187. Affection Reader (1)
187. Affection Reader (1)
CRRRRRUNCH—!!!
— SKREEEEE!!!
— GRAAAAAH!!!
— SCREEEEECH!!!
The Black Spear rotated at high speed.
The death throes of monsters being ground to nothing rang out with a roar.
It was a spectacle.
That enormous black spear, dragged toward Lee Yu-ri, and the sight of the monsters she had gathered being pulverized all at once created a scene of truly overwhelming power.
After sweeping away all the monsters in that way, the Black Spear met Lee Yu-ri's shield.
Despite having ground through hundreds of monsters, it must have still possessed destructive force, because Lee Yu-ri's feet, planted to block the Black Spear, were pushed back with a long scrape.
GRRRRIIIIIND—!!
"Nnnghhhhhhh......"
Clenching her teeth, Lee Yu-ri tilted her body forward as if leaning into it and held on.
"Hwaaaaaah!!!!"
Lee Yu-ri drew up the Mana from her entire body and let it explode.
At last.
The Black Spear lost its momentum and came to a stop in midair.
A single girl stood before the halted Black Spear, holding a shield.
It was almost like watching a mythological scene of a human standing against a dragon's claws.
SPLAT—!!!
The halted Black Spear's form crumbled, then transformed into gore and scattered into the air.
"Haaaah......"
Thud.
Only then did Lee Yu-ri let out a long breath and slump her butt onto the ground.
With an exhausted face, she turned her head.
There, Jin Yu-ha was descending slowly, held by Kang Do-hee's hand.
"Jin Yu-ha."
She smiled brightly and opened her mouth to speak.
"I wanna quit being vice-leader."
And Jin Yu-ha answered with a grin just as wide.
"Yeah, no."
His answer was a refusal, of course.
* * *
"......So, this girl is our Utopia’s Special?"
"......A-Another girl."
"To begin with, it's rare to find a man with the skill to join our party. Even if there is one, he's usually a Support or a Healer. Look at the other top-tier parties. Jin Yu-ha is just special."
"Ah, I know...... But, still...... Does she really have to be this pretty, every single time......?"
"I agree. But Sofia, you're not really one to talk, are you?"
"Hmm, if what I just heard is true, then certainly...... her abilities fit Yellow Dog's and my attack patterns better than the other Specials."
"But this girl isn't even a student at Velvet Academy. Can she still join our party?"
Lying in the middle of the murmuring voices around her, Ichika slowly opened her eyes.
Stare—
Surrounded by four pairs of eyes looking down at her, Ichika quietly blinked her own.
"......Who?"
"Ah, we're the hunters who accepted your request."
Lee Yu-ri answered on behalf of the group.
"......Mmm, the Insomnia Resolution Request?"
Ichika replied in a languid voice.
"Yes, that's right. We're the Utopia Party. We came from Velvet Hunter Academy after accepting the Insomnia Resolution Request."
"Velvet Hunter Academy......? Korea......?"
Perhaps surprised that those who accepted her request were from Velvet Hunter Academy, a glimmer of surprise flickered in Ichika's eyes for a moment.
"Yes, the request you submitted to Japan's Hunter Management Headquarters somehow made its way to our Velvet Hunter Academy. And that's how we ended up accepting it and coming here."
At Lee Yu-ri's explanation, Ichika gave a slight bow of her head toward the party members.
She seemed to be expressing her thanks.
"......But, where is my benefactor?"
Once she had a grasp of the situation, Ichika looked around, searching for Jin Yu-ha.
Since he was the one who first discovered and rescued her here, it was only natural for her to ask.
Lee Yu-ri turned her head and looked to one side.
"Mmm, it looks like he went over there to look for something......"
A short distance away, Jin Yu-ha was busily searching for something, rummaging through the corpse of the dead monster by himself.
Probably that artifact that's supposed to raise ability stats.
The party members had offered to help search, but Jin Yu-ha had flatly refused, insisting he had to be the one to find it.
'......Well, he must have his reasons.'
Surely he wasn't planning to hog the rewards for himself. No, even if Jin Yu-ha said he would take all the rewards from this dungeon, Lee Yu-ri would have gladly handed them over.
To begin with, Jin Yu-ha was the one who had fought the vast majority of the battles here. She and the other party members had just tagged along at the very end.
Still, recalling his personality—how he was always desperate to take care of everything for them—it was hard to imagine him drawing a line and claiming this reward wholly as his own.
So, for now, the priority was to successfully finish the separate task Jin Yu-ha had asked of them.
Lee Yu-ri cleared her throat with a "keum" and looked at the woman lying before her.
A blue-haired girl with an expressionless face, impossible to read.
'He said I have to persuade this girl to join our party......'
Under normal circumstances, an invitation to join Utopia was like a golden lifeline for any unattached hunter; refusing would be foolish. But would that apply to this girl as well?
Even though this was their first meeting, the atmosphere radiating from her appearance alone—from her otherworldly way of speaking to her attitude of complete indifference toward everything in the world—made it easy to predict that this would be difficult.
"Ichika."
"......?"
When Lee Yu-ri called to her in a slightly stiff tone, Ichika, who had been staring vacantly at Jin Yu-ha, turned her head.
"I understand that us suddenly making you this kind of proposition might come as a shock to you, Ichika."
"......Proposition?"
Ichika tilted her head.
"Yes, to come straight to the point: it's an invitation for you to join us. Our Utopia Party needs your abilities. If you aren't currently affiliated anywhere, would you like to join our party?"
Lee Yu-ri was about to go on to explain the salary, the benefits, Utopia's current standing, and its future prospects. But before she could, Ichika opened her mouth and cut her off.
"Is my benefactor in it, too?"
Ichika spoke, pointing a finger at Jin Yu-ha.
"Huh? W-Well, of course. He's our party leader."
Lee Yu-ri nodded, slightly flustered.
"Then okay."
The acceptance was so refreshingly quick it was almost embarrassing, considering all the agonizing over how to recruit her.
"Ah!"
At her confirmation, Lee Yu-ri's face brightened completely.
That is, if not for the last words Ichika added on at the end. It would have been truly perfect otherwise.
"Because, anyway, I've already been made into a body that can't live without my benefactor. Yep. Even now, my hands are itching."
"Wh-What do you mean by that......"
"A body that can't live......?! Your hands are itching......?"
"......Excuse me? I-Ichika? A body that can't live without Jin Yu-ha... what exactly do you mean by that, could you be a little more specific......"
Lee Yu-ri and the party members, flustered, asked again, but—
"FOUND IT──!!!"
Jin Yu-ha's sudden shout drowned it all out.
* * *
'Phew— I was worried what I'd do if this thing wasn't here......'
After digging through Suzuki Satoru's disgusting remains for quite a while, I finally picked up the ring I had discovered and let out a sigh of relief.
Originally, in the game, it was an item you automatically acquired the moment you defeated the boss. So I had wondered if maybe it wouldn't appear now that the game had become reality.
A silver-white ring, twisted into a two-stranded streamlined shape. A pale, transparent pink jewel gleamed in its center.
'Yeah, I finally got it...... The Affection Reader!'
A Tier-1 artifact among the items obtainable through requests rather than real-money spending in Velvetsra.
In fact, the efficiency of a playthrough was drastically split depending on whether or not you obtained this from the first request in the 'Jukai Forest.'
Because of that, anyone who had played Velvetsra for a decent amount of time considered this one of the rarities you absolutely had to get.
So, on posts about not getting it from the first request, you'd see comments like these sprouting up everywhere:
─ Newbie, I won't use harsh words, so just reset right now and clear it again.
└ B-But still, my character gacha and early item gacha were all S-rank, historically good pulls......?
└ So what if they were? You blew the Affection Reader lol lol lol lol lol
└ 222222 agreed lol lol if you don't get this early on it's just better to restart. Don't come back later regretting it saying the game's f**ked up, just restart now.
Comments like that would pile up by the dozen.
I recalled the item description from the game.
【 Ring of Affection and Obsession 】
— A ring bestowed by a Demon—an incubus—upon his favored apostle.
Increases all stats by 3 to 5% according to the wearer's 'Affection'.
The description was simple, but its contents were anything but.
A 3 to 5% stat increase might not seem that important at first glance.
But it's not an increase to a single specific stat—it's all stats.
On top of that, it's an artifact that increases them by a percentage, not a flat value!
Which means, when your stats breach the upper limits in the late game, the magnitude of the increase becomes absurd!
However, there's a catch with this ring.
Whether or not a character receives the buff depends on the 'chemistry' between the wearer and that other character.
For example, if Lee Yu-ri were to wear it, Shin Se-hee, who has poor chemistry with her, wouldn't receive the stat-increase buff.
And if someone with an incorrigibly lone-wolf temperament like Kang Do-hee got it, almost no other character would receive the buff, or even if they did, they'd only get the minimum 3% increase.
'So, no matter what, this ring has to be given to someone like a capybara.'
The best choice was to give it to a character who was broadly friendly with and had a decent relationship with every single party member.
'Mmm, so at first, I did consider giving it to Im Ga-eul, since she has the most neutral relationship with everyone......'
But what would happen if I gave it not to the benevolent, tolerant Mommy character from the original game, but to the current Im Ga-eul?
'Ufufufu...... My dear hoobaes, if you want the stat-increase buff, you'll have to stay in my good graces, right? Now, submit to me—? Come on, repeat after me! I revere Sunbae Im Ga-eul!'
I briefly imagined Im Ga-eul wearing this ring, then shook my head vigorously to dispel the delusion.
'And this is reality, not the game. Who knows what kind of discord might pop up because of it.'
Mm-hmm.
In the end, the best course of action is for me to wear it.
After all, I'm on good terms with everyone in the party, so there shouldn't be any party members who fail to receive the buff.
At that moment, Jin Yu-ha was unaware.
Of just how much chaos this decision would soon bring crashing down among the members of the Utopia Party.