66. Cave of the Demon-Possessed Dwarf
66. Cave of the Demon-Possessed Dwarf
***
With the Part 2 editor selection wrapped up, Serin parted her lips to take a short break.
"Then we'll rest for about ten minutes before moving on to Part 3 with Another World."
With those words, she checked the time and saw that evening had already slipped well past seven.
Normally it would have been time to end the stream, but more than anything else, I hated the idea of ending it without playing Another World.
So today, I planned to keep the stream going a little longer.
I decided to skip dinner entirely until after the stream and lean toward enjoying the game more.
"..."
For the next ten minutes, Serin simply leaned back in her chair, spaced out, and stayed still.
With no thoughts, no worries, and even every thought about the editor she'd just finished with wiped clean, she simply closed her eyes.
"..."
Then she drew a deep breath and slowly let it out.
The soft sound of Serin's breathing faintly brushed against the microphone, faded, then repeated.
This was one of the rest methods Serin used when there were too many things on her mind or too much to do right away.
I could simply stop thinking and lean back somewhere. That put my mind at ease.
Then, once she felt the set time had arrived, Serin slowly opened her eyes.
"Ah. Ahh."
She let out a meaningless sound and immediately connected the stream to Another World.
She gathered her dazed mind and spoke.
"If any of you were waiting for Part 3 specifically to watch the Arena, let me start by apologizing."
If I played the Arena in my current state, I'd just be taking out my frustrations. Rather than enjoying myself, I felt like I'd just be dumping my emotions on other people. That was why I told them so.
I wasn't feeling anything in particular at the moment, but experience had taught me that when I was tired, dealing with people made me irritable. So I changed course and decided not to do the Arena.
Lately, I'd been pushing myself through an overly packed schedule. I felt like I might end up venting the stress that had built up on other people for no good reason, and that would probably make for an ugly scene.
During what was supposed to be a ten-minute break just now, I'd simply blanked out, and in the end I naturally realized it.
I was a little worn out.
My body hadn't been in great shape to begin with, so physical fatigue was part of it, but more than that, I felt like I'd taken on a lot of mental strain in a short period. Over just a few days, I'd had far more than one or two things to think about.
So I decided that after ending today's stream, I'd just rest all day tomorrow.
'Right. Things got busy all of a sudden.'
What had started with me taking on work to adapt to this world had, at some point, grown beyond control, and now my days were far too busy.
It wasn't that I disliked this life of being around people and thinking about communities and streamers.
I didn't dislike it.
I just wanted to swing my Crescent-Moon Weight without thinking about anything right now.
"Today, I'm only going to hunt monsters in Another World. I just felt like cutting down monsters without thinking about anything... To those of you who were waiting for the Arena, I'll properly stick to the schedule from next time. But today, I'd appreciate it if you'd cut me some slack."
Still, in case anyone had been waiting, I brought it up beforehand. I had changed the schedule I'd announced when I started the stream. But even knowing that, I really wasn't in the mood for the Arena right now.
[Mob hunting?]
[The Arena's a shame... but I'm curious about the mob hunting too]
[Rankers don't usually show themselves hunting]
[They say party hunting tires you out fast so they don't do it]
[They broadcast raids, but party hunting gets people killed constantly so they don't like showing it]
[Am I the only one curious whether Rin moves like she's dancing when she hunts too?]
[But where does someone like Rin even go to hunt?]
[Good mechanics can cover your stats, but Rin's beyond that, so wouldn't she just go somewhere like Chimera Forest?]
[Right, where's she gonna go]
Fortunately, the viewers didn't show any bad feelings about what I said. If anything, their reactions were full of anticipation about the hunting.
"I think I'll pick a hunting ground after I log in."
With those words, I lay down in the capsule.
Soon, along with the familiar sensation of being enveloped, my vision darkened once again.
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***
Neigh!
Along with a horse's whinny, a pure white horse rubbed its mane against my hand.
"...Are all of your horses like this too?"
Seeing that, I asked without thinking.
[Yeah mine does that too]
[It's a mount, so of course it shows affection to its owner]
[Why are you acting like it's new lol]
[Isn't that kind of cute?]
[Fr I summon my horse and hang out with it when I have nothing to do]
[Lol lots of people with nothing to do]
[No but seriously, they made the mounts so well that it's basically like playing with animals at a pet cafe lol]
Looking at the chat, it seemed this horse definitely wasn't acting this way only toward me.
Well, it was probably just a game system, but that was a little disappointing.
The horse rubbing its mane against me now was an 'Arianat'.
Simply put, it was a horse with wings.
It looked similar to a unicorn, but unlike a unicorn with a horn, the difference was that this white horse had no horn on its head.
I stroked the horse's mane for a bit, then slowly climbed onto it.
"Ah."
Then, just as I was about to manipulate the world map, something else came to mind first.
I'd equipped the new gear Sua had given me, so my stats had naturally changed along with it.
And I remembered that I'd never shown my detailed stats to the viewers before.
"Before we head to the hunting ground, let me share my status window with you first."
I manipulated the hologram to set the status window to public, then opened it wide.
*
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Nickname: Rin (rinhh)
Class: Dancer.
Title: Blood-Crazed Dancer.
Level: 65.
Guild: -
Total Equipped Attack Power: 1012
Top 4.41% of all users
Total Equipped Defense: 1105.
Top 12.42% of all users
Max HP: 4552.
—Selected Traits.
Indomitable Will(?) Vital Strike(?) Madness(?)
—Weapon Proficiency.
Crescent-Moon Weight 590. Greatsword 124. Crossbow 0. One-Handed Sword 0. Crossbow 0. Bow 0 — Expand proficiency for other weapons.
————————
*
[Holy shit]
[Level 65?]
[Those stats are insane lol]
[What the hell kind of gear did Plea give her? lol]
[Her current look is exactly the gear Plea gave her, what even is that item level]
[When she showed up on Hana's stream I thought it was a lie that she only hunted monsters, but seeing the level it was real lol]
[How many tens of thousands... no, at level 65 hasn't she killed like hundreds of thousands?]
[How did you even level up? Seriously]
[At that point isn't the skill point grind done, with almost every skill maxed and points left over?]
[So this is why Rin uses every skill lol]
"...Well, I really have killed a lot of monsters."
I couldn't know how many monsters the 'me' of this world had slaughtered, but in another world, I'd certainly killed a lot.
Though I wasn't sure whether all of that had carried over. Judging by the chat reaction, level 65 seemed like a sufficiently high level.
After that, I manipulated the hologram and opened the world map.
I noticed that hunting grounds matching my stats were highlighted.
But most of them were party hunting grounds.
I couldn't easily spot places suited for hunting alone.
So I filtered out areas one by one and picked places worth going.
—Domain of the Black Centaurs.
—Dwarves' Failed Creation: Giant Golem.
—Cave of the Demon-Possessed Dwarf.
After excluding party hunting grounds, those three places looked like the hunting grounds that matched my stats.
"Looking now, the solo hunting grounds that match my stats are the Domain of the Black Centaurs, the Dwarves' Failed Creation: Giant Golem, and the Cave of the Demon-Possessed Dwarf. Where should we go?"
Since I was planning to take a streaming hiatus tomorrow, I opened my mouth in as gentle a voice as possible and asked for opinions.
[Aren't all three of those actually party hunting grounds?]
[Centaurs maybe, but aren't the other two party hunting grounds?]
[Lol I thought I misheard about solo hunting grounds]
[The dwarf gankfest, I killed a few there during a quest and it's really lol]
[Centaurs are also awkward to solo, you touch one and they all aggro and shoot arrows from range;]
[Yeah centaurs are bad for solo too, honestly all the places Rin mentioned are unsuitable for solo]
[Giant Golem is a place you only hunt in parties because it's hard to hit the core stuck in the center gap]
[What's with everyone suddenly backseating like this is their moment lol]
[Rin's room has a ton of veterans lol]
[Fr I haven't even been to any of those places, how does everyone know so much]
"...?"
Looking at the chat, I was seized by a small question.
I'd thought they were marked separately because they were solo hunting grounds, but reading the chat, even those places were party hunting grounds.
No, then practically all the appropriate hunting grounds on the world map were party hunting grounds.
'Let's just go.'
I figured I'd find out if I just went and faced it directly.
It was different from the world of Black Ark, but how different could monsters really be?
On top of that, if it was a party hunting ground, the monsters would be harder than in ordinary hunting grounds.
Which meant it would probably be more fun.
"Then I'll open a vote for one minute. Which of the three places we should go."
So I opened a poll, made three options, and started the vote right away.
*
————
1. Domain of the Black Centaurs.
2. Dwarves' Failed Creation: Giant Golem.
3. Cave of the Demon-Possessed Dwarf.
————
*
The result of the short one-minute vote.
'Cave of the Demon-Possessed Dwarf' recorded the most votes.
"The dwarf's cave. I'll head there, then."
[Lol no but that's bad]
[She's really going alone?]
[The moment you enter there you can't form a party because of a system restriction, so if you're going you really need to party up beforehand]
[If it's Rin, maybe it's possible lol]
[Looking at Rin's reaction, she doesn't seem to know about the dwarf bastards]
[The viewers teamed up and deliberately picked a nasty place lol]
[Honestly, aren't you curious how far mechanics can carry you?]
[No this isn't a mechanics problem, seriously lol]
[Yeah just experience it and you'll know it's awful lol]
[Anyone who's been to the dwarf bastards knows lol]
[Here come the fake dwarf-cave vets again. The dwarf cave has insanely high stat requirements, but everyone's acting like every random player has been there. Come on.]
Seeing how lively the chat was, it looked like quite an entertaining hunting ground.
Anyway, I was planning to swing my Crescent-Moon Weight at monsters as a way to vent my emotions too.