Pandora of Fantasy And Reality Chapter 84

Pandora Plan

Akito was finished with his part-time work and returned to his apartment. He booted up his computer.

In the chat room of the guild Ponsuke and His Happy-Go-Lucky Friends, there were chats written each in different time.

They couldn’t contact each other during maintenance, that was why they were making use of chat like this.

「……About the plan after the maintenance is lifted up huh.」

The topic was about the large scale update.

There had been a lot of changes not long ago, but apparently there would be a lot of major changes too this time.

Because of that, the job and skill setting that had been valid until  now would become less effective――apparently the existing settings would  become invalid.

Akito too was gathering information in internet. With the update this time, remaking character would become far easier.

With that as the basis, there was suggestion for all of them to re-examine their current job and skill setting.

「Not a bad idea but, it’ll take a lot of time.」

Akito was also feeling the need to re-examine his setting.

Even if he intended to set his own character freely according to his  own wish, the game was constantly changing in order to balance things  out.

Besides, while playing everyone would definitely get moments where they thought ‘it would be better if I do this instead’.

The guild members were proposing that this was a good chance to do resetting of their character using the published information.

By the way, Akito suggested changing the guild name, but everyone  gave different suggestion without any order, so the joking name didn’t  get changed in the end.

Then Inaho logged in.

『Ponsuke-san, ノ』(TN: This ノ is like a symbol of waving hand in greeting)

Akito also wrote 『ノ』 in reply. Then Inaho wrote how she was tired with her new life routine.

(She might be a student but, it’s not good to ask too deeply about it.)

Inaho felt like a real girl.

In fact, Sololy who was sharp in such matter told him that Inaho was a real girl, so there was no doubt about it.

『Ponsuke-san, listen to me. I moved to another prefecture, but apparently it’s not snowing in this place!』

『Area that has snow is limited isn’t it?』

『Also, the room is cold!』

『……You feel cold? Even though you came from a cold place?』

『Yes. It’s cold! Perhaps this room’s design or construction is bad?』

He listened to her carefully. According to her, her hometown was enforcing the countermeasure against cold strictly.

But there wasn’t anything like that in other prefecture. Apparently that was why she was feeling cold.

『So it’s cold.』

『It’s cold. Please warm me.』

『 ( ・∀・)っ旦』

『Just a cup of tea won’t work! Embrace me with the orc’s thick muscleeeee!』

『I’m not an orc in RL okay!』

『You aren’t?』

『I-I’m not.』

『……Shocking』

『Liar! How can I be an orc in RL! There’s no way you’re shocked or anything!』

『It’s shocking that Ponsuke-san won’t believe me. Even though I believed that Ponsuke-san was the only decent person around.』

『……Don’t say something like that to others okay? Let’s delete that comment too.』

『Roger.』

Through this kind of exchange, he understood that Inaho was a girl with really upbeat mood.

「Inaho-chan looks like she’s having fun.」

Next Yakumo logged in.

『……Just what are you two talking here.』

『Ah, Mariela-san.』

『Sorry. I got a bit carried away.』

They continued chatting with the three of them. Then Yakumo posted the information that she got from Pandora’s official website.

The game would resume service at the first day of May.

It was good timing. There would be consecutive holidays during that time.

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Kanaho let go of her smartphone from on top of her bed and put it beside the desk.

She was chatting for nearly one hour. She would feel it tomorrow morning if she didn’t go to sleep immediately.

As she expected, the change of environment was drastic. Kanaho was feeling fatigue piling up greatly inside herself.

「As expected it’s lonely by myself.」

She was wondering if her mother was doing alright, but she had already called her before entering the chat room.

At school too, even though it was the same Japanese school, it still felt different to her.

「……Let’s sleep.」

Even in her club activities, the teacher and the advisor felt like  they were still searching for their footing. The training menu they  provided her felt doubtful.

The cause must be the advisor’s lack of experience in coaching.

Anyway, it was a club that had just gotten established.

There was no senior student there, only first year students. It gave  the club a different atmosphere than her club in the middle school.

They were only doing basic training at their first day. They still couldn’t do anything else than that.

「……Am I……doing alright over here?」

Kanaho muttered that while falling asleep.

Her VR machine was left alone at the corner. The room turned dark and  after a while it turned on by itself and started processing something.

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It was a meeting place of suits wearing adults.

Lighter aka [Hiragi Jun] was joining his hands in front of his mouth while listening to the report.

「All departments are doing well this term. Especially the hotel business――」

The high class hotel that had just gotten built was doing well.

It was an important matter for Jun.

But what filling his mind right now was――.

(……We failed in getting the rare item)

――Their guild’s video set an astounding record of number of view in  the player event. The judges also had great impression of it so they won  first place.

The guild item that they obtained as the prize was powerful, but it  was the rare item that the craftsmen including Lighter wanted to get.

(Even though that item cannot be obtained even by buying with real money……what a blunder!)

The reason Lighter’s plan went wrong was because of Ponsuke’s fame inside Pandora.

He wasn’t a powerful player with exceptional competence but, he often  became a hot topic so there were some players who became his core fans.

Those fans increased the number of view which consequently attracted more players to view the video.

Jun couldn’t get back on his feet even though the game was currently  in maintenance. He was worrying whether he should spend several millions  yen in order to get the rare item.

His grave atmosphere was transmitted to the subordinates around him.

「……T-that’s all.」

Jun’s expression was still bitter even though the report stated that business was going well, so the surrounding was bewildered.

(Even though things are going well in RL, why is the game not……is real money really indispensable just as I thought?)

The plan to spend real money not like Maya who used several hundred  yens everyday, but hundreds of thousands of yens per day flashed inside  his mind.

「Good to hear. I’ll leave this term in your hand again. Also, there are several points that I want you to take a look at――」

(No, as expected that’s not good. We are a group that just want to  have fun without spending too much money. If I spend money on my own  like that, I’ll be treated as that guy who can’t read the mood like  Maya-chan.)

Recently everyone’s opinion of his friend’s daughter was going down,  even so to him she was still a cute girl who was like his own daughter.

(Ponsuke-kun and Maya-chan won’t be able to get together if I don’t  support her. If I don’t hurry to stick them together and block his path  of escape)

Jun worried that if he didn’t do that, Maya might cause some kind of trouble.

Seeing Jun wouldn’t relax even when things were going well made his  surrounding decided that they should also work harder instead of  relaxing their effort.

And yet, the person in question actually had his mind full with things like paid item and his friend’s daughter.

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An abandoned building.

A male past middle age was approaching it. This man was a former cabinet minister.

He was wearing suits and looked like a gentleman. He also had bodyguards around him.

However, one of the bodyguards was a pro wrestler.

Another one was an army man wearing suits.

And the last one was a man wearing his suits sloppily.

The only commonality between the three was that they looked strong in a glance.

The former minister was also standing straight with an aura on an extraordinary person.

They walked inside the abandoned building and arrived in front of a  room. Then the suited army man knocked it. His way of knocking was  particular.

After a while, there was a knocking sound from the other side.

The lever shaped door knob was turned not down, but up and the door was opened.

Inside was a woman in suits holding a handgun.

She was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Inside there was a square table and a folding chair with a man sitting on it.

His face looked really tired.

His hair was unkempt and his shirt was crumpled.

There were dark circles below his eyes.

The former minister took off his hat and smiled to the man.

「Nice to meet you. We have talked several times before through phone, but this is the first time we’re meeting like this.」

The man was a top brass in the management that was involved with the Pandora plan.

He ran away and the former minister put him under his protection in order to hide him.

「……Aren’t you going to hand me over to the police? The diet members  of the former government all threw us to the wolves as easily as turning  their hand.」

There were a lot of former diet members from the ruling party that  bashed the prime minister and related people in order to win the  election.

「Fortunately my power base is rock solid even without doing such  thing. Really, I’m tilting my head everyday wondering how things turned  out like this. Now then, can you tell me your story now?」

The former top brass looked down in respond to the former minister’s words and shed tears.

His hands that were clenched on his knees were shaking.

「We weren’t wishing for something like brainwashing all the populace at all.」

There was a plan by the moon’s residents to share technology for  power plant and then making the completed product ran out of control to  wipe out the living things on earth.

In the process of obstructing that plan, the plan of the ruling party to brainwash the whole populace also got discovered.

The party that obstructed that plan was the information broker――the  people who was currently becoming the top brass managing Pandora.

The suited army man nodded.

「Well, that’s one of the big problems of VR technology. It often became hot topic as urban legend.」

There were a lot of urban legends about VR technology brainwashing the user when inserting information inside their head.

Whether such thing was actually possible or not……setting aside that  question, it was a fact that such latent worry existed. If it was  discovered that the government was planning such thing, the populace’s  worry would get stirred up and they would react excessively.

「……What is Pandora’s true objective?」

The former top brass raised his head.

「I’ll tell you from the beginning. At first the game was just that, a  game. But, it was slightly popular. Do you know? If you hit it big with  VR game, you’ll make a killing, but you’ll be deep in the red if the  game is simply normally popular. Developing such thing is almost no  different than gambling.」

It took a lot of money to develop VR game.

It also took a lot of time.

In addition maintaining such thing also cost a lot of money.

A game that hit it big like Pandora would gather money even without  the management doing anything, but all the other titles were put in a  position where just being in the black was difficult.

The woman in suits nodded slightly.

「What does that have to do with the plan?」

The former top brass continued talking.

「Pandora has one factor that no other software has. It caught the  government’s eyes. They promised us a funding and also guaranteed  various kinds of assistance to us if we participate in their plan. The  prime minister also said 『I’ll take responsibility for everything』.」

It was a plan that was pushed by the prime minister who was now being called as this century’s greatest villain.

The former minister rubbed his chin.

It seemed that Pandora had something from the start and it caught the attention of the government.

「And then you guys joined the plan?」

「To be more accurate, we had no other choice but to join in. Pandora  was popular but, the company was continuously in the red that it should  stop operating before long at that time.」

According to the former top brass――.

「At first, apparently the government also made their own game but……umm……it wasn’t even a hit, not in the slightest.」

The government had also tried developing a game using Pandora as reference, but it failed.

It was simply unpopular.

There, they called out to Pandora that was the base of their copy.

「VR game at first didn’t get popular in spite of everyone’s  expectation. The world in it wasn’t like what the players imagined. They  demanded the virtual world to be like the real world. But for the  developers who were told that, it was like they were asking us to make  something that was ten or twenty years ahead of the time. That was  troubling.」

Why was Pandora chosen by the government?

Because it wasn’t popular and couldn’t gather many players――and because VR game was in the decline at that time.

「At that rate Pandora was going to become a game with only a few  enthusiasts as its player base, so the government said that they would  prop us up. Thanks to that we got a lot of development funding and the  burden for the maintenance also lightened up.」

That was the chain of events of why Pandora was the only game that became abnormally developed.

The former minister folded his arms.

「I understand the chronology now. And……what is this plan that used Pandora?」

The former top brass opened his mouth.

「There are steps in order to reach the main objective. First is  interfering with some players. Next is influencing those players and the  people around them. Before this the plan had progressed until  interference to those players and the people around them until even the  real world. We had confirmed that there were changes to their physical  body too.」

The man who was dressed sloppily laughed a little.

「This sounds like a light novel plot. And? What is waiting ahead  after exerting influence to the real world? I hope it won’t be anything  not funny like something even nastier than brainwashing.」

The former top brass looked down.

「The next stage is interference to those players and the society. I  believe this stage will be executed in the next large scale update. No, I  believe that it has even already started in parts.」

The former minister looked up to the ceiling after listening to the former top brass’s story.

「Prime minister, this is a troublesome work you were leaving behind.」

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At a public park during holiday.

Several middle schoolers were surrounding a girl (?) while lavishing that person with praises.

The person’s black hair was silky smooth.

Guruguru aka Saeki Kira was brought by his classmates to the city. But what was waiting for him there was――.

「S-stop this. I’m a man y’know?」

Kira was wearing a skirt. He was resisting against his classmates.

But, the atmosphere around them was strange.

「This is punishment game because you wouldn’t play with us recently.」

「You’re going to dress like that for this whole day.」

「We all contributed to buy that. Don’t take them off no matter what today.」

The middle school boys were breathing hard.

Kira felt really embarrassed and blushed hard.

But, his gesture and expression suited his current outfit really well.

「H-hey……let’s hold hand.」

「Ha……haaaaa!? You, don’t be crazy!」

When Kira strongly refused like that, the expressions of the boys changed.

「What’s with you. You won’t even party with us. Instead you’re  playing with other people……are you not thinking of us as friends  anymore!?」

「Don’t get cocky just because you’re in a slightly big guild.」

「It’s just holding hand. What’s so wrong about that!」

Kira took a step back from everyone’s reaction.

「W-what the hell. I’m not the one in the wrong! This is just abnormal!」

The hand of the middle schoolers reached out.

There, Sierra――Yukine called the police with her smartphone.

Just by pushing the report button in the smartphone, the police  drones at the surrounding gathered and surrounded the middle schoolers.

『You boys, don’t move from there.』

A police officer’s voice came out from the drones. The boys panicked and started running away.

Kira powerlessly sat down on the ground.

「Saeki-kun!」

Yukine ran toward him. Kira cried.

「What the hell. Those guys are crazy.」

「It’s fine now. Did they do anything strange to you?」

It was already strange enough with them dressing him in girl’s outfit, but Kira nodded.

「Those guys, recently they suddenly started coming on me recently. Even though we were friends before, they’re just scary now……」

Yukine told the situation to the police officer who came running.

After that they were asked about the situation in details in the  police box before they got released. But Kira’s original clothes were  inside his friend’s bag so he was still wearing a skirt even now.

The police said that they would reprimand the boys. But Kira hung his head down.

「I……I don’t know what kind of face I should make when going to school after the holiday ends.」

This was a serious problem for him.

Yukine pondered for a bit before she recalled that there was that shop nearby.

「That’s right. Saeki-kun, this way――」

The two headed toward a small supermarket, Mild.

It was the shop where Akito was working part-time.

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