Pandora of Fantasy And Reality Chapter 44

Half-Fairy

There were newly added races.

But even among them half-fairy was like a joke race that was placed in the opposite position of orc.

No, it was even more terrible than orc.

Ponsuke and the others left behind just the weakest monster at the grassland made it faced Sierra.

The result was the display of half-fairy’s specs that were too shabby. It made Ponsuke wanted to hold his head.

「Kyaaaaaa! Don’t come over here!」

Sierra was running around. Alfie watched her while opening a screen in the air. She was reading the setting for half-fairy.

「Half-fairy……a child that was made from fairy appearing in the dream  of a female human and doing mischief? Is this referring to incubus or  succubus?」

Mariela kicked the monster away, and then she taught Sierra the way to fight.

Ponsuke was talking with Alfie.

「It’s treated as joke race even though it has cute look?」

Looking at it as a race, they had excellent aptitude for magic.

But, on the opposite end their physical status was low all across the board.

Orc’s aptitude for magic wasn’t high, even so the aptitude wasn’t  that low. In addition the status would increase considerably from  leveling up.

Ponsuke checked the forum inside the game. There were already threads about the newly added races.

He read up those threads.

「……A race that is even more of a joke than orc. It’s too weak and  unusable. The defense is tremendously low even when there is skill  support. One hit killed. This thing is useless. ……This is horrible.」

Ponsuke and Alfie looked at Sierra who was lifting a staff and firing a magic tearfully.

The magic hit the monster and exploded. The monster turned into red light particles and scattered to the surrounding.

Sierra long blue hair fluttered from the wind that the magic caused.

Her arms and legs were slender. She looked like a middle school student from her appearance.

Alfie was surprised by the power of Sierra’s magic.

「The race is really excellent when it comes to magic, so it can’t be  called as completely weak. Well, it’s like a joke character, so only a  few players will make use of it.」

A lot of players tried to use the new races.

But, as time passed the number of player that kept using unusable  avatar would decrease. The more time passed, the more it would come to  light which race was excellent and which skill or job was optimal.

Players would start creating the optimum avatar by relying on game guide.

Mariela led Sierra back to where Ponsuke and Alfie were standing.

「That was scary.」

It seemed she was genuinely scared.

Although she was only facing a weak monster, it seemed that doing battle was too intense for Sierra.

Mariela scratched her head.

「Nothing can be done unless she level up first. I’m worried with her low HP. She won’t be able to progress like this.」

It would be troubling if they went to faraway place and she died right away, leaving the frontline.

The death penalty also couldn’t be underestimated. Sierra was completely a dead weight in her current state.

Alfie crossed her arms.

「How about if we instead make her job into close range like fighter instead and her status focused on defense?」

Ponsuke shook his head.

「Her strong point won’t grow like that so I’m not sure. But, it might be better if she become able to move a little better.」

The three confirmed Sierra’s situation and discussed what kind of job she should take.

Mariela asked a simple question.

「More importantly, we need to ask the person herself whether she want to continue with her current situation or not.」

Ponsuke and the others simultaneously turned their gazes toward Sierra.

Sierra was confused but, it seemed that she didn’t really have any  experience playing game. She didn’t know what she should decide.

「E-err……I like this race’s look quite much.」

It seemed that she had no intention to remake her avatar.

「That is fine. Even Ponsuke is using a joke race like orc as his avatar.」

Mariela smiled at the worried looking Sierra.

Ponsuke also nodded.

「The most important thing is whether you like it or not. It’ll be  hard for you to join the clearing group with it but, if your plan is to  have fun then it’s best that you use the avatar that you like.」

Sierra looked relieved.

「I’m glad. I’ll be troubled if I’m told to remake it. Besides, I’m not really interested in getting that strong with fighting.」

Alfie also agreed.

「I get you. Even if we talk about efficiency, it doesn’t really  matter for us who aren’t prioritizing clearing the game. But, if you’re  going to keep using that race, you have to create your own way of  fighting.」

If they wanted to have fun at the tourist area, they would have to  defeat monster and earned money if they didn’t want to spend real money  there.

It was more convenient to be able to fight in order to have fun.

Mariela suggested a simple solution.

「Then you just need to level up. Even if your status is low, you will have more options if you have high level.」

The chance of Sierra surviving would go up if her base status increased.

Sierra nodded.

「I-I’ll do my best.」

Ponsuke looked around the grassland that was near the Capital of Hope.

(Come to think of it, Rook also took care of us here when we were still rookies.)

Riku――whose name as player was Rook also taught Ponsuke a lot of things here. And now he himself was looking after a rookie.

(I can’t believe it has only been a few months since then.)

Like that Ponsuke and the others used their remaining three days to help Sierra clearing her tutorial.

◇

When Akito opened his eyes, he found himself inside his room in the real world.

「……There isn’t any change at all despite what I expected.」

He was in the virtual world for four days, so he became slightly  worried that there might be some kind of inconvenience in the real  world.

However when he woke up, he recalled what his plan was for today. He didn’t feel that there was anything out of place.

「Perhaps I was just overthinking it.」

He turned on the TV thinking that perhaps there would be news about  some kind of problem but, the news program wasn’t reporting anything  related to Pandora.

He checked the program that had a commentator criticizing Pandora  about the relaxation of regulation before, but now when the game had  resumed its service like this, the news program was only talking about  new topics.

Even when he tried checking at the internet, there wasn’t any topic that caught his attention.

But, at some forum thread――.

『I’m back to real world. I want to go back to Pandora.』

――That kind of joke postings that sounded was increasing.

Then Akito browsed for the topics related to Pandora and arrived to a video.

He watched that video and coughed.

「The holy knight Rubin-san, so he’s still playing.」

Rubin who called himself a holy knight was still making trouble at  the Capital of Hope. It seemed he had also gotten some new skills. In  the video he was firing magic while treating it like it was a special  move.

The monster was slightly thrown back, but it immediately got up and punched Rubin.

The players who were in the same party as Rubin were helping him, but  Rubin himself paid them no mind and ran wild as he pleased.

The setting of his jobs and skills were also too random that his avatar was becoming completely unusable.

Akito also had experience forming a party with Rubin, but he hadn’t grown at all since then.

「For him to be so horrible to this degree is making me respect him instead in a sense.」

He respected how Rubin was able to stick on his own belief, but he  also wanted to ask the person himself just what he was feeling from  causing troubles to others by his actions.

Akito was reading the news about Pandora like that. Even though it  had only been six hours since Pandora resumed activity, the game guides  were getting updated rapidly.

Various reports like what skill that had become weaker than before kept coming in.

「Everyone is amazing.」

Among those news, half-fairy race was getting bad reputation as expected.

『Useless.』

『It just die right away.』

『It’s even more of a joke than orc.』

Such comments were posted everywhere.

Orc was also still being treated as joke race like usual.

「Well, there isn’t any major change so it can’t be helped.」

There was no change about orc race. There were also other races that got balanced and correspondingly became less popular.

「The clearing group must have it hard to gather all the information.」

The next capital to be conquered was the [Capital of Arrogance]. The  clearing group must be working hard to get the best race, job, and skill  composition in order to conquer that city.

「We too need to do our best to go to the next city, the [Capital of Discretion].」

Akito browsed for information of what to do in order to head to the next capital after the Capital of Temperance.

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.

.

Yakumo opened her eyes and immersed herself in the aftertaste of returning from the virtual world after so long.

No, now she was feeling that she still wanted to stay in that world.

「……Haa, no good. My face is burning.」

The temperature inside the room wasn’t high. The temperature was perfect because the AC was managing it.

But, the heat on her face was caused by meeting Ponsuke after so long.

「I’m getting even worse than before. Even though it’s just an avatar……」

Now Yakumo didn’t feel anything anymore even when she saw actor or  idol no matter how good looking they were. For her, the image of her  ideal man was gradually becoming Ponsuke――an orc.

She understood just how strange that was, even so she herself couldn’t do anything about it.

「If I can at least meet the actual person……」

Yakumo pondered how she became like this but, no answer came out.

She also didn’t feel like she could stop playing the game at this point.

It felt like when she realized it, she was already in a place where there was no turning back.

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.

.

Maya was making a call in her room from early in the morning.

The one she was phoning was [Hiragi Jun].

「Uncle, you also logged in didn’t you? Why didn’t you come?」

『No, I thought I would be just a bother. Besides, I also have my own  acquaintances over there, so I immediately went to talk with them. Well,  it’s boorish to bring up RL relationship even inside the game.』

Apparently Jun didn’t participate in the celebration of Nanako’s recovery because he thought his presence would trouble Maya.

Maya felt a bit lonely hearing that, even so she thought that Jun was right.

As expected, she couldn’t show the disciplining of the orcs to Jun.

(Somehow, it gave me the shivers doing that.)

The person herself wasn’t noticing how inside her heart she was slowly coming to enjoy that act.

「Now that you mentioned it, you have a production job uncle. Isn’t it  like you’re also working even though you’re inside a virtual world?」

He should play around more if he was playing a game.

Maya said that, but Jun laughed.

『No, that’s not really true. I’m having fun, besides it’s also not a  bad feeling when something that you create on your own sells. Gathering  materials, processing them, then racking your brain of how to make them  sells……oops, my wife is calling me. Excuse me with this.』

Maya sighed after the call was ended.

「I wonder if uncle is also keeping it a secret from his family? Well, it’s only natural I guess.」

She was also keeping it a secret from her family.

Or rather, her parents wouldn’t complain as long as it didn’t disturb her daily life.

As long as she followed what her parents were telling her, she could continue playing game.

「……Can’t this day finish already?」

Maya muttered. Then she stood up and started changing clothes.

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At the first day after summer vacation.

Akito met Riku in the classroom after so long. They were facing each other with a table between them.

Riku was talking about these past several days to Akito.

「We finally entered the world where the Capital of Arrogance is  located, but it was a disaster. We don’t even have the information for  the common monsters there, so we ate two death penalties. But, the  level’s upper limit has also gotten increased and we can sell the  materials there expensively, so it helped.」

It seemed information about monster could also be sold for high  price. In addition the amount of the new materials in circulation was  still small so they had high price.

The craftsmen who purchased those materials were currently checking what use they might have.

Akito also explained.

「My party was helping out a rookie, then we entrusted her to  acquaintance and went back to the Capital of Temperance. I think we’re  going to level up and gather information until our our acquaintance orcs  catch up. We also need to prepare for moving to the next capital.」

They needed to clear the designated quest in order to move to the next stage after the Capital of Temperance.

But, just like the time when they left the Capital of Hope, they would need to challenge a boss.

Riku’s expression turned conflicted.

「Those perverted orcs? Well, it might be better to contact them when  there is orc related event but……right now, there are seven of them?」

Akito hanged his head down.

「……Eight.」

「There are more huh.」

Riku looked like he didn’t know what to say.

Few players played as orc but they existed, however the group that Akito was acquainted was peculiar even among those few.

Any orc who was a member of that group was definitely a pervert.

Riku asked about the rookie that Akito helped out in order to change the topic.

「Rather than that, what kind of person that rookie is?」

「She’s a half-fairy, so we asked her to be magic specialist. We also  told her to take fighter class so she can have at least a bit of HP and  defense.」

Akito then said 「But it’s treated like a joke race huh」 and laughed.

However Riku’s face was serious.

「What’s wrong?」

「No……about half-fairy, it’s unpopular but the clearers who are using it are increasing. It might not be a joke race you know?」

Akito started thinking seriously when he heard that the clearers were using half-fairy.

(If those people who prioritize efficiency above all else are using  it, surely there’s a secret to it. Is there perhaps some kind of way to  make it stronger?)

No answer came out even though he thought about it, but surely half-fairy wasn’t just a mere joke species.

(……Even so, that means orc is getting back to be the only joke species just like before.)

Akito was used to orc being treated as joke species, but he felt lonely because it felt like a comrade had been removed.

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