[Die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yuri-chan!]
“—W-what the hell’s up with this dude…? He’s going deep with the pink, way too flashy! Feel like I’m getting plainer standing next to him…”
“Pleasure to meet you♡.”
“Err, you okay? Here, let me rub your back.”
“Uuu, thank youuu…!”
Yario was overwhelmed by Merlin, and Crutteruo took care of Alice.
What a mess. Never thought I’d meet them again in a place like this.
“You two better be careful. They’re on the ‘Goddess’ side’”
““Huh?!””
Yario and Crutteruo put some distance between them in a flash. Talk about impressive reaction speed.
With their weapons at the ready, they glared at Merlin and Alice.
“So they’re enemies…! I thought they were your friends since the dude’s talking overfamiliarly.”
“That reminds me, the shortie’s the one who attacked Master together with Pendragon…!”
The air was filled with hostility in no time.
Just as Yario and Crutteruo were about to attack, Merlin raised his hands with a wry smile. “Stop…! We surrender, just like Pendragon-chan did the other day. While I’d love to fight the two of you, your boss is way out of my league…” Merlin glanced at me while sweating coldly.
That was a shame. His fighting style was pretty interesting, so I wouldn’t mind having a rematch with him.
“Fine, I’ll let you keep your lives for now.”
“You really were going to kill us…?! Are you still mad at me for betraying you…?”
“Haha, no way. I’m grateful to you, in fact. Pontaro and the gang were able to evolve thanks to the information you gave me. But since we’re in different camps, isn’t it only natural that it’s kill or be killed between us?”
“Eek, you’re still scary as ever…!”
With that, we agreed to a ceasefire.
Then again, if it was someone else and not Merlin, I would have killed them without question, but he was an ‘informant’. It’d be very helpful to have him around.
“With that out of the way, why don’t you spit out all information you’ve got about this island now? By the way, if you refuse…!”
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you! So please stop approaching me while grinning with those dead eyes!” Merlin backed away while waving his hands.
After clearing his throat, he began to talk about the backstory of ‘King Vortigern’s Cursed Island’.
–There was once a mad old king named ‘Vortigern’.
He had perverse love for magic experiments and wouldn’t shy away from using his people as guinea pigs in his experiments.
This caused his people to outrage and rebel. As a result, Vortigern fled and holed up on this island.
The curse that halved our stats and the dark plant-type monsters inhabiting the island apparently came about from his magic, too.
“—According to a legend passed down in a certain village, there are rapids where one will die without a corpse if one falls into them.
“That was the hint that led me to discover this place. King Vortigern is said to have been swept away by the said rapids and died while he was on the run, but since then, there will sometimes be corpses of dark plant-based creatures, which have an uncanny resemblance to his man-made monsters, washed ashore from the sea. This suggests that he may still be alive.”
“Oh, speaking of which, you did say you can’t get here without getting thrown into the whirlpool at the speed of 60MPH.”
“Yup. Seems like the perverted bastard cast a spell on the whirlpool~. Only those who meet the stupid conditions will be able to use the whirlpool as a teleportation gate, which otherwise will spell a certain death. I tried to enter it normally once for verification purposes and ended up drowning to death…”
“You’re reckless, alright. This isn’t the best time to get the death penalty when the war is only a few days away.”
I couldn’t get a grasp of what was going on in his mind.
Still, one thing I was certain of was that he was seriouswhen it came to collecting information. The other day, a group of people from some speculation thread had joined the Demon King’s side, and according to them, “Merlin-san has been to all kinds of VR games in his pursuit of uncovering every mystery there is. He’s contributed countless pieces of information on the BSO’s guide site, too,” so they had told me proudly.
Maybe I had unknowingly benefitted from the information he’d shared.
“Man, I find it a real pity now. I’d love to have you on my side.”
“My, the feeling is mutual. I never get tired of seeing you constantly coming up with new fighting styles.
“…But you see~, Rindou-san, the goddess of VR technology, went out of her way to find me in real life and personally asked me to join her… and I love VR games, so I just had to accept her invitation…”
Huh? Rindou? Wasn’t that the name of the person who ushered VRMMO era by creating the Full Dive system? That won her Nobel Prize, too.
She used to show up on TV when I was a kid.
“…Eh, Pendragon is Rindou?!”
“Ah–no, no, no! What I meant to say was she asked me to join Pendragon, not her! Hohoho…!”
“Hmm~.”
Well, I’d let him get away for now, but if Pendragon truly was the creator of Full Dive system, that would explain a lot of things.
In order to move your avatar freely, having great senses wouldn’t be enough. You also needed experience. In that respect, Pendragon’s attacks were too fast and too sharp, and her ingenuity in creating schemes to corner me was out of the world. But if she was the top scholar that created the Full Dive system, everything would make sense.
…And from the way she left her parting words after I thwarted her schemes, I got a feeling she wasn’t used to it.
“Heh… she’ll make a tough opponent. To defeat her, I’ll conquer this old castle and grow even stronger!”
“Better not let your guard down, Yuri-chan. Vortigern is one nasty guy if stories about him are any indication. He loves his traps and takes pleasure in people falling for and suffering from them.”
“Thanks for the reminder, I’ll keep it in mind. Now let’s enter the castle…!”
With that, I put my hand on the doorknob—but suddenly, I felt a prick in my hand.
When I took back my hand and looked closely at the doorknob…
“…Hey, there’s a thumbtack stuck on it…”
“Ah~… that’s probably one of Vortigern’s traps, isn’t it?”
“–?!”
At that moment, there was a *snap* from my forehead…!
I made a huge summoning formation appeared under my feet, and yelled at the bastard in the castle! “W-why the hell did you set this kind of trap, you bastaaaard?! What are you, a grade-schooler?! Dieeeee!!!!!!”
“Groaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!”
I summoned the giant monster ‘Gigantic Dragon Plant’!
In a fit of anger, I ordered Gigataro to fire massive heat rays at the castle where ‘King Vortigern’ resided!
