Chapter 3.2

Chapter 3.2

You can keep doing what you’re doing, but I want you to hear what I have to say……」

「What？」

「I figured I’d apologize while I still can. I’ve been telling a bit of a lie until now. Sorry.」

「What kind of lie？」

「Remember how I initially said that I practically didn’t retain any familiarity with the land here？」

「Come to think of it, ya did say that」

On the third day as they were moving to Wulls, Haruna had definitely said something like that.

「So half of it was true, but half of it was false」

「What’re ya getting at？」

「I can’t easily forget about places I’ve been to once or things I’ve heard or seen. So I actually remember the majority of the geography of Farlane. It’s true that it was more than four years ago when I walked around that area, and that it’s been around two years since I’ve been to Wulls though, so I really don’t know anything about the buildings」

「I seee. But don’tcha think it’s a little weak to say you were lying based off of some buildings? Plus ya really didn’t seem to know the roads very well」

「You’ve been studying me, I see」

「Well yeah, that’s cuz firmly observin’ ‘n keepin’ suspicious feelin’s in the back of yer head is the trick to protectin’ yerself from yer natural enemy」

「Natural enemy……」

Haruna was shocked that Hiroshi would say something like that. Did he seriously hate being with her that much?

「And I ain’t really singlin’ ya out, Toudou-san. I just in principle don’t like to associate with gals」

「……I did get that vibe when you talked to Anne-san or Myuzzel-san」

The first time as well as the recent incident, Hiroshi was after all quite visibly pale and had goosebumps whenever Anne or Myuzzel would get close. The only time when he wasn’t like that would have been when he was focusing mostly on what he was working on. Leaving aside Anne, who could have easily mistaken it for regular anxiety on the first day, Myuzzel likely knew that Hiroshi not only had anthropophobia, but was also suffering from a serious degree of fear toward females.

「Maybe yer the one who’s studying me」

「Well we are in the same boat. If we don’t figure out things about each other like who we are, what we like/dislike, and what kinds of burdens we have, it’ll lead to potential unnecessary trouble and disaster」

「Right. Sorry that ya have to deal with me in the same boat」

「Don’t be silly! I really am glad that you’re my partner, Azuma-kun！」

She panickedly denied what Hiroshi had just mumbled self-depreciatively. In all honesty, it was no exaggeration that she was extremely fortunate to have Hiroshi as her partner in this land where you couldn’t tell your right from your left. Even if he did have gynophobia, that meant she would never have to worry about her chastity being threatened, and even if that weren’t the case, he was the most trustworthy person in this situation, and best of all, he made most things himself. Haruna could not find it in herself to do something as evil as complain about such an amazing partner.

「Don’t hafta be so polite. I’m aware that it’s incredibly rude to ya when I call ya my “natural enemy”」

「I don’t intend to press further, but something crazy must have happened to you before, right? So if that’s how it is then it can’t be helped」

「Sorry ’bout that」

「If anything I’m the one who’s sorry. I want to avoid putting any pressure on you, but I can’t really do anything about……」

「Nah, I say there’s nothing fer ya to apologize about. If anything I almost want ya to say somethin’ like “If yer a man then act like one!”……」

「No, I can’t say that……」

From Haruna’s viewpoint, Hiroshi’s “issue” was at the point where he needed to see a counselor or get psychosomatic medicine. She could seriously feel a sense of danger about his situation, like if she even made one step out of line, he might retreat into being a shut-in or quarantined in a psychosis ward. To be in the same class as him last year and not realize whatsoever that such a precarious person was in her vicinity, she was reminded that she had a long way to go in terms of observation and understanding.

「So, returning back to the other topic. What didja mean by sayin’ that you remembered the way but didn’t remember it as well as ya thought？」

「There’s of course the fact that VR and real life are different things, but the biggest reason is that the terrain was different from how I remembered it」

「I see, I see. Like what？」

When Hiroshi asked that question, she thought of an easy example.

「There was a hill on the way to Wulls, right？」

「Yup」

「Well that wasn’t there in the VR version」

「Ya sure？」

She nodded with a serious face at Hiroshi’s skeptical words. At that time, she had tried acting gung-ho with everything they did, but internally, she had actually been in quite the shock at how clearly different the terrain was from her memories.

「Yeah. The minute we stepped onto the road, the castle gate should have been visible, but I confirmed that the topography was different when I saw that hill blocking the view」

「So when ya tried to previously go in the opposite direction of the road……」

「It was because if we cut through that way, it should have been possible to make a shortcut to Wulls’s northern gates. But if we had gone that way, we would have definitely ended up lost」

「’S that right」

Hiroshi could care less about what she was saying, so he merely went along with the conversation while continuing the excavation. Noticing that, Haruna sighed and cut to the chase.

「So Azuma-kun, how much do you remember about the initial game settings？」

「I’d say practically nothin’」

「Which means you didn’t remember hearing the term “Visitors from the Unknown Continent”?」

「Was that even part of the game？」

「Yeah. By the game’s terms, we’re supposed to have faster growth than that of the average person in this world」

Hiroshi was impressed by Haruna’s recollection. Although he had said that he didn’t remember trifling details about statuses so that the conversation would go by smoothly, it went without saying that he certainly had a firm grasp on Haruna’s statuses and the lower decimal points of her skill levels. Although there wasn’t really any use remembering them…

「Well, if ya think ’bout it, even if ya pack in twenty years o’ trainin’, it don’t mean that yer skill level will rise proportionately」

「Yeah. I agree. So leaving aside the fact that we can use the abilities we learned in-game, the next issue is whether abilities or skills can still grow quickly」

「Yer right. But before that we hafta figure out how we even check that. Not like we can just check our statuses like before」

「Very true. Even if we were to test it out by practicing, it’s not like we can tell the difference without an objective way of measuring it」

「There wasn’t never any significant difference between raising one or two attributes after all」

Haruna nodded wryly as she watched Hiroshi digging into the cliff. Before she knew it, there were a large amount of boulders rolled over at Hiroshi’s feet. He appeared to be differentiating them as he dug, since looking closely, there were two mountains of boulders that had formed.

「And anyway, even if we did train, when attributes get higher, the time it takes to gain points and the growth rate for one session just get worse ‘n worse」

「Mhm. That’s another problem all right. I mean, I bet our parameters are quite a bit higher than the average person even if we’re at the lowest」

In the game of Fairy Tale Chronicle, there were three crucial methods for raising attributes without equipment revision. They were raising your character level, raising your skill level, and doing a task that trains the attribute you wish to raise. There were exceptions among expendable rare drops like ones that permanently raised an attribute point by one, but these were the rarest of rares in the game and only four had been found in five years, so there wasn’t much point in listing them.

Incidentally, it was possible for Hiroshi to make said items, but because of the astronomical toll it took on ingredients, he had never made them. There was also the possibility of raising attributes through quest bonuses from time to time, but not only were these scarce; they had a high hurdle of which you had to have completed every grand quest from the second chapter onward, so it was safe to say that it also wasn’t an optimal method.

At a time like this, merely raising a specific ability could only be done by doing tasks related to using your lowest-priority attributes. Since you typically raised attributes when levelling up based on skills or prior tendencies and automatically allotted points to those attributes, low abilities would always be low. And the attribute bonus that you could get from raising your skill points generally strengthened two or more abilities. Also, since the actual task of training your skills was also connected to attribute training, it wasn’t unusual to suddenly find your attributes raised without regard to skill point bonuses.

As you can see, even in the game, where it was relatively easier to do what you pleased than in reality, you still couldn’t perfectly control things while looking at your status, so there was no way that in this reality you could just blindly train without an idea of what your stats were. There would be no way to check for growth.

「In the first place, you weren’t able to subjectively see any effects in ‘FairChro’ until after ten or so attribute points, and yet from everyone else’s point of view, even one point higher made a significant difference」

「Is that right？」

「Yeah. For example, if you had a strength of around 150, then once it increased to 151, basic attack power would go up by about 15. From your own standpoint it would be just 15 measly points, but in terms of weapons, that would be like your attack power having a starter knife added to it. Then when your strength gets to be 300, your basic attack power would increase by 30 or so. It may not seem like a big deal, but when you compare the two proportionately, the average person would see a severe difference with even one point, wouldn’t they？」

「That they would. But wow, Toudou-san. You really know your miniscule number details」

「It’s cause there was a time when I worked together with an acquaintance in order to calculate the correlation between attributes and derivation parameters. By the way, the volume zone at the start of service was from 120 to 180 in terms of character level, and the lowest attributes were from around 150 to 200」

「Which is why ya made the example with attribute points of 150」

「Exactly」

When Hiroshi had stopped digging to marvel at her, Haruna puffed her chest out as she answered a bit pridefully. Speaking of character levels, Haruna herself would also be in the volume zone. Leaving aside the influence of extra skills, attribute points were the highest at 250. Having mastered severe training with support magic and cooking as well as having mastered extra skills relating to lifestyle, her attributes had surpassed the volume zone and were in the lower top category. She had a vast amount of skills that she had learned, and it was impressive to think that she could raise multiple skills in just one battle.

Without skill modifiers, the growth rate for attributes would suddenly worsen once it got past 30, and once it was past 50, there would no longer even be growth apart from levelling up and skill bonuses. Then around 70, levelling up would no longer increase attribute points, and then once past 100 in terms of base points, they would almost not rise at all when levelling up. Since even skills when mastered could only get a total of 15 modifiers, nearly everyone’s attribute points would cap at 200.

This bonus, with the exception of crafting skills, advanced support magic, and every extra skill, was larger than anything else. Each of them had a ridiculous amount of attribute point modifiers that corresponded to difficulty of acquisition or difficulty of training.

Above all, extra skills had a vast amount of modifiers, and mastering them would already give you 4 regular attack-related advanced skills as a bonus. Of course, this only meant that the attribute points with the largest amount of modifiers were high, and it wasn’t like there was a huge difference between the things that rose via support as opposed to normal skills. After all, there was pretty much no skill that only raised one attribute.

Of course, by the time you became enough of a shut-in to where you got to Level 500 or 800, you would easily have enough attribute points to strike 500, 600, etc. In addition to the amount of training compared to the density being different, it was normal to take all of the quest bonuses.