles as they gave warm, or perhaps heated, invitations to the freshmen.
They also had a banner saying “Aim High! Leave a Mark in the Unlimited Pankration College Tournament!” — their goal, most certainly.
The Un-kra mention intrigued me, mostly due to the memories of Shu from when he’d still been in school.
However, unlike my superhuman brother or my downright inhuman sister, I was completely ordinary. Hell, I hadn’t even been all that much into sports during my high school years, so I really had no business in that club.
“Ah, my high school years...” I muttered and went on a trip down memory lane.
Though I hadn’t been in any clubs during my second and third years, I had been an active member of a club when I was a freshman. It’d been called the “Electronic Game Research Society” or just “EGRS,” and its activities had begun and ended with only one thing: playing video games.
The school must’ve been pretty lenient to allow something like that, but then again, we had also been active in various e-sports, going as far as to participate in several national tournaments.
The club president had won first place in a Verseair (card game) event, while the vice president had been the last survivor in a major War Grounds (FPS) battle royale. I, too, had left my mark in a Stream Fighter (fighting game) tournament, so we’d ended up with three trophies in our club room.
The president and vice president had graduated soon afterward, but I recalled them having been pretty satisfied with the good memories they’d made.
I wonder what they’re doing right now, I thought as I pictured them — the ones who had become college students two years before me. They send me New Year’s cards, but those didn’t say much about what they’re doing. Knowing them, they’re probably still gaming.
“I could try joining a game-related club like I did in high school, but... Oh, whatever, I’ll think this through once I actually start college,” I decided.
I’m too busy with Dendro right now, anyway.
Suddenly, I imagined a college life spent doing nothing but playing online games. I quickly shelved the picture to the depths of my mind and resolved to do my best with both my higher education and my job hunting two or three years later.
◇
I was done with my student card creation and all the other college-related business before the clock hit noon. In fact, all I really had to do was present my fingerprint.
The simplicity had me bewildered, but apparently, this was normal these days.
According to an aged worker, “Things have gotten increasingly more computerized over the thirty years I’ve been working here. Even this procedure has become this simple.”
The schools in the area I’d lived in were pretty advanced, too, but nothing there was this speedy, which went to show that metropolitan higher education facilities were always ahead.
Honestly, if it was this easy, I couldn’t help but wonder why it wasn’t done along with the briefing.
Anyway, though that was over with unexpectedly quickly, it was now past 11 o’clock — a bit early, but still a good time to have lunch. With that in mind, I made my way towards the cafeteria, hoping that the food I’d be eating here over the next four years would actually be good.
“Wow... There are multiple cafeterias here,” I said as I entered one of them, surprised by how different it was from high school.
I looked at the menu and noticed that it had multiple daily special meals and a great variety of noodles. While eyeing the intriguing, yet highly unappetizing, “Miso-Cooked Lobster Special,” I ordered spaghetti in meat sauce — a favorite of mine.
“Hm...” I tasted some of it and concluded that it was normal. No, as far as school food went, it was definitely delicious. Still, I couldn’t help but compare it with something else.
“The taste is... kinda dull.”
It lacked a certain something I’d grown accustomed to.
Now that I think about it, I haven’t cooked much recently, I realized.
I used to help around the house a lot, so I was familiar with basic chores and cooking. Enough for my mom to be certain I wouldn’t have any trouble living by myself. As things were, however, I was barely doing any cooking for myself, and was instead opting to eat basic onigiri or sandwiches from convenience stores, or cup-a-soups sent to me by my parents. It didn’t take me long to figure out what had caused this change in my eating habits.
“It’s all because of Dendro,” I said.
All the food there was better than here in real life, as it had the strange powers unique to fantasy worlds.
To people familiar with RPGs, food was a thing that, for example, healed or raised stats — but in Dendro, a game which had taste, it didn’t end there. There were foods and skills focused entirely on flavor, and restaurants built with certain construction skills gave a taste bonus to all food made inside. By stacking such effects, the popular establishments, according to Shu, could “easily surpass the fanciest places in real life.”
Mind you, I didn’t know how to feel about hearing him say that, considering he could easily surpass the enhanced Dendro restaurants by sense skill alone.
Recently, he’d called me to try his handmade candy, and it had been so good that I’d experienced some indefinable phenomenon called “taste inflation.”
Back to the matter at hand... Basically, the food in Dendro was so good that it made real food feel lacking. I wasn’t doing any cooking because I just hadn’t felt that anything I could make would be worth the effort.
Lavish eating in Dendro, basic nutrition intake in real life... I’ve read about this online, I thought as I realized I was unintentionally following the so-called “Dendro Diet,” popular among women and avid players.
“Mh...” I silently continued eating my spaghetti.
By all reasonable standards, it was good food, but it seemed to lack the power to overwhelm my taste buds.
...Let’s try adding this Tabasco sauce and grated cheese, I decided.
“Ahh, I’m finally done with everything I had to do,” said a woman sitting at a table behind me. “What a pain that was.”
“Well done,” said a man accompanying her.
There weren’t many people in the cafeteria at this time of the day, so I could hear their conversation quite clearly.
“It must be nice to have all your stuff done long before the deadline, eh, Kage?” she continued. “You coulda shown me what you’d done, you know?”
“I consider schoolwork to be something you do by yourself,” replied the man.
The woman had a Kansai accent, slightly Kyoto-like, while the man talked in a very polite manner.
Looks like college really is a place for people from all across the country, I thought.
Once done with my lunch, I went towards the cafeteria’s exit and noticed the papers hung on a nearby bulletin board. Surprised that such an advanced college was still using something so archaic, I took a moment to look through it.
While most of the papers were about in-campus contacts and clubs, there were also some leaflets for part-time jobs. There seemed to be demand for cafeteria, shop workers, and even private tutors.
I was living fine on just my allowance right now, but I probably had to consider eventually getting a part-time job for extra income.
Well, perhaps I’ll do it when I’m not as busy with Dendro as I am now, I thought as I
walked out.
◇
Once done with my college business, I went to buy some necessities and returned home a little past noon.
As I was handling what I’d bought, my mobile began to vibrate as someone called me. The display said that it was Mom, so I didn’t hesitate to answer and bring the mobile to my ear.
“Hello? Reiji?” Sure enough, it was my mother, speaking to me with the same voice I’d heard yesterday.
“Hi, Mom. What’s wrong?” I asked.
“The schedule says that it’s the day of the last part of the enrollment process, and I was just wondering if you’d actually gone...”
Yeah, I expected as much, I thought.
My mom was highly prone to worrying, and didn’t hesitate to call me on days when I had something going on. She’d also called me yesterday morning, saying “Today’s the physical examination, isn’t it? Are you ready for it?”
According to Shu, she had always been this much of a worrywart. I supposed I couldn’t really blame her, considering she’d had my sister as her first child.
Ever since my sister was young, even her most basic antics had been outside the realm of reason. Just like in the various misadventures I’d recalled this morning, my sister had a tendency to get caught up in the most absurd of situations and make it through them using nothing but brute force, and because of this, our parents had had a really hard time with her.
To make things worse, Shu had been born soon after her, and though he wasn’t as absurd a creature as our sister, he certainly wasn’t normal, either.
In his younger years, he’d entered showbiz and became both a child singer and actor. Later down the line, during his middle and high school years, he’d dabbled in martial arts and gone on to win Un-kra. And when he’d started going to college, he’d casually picked up cooking and made food so good that it made people pass out.
Basically, he could do just about anything he tried.
As far as I was aware, the only exception to this was art. I recalled having looked at his “works” and thinking that I would probably have to be an alien creature for them to make even a bit of sense.
Anyway, having those two abnormals as their children must’ve been pretty taxing on my parents, and I could totally understand why they would worry about me, as well.
Still, compared to them... no, without any comparisons, I was as normal as people come, so they really didn’t have to mind me all that much.
...Weird. An auditory hallucination bearing Nemesis’s voice had just asked, “Does a normal person fight by eating undead flesh? What about punching people’s faces with a charred arm? Is that normal?”
...Hey, I’m still more normal than my siblings, I replied silently.
“Reiji?” Mom spoke up in a worried tone, returning me to reality. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Uh, no, it’s nothing,” I said to calm her down. “I did all I had to before noon. It’s all good. Now, I just have to wait for the opening the day after tomorrow.”
Which was true. This year’s April 1st, the day when the term would usually start, was a Saturday, so the event had been moved to Friday, March 31st. Still, it would be nothing but a guidance event, and the schedule said that the actual entrance ceremony would be held some time after college began.
I remembered finding it weird that the entrance ceremony would be separate from the actual entrance.
“Well, that’s good to know,” said Mom. “Your dad and I will come see you at the entrance ceremony. If you need anything, you can ask Shu for help. He’s not far from you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Shu said the same thing, I thought.
“But wow... my little Reiji is a college student. Time sure flies...” Though we were talking by phone, I could easily tell that she was turning sentimental. “You were such an easy child to raise... Well, I could say the same for Shu, but he was just too little trouble. Your sister, though...”
I could almost see her place her hand on her head as she recalled something. She was either remembering the same sister-related events I was, or deeds that had happened before I was even born.
Unless...
“Did something happen to her again?” I asked.
“She called me from overseas yesterday and said, ‘I got caught up in a bomb terror plot in Val Verde. You might see my name on the news, but know that I’m perfectly fine. I even caught the one who set it up.’”
“Yikes...”
The fact that she’d caught the terrorist made it obvious that she hasn’t changed at all.
Wait, Val Verde...? She’s in South America again? I thought.
“Sometimes I wonder if she isn’t some sort of Superman or Terminator,” my mom added.
Considering my sister’s love for Western movies, that comparison was very much like her, but...
I told Mom, “Last I asked, she said, ‘Hospital examinations say that I’m an Earthling. Oh, and DNA tests support that, too, of course.’”
“That girl is just so...” my mom said and sighed. “I can understand Shu, since he’s a man without a steady job, but I’d really like to see your sister settle down soon. At this rate, she’ll enter her thirties without anything changing.”
“Well, you’d first need to find someone brave enough to bond with her,” I commented.
I certainly know I wouldn’t do it, even if we weren’t family, I thought.
“What about you, Reiji? Got any sweet stories to share?” Mom asked suddenly.
“...Eh?” I exclaimed, confused as to why the subject had switched to me.
“Have you gotten a girlfriend in college yet?”
“I’ve only been to the briefing and gone through the enrollment process,” I protested. “There’s no way I could have gotten one at this stage.”
In Dendro, I’d become acquainted with Liliana, Marie, and the duel ranker girls such as Juliet or Chelsea, but those were all just friends — far from the “girlfriend” Mom had in mind.
“What about food? Have you had a girl make lunch for you yet?”
“...Nope.”
Sure, Marie had made us a midnight snack while we were heading to Gideon. However, considering the thing she’d made to be food was an insult to all cooking everywhere, it didn’t count... surely.
“Have you at least gone for a drive with a girl?”
“I don’t even have a license to drive cars,” I retorted. “I have one for motorbikes, but I don’t have one of those here.”
Nemesis and I occasionally rode Silver, but riding a horse was different from “driving,” so, again, it didn’t count.
“I see,” said Mom. “I just thought that you were the one best suited for love out of you three.”
“What? Wouldn’t that be Shu?”
As far as I knew, he was extremely popular among girls. I could clearly remember the loads of chocolates he’d brought home on Valentine’s Days when he was in high school.
“Well, he’s unemployed right now...”
“Ohh...”
True enough. These days, he was in Dendro around the clock, so he probably wasn’t as popular as he used to be. Or maybe he was and I just didn’t know about it? To my knowledge, he was only popular among children, and even then, only as nothing more than a bear-shaped jungle gym mascot thing.
“Oh, but Mom,” I argued, “Shu doesn’t have a job, but he has an income, right? I’m sure he’ll be popular with women who marry for money. It’s fine.”
“That seems like a problem in and of itself...”
...Yeah, I realized that right after saying it, I thought.
“Would I be asking for too much if I wanted to see a grandchild within the next ten years?” she asked.
“Well, Shu will be married before he closes in on his forties,” I answered. “Probably.”
“And your sister?”
“...” Deafening silence.
I’m sorry, Mom, I thought. I just can’t picture her ever getting married.
That might be a possibility that would have to be seized from far, far beyond the radix point.
◇◇◇
Duel city Gideon, Paladin, Ray Starling
After wrapping up my exchange with Mom, I logged in to Infinite Dendrogram.
First things first: I checked the time and found out that it was right about three in the afternoon here.
As I did that, Nemesis left the crest.
“Are you done with your college business and whatnot?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I went through the last part of the procedure.”
Which means that, today and tomorrow, I can focus on Dendro entirely, I thought.
Then again, I’d start going to college soon after that... but that was something I could think about later.
“So, what shall we do today?” Nemesis asked. “The meeting with Rook and Marie was tomorrow in this world’s time, no?”
Being a party, we regularly went on various quests.
The particularly popular ones were those related to the Jeand Grasslands. The drastic change to the area had affected the local ecosystem, creating conditions that made new monsters come dangerously close to the city. Quests to cull the more threatening ones were becoming more common by the day.
We’d intended to go on such a quest today, but my business with college had ended unexpectedly quickly, giving me lots of free time.
I looked at my friends list and, sure enough, Rook and Marie weren’t online.
“Well... I guess I’ll pay a visit to the knight offices,” I said.
“The usual business, I assume?” asked Nemesis.
“Yeah.”
When I came there, a worker greeted me and led me to the usual place, clearly used to doing this by now. We stood before a heavily sealed door as the worker used some spells to undo the seals.
Once beyond it, I was surrounded by a load of container-shaped inventories, all of which contained nothing but cursed items.
There were many ways weapons and armor could become cursed. Some got cursed due to the grudge of the dead; some were designed to be cursed by the Dark Knights using them; some were merely left behind by Hexers, a job focused entirely on cursing people and objects; some became cursed due to monster skills; et cetera, et cetera.