Chapter 88
For this installment, please read it in dark mode for the best presentation!
===
I was blankly scanning the list.
The list was packed with entries, enough to require scrolling down several times.
-???-Grade Reward Selection Ticket-
[Choose one of the items below!]
1.Acquire Good Deed Points(10000p)
2.Damaged Item Repair Ticket×1
3.Broken Item Restoration Ticket×1
4.Item Rank Downgrade Ticket×1
5.Spatial Leap Ticket×1
6.■■■■ ■(???)
7.■ ■■(???)
.
.
.
28.■■■■■■(???)
29.■■■ ■■(???)
30.■■(???)
“······.”
I spent quite some time examining the status window.
Several items at the top caught my eye, and···.
‘······What are the mosaicked ones below?’
Could they even be called mosaics?
From number 6 onward, the letters were severely corrupted.
Thanks to that, there was no way to tell what rewards were being offered from this screen.
‘That’s strange.’
What kind of intention was behind laying out a selection for me, only to hide the contents?
No, to begin with, was it really the system that had hidden the letters?
I had always thought the system was intuitive and easy to understand···.
Since the status window had acted strangely several times before, my suspicions had needlessly begun to drift in that direction.
‘Is there something here?’
I quietly put my mind to work.
I believed the system had been fairly friendly toward me until now.
It had never withheld a reward, and whenever there was something I didn’t know, it had displayed a gentle explanation.
‘Does this mean it’s an item I’m not allowed to have?’
An item I shouldn’t get my hands on?
But if so, wouldn’t the problem have been solved by simply leaving it out of the reward list in the first place?
Why make it possible to select it normally, then cover it up as though telling me not to choose it?
‘Or maybe it really is just a simple error···.’
I let out a short groan.
Maybe I was thinking about it too deeply.
To confirm it properly, I would have to press one after all.
‘Surely it won’t be selected the moment I press it.’
My finger moved across the screen.
I clicked one of the heavily corrupted rewards nearest to me.
Ding-!
[Would you like to select reward 29, ‘■■■ ■■(???)’?]
[Yes/No]
The message appeared perfectly normally.
Apart from the reward’s contents, nothing else seemed to be corrupted.
Even so, it felt too unsettling to dismiss as a simple error.
Just as I was about to click the back button,
[Are you really sure you want to select this reward?]
[Yes/
No
]
[Really
want
to se
lect
this
re
wa
r
d?]
[Yes/
No
]
[
Really
want to
se
lect th
is re
w
a
r
d
?]
[Yes/
No
]
The message suddenly began to writhe.
Immediately afterward, the screen was dyed pitch-black.
The letters tore apart grotesquely.
Smeared red fragments combined, assembling themselves into several sentences.
The screen flickered.
“······.”
The same sequence as the previous few times.
It soon stopped running wild, and the status window quickly returned to its usual appearance.
The screen shamelessly returned to its ordinary blue glow, as though nothing had happened.
I quietly looked down at that screen.
‘This···.’
Something was different.
This wasn’t like the previous outbursts, which had only spewed incomprehensible words.
Even amid the chaos, there had been a few words I could understand.
The message the status window had been trying to convey.
Do not press it.
Find out something.
‘When it says not to press it, does it mean the rewards erased by the mosaics?’
There seemed to be something there, at least.
It had also said to find out something, but there wasn’t enough information to piece together what that meant.
I fell into thought.
My finger habitually tapped the edge of the mask.
‘■■■. This was mentioned again too.’
Was it a name, after all?
Someone’s name, or a word referring to something.
I searched my thoughts for a long while, but nothing plausible came to mind.
‘Victor? The name I used in my previous life? It doesn’t seem to be any of those···.’
Was it even a way of addressing me in the first place?
The message was still floating before my eyes.
[Are you really sure you want to select this reward?]
[Yes/No]
We held eye contact for a moment.
In the end, I clicked the back button.
Even if it was suspicious, I couldn’t ignore the status window’s warning.
‘For now, I’ll take it to heart.’
The system had helped me several times in the past.
Starting from the very first day of my sudden possession.
If the status window hadn’t helped me, I would have been found as a corpse in a back alley long ago.
Having benefited from the system all this time, I decided to heed its advice this time as well.
‘■■■.’
I felt I would have to investigate this separately.
As it happened, I knew a place where I might be able to find related information.
‘The timing is perfect.’
An upcoming event.
It was located not far from the destination of our field trip.
I could slip away during the schedule and gather information.
‘This is complicated. So complicated.’
Why was there so much to think about?
I quickly sorted through my thoughts.
I had secured a clue, so all that remained was to wait for the field trip to begin.
There was nothing more I could do for now.
‘I should finish choosing my rewards···.’
I scanned the screen once more.
Even if they had felt unsettling for a moment, refusing a reward being offered would only put me at a disadvantage.
Excluding the mosaicked ones, I checked the entries I could select.
‘For now··· it looks like I can see up to number 5.’
-Selection Ticket-
1.Acquire Good Deed Points(10000p)
2.Damaged Item Repair Ticket×1
3.Broken Item Restoration Ticket×1
4.Item Rank Downgrade Ticket×1
5.Spatial Leap Ticket×1
Every item on the list caught my eye.
They were items I had never seen in the original game.
‘It’s hard to imagine the original game secretly had items I didn’t know about, so are these original items from the status window···?’
I slowly read through their descriptions.
The Good Deed Points amounted to a whopping ten thousand.
That was enough to acquire only by saving the lives of no fewer than five hundred people.
During the last [Eclipse], I had spent 6,300 points to raise my Agility stat by seven ranks all at once.
‘Even if I use that much this time, I’ll have 2,700 points left.’
That was enough to raise a single E-grade stat all the way to B grade.
I could feel the difference in the letters, but when I thought about it more deeply, still···.
‘It would be a waste.’
Ten thousand points seemed like a lot right now, but would it still seem that way later?
Game events naturally grew larger as the story progressed.
As the scale grew, the number of people I needed to save would grow as well.
That meant there would be plenty of opportunities to sweep up points in bulk in the future.
‘Besides, the field trip is coming up soon······.’
In academy stories, accidents happening during a field trip were practically an unwritten rule.
The original was no different.
A major incident was waiting for us even on this upcoming field trip.
In that sense, choosing the Good Deed Points now would be like throwing a precious selection ticket onto the ground.
‘I can accumulate Good Deed Points little by little, but I don’t know when I’ll get another chance at the other entries.’
The Spatial Leap Ticket was out too.
It was an item I could cover with Wall Clipping.
Besides, since it was single-use, it seemed to offer less value than the other entries.
‘If I’m choosing one···.’
It has to be this one.
Ding-!
[Would you like to select reward 2, ‘Damaged Item Repair Ticket×1’?]
[Yes/No]
A Damaged Item Repair Ticket.
It was intuitive and immediately useful to me.
Without hesitation, I clicked the [Yes] button.
Immediately afterward, accompanied by a clear mechanical chime, a thin ticket appeared in the palm of my hand.
Ding-!
[Damaged Item Repair Ticket×1]
-Category:???
-Grade:???
-Attribute:???
-Description: Repairs damaged items. This ticket is not bound by grade or attribute and can be applied to any item whose condition is not intact. Tear the ticket to activate its effect.
‘Good.’
I closed the reward list as it was.
I would save the remaining selection ticket for later.
It wasn’t that I would never use it; I had thought of a way to use it more efficiently later.
Since I couldn’t put that method into practice right away, I would have to sit tight until the conditions were in place.
‘And now, the last one···.’
Ding-!
[Sub Quest Cleared!]
-Title: I’ll Stand at the Flag
-Description: Win the practical exam ‘Capture the Flag’ by an overwhelming margin.
[You put on an amazing performance and led the match to victory!]
-A reward has been issued. Please check your inventory.
It was a reward that came with winning the practical exam.
I slowly read through the description of the item I had received.
Ding-!
[Unbreakable Flagpole]
-Category:Accessory
-Grade:B+
-Status:Pristine
-Description: A flag that flutters vigorously. When activated, it increases the abilities of all allies within a 100-meter radius by 25%. This effect also applies to subordinate entities controlled by allies, such as summons, spirit beasts, and clones.
‘Oh.’
This item increased the morale of my allies.
An item that raised all their abilities by a full 25%.
Besides, it said the buff also applied to subordinate entities controlled by allies···.
‘It should pair well with Alice.’
Alice, who commanded the Nightmare Legion.
I could apply the full buff to them as well.
Thinking of it that way, the item’s potential ceiling was practically limitless.
‘Alice will keep growing.’
Was the system really rewarding me so generously for overwhelming the top student?
It was handing out excellent rewards left and right.
I smiled in satisfaction.
‘Good.’
I had grown even stronger.
I would never stop growing.
Are you afraid of Victor’s growth, Neugme?
Are you Neugmes afraid of Victor’s development?
“Heh heh.”
I looked down at the single ticket in my hand.
Damaged Item Repair Ticket×1
I decided to use this one immediately, without hesitation.
As for what I would use it on, that had been decided from the moment I drew it.
Ding-!
[Black Mist]
-Category:Exclusive Weapon
-Grade:A+
-Status:Unstable
-Description: A weapon forged from the scales of a corrupted dragon. It has undergone reforging and purification, but still retains a slightly rough quality.
Wriggler.
It was my exclusive weapon, currently wrapped around my hand in the form of a gauntlet.
I had used it well until now, but the status [Unstable] had always bothered me.
I had wondered whether it could grow further, but I hadn’t known how, so I had been unable to do anything about it.
‘Of course, that was how it worked in the original game too.’
Wriggler’s maximum growth had ended here.
Countless players had tried to change that [Unstable] status to [Pristine], but no one had succeeded.
Then the description of the repair ticket caught my eye.
‘It isn’t bound by grade or attribute, and can be applied to any item whose condition isn’t intact···.’
Wasn’t that a description made specifically for Wriggler?
Just in case, I held the ticket up to it, and it was marked [Eligible Target].
Unable to hide my excitement, I transformed Wriggler into its original scythe form.
“Ignition. Scythe.”
Sliiide-.
Wriggler became a pitch-black scythe and settled into my arms.
Without bothering to hesitate, I tore the ticket right in front of it.
Riiip-!
At the same time, a blue screen appeared.
Along with the status window’s notification, intense light leaked out between the torn halves of the ticket.
Ding-!
[The ticket ‘Damaged Item Repair Ticket×1’ has been used!]
[Repairing the designated exclusive weapon ‘Black Mist(A+)’!]
[The item’s status has changed to ‘Pristine’!]
Whoooosh-!
A flash flooded the white infirmary.
The ticket’s effect obscured my vision.
The intense light left me unable to see even an inch in front of me.
The other students staying in the infirmary with me seemed flustered as well.
“W-wha···? Suddenly, this strange light···?!”
“Sir Victor···?!”
Regardless, the messages before my eyes continued to update.
Phrases I had never seen before poured out in a flood.
Ding-!
[The condition of the exclusive weapon ‘Black Mist’ has been restored!]
[The grade of the exclusive weapon ‘Black Mist’ has increased!]
[A growth option has been added to the exclusive weapon ‘Black Mist’!]
[Exclusive weapon ‘Black Mist’ skill 3 is now available!]
Ding-!
[The exclusive weapon ‘Black Mist’ has gained sentience!]
[The exclusive weapon ‘Black Mist’ recognizes you as its guardian!]
A brief commotion.
The notifications rang out several more times before finally falling silent.
At the same time, the light faded, and the ticket scattered into dust.
I slowly opened my eyes, which I had kept shut.
“Ugh···.”
My eyes stung from being flash-blinded.
I had been frowning, but suddenly I could do nothing except freeze in place.
“······?”
Wriggle, wriggle-.
It was because I felt some foreign sensation in my arms.
My gaze unconsciously dropped to my chest.
And I met a pair of black pupils.
A girl with the appearance of a child around ten years old.
She had a mysterious atmosphere, as though she resembled the night sky.
Instead of a scythe, a young girl was nestled in my arms.
She blinked several times, then soon smiled brightly and hugged me tightly.
“Dad!”
“What?”
The title came out of nowhere.
Before I could even process my bewilderment, the status window displayed the girl’s information.
Ding-!
[Black Mist]
-Category:Ego Weapon
-Grade:S-
-Status:Pristine
-Description: A weapon that possesses a self. It serves and follows its user as both master and parent. Please give it a new name.
I could only stand there, frozen blankly.
Dad?
Me?
Then who’s Mom···?