by Sakon Kaidou
But...
“Why the costume?” I asked aloud.
It’s going to take some guts to talk to that thing.
For a little while now, children had been gathering around the bear. I couldn’t tell if they were NPCs or players, but they seemed to be very attached to the bear. They were climbing onto its head and lap, as well as hanging from its arms.
I wasn’t getting anywhere at this rate, so I steeled my nerves, and decided to talk to it. “Excuse me. I would like to ask you something...”
“Yes, yes, just bear with me for a moment.”
Was that a pun...? I thought. I get that it you’re a bear, but still...
“Are you Shuichi Mukudori... Forget it, is that you, Bro?” I asked.
“Indeed it is,” he said. “Hey, Reiji.”
...I so wanted to be wrong.
“I’m glad we were able to meet up.” The bear — I mean, my brother, Shuichi Mukudori — stood up and said, “Shall we go, then?”
He then pulled out some candy from his storage bag — or rather, a pocket attached to his stomach — and passed them out to the children gathered around him.
Is he pretending to be that famous character? I thought. In that case, he should be a cat, or at least a raccoon.
“Yay!”
“Thanks, Mr. Bear!”
The children received their candy and then headed off in cheerful spirits. Before long, only my brother and I were left remaining.
“I guess first up should be introductions,” my brother said. “My name here is Shu Starling.”
“I’m Ray Starling,” I said. “So like I thought, we did end up with the same name.”
Since it was so easy to use the English translation of our last name, Mukudori, whenever someone in my family made a character, eight out of ten times we’d end up with the name Starling.
“So, what should we do?” my brother asked. “It looks like your Embryo hasn’t hatched yet, so should I show you around the town? While we’re at it, if you want to pick up some equipment, I can lend you some money at no interest.”
“Oh, well, actually...” I explained to him about the quest I had just received.
“Really... A quest from Liliana,” he said. “I’ve never received one before.”
“Really, though, why would I get a quest like this when I’m at level 0?” I asked.
“That’s because this world is realistic, and a lot of quests are triggered by coincidence,” he said. “Incidents don’t occur in order to create a quest, but quests arise when there happens to be an incident. There are many quests you won’t be able to trigger intentionally, and there’ll be a lot of cases where you end up going on one you didn’t intend to. Well, consider it a good baptism... you were able to get a sense for how realistic the people of this world are, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It was so realistic, in fact, I’m a bit suspicious as to whether I’m talking to the real you, or just an NPC pretending to be you.”
“Of course it’s me,” he said. “You better bear-lieve it.”
“Stop it with the bear stuff!” It made me feel weird because I knew the person inside and could picture him.
“Ha ha ha. By the way, Liliana is a contender for the first or second most popular person in this kingdom. She even has a fan club made up of both players and tians.”
“There’s a fan club... Oh, and what’s a ‘tian’?” I asked.
“A person that isn’t a player,” he said. “Well, you can just think of it as the general term for NPCs.”
“Interesting... so that means even NPCs participate in fan clubs,” I said.
“According to the developers, ‘their personalities and ability to think are on the same level as humans.’ So that kind of thing is the bear minimum of their capabilities.”
Really, this game is so sophisticated, it’s almost alarming.
“By the way, did it say anywhere in the quest information about where to search?” my brother asked.
“No, nothing,” I said. “They’re telling me to search for someone without any hints. That’s why I don’t know where or how I should start.”
Although to be accurate, this memo would count as a hint, I figured.
“Hmm,” he said. “Can you hand me that memo for a sec?”
“Here you go.”
My brother took the memo, but instead of reading its contents, he flipped it over and showed its back to me.
Dear Sister,
The shops were all out of remberries, so I’m going to go get some. I’m bringing bug-repellent incense, so I’ll be okay. Please look forward to it and wait for me.
From Milia.
“Isn’t this...” I said slowly.
“She must have been in a real hurry,” said my brother. “She wrote her contact information on the back of the memo her sister left and gave it to you.”
I didn’t notice it either. Since the memo had been written on parchment paper, I hadn’t been able to see through it.
“What are these remberries?” I asked.
“Remberries are one of the high-grade specialties from around here,” he said. “Just think of them as really delicious fruit.”
“‘Go get’ must mean that she went to go search for them,” I said. Milianne seems to be quite the proactive kid.
“There are two places around here where you can get remberries,” said my brother. “The first is an orchard within the capital. You can harvest there if you pay the fee of 5,000 lir per basket.”
Isn’t that the entire amount you get at the beginning of the game? I thought. That’s expensive!
“The other one is just outside the South Gate. It’s called Old Reve Orchard.”
“Old Reve Orchard?” I asked.
“Some things happened, and insect-type monsters have taken up living there. So it’s an abandoned orchard,” he said. “Even now, there are a lot of fruit trees growing wild there, but at the same time, it’s become a nest for monsters.”
“So the stuff about bug-repellent incense must mean...” I said slowly.
“Probably so.”
That’s way too proactive!
“Go to the safer orchard!” I shouted.
“5,000 lir is asking a bit much from a child,” said my brother. “Even the market value of 50 lir for one would be tough.”
“But still, that doesn’t mean...”
“Old Reve Orchard, by the way, is a place players usually mistake for being beginner-friendly due to how close it is to the starting point,” he said. “However, it’s a dungeon where beginners enter and then get killed right off the bat. It’s also known as the ‘newbie killer.’”
This couldn’t be any worse.
I’d just realized this now, but when I’d met Liliana, she had probably been headed toward the old orchard. When Liliana had said, “Then she might already be inside,” she must have been convinced that Milianne had already entered the orchard because I hadn’t seen her after passing through the South Gate.
“Well,” my brother continued, “in any case, it’d be best to clear this one quickly. It’s probably the type where you’ll fail if time elapses.”
“What?” I asked.
“I told you, right?” he said. “In this world, incidents are realistic and occur spontaneously. That’s why there are no guarantees that things will be fine until the player clears the quest, unlike in older games.”
“Yeah, but...”
“Let me tell you this from my experience as one of the starting players,” he said. “There have been examples in the past of people dying. A sage revered as a hero, the commander of the knights, and even the king of this nation — they all died.”
“......” I didn’t know what to say.
“Despite that, the world of Infinite Dendrogram carries on without a hitch,” he said. “That’s because it’s real.”
I began to imagine...
What if the girl in the picture gets attacked by monsters and tragically dies? Imagining i
t gave me an unpleasant feeling. Thinking about Liliana caused those feelings to sink even further. I know that they’re NPCs, but...
“That’d leave a bad taste in my mouth,” I said.
“Wouldn’t it?” my brother agreed. “So let’s clear it and shoot for a happy ending.”
I couldn’t see my brother’s face because of the bear costume, but I had the feeling that he was smiling on the inside.
Thus, my brother and my newbie self formed a party, and we set off to tackle my first quest.
The quest to clear was “Search for Milianne Grandria.”
The difficulty level, 5.
The location was the trap dungeon “newbie killer,” Old Reve Orchard.
The goal... was a happy ending.
Start quest.
Chapter One: Nemesis
“By the way, have you pawsed to look at your starting stats yet?” my brother asked me as we headed toward Old Reve Orchard.
Come to think of it, not yet, I realized.
“Status information... Here it is.” I clicked on the option and a new window appeared displaying my stats.
My level was of course 0, and I currently had no job equipped. It seemed multiple jobs could be equipped at once, and so in addition to the level for each job, there was also a total level. My level for both was still 0.
The other stats displayed were HP, MP, SP, STR, END, DEX, AGI, and LUC. Each of them was fairly low; other than having 98 HP and 23 SP, the rest were all below 20. I didn’t have anything to compare them with, but those stats were probably weak.
...But then again, I guess there’s no way a newbie at level 0 would be strong, I reminded myself.
“So I’ll be going into this dungeon called the ‘newbie killer’ at level 0, won’t I?” I asked.
“You’ll bearly make it past zero if you don’t equip a job,” said my brother. “Do you want to get one before we go?”
“...No, it doesn’t look like we have the time. I’ll go like this,” I said.
It’d be unbearable if the girl in the picture were to die while we were doing that, I thought. The most important thing right now is speed.
My brother and I talked as we ran.
“Can I ask you a few things?” I asked.
“I guess I can bear that.”
“I didn’t see a stat for INT, so what factors into magic strength?” I asked. “There is magic in this game, right?” Liliana did use healing magic, after all.
“It’s based on your max MP and the level of the magic skill,” said my brother. “Also, the total amount of MP you pour into it. And there is no INT stat in this game, by the way. Your intelligence is the bear basics, yourself, after all.”
That makes sense, I thought. I wouldn’t really get what it meant if you told me my intelligence went up.
“Oh, and as for skills that use SP, their strength isn’t based on your SP, but on various other related stats,” my brother went on. “Well, those various stats will receive adjustments from your Embryo, so their variation will be infinite.”
“That sounds complicated,” I said.
“If you bear with it, I’m sure it’ll go fine! How things turn out will be a pawsitive reflection of your individuality.”
...He’s really getting into those bear puns, isn’t he?
“Oh, yeah. Let me give you some accessories I have.” Bro Bear handed me some items from his bag.
When I looked at them, these included: ten Healing Potions that could easily heal me to max health, one Lifesaving Brooch, and four Dragonscale Ward accessories.
“The Lifesaving Brooch bears the brunt of your fatal damage, but it has a 10% chance of breaking,” my brother explained. “How many times this is checked is determined by the amount of damage divided by your HP. The Dragonscale Ward will reduce incoming damage by 90%, but it’ll break after one use.”
I see, they appear to be throwaway accessories, but they’ll definitely help.
“This game has level and stat restrictions for equipment,” said my brother. “So I’ll beef you up with these accessories instead since they don’t have any level restrictions.”
There are five slots for equipping accessories, so they’ll all fit perfectly.
“Thanks, Bro... Hey that reminds me, what’s the death penalty in this game?”
A death penalty: it was a feature found in many online games. To put it simply, it was some sort of demerit for a character that died. They could lose levels, for example, or have their stats lowered for a period of time.
Since he’s trying to help me avoid dying, this game must have some kind of a death penalty, I thought. This was why I wanted to ask him what that penalty was, but...
“A 24 hour login ban.”
The answer I received was unexpected.
“...A what?” I asked.
“If you die in this game, you won’t be able to log in for 24 hours in real time, or 72 hours in the game world,” he said.
...Are they out of their minds? I thought incredulously. I can’t believe there’s a game that won’t let you play it as a death penalty.
“The frightening thing about this penalty isn’t that you can’t play the game; it’s that three days will pass by in Infinite Dendrogram without you,” he said. “So for example, if you’re in the middle of a quest like we are, you’ll have to abandon the quest for three days. When you’re in a world as realistic as this one... that’s what’s so scary.”
What would happen if Bro Bear and I were to leave this quest alone for three days?
...The answer to that was obvious.
“I’ll tag along and try not to die,” I said. “I’m not sure how useful I’ll be at level 0, though.”
Or more like, I won’t be of any use at all.
“By the way, like I mentioned earlier, Old Reve Orchard is a trap dungeon known as the ‘newbie killer,’” said my brother. “Innocent newbs starting Dendro without any prior knowledge enter the dungeon saying, ‘Yaay, I’m gonna go on an adventure nearby,’ and then it’s game over, they get their bear butts exposed and smacked to the extreme. They get insta-killed and can’t log in for a whole day.”
It’s like a trauma-generating machine.
“However, it’s strange. Why is the difficulty level 5? Based on the levels of the monsters in the dungeon... it’s too high.”
As I listened to my brother mutter this, we passed through the South Gate of the Royal Capital Altea.
◇
The orchard was located about ten minutes’ running distance from the South Gate. It was surrounded by a metal fence, and a worn-out sign at the entrance read, “Welcome to Reve Orchard.” The place, however, seemed long-abandoned. Plants grew wild, and the color on the sign had faded.
“Well then, it’s time to storm in, but...” My brother stopped in front of the entrance to Old Reve Orchard, which was now a den of insect monsters. Right after that, a new window appeared before me.
“Party request from Shu Starling.
Will you join this party? Yes / No”
“It’ll be easier to cover for you if I can constantly track your status,” he said.
“Okay, got it.” I clicked “Yes” on the window, and as soon as I did, a screen opened up showing the status of our party. My brother’s name had been added to it as well.
There’s space on the party screen for four more players, so this game must have a maximum party limit of six.
Displayed along with my brother’s name were also his stats. However...
“What’s going on with this?” I asked.
On my brother’s status screen, everything other than his name was blacked out, including even his level and HP.
“Ah. That’s the concealing ability of this suit,” he said. “If there’s a difference in level between me and an enemy or ally, then they can’t bear witness to my stats.”
What kind of ability is that? I thought. That makes it harder to help with support magic... Not that I have any... Oh, that reminds me.
My brother rubbed the eyes of his costume with his bear fingers. “It’s a story that’ll leave us both in tears.”
“We’re kind of busy, so hurry up and answer my question,” I said.
“My little brother is looking at me so coldly...” he grumbled to himself, before gradually starting to speak. “So, you know how there’s a part where you create your character, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It was a pain to make it from scratch, so I tried to do it using myself as the base.”
“So did I.”
“Well, I made a bit of a mistake...”
“A mistake...” I began. “What did you do?”
“I accidentally confirmed it without making any changes.”
“...Oh boy.”
So in other words, inside the suit was my brother’s actual face and appearance. Playing an online game with your actual face was a risky thing to do. This was especially true in my brother’s case.
Yeah, with that you’d have no choice but to wear something like a suit.
“By the way, the reason I chose this kingdom is because I saw a store in the capital selling costumes,” he said.
“Oh, so that’s why you didn’t go somewhere that was more along your tastes, like Dryfe or Granvaloa,” I said.
“Drastic times called for drastic measures... Oh, and by the way, costume number one cost 4,980 lir.”
“That’s almost the entire starting amount!” I cried. Just how exactly did he get by in the beginning?!
“On top of that, it was a gag item with no defense,” he said. “I was one of the first players, so there was no information available. Really, from that hopeless start, it’s been a path full of hardship until I got a hold of this costume.”
“So what abilities does this one have?” I asked.
“Take a look.”
“Ultimate Suit Series: Hind Bear