41. Don't Be Salty, Be Bland
41. Don't Be Salty, Be Bland
It was late at night.
The small campfire burned, loosely pushing back the darkness,
and the faintly spreading warmth brought calm and drowsiness.
A warm bed,
a trusted companion,
and....
Tadadadag, tadag, tadadag!
"Sseuuuuu──"
White noise.
I played the final note and awaited the result.
[B Chord-Expert]
[Full Combo]
[ALL Perfect]
[71,660 (SS+)]
[Stress Reduction and Resistance Up (Large)]
"...Huuuu."
I'd nearly made a mistake but somehow cleared it.
I shook my right hand and casually glanced inside the tent.
"Koooo."
"............."
"...She's sleeping soundly."
Yuno had completely passed out, and Minerva had a slight furrow in her brow.
Maybe she hadn't fallen into a deep sleep yet. I added another log to the campfire and selected a song again.
'First, let's just reduce stress as much as possible.'
Normally when heading to a raid or dungeon it might be different, but at least now it seemed best to keep reducing stress.
It wasn't as if our damage was insufficient, and our stamina was fine since we'd eaten well.
But if there was anything to keep worrying about──it was none other than Yuno's mental state.
"Because she seems unable to pull herself together."
If an NTR flag occurred somewhere without me, I really wouldn't be able to deal with it.
Especially if Yuno herself was in a state of mind to go along with it, the situation would obviously worsen, so I had no choice but to reduce stress like this.
I gently massaged my sore right wrist and started playing again──
"Chrono."
"Ah shit."
─time out.
[B Chord-Expert]
[Miss!]
[Fail...]
"Ah."
"............"
"Ah... so-sorry."
Minerva immediately lowered her head and apologized.
"It's okay. I can just do it again."
"Still... I'm sorry."
"If you're sorry, don't do things to be sorry for... ugh, let's stop."
Old memories kept surfacing.
Maybe because of the campfire in front of us.
I put the harp away altogether and turned to face Minerva.
"Did you wake up because of me?"
"More than waking up... I simply kept my eyes closed."
"Aren't you tired?"
"I am tired. But more than that, there was something I wanted to talk about with Chrono."
"Something you wanted to talk about?"
Was there anything in particular to talk about?
With a let's-just-hear-her-out attitude, I turned my ear toward Minerva.
"When you subjugated the King Slime... you used a [Skill], didn't you?"
"Yeah. Anyone can use [Skill] if they learn a bit in class, right?"
"Yes. I can use [Skill] right now as well."
But.
"You cannot use [Skills] 'consecutively' without delay."
"Ah....."
At Minerva's words, goosebumps shot down my back.
'Skill delay.'
The unavoidable chronic problem of turn-based combat.
A system where on your turn you could only take one action, and after that action you couldn't take any separate action until your next turn arrived. Now Minerva was asking how I had broken that 'system' and been able to move multiple times.
"Well... that is...."
'Actually, I can't escape the swamp of [Skill Delay] either.'
Saying you use multiple skills in an instant might be easy to say, but each skill activation required a surprising amount of concentration.
If I used one skill, the opponent monster's fangs would approach me before I could use the next.
But if that was the case, how could I pour out skills all at once?
The reason was simple.
'...I absolutely can't say that I sped up time for myself.'
If there was a delay in using skills, it was simply a matter of minimizing that delay.
When I subjugated the King Slime, I also accelerated time only for myself and reduced the skill delay as close to zero as possible.
A fair amount of time was shaved off thanks to that, but even considering that, it was an attack so effective it was worth using.
After all, I blew up the King Slime in a single attack.
Of course, the gun's own attack power being strong was also one reason, but the ability to stack all buffs in an instant was almost as powerful as an NTR Named Boss—
'...So that's how I could pour in buffs all at once!'
I gained enlightenment from a completely unexpected angle.
When my abilities grew even stronger later, I really might become a one-man army, and I began to feel a little afraid of myself.
Though at the moment I was just a glass cannon that could only do it once.
"Chrono?"
"Ah! Uh, er... that is...."
Come to think of it, I'd been talking with Minerva until just now, right?
I took a quick breath and answered honestly.
"Sorry, but I don't think I can tell you."
"As I expected."
"...Huh?"
Minerva let it go more lightly than I'd thought.
She soon looked at me and said,
"It's because of the Main God's blessing, isn't it?"
"........."
It wasn't that she let it go lightly; she'd already known and let it go.
If she'd already known, then no way....
'...even that I'm the apostle of Cronus...?'
Nah, no way. I'd been so careful not to show it.
Still, with the slimmest of slim chances existing, I hid it as best I could and probed Minerva's reaction.
"What god do you think I serve?"
"That part I will also keep secret."
"............."
"....That's a strange look. Originally, mutually revealing which Main God you serve is a taboo unless you are quite close."
And arbitrarily inferring it is also very discourteous.
Minerva took another step closer to me and said,
"Please be at ease. I have no intention of harming you, my comrade. It's just... seeing you gradually grow stronger, I felt a little envy."
Because the you at the beginning of the semester and the you now are completely different.
Minerva placed her own hand over my right wrist.
"I know well that Chrono is putting in effort. Every morning you come out and run earlier than anyone, throw yourself into class, and at club activities you always attend diligently without a single absence."
Without skipping. Diligently every single day.
A green light bloomed from Minerva's hand and covered my right wrist.
A cool, refreshing energy began to gradually erase the pain throbbing in my right wrist.
"Can I... become like Chrono as well...?"
"....Minerva."
What should I say?
What should I say to comfort her?
I couldn't figure out what words to use, or how to approach her.
Why Minerva had suddenly approached me like this,
why she'd come to me out of the blue at night like this,
I didn't know any of it, couldn't understand, couldn't even grasp a small clue.
"Don't be so impatient."
"Yes...?"
....If I were someone who had played this for the first time, that is.
I placed my left hand over Minerva's hand that covered my right wrist.
"You keep hyping only me up, but you're just as diligent, aren't you?"
"No. That's not true. Even just today, I left all the burden to Chrono."
"Come on. That was just you ignoring me, not that you aren't diligent."
"Ugh... ignoring... that... I'm sorry!"
Hey, it's fine.
It was understandable to ignore me in the first place.
"If some scrawny little anchovy with no combat experience suddenly grabs all the quest sheets as if he's the squad leader and swaggers around going 'I'm gonna do all of these!', I'd be suspicious."