Pandora of Fantasy And Reality Chapter 51

Earth Dragon Subjugation Team

At a café located in the Capital of Temperance.

Ponsuke entered there and had a conversation with the information broker while sitting back to back.

But talking like that was clearly troublesome.

「Is there a point to this?」

The information broker took a sip of his coffee and enjoyed the taste.

The sunlight from the window fell on the two as he enjoyed talking  back to back with Ponsuke. No, he was drunk in the atmosphere of being  an information broker.

「It’s a matter of feeling. We can talk just fine like this so it’s  fine right? I always wanted to try something like this since a long time  ago. And yet everyone always wanted to talk face to face.」

「It’s because that’s the norm.」

There were many cases of players reenacting something that they admired in virtual world.

Like walking through the street as a good looking man, or trying to live as an opposite sex.

They tried to act as someone else than themselves.

There were also things that could only be done because this is a fully immersive game.

Ponsuke talked about the happenings at Cam Village to the man who was enjoying his role play as information broker.

The information broker showed interest when he talked about how the high elf knight captain was a lowlife.

「The NPC’s AI has gotten a lot better than before.」

Ponsuke drank orange juice while watching the movements of the NPCs.  The elves who were working as café staffs were wearing mini skirt and  maid uniform.

They would make bright smile toward their fellow elf.

They would show a disgusted face toward other race.

They would make a horrible face as though they had seen something filthy when they saw Ponsuke who was an orc.

「……It feels like the treatment toward orc has gotten worse. Like, it’s more graphic since the large scale update.」

The information broker brought up a different topic with Ponsuke.

「Come to think of it, it seems there’s a famous NPC who run away when  she saw an orc. Ponsuke-kun, just what in the world did you do to her?」

「It wasn’t me but those guys. They kept approaching that NPC no  matter how many times she punched, kicked, and blasted them with magic.」

Ponsuke imagined the swarm of orcs approaching the woman while begging More, more, hurt us more. It made him pitied the NPC Clara.

The information broker took a memo.

「Looks like the NPCs are also changing greatly. Perhaps it’s  connected to some kind of event but, there isn’t still any report about  that.」

There were a certain number of people among the players who went  after the events and puzzles that the management placed in the game.  Their difference from the information broker was that they felt joy when  discovering a mystery.

Each people had their own way to have fun.

「Oh, it has gotten dark outside. Come to think of it, it’s also autumn in the real world.」

The sight of autum was also spreading across Pandora.

The leaves that were acting as the ceiling of the capital changed color. It made the players felt the autumn atmosphere.

「The evening sun or rather the light is still shining down even though the sky is covered with leaves huh.」

Ponsuke said that. The information broker replied back.

「It will be really troublesome if the whole city is dark isn’t it?  No, but I’m glad that I’m getting a lot of information this time too.  What will be a good information to repay this I wonder?」

Ponsuke put down his now empty cup.

「Then, can you give me anything that might help with defeating the  earth dragon? I had browsed the internet too but, I only found videos of  people getting obliterated from challenging it.」

The earth dragon hadn’t been defeated even once until now that it got called as “earth dragon-san” in Pandora.

The earth dragon wasn’t involved at all with the game’s main story  and players could proceed ahead even without defeating it, so the  majority of the players had never even saw the monster.

It was unknown what the management was thinking when they placed such  undefeated monster in here, but it was announced that the appropriate  level to defeat it was level 80.

It showed that it was possible to defeat it for players who were in the Capital of Temperance.

「……Are you seriously planning to challenge it?」

Ponsuke said to the information broker that 「I won’t be able to progress ahead without trying it first」.

The drop items from the earth dragon might be necessary for event in  the orc’s hidden village after they moved on from the Capital of  Temperance.

It felt somehow frustrating to proceed ahead without obtaining those things.

The information broker stood up and moved toward the exit. He placed a  data on Ponsuke’s table when he passed there, then he exited the café.

The way he was enjoying the role play till the end made Ponsuke thought.

「No, say something!」

Ponsuke took the data while yelling inside the empty café.

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At the inn.

Ponsuke’s party was resting there when night came. They entered inside a room for a single party.

At the start when they were playing this game, they were using this  kind of room for party continuously in order to raise their friendship  meter that was very hard to increase as much as possible.

Perhaps that was why they were still using this kind of room even now.

Mariela and Alfie had sneaked into Ponsuke’s bed. Ponsuke got up  carefully so they wouldn’t wake up, then he put a blanket over their  body before going outside the room.

The two had gotten particularly clingy recently. It concerned Ponsuke.

「Something feels strange recently.」

They had been close since before but, recently the distance between them had gotten even closer. Ponsuke felt uneasy about it.

「……Don’t tell me, they’re aiming for my chastity? No, that’s impossible. I hope.」

Ponsuke went down the stair while trembling. He arrived at the bar  and noticed that there was no player there. The time was still early.

Lack of sleep would cause bad status, so a lot of players slept at night.

A large elf auntie was talking with a customer NPC at the first floor bar.

「You’re drinking too much recently.」

「Leave me alone. My shop is unpopular and no customer will come. Surely its location is bad.」

「Nobody will come to buy the inferior good at your place.」

The surrounding NPCs were laughing from that conversation.

「You tell her lady!」

Ponsuke looked down on that scene from the stair. He was listening to the still ongoing conversation.

(It’s like they’re really alive.)

It was just as the information broker said, the AI had improved  greatly and made the NPC looked alive. Their movement and also dialogue  were very natural.

Ponsuke headed to a table, sat down, and ordered something.

For some reason he felt that he mustn’t break the atmosphere. He sat  at the corner of the bar. Then an unfamiliar NPC came to take his order.

She had long cream colored hair that was bundled up and beautiful white skin.

Her blue eyes looked really pretty and felt like they were sucking him in.

「Err, your order?」

The female elf smiled at an orc like Ponsuke. She was an NPC that he never saw here during the morning or noon.

But Ponsuke dropped the menu.

「……Your majesty The high elf queen?」

Ponsuke’s eyes were fixed on the queen’s voluptuous bosom.

Not only that humongousness, there were too many other points that resemble the elf queen.

Then he heard an electronic sound *ping*. A screen that signified the start of an event showed up.

The screen displayed the words 『The Queen is a Part-Timer(Hataraku Joou-sama)』.

The queen turned red until her ears while speaking with a smile.

「Y-you got the wrong person. Wh-w-w-w-w-w-what is your order!?」

She was sweating. Her eyes were darting around.

Ponsuke didn’t know what to do. If the queen thought that she would  be able to cover it up by acting like that, it would make Ponsuke felt  amazed instead.

「T-then, hot choco.」

The queen yelled the order loudly.

「One hot chocolate!」

「Oi, don’t yell my order that loudly, it’s embarrassing!」

An orc ordering hot chocolate in a bar was also strange.

Ponsuke only ordered that because he was planning to go back to sleep after this.

The surrounding NPCs started whispering when they heard that Ponsuke’s order was hot chocolate.

「You heard that, an orc is ordering hot choco.」

「Go drink water.」

「Sheesh, that stinky orc.」

Normally he wouldn’t let himself be bothered by those words, but it  felt like his heart would break when he was alone like this. Ponsuke  emptied the glass in one gulp when his order came and stood up  immediately to leave.

However the queen grabbed Ponsuke’s arm desperately.

「Dear customer~. Can I, have a bit of your time?」

Ponsuke could only nod when faced with that smile that wouldn’t accept no for an answer.

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(Is this also an event?)

The queen led Ponsuke to the inn’s courtyard.

Few of the windows around them had the light on.

There the queen looked at Ponsuke and sighed.

「I can’t believe I got found out.」

The queen’s shoulders drooped in dejection. Ponsuke answered her frankly.

「No, because we just met recently.」

Perhaps meeting the queen at the audience hall was the requirement for this event to happen.

The queen looked embarrassed. Even so she said to Ponsuke.

「Anyway! Don’t tell anybody about this. If not I’ll hand you over to  the guards so they can lock you into prison for your whole life.」

Ponsuke thought that would be bad. Even so a part of himself thought.

(Just what is this event for?)

The queen was pleased seeing Ponsuke nodding. She was relieved.

「I’m glad. I just wanted to see the outside world even if just once  in my life. Sitting on the throne to have audience everyday is simply  boring.」

The queen was talking using casual words which made her sounded somewhat like a player. Ponsuke asked her a question.

「So you’re working here?」

「That’s right. My target is to become the poster girl here. If you’re  an adventurer then work hard and spend a lot of money in here.」

The elf queen said that to him with a smile. It made Ponsuke thought.

(Elf looks good at the outside but all of them are horrible inside.)

「Well, we have been using this place since forever.」

「Good. Spend a lot of money to help out the husband and wife and the  staffs here okay? Also……thank you for agreeing to stay quiet.」

The smile that she turned toward Ponsuke at the end was very beautiful under the moonlight.

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The next day.

Ponsuke gathered his acquaintances and played the video about earth dragon subjugation.

The ones gathered here were Nanako, Sierra, and the orc group.

They were thirteen people in total. They were watching the video of  earth dragon subjugation that was made by some casual players.

『Erm, the next idea from us the earth dragon subjugation team is to  simply use number to curbstomp it. That’s the strategy. Number is  strength! We gathered as many players as we can and we got 112 people  here!』

In the video there were a lot of players. They all looked highly spirited before challenging the earth dragon.

Then the video suddenly started shaking.

『Oops, it’s here.』

The good looking human who was wearing glasses ordered the camera to turn toward the earth dragon that had appeared.

Alfie’s mouth opened when she saw that image.

「Eh? A mountain?」

What Alfie thought as a mountain was the earth dragon with head that  looked like a crocodile. It was walking on four legs while carrying a  pointy mountain on its back.

Nanako looked disappointed.

「It doesn’t have horn.」

She looked disappointed because with this the orcs wouldn’t have any item to be offered to altar.

(No, that’s not the problem isn’t it!?)

It should be the earth dragon’s size that she should feel astonished about.

In addition, the players who challenged the earth dragon head-on got  magnificently curbstomped. They completely lost without even being able  to take a significant chunk of the earth dragon’s HP.

The orc Prey groaned.

「This is……simply crushing them rather than stepping on them isn’t it? It’s not a turn on at all.」

The orcs who were putting their own hobby above all else were looking  disappointed. But, there was just one of them whose eyes sparkled.

「To be crushed under the foot of such monster who won’t even pay any attention to us……doesn’t it send shivers into your back?」

Prey blushed when he heard that.

「I was mistaken. It’s truly a stimulating situation.」

Sierra’s eyes were extremely cold while she was looking at the orcs.

「Umm, can you stop acting like that while Nanako is here? You are the worst.」

The orcs rejoiced.

Dume who was armed with a great sword rubbed the spot under his nose with his finger.

「Fufu, thank you.」

Sierra became at her wits’ end because the orcs rejoiced no matter  what got done to them. Ponsuke put his hand on Sierra’s shoulder to  console her while watching the video.

『Ee~, we failed even after using quantity so this time we placed a  trap. Guess how many bombs we placed there? There are 300 of them. With  this many even field boss and area boss will easily get blown away.』

The casual player was really getting it on. He placed the trap at the  spot where the earth dragon would pass and then he lied in wait.

But, the earth dragon simply stepped on the bombs and kept walking.

It looked like the bombs managed to deal the greatest amount of  damage to its HP until now, even so not even a third of it had been  taken away.

Mariela muttered as she watched the continuation of the video.

「Then, it’ll be possible to defeat it if we place a thousand bombs on his way won’t it?」

It seemed the earth dragon subjugation team also thought the same.  Next they went with the plan of placing a trap that consisted of 1500  bombs.

It seemed they had put a lot of work into the trap, but this time  they were excited because they believed they would win for sure this  time.

However, the earth dragon’s defense went up when its HP had gone down  until a certain degree and the trap stopped dealing damage to it.

Like that the earth dragon subjugation team got trampled to death again at the end of the video and that was it.

Alfie represented everyone’s opinion.

「How can we win against something like that?」

Ponsuke couldn’t say anything back.

◇

At the real world.

Akito went to the fitness club during holiday to receive coaching  there. He was consulting to the sensei. He had thoroughly browsed for  any information regarding the earth dragon and even checked the blogs,  but he couldn’t even get any hint that seemed feasible to beat the earth  dragon.

He was consulting to the sensei who wasn’t playing game because he  was wishing that perhaps he could get some hint from an unexpected  source.

「What? What to do when facing an opponent that cannot be beaten no  matter what? Of course I’ll run away if it’s me. I won’t fight someone  like that.」

Akito tried to somehow get an answer.

「No, how should I put it, this is an enemy that you can’t run away  from. You have to challenge it even though it’s hopeless. ……You can’t  move ahead unless you do that.」

The sensei seemed to feel something from Akito’s explanation. He nodded with a smile.

「What, so it’s something like that. You’re in the springtime of your  youth huh sonny. I see. Well, you have to defeat it, or rather overcome  it no matter what.」

(Overcome?)

「Yes, I’m happy that sensei gets it now. So, what will sensei do if it’s you who are in my place?」

The sensei spoke with a serious face.

「First you must make indiscriminate attempt!」

「Attempt?」

「You said that you can’t see any chance of victory even if you suddenly attack your main target right?」

「……Yes.」

The sensei nodded and said 「Yep yep, getting cold feet in front of  someone you like is not a bad thing」 with a small voice. Akito failed to  hear those words.

「What’s important is whether you’re compatible or not with your  target. And also whether you have made effort or not. In addition, try  challenge some tough targets first so you won’t fail when it’s actually  time to go after the main target. Well, in short practice hitting on  girls with the resolve to get rejected.」

Akito was puzzled by the last part. Even so the sensei continued.

「It’s fine even if you fail. You won’t lose your life anyway.」

「T-that’s true!」

「That’s right. Even failure is a good experience.」

Akito said to the sensei.

「Then I’ll attempt it! (To fight against strong monsters!)」

「Ou! Keep attempting! (Cultivate your courage through hitting on girls.)」

Akito stopped worrying and decided to first try what he could do.

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