Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! Late chapter because distractions and raids!
ANYWAY, I don’t think many people remembered this guy at all, so I kind of want to see their reaction to his reappearance. I also know that a certain person is probably really eager to kill me because of something that didn’t happen this chapter, and finally, the promised time still haven’t come.
ALSO, Next week, I’ll probably introduce 3 new characters that are familiar to some, but foreing to others. That is the promise I made some time ago, so I hope it lives up to expectation.
ALSO (2), some people at the Den are annoying me to keep writing the SS 100, so, expect more chapters soon(ish).
Have a good read!
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After some brief talk, we decided to divide our three rooms as the following. Me and Argento would share the farthest room, seeing as the two of us were the only guys of the group. This also meant that we took the room that was slightly bigger because of the sheer number of pets that followed me. The rest of the girls were split with Yami and Hanbei together in one room, while Yuu and Lily took the last one.
About this, I couldn’t help but think that some sparks flew between the two, and not that I couldn’t somehow guess what was the reason, I just hoped that I had misinterpreted it.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel that it was a bit of an useless need, since besides Lily and my pets, all of us had an almost literal no need for sleep within Insania, so we could easily last the whole trip wide awake.
Which, on second thought might not be all that good, since we will stay most of the time simply laying around doing nothing, which could easily lead to severe cases of boredom.
Okay, this might be a lot worse than I thought…
While finally noticing this horrible situation I suddenly found myself in, I laid on the bed with abandon and couldn’t help but feel a bit bothered by how uncomfortable it was, so with a motion I called Aura over and she leapt into the bed, letting me rest my head on her fluffy fur.
Well, even thought we might not use, the first thing you do when entering a new room is jump in the bed, right? Right?
Feeling a lot more comfortable, it didn’t take much long to the other small companions of mine to quickly jump in the bed with me, as Crys laid on Aura’s fur besides me and Rio laid atop of me all curled up.
“Are you a Disney princess or something?” Argento asked me while testing his own bed.
“Sorry, but I already made that joke.” I said while staring at him.
“Wait, you did?” He asked me surprised and I nodded.
“Yup. Golem passive, take out weapons in a forest, become a Disney princess.” I said while remembering the time when I was going to hunt blazing tails for the first time. “Kind of fun, to be honest.” I said shrugging before looking around. “But isn’t this a bit too much?” I asked him while motioning to the room around us. “I was half expecting you to cut down on expenses and simply get us a passage.”
The gnome put on a slightly wry smile and gave a short dry laugh.
“Not like I didn’t try something like that.” He said while sitting on the bed and briefly taking out the wrinkles from his suit. “But from the way the NPCs said it, they aren’t exactly used to us players, who have no need to sleep and so on, so passages for services like these is pretty much the same as requiring a room.”
I nodded. It somehow made sense for me that they wouldn’t be used to players who don’t need as much rest and care as the other NPCs. It would be better to expect the services in game to be suited for NPCs instead of players at the start.
“It’s almost like this isn’t a game, but a world of its own…” He said with a short but dry laugh. “The NPCs are one of the most frequent customers of my store as well as a good source of money. Isn’t it usually the other way around?” A slightly sarcastic tone permeated his voice.
“Took you long enough.” I said with a smirk and saw him looking at me confused. “I can’t say for other players, since I did spend most of my time in the city talking to NPCs and such, but those guys aren’t simple coding or something like that.” I told him with a serious tone. “Think of them as… Another type of player instead of simple NPCs. Knowing you, I bet you can rack quite a profit out of this.” I told him, but saw as he looked at me confused.
“Wait wait wait. Isn’t the whole interaction of theirs only coding?” He asked me confused. “I mean, a complex and very thorough coding, but coding?” He asked me confused.
“Nope, they are as intelligent as the rest of us.” I said with a nod, but saw as he only frowned deeper and shook his head.
“That doesn’t make sense.” He said while shaking his head.
“Aren’t you being a bit too harsh on the NPCs?” I asked feeling a bit offended, after all, many of the NPCs were people I actually considered.
“No, I mean…” He said while scratching his head. “Yeah, sometimes I end up forgetting about the whole NPC thing, but if what you said is true, it doesn’t make sense in the economical sense.”
I blinked confused and even raised myself from the cold soft fluffy fur to look at the gnome who had a confused look in his face.
Argento, who had a serious face for a change noticed my confusion and gave a short sigh before explaining.
“You see, if what you said is true… And the NPCs are just like any living breathing people, then this would mean that the money they carry around is also passed around within their society, right?” He said, and I nodded. “But if we think of it like that, this also means that they can get money from killing monsters, correct?” I nodded. “This means that the money they take in also starts circulating within the society, which would, in turn, decrease the value of the coin due to inflation. The same happens with anything the players would buy with them!”
“Well, not saying that you aren’t wrong…” I said confused. “But what does that have to do with they being NPCs or not?”
“Well…” He blinked surprised for a moment before choosing his words. “You see, in normal MMO games, they use NPCs as money sink for the currency, because every coin they get disappear for good from the system and avoid inflation.” He said with a serious tone, so I nodded somewhat understanding. I think I saw a video on Youtube about that some time ago. “But if that isn’t the case, and this truly is a full VR world with it’s own story, the value of a coin is too low for a world that has been going for so long.”
I felt my head become a bit filled with interrogation marks as I rearranged the information in a way that would actually make sense to me.
Let’s see, more coins in circulation means that each coin have less value. Since there isn’t… A Money sink? Weir term… To take out the excess coin from the market, this means that the amount will only increase without any leaving the market, so the value of the coins will only decrease the longer it goes. Yet, that doesn’t seem to be the case within IO?
“I can explain that.” Crys said while lifting herself besides me. Argento blinked surprised while staring at the girl for a moment before nodding. “You see, the ones whom you call NPCs, as you might guess, also have their taxes to pay within their daily lives.” She said with the tone of a teacher. “Within those taxes, after everything have been collected, the goddess take a certain amount for herself as an offering, removing them from circulation.” She explained, but Argento didn’t seem all that convinced.
“And what if someone cheats on their taxes? Couldn’t they increase the amount by a large amount?” He asked, but Crys shook her head.
“The goddess will know if such a thing was made and will immediately deduct from the ones cheating.” She explained, but Argento still had a light frown in his face.
“Think of the goddess as the main AI behind Insania.” I said briefly, and he stared at me confused for a moment before finally widening his eyes and nodding.
“Aaahh… I see…” He said nodding. “If it was an AI, then it could regulate the taxes so that it the market don’t receive too much impact… I see…” He said nodding.
I smiled wryly while nodding on my own.
“Also, what are we doing here anyway?” I asked, making him blink confused.
“What do you mean?” He asked me confused.
“I mean, I only came here to test the bed for the sake of doing so, but why are we still in the bedroom?” I asked him and saw as the gnome made a confused face for a moment.
“Well… We were talking…” He said confused for a moment before nodding. “Right… Why are we still here?”
“I have that effect on people.” I said proudly while raising from the bed and almost knocking Rio off from atop of me.
After a quick relocation towards the top of my head, the Wyvern was ready to start exploring, so we immediately left the room, finding the girls standing in front of the room with a slightly worried look. Seeing as the two of us came out a bit late, they raised an eyebrow.
Except Yami.
“So… Who was the aggressive and who was the passi…” Before she could finish there was a window-ball flying straight to her forehead, so she fell back and splattered in a puddle.
“We were discussing Economics.” I replied slightly annoyed while seeing the others look at Yami worried, only for her to reform herself with ease.
“You? Discussing something serious like economics?” Hanbei asked before starting to giggle. “Gon, there’s just no way something like that would happen, like ever!”
“HEY! I’M SERIOUS!” I said annoyed.
“Shishou…” Yuu looked at me with some pity in her eyes. “I believe in you!” She didn’t.
“Aww, Come on! Not you too!” I said while pouting.
Argento gave a short laugh seeing my situation, and seeing that I had no allies in this occasion, I stormed out to the upper decks while pouting angrily. I saw as they kept laughing back there, and only Yuu and my other pets came with me.
It’s kind worrisome that I somehow consider her my pet… I thought while giving a glance back at the kitsune walking besides me. She still had that pitiful look to her, so I clicked my tongue and looked back ahead. If not even Yuu believes me, then all the rest of the world can go to hell!
I’m going to drown my sorrow in alcohol and resort to violence and crimes to pay for it!
And I’m certainly not doing this childish tantrum just so I can go and explore the ship nor anything, I’m doing it for the joke, which is a lot more serious than a childish tantrum.
Anyway, taking the chance to go ahead, we quickly reached the open air deck and gave a quick look around. Although it wasn’t exactly a huge ship, it was still big enough for us to take a nice walk around while exploring, and since hot gas balloon stood right above our head, we had a nice shadow, even thought it was the middle of the day.
After a brief walking around, seeing some interesting things like the crew running from one side to the other due to a sudden gust, or simply washing the deck, we found out the captain talking with a group of others passengers. Upon seeing me, he said something to the group before turning to us.
As he approached us I saw him sporting a large smile.
For some reason I really felt that there was a demon staring down at me and giving me a ferocious smile when he did that. I couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Maybe it was the fact that his face looked like a ferocious animal with two horns and large fangs? Maybe the huge wings on his back that were made of the same stone as his skin. Or it could be the claws at the end of the huge bulging arms and legs?
Whatever it was, he was still somewhat scary, even thought he didn’t seem like he had any aggressive intentions.
“Cousin!” The brown stoned gargoyle said while approaching me with a wide smile and putting his arms around me.
“C-Captain.” I greeted him back with a wry smile. “What brings you here?” I asked him a bit worried, as I wasn’t very good with dealing with him.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Nothing much, Cousin.” He said with a smile while laughing. “Just came to warn you that we will serve dinner on the deck tonight, since we have a clear weather.” He told me while pointing to the sky. “Later on I will put these lazy guys to start pinning the table down just to be sure, but at least I decided to start by telling the passengers.” He said while pointing to the group he had been talk to earlier.
“Ha ha…” I laughed. “I see… Thanks for informing me, then.” I told him a bit uncomfortable as he pulled me closer and gave a light hit to my chest.
“No need for thanks between cousins!” He said with a laugh before looking at Yuu and giving her a look from head to toes. “I’m not sure why you would go for a fleshy, but it seems you got a good catch right there, huh cousin?” He asked me in a taunting way, but his only served to make me feel a bit embarrassed and Yuu go beet red.
After feeling satisfied with his work, the captain laughed loudly and walked away with a wide smile in his face looking for other passengers that he could go tease.
“I’m not good dealing with that guy…” I said with a weary tone, and Yuu nodded in accordance. “So, should we go look to the others and warn then or…” I stopped mid speech as I weighted my words. “Nah, I’ll keep with the tantrum.” I said after some thought.
“Eh, you are throwing a tantrum?” Yuu asked surprised. I turned to her with a shocked look.
“You seriously didn’t notice?” I asked surprised.
She stopped to think for a moment while tilting her head, after a brief moment she widened her eyes and made a: That’s right! Pose. Not knowing how to react to that, I stared at her for some time before finally sighing and shaking my head.
I had sincerely no idea on how to react, even worse by the fact that I knew she did that sincerely, because she was Yuu. Had it been Yami or Hanbei I would have reacted someway, but Yuu is too innocent to do something like that. Sighing in defeat, I ended up with simply petting her.
This clearly caught the eyes of some of the others passengers with that, most of them were hostile ones, mostly from the guys. Feeling a bit troubled by that, I quickly dragged Yuu away from the place where we were and took her to a place a bit quieter, Aura and Co. Following close behind.
“I need to be more careful where I pet you.” I said with a wry smile. “Or else I might get killed by some jealous onlookers.”
“Eeeh! I don’t want Shishou to stop petting me.” Yuu told with me in a worried tone. I laughed dryly before shaking my head.
“I’m just talking about doing it in less crowded places.” I said with a small smile, which made her widen her eyes for a moment before looking down with an embarrassed look.
“Then… Hmm…” She said shyly. “Any… Hmm… Could… Sk…”
“Yuu…?” I asked a bit worried, seeing that she had suddenly gone even redder than before.
“N-N-Nothing!” She said while shaking her head and putting on a slightly wry smile. “Forget it… It was nothing…”
I raised an eyebrow at her. There’s simply no way it was nothing if she was clearly bothered by that. I eyed her for some time before finally sighing and giving up. If she didn’t want to tell me, then there was nothing I could do. Sighing in defeat, I nodded and decided to leave it at that.
…
After that, we briefly explored the inside of the ship looking for something interesting, but seeing nothing all that eye catching, we simply went back to the deck and started to lean against the guardrail and watch as the scenery drifted away beneath us.
Argento and the others were still wandering around the blimp, exploring on their own, so this left Yuu and I alone for most of the time.
Not saying that I dislike being accompanied by her, in fact, I probably enjoy her company even a bit too much, but since neither of us had much to do, we spent most of our time simply doing nothing, so we got bored very quickly.
“But, by choosing the dual you lose the block, so it might be a bit more difficult for those who don’t know the monster very well and are new to the game.” Okay, it’s not like we were doing nothing.
Midway of staring at the scenery, Yuu also got bored and for some unknown reason asked me questions about the game she bought when we were at the shop.
Since it was a monster hunter game, and if you have been reading this story since the beginning, you probably know how much I like the game, I ended up giving her a full run through of the games basics, starting with weapons and their advantages.
Yuu, being the studious girl she always was, even pulled up a window and started noting down everything she heard me speaking here. I thought that it might be a bit too much dedication to a game, but this is just the way she is, I guess.
Since it was a topic I somehow liked to talk about, I kind of lost myself into talking with her for a long time, and didn’t even hear when another person approached us and leaned on the guardrail with a heavy sound and a long sigh.
Me and Yuu were caught by surprise by the person’s approach and turned to look at the newcomer in confusion.
“Sorry about that.” He said with an apologetic tone and a voice I couldn’t quite point the gender. “Didn’t notice you and didn’t mean to interrupt your date… Just wanted a place to… Relax.”
I blinked surprised for a moment and caught sight of Yuu blushing slightly.
“Don’t mind it…” I replied while noticing the way he was supporting himself on the rail.
“Hmm… Did something happen?” Yuu asked, which kind of got me by surprise. “You… Look tired?”
The person let out a short snort from beneath his hood while nodding heavily.
“I’m fine. For the first time in long years I feel fine.” He said in a relieved tone, which made Yuu and I look at each other confused. “You see… I… Was involved in some bad business back at Eldor… And no, I left all that behind before you ask… ” I blinked surprised and saw Yuu frowning slightly.
“By bad business… You mean Thievery?” I asked and saw him nodding slightly. “Then you are an Ex thief?”
“Not denying that…” He sighed and stayed quiet for a moment. After noticing that we didn’t leave, he turned his head slightly towards us. “What? Not afraid?”
“This girl here can probably wipe the floor with your face if you tried anything, so nope.” I said while pointing at Yuu.
The guy laughed loudly for some time before nodding, still looking towards the Horizon.
“I see… I see… Hiding behind a girl, aren’t ya?” He asked with a taunting voice.
“Yuu! He’s mocking me! Go hit him!” I said in a childish tone while hiding behind Yuu.
“Eeh? Huh? Shishou?” She asked confused.
“Anyway, I’m leaving that life behind. Going to a new city where no one knows me, start fresh. Maybe as a merc?” The guy said after laughing a bit more.
“I see…” I nodded and turned to look at the sky while feeling a slightly annoying something bugging me at the back of my mind. “And why exactly are you telling us that?” I asked confused.
“No idea.” He shrugged. “Maybe I just needed to vent off with a stranger or something?” He said with a confused tone. I nodded heavily not knowing how to react, but the thief didn’t seem all that bothered with us. “Want to listen my story?” He asked suddenly.
I grimaced slightly while looking at Yuu and Crys with the corner of my eyes. To tell the truth, I’m not entirely sure how to react to a person who comes to me and tells me literally that he is a thief. Yuu seemed to share my doubts, but Crys looked at the person with a slightly amused look.
“Master, why don’t we listen to this person story?” She asked me. “You might get an interesting story from him.” She told me in a serious tone.
I blinked confused before finally sighing and nodding.
“Sure, why not.” I said. The thief clearly looked surprised and looked at us with the corner of his eyes, which made me get a glimpse of a flame from his face before he looked out.
“I’m… I… Wasn’t expecting that.” He said honestly, and went silent for some time. “Well... To put it short…” He said while choosing his words. “I thought being a bandit was an easier way to get rich. That I could somehow get to these people who were always looking down on me and take all that was theirs.” The man said while scratching his head beneath the hood. “It’s not like I had a tragic past or something like that. That was the reason, I wanted money, I wanted it quick. So I joined a small group of bandits that lived near Eldor.”
“At the beginning everything was good. Quickly became the ace fighter of the group, got myself a significant part of the loot even when I didn’t do anything myself. It was actually going quite good, to be honest.” He said while sounding proud of himself. I felt unconfortable hearing that, but since I had promised to hear him, I stayed close. “Then, one day, one of the chosen appeared and took the leadership away from the boss, taking control of the gang in one fell swoop. With that, he also ordered us to start hunting down the chosen. Specifically the ones that crossed a certain path.”
“To be honest, I found it strange, but since his tactic did get us some nice share of loot, and since we didn’t need to worry about the chosen dying, we quickly became a lot richer and got some nice gear we didn’t get before.” He stopped and frowned. “Then, one day he came back furious and called for all the gang to gather, as we had to hunt a guy in Eldor. That was when things went downhill.” Even without seeing his face I could say that he was frowning. “We did end up finding the guy, but he got us first. After luring all our group into a trap, only I was left to hunt him. But even after cornering him into a dead end, he managed to slip from within my grasps at the last second. Unable to find him, I went to recover my companions and we retreated for the day.”
Strange… That nagging feeling in the back of my mind keep bugging me… And this story…
“The new boss was furious and gathered us at the base so that we could discuss our strategy on how to deal with the guy. Even I was in favor of it.” He let out a short and dry laugh. “But, he got us first. He, and his two friends found our camp and… How did you say it? Wiped the floor with our faces. Everyone was caught in that attack and were taken to the prison.”
“Then, how come you are free right now?” Yuu asked confused. The guy’s head dropped down as if he remembered something he didn’t want to.
“That’s is what made me run away.” He said with a dry laugh. “That guy that we were hunting… I found out that he wasn’t even fighting me seriously that night, and he started spewing some rival nonsense to me while letting me run away. I had no idea what his intentions were, but I did learn something that day.” He said while lifting his head and turning to us for the first time.
“If I stayed as bandit, there might be the chance of meeting that guy again, and I could tell that I would regret dearly if that happened. So I decided to go away and start an honest life, because I don’t want to cross with… Him… Ever…” His words trailed off when his eyes crossed with mine. “FOR THE LOVE OF CYGNAS! WHAT KIND OF TWISTED SENSE OF HUMOR IS THIS?”
I kept laughing loudly while he shouted at me with clearly furious eyes took a step back, his hands lowering towards the daggers that he held in his waist. The same daggers I saw when we first met back at Eldor, when him and his gang were hunting me.
Staring at the guy who even when looking straight, you couldn’t quite see the face, and the only give away of who he was were the flames that occasionally escaped from the hood.
No wonder his story sounded so familiar, the slightly undefined tone to it, the thin build and the annoyed way he talked to me.
“Hot head! Long time no see, my rival!” I said while extending my arms wide open.
“For Cygnas sake, Not you again!” He said with a tone tinted with anger, annoyance and defeat.