ShangriLa Frontier ~ Shitty Games Hunter Challenges Godly Game ~

「My significance is unwavering. And my believes have not changed ever since that day. I am a mountain. I am a wall. I am a gate…… Humans, if you desire to move on towards the future, your way leads past me. And you have no other choice but to overcome me on your journey.」

「I see, so that’s how it is…… Then, I am afraid that together with my comrades we shall point our blades towards your throat one of these days.」

「A human who managed to best the Gravekeeper in combat, and who managed to overcome the horrors hidden within the depths of the Abyss…… to see someone like that join forces with a human to whom I have given my Reverse Scale…… Interesting. Truly, truly interesting!」

The Dragon King laughs from the bottom of his heart, looking as though he was having so much fun. And his friend…… his formerly gray but now white fluffy ears gently sway in the light breeze.

「Very well, then. If you wish to go beyond me, you will have to trample over me and end my reign. And opposing you is my duty as a Dragon King. Let us teach those Dragon Disaster bastards what a true dragon really is!」

It was at this exact moment that the Third Stage of the World Quest officially changed its name. It was no longer the “The Great War of the Falling Gold”.

From now on it was going to be the war between the dragons of the present times and their king, who has ruled them for ages now, with humans all over the world getting caught in the crossfire…… “Dragon Disaster War”.

「School is…… so dull…… No, let’s try to be positive here. Maybe that feeling of dullness is what makes me want to go to school in the first place? If I think like that and convince myself that it is true, then maybe it won’t be so bad……

No, let’s stop that. Or otherwise something downright masochistic is going to awaken deep inside of me.

Today cicadas are noisy as well. It is not all that surprising to hear them around since it is still September. We should all actually pay tribute to them, since they are animals who keep giving it their absolute all from the moment they are born until the moment they die.

「…… Presence!」

I turn myself around, only to find that no one was there. Hmm…… There is this really nasty feeling inside of me that when I am going to turn back towards where I was going, something bad is going to happen. And sure enough, when I turn around I was greeted with a sudden “Good morning!”

「UWOOOOAAHHH!?」

In front!? How!? How did Saiga—san managed to appear from the direction that I was looking towards a mere seconds ago!? Could it be this is some sort of a secret event!? One that would trigger without actually being shown on the mini map!?

「G-Good morning, Saiga-san……」

There is a new kind of theory that starts to bloom inside of me: Saiga-san Fixed Encounter Theory. But I keep silent about it and just casually return the greeting.

It is somewhat strange just how high my encounter rate with Saiga-san has been as of late, but considering that we have a common destination that is in the same direction, there is nothing strange about it. So today we walk together to school once more.

「…… Umm, umm.」

「Hm?」

「You see…… Hizutome-kun, can I ask you for advice……?」

「Advice?」

Advice from me? But why me of all people? If it is about broken or malfunctioning VR system I can offer some limited advice, sure. But would it not been better to just go to the professional repair point? Or contact the manufacturer directly? Things like that are better not to be left to complete amateurs.

No, if it was something like that, she would not want to talk to me about it. She would go to the manufacturer directly. For sure.

「Umm…… It would be, about games……」

「Could it be something about ShanFro again?」

「That is right, but that is also not quite right……」

Hmm, the way she put it was really weird, but it should generally be something ShanFro related, right?

「You see, actually……」

I will try to summarize here what Saiga-san confined in me.

Right about now, Saiga-san is imposing a certain quota onto herself when it comes to ShanFro. And for that reason, she is trying to do certain tasks to be as efficient as possible. But truth to be told, doing the same tasks over and over again tend to get repetitive over time.

That is why she wanted to ask me how to address that problem, because she heard from Iwamaki-san that I play a lot of different games and that I should be able to know how to combat a problem like that.

So she wanted me to tell her just how could she make even such mundane and repetitive tasks more enjoyable for herself.

A side note here. All this time I was getting a feeling like she was repeating some lines that she had memorized prior to this “event”, but it did not matter for me all that much.

「Daily tasks…… Daily tasks, huh……?」

As a matter of fact, when it comes to VR games…… It is really tough to manage daily tasks properly, especially since the dawn of Full Dive system.

After all, you need to focus on playing and doing only that, with no option of doing something else in real life at the same time. At least if it was a normal “old school game”, you could browse the Internet or listen to music at the same time, or do basically whatever you would want.

But with games such as ShanFro, you cannot really do such a thing anymore. So then it comes to Full Dive games, there are really two types of patterns that allow you to stay hooked on the game and to maintain your motivation.

Fist: increase the number of things to do. Second: do those things with a larger group of people.

In case of the first option, you could impose some self rules, like time attack, or to think about those mundane tasks as something you need to do as effectively as possible. By doing that, you get highly motivated, and there is always the option of setting your very own new personal records. …… I know from experience that it can be really motivating.

The latter case allows you to reduce the burden that is placed on you thanks to the help you receive from others. It is really effective strategy, but it comes with one tremendous downside: you need to time your schedules to do this, which is not that easy of a thing to do in the first place.

「That’s right…… Hm?」

What’s this? An email from Pencilgton? Does that mean she is not using SNS? Let’s see what we have got here……

Subject: EMERGENCY

From: Pencil Warrior

To: Sanraku: Modorokatsu

Body: I’m sorry, but Kyogoku went and done fucked up.

We might be in a teensy-weensy little bit of trouble.

I wonder if I can just pretend that I did not see that? Nah, I just can’t do that…… It seems that this weekend is going to be really hectic and chaotic.