Whose Hand Will the Goddess of Victory Hold? #2
Being a veteran player mostly meant being hungry. Hungry for what? Naturally, for new and interesting content. A new DLC goes on sale? You curse at the obvious cash grab, yet you still end up hitting the purchase button. It's like pouring fresh, clear water into a stagnant pond.
The remaster of D&A, along with the simultaneously released DLC, had raised my expectations as well. New routes I didn't know. New dialogue I didn't know. New fields I didn't know. Adventures I didn't know. A new world I didn't know. What man wouldn't feel his heart race at that?
Perhaps that was why my chest was pounding even though my current situation was far from ideal. I was getting interested. What kind of person was Nike Mokemoke? What kind of story did she carry? What quirks or skills did she possess? What was her class? What role did she play in a party? Mage? Warrior?
"Nike Mokemoke. So that was your name."
Nike was one thing, but Mokemoke? It was an odd name. Game characters often had strange names, so perhaps it was rather ordinary after all.
"What, you forgot my name? After doing that to me…! That's too much…!"
From the looks of it, Nike seemed to have some connection with this Victor. More than a connection, it felt like she was one-sidedly holding a grudge against him. I wondered what their relationship actually was.
"What exactly did I do to you?"
"You shut down my club. You even took the key…! I barely managed to open that club…."
"I see."
It was the first time I had heard the story. Still, it made sense. If her club had been shut down, resentment was understandable. After all, the club system in Ludens was an excellent way to earn income. There were commercial clubs, workshop clubs, adventure clubs, and… well, countless others, most of them tied to profit-making activities. When I played as the protagonist Luke, I had joined an enormous number of clubs myself.
"It was a club I barely managed to start…."
In that sense, Nike seemed to resent Victor because the club that had been bringing in income had been shut down. Of course, to me it all felt like someone else's story, yet I had plenty of questions. For what reason had it been shut down? For the sake of the main story? It bothered me. Also, what happened to the twin-tail silhouette from the illustration? Why was her hair now a messy, unkempt tangle with nothing but rags left? I was curious. Unable to hold back, I asked.
"Nike. Why are you in the forest at this late hour?"
At my question, Nike, who had at some point begun warming herself naturally by the campfire, flinched.
"W-why? It's not like I'm doing anything illegal. There's no curfew check either. After the club was shut down, I studied the student council rules properly, you know? I'm here completely legally!"
"That may be true, but this is purely personal interest."
"…What? Interest? In me? Why? Don't tell me…."
She wasn't about to misunderstand and think I liked her, was she? In a typical game heroine scenario, this would be the moment she blushed and said something like "Don't tell me you like me?"
"Don't tell me you noticed the forest strawberries in my pocket and want to steal them! These are mine! I'm not giving you any!"
"……."
That was an answer I hadn't expected at all. Was Nike always like this? Without any of Victor's memories, there was no way to know. Even if I had possessed Victor's memories, I probably wouldn't have had much contact with someone like her.
I decided to answer appropriately. "I have no obligation to answer your questions. So if you don't want to talk, you don't have to answer mine either."
"Then I won't answer either!"
"Still, if I had to guess, I'd say that after being kicked out of your club you had no way to earn money, so you were expelled from the dorms and ended up homeless. How's that?"
"Ugh, h-how…."
"So I was right."
It felt amusing, like uncovering a hidden choice. If Victor's personality had been a little softer, he might have laughed right now.
"……."
Come to think of it, I had never seen this Victor fellow laugh. Not even after things turned out this way in the game. Honestly, there had never been anything for him to laugh about. From now on, though, he would probably laugh a lot.
Nike Mokemoke was startled by a scent drifting from somewhere. 'That's the smell of burning Insect-Repelling Grass. Did someone enter the forest?'
No, ordinary Ludens students wouldn't think of entering this forest. During the day was one thing, but at night they would be even less likely to set foot here. The only one who could walk these dark forest paths with any degree of safety was Nike, who came from Reshguard Forest.
Yet there was Victor, sitting before a campfire. Victor, the iron-fisted executor of the student council! 'The culprit who shut down my club…! I can't forgive him…!'
But Victor didn't even remember Nike. From his attitude, it didn't seem like he was lying. He truly appeared to have no recollection. Acting as if they had only just met today. 'Nike Mokemoke. It's my name, but honestly, it's unusual, isn't it? Once you hear it, you shouldn't be able to forget it.'
Of course, student council officers were busy. Dealing with thirty thousand students and seventy thousand island residents, it was inevitable that they couldn't remember every name or face. Nike herself was just one of those thirty thousand—an insignificant, ordinary girl who couldn't even enter the dorms and had to sleep rough in the forest.
Victor, however, was different. The disciplinary committee, where only the most capable student council members could enter. And among them, the executive officers appointed only after their abilities were recognized. Compared to Nike, the gap was as vast as that between a shabby forest strawberry and a melon, a fruit only the wealthy could afford.
Why would such a VIP be in this forest at this hour? 'Could it be true that he was dismissed from the student council…?'
She recalled the Ludens newspaper she had seen lying on the park ground that afternoon. It had reported that Victor had been dismissed. 'Is it real?'
The newspaper club published rumors and speculation as if they were facts, so no one was foolish enough to take what was written at face value. 'But seeing him in this forest where no one comes looking… maybe the article was true after all?'
She was curious. Yet she couldn't bring herself to ask. Victor was frightening. He gave off an atmosphere that made it hard to speak to him. 'They say no one has ever seen that guy smile.'
Just then, Victor spoke. "By the way, how long do you plan on warming yourself at my fire?"
"Y-your fire, my fire—what does that matter? Everything in the forest belongs to everyone."
She tried to brush it off, but she had been caught freeloading off his fire. As someone from Reshguard, Nike possessed considerable wisdom regarding forests and nature, yet she didn't know how to build a fire. 'Father was strict about lighting fires and never taught me how to make a campfire….'
Perhaps because of that, the campfire she was warming herself by after so long felt so pleasant that she didn't want to leave. 'What if he tells me to go away? The fire is so warm…! I don't know how to make one myself….'
She felt a twinge of fear. Victor, however, simply rearranged the campfire with a stick in silence. In that silence, Nike felt a faint sense of gratitude. 'Maybe he's not as bad as I thought?'
'No, he shut down my club! He took the key from my hands and doesn't even remember me. He's definitely a bad person…!'
Her mind was filled with conflicting thoughts. Eventually, one conclusion emerged. 'Why did this guy come here and throw me into such confusion?'
Nike wasn't the type to weigh things carefully. Rather than suffering alone, she decided to ask directly. "Victor, is it true that you were kicked out of the student council?"
Even after saying it, she startled herself. To think she had spoken to the terrifying Victor first. Normally, she never would have been able to. But sharing the same fire made Victor feel oddly familiar, almost like a fellow outcast. 'Still, that was too rude a question. What if he gets angry…?'
She felt a flicker of worry. The answer, however, came surprisingly simply. "Yes. I was kicked out."
"I-I see."
So the newspaper had been telling the truth. In that case, was that other rumor true as well? Asking about it would probably make him furious. Yet the curiosity was too much to bear.
While gathering junk to sell at the park, Nike had overheard a group of dorm girls chattering. Something about someone breaking up, about a broken engagement. It was common for girls their age to be interested in other people's love lives. Nike had always thought it foolish to care about things that didn't make money, but this time was different. The story was simply too unbelievable.
Victorica Arclight. An incredibly wealthy girl. The complete opposite of Nike, who was so ordinary and poor that she couldn't even enter the dorms. Nike had only ever seen Victorica from afar, reading the oath as the freshman representative in her first year, but that alone had been enough to feel it. 'She was incredibly beautiful….'
Silver hair that shimmered, snow-white skin, golden eyes, and an elegant, refined dignity—she had been the very image of a "princess." 'Well, in a way, she really is a princess, isn't she?' The Arclight Archducal House was one of the three ducal families directly descended from the ancient great king. 'Anyway!'
Victorica Arclight possessed everything Nike lacked. The idea that she had broken off an engagement with a woman Nike wasn't even allowed to speak to was incomprehensible. 'The rumor must be false. It's just baseless gossip.'
"Then, about breaking up with Lady Arclight…?"
"You mean Victorica. That is also true."
"What…? That can't be! Why on earth?"
"It seems you didn't hear the reason. Explaining would take too long. It's troublesome."
"Ugh…. Fine. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."
The conversation ended there for a moment. Then Nike suddenly realized something. 'This guy isn't in the student council anymore. He even broke off his engagement with the Arclight family. Seeing him in this forest, he clearly can't enter the dorms either and is struggling just like me. That means we're the same… comrades, aren't we?'
Victor being the same as her. Normally she never would have thought such a thing, but perhaps because of the warmth of the campfire on this chilly night, her mind was spinning. 'He probably doesn't have any food either. Maybe this is the perfect chance to get revenge on Victor for shutting down my club?'
'Gratitude, grudges, and debts must always be repaid.' That was the ironclad rule of Nike Mokemoke, daughter of Reshguard Forest!
Having reached that conclusion, Nike pulled something out of her pocket without hesitation.
Whenever I moved even slightly, Nike would flinch. Now she was rummaging through a basket that looked as though it had been woven from straw and pulling something out. What was that? At a glance, I saw dried meat, dried herbs, and what appeared to be forest strawberries. Upon closer inspection, there were also Tier 1 ingredients that could only be found in this forest, like Spice Grass. Those had a low spawn rate and were hard to obtain—how had she gotten them?
More importantly, why had she suddenly taken them out? The answer was obvious. There was a campfire, so she was going to cook. Combining Spice Grass with Tier 3 Dried Jerky and the other ingredients over a fire would produce a rare dish.
Just as I reached that conclusion based on my veteran experience, Nike popped a herb and a piece of jerky into her mouth. Munch, munch.
"How is it?"
She asked me with a triumphant air, but I had no idea what she meant by "how is it." Eating Spice Grass raw wasn't very effective, so why waste it? When I didn't react, Nike trembled and spoke.
"You must be hungry too, so how does it feel watching me eat alone? If you asked nicely, I might share some. But the disciplinary committee's Victor wouldn't want to ask a lowly student like me for a favor, would he?"
Ah, so that was it. Revenge of some sort, I supposed. According to Nike, Victor was the one who had shut down her club. Still, was this really considered revenge? The revenge I knew was a bit more thorough….
"Hmph."
"What, did you just laugh?"
"Did I laugh?"
"You did! You were mocking me!"
As Nike fumed, I brushed the corner of my mouth. Had Victor just laughed? That was a first. Honestly, it was funny. Compared to the people who came at you with knives, this level was rather entertaining.
Whether because my mood had softened or because watching someone else eat had triggered it, I suddenly felt hungry. Victor's body had quite good stamina, which meant an active metabolism and a high calorie requirement. In truth, my stomach had been growling for a while now. Still, as Ha Seungri, I was more accustomed to hunger than to fullness. I could go several days without eating.
"……."
No, that had caused my health to deteriorate quite a bit. I knew now that skipping meals just because you had no money was foolish. It was better to eat something, anything.
"Could you share some of those with me? Even just the dried jerky would be fine."
"What?"
Nike looked flustered. It was the same reaction as the dorm students I had met earlier. Was it so unbelievable that Victor would ask someone for a favor?
"…Sure, if you're asking. Hehe…, to think Victor would ask me for something…. Pfft. I guess this counts as successful revenge."
After muttering something incomprehensible, Nike handed me one piece of Dried Jerky and one Spice Herb.
"Here, eat. I'm showing you mercy and kindness. By the way, this herb is called Spice Herb. It's really bitter. But if you chew it for a long time, it starts to taste sweet. It's good for your health."
"…Thank you."
I hadn't expected her to give me not only the Tier 3 jerky but also the precious herb that took hours to obtain. Honestly, it was surprising. Yet what swelled in my mind more than surprise was curiosity.
In D&A, combining Spice Herb, Dried Jerky, and one more ingredient would create the Tier 1 dish Luxury Herb Soup. The food effects were excellent. It fully restored HP and granted a stamina buff for one hour. Would it work the same here? Even without the final ingredient, I could probably make the Tier 2 Herb Soup. Still, it was worth attempting. If I was lucky, I might even gain a cooking skill, just like the campfire skill earlier.
With that thought, I couldn't stay still. I poured all of my remaining clean water—practically my entire fortune—into the pot I had washed earlier. Glug, glug, glug, glug. It was a shame, but thinking of it as an investment made it bearable.
After placing the pot over the campfire and bringing the water to a boil, Nike tilted her head in confusion.
"What are you doing now?"
"Can't you tell? I'm making Herb Soup."
"…You're making soup with that bitter herb?"