ShangriLa Frontier ~ Shitty Games Hunter Challenges Godly Game ~

Alright then, so…… Before we are going to wrestle with the Orchestra itself, first we need to get through the small boss rush, as usual. But that shouldn’t really be all that much of a problem, since all those enemies should be just a bunch of small fries when compared to what’s to come. However, even if that was not the case here, there is always a sort of a cheat available to the player: when things go really south or you do not remember what you did to defeat a specific monster, just listen to the lyrics being played as the background music and do as they tell you to. Doing just that, things should be fine for the most part of the battle. Nice and easy, right?

I was once again standing inside of the “theater” of the Orchestra that was soon to turn into a battlefield. And now that I think about it, this darkness and shadows that are surrounding me give me some real Nightprowler Luukan kind of vibes. But anyways, putting the unrelated matters aside for now, I walked up to the music player that was still being placed firmly inside of the wall all the while confirming the contents of my own Inventory one last time before we would get to start this song and dance all over again.

「I had to look that information up inside of the Behemoth of all places, and it would never occur to me on my own to try something like that. Now, let’s take a look at your Owners’ History, shall we?」

If we were to take a look at this battle from the entire meta perspective, as long as the Orchestra is considered by the system to be a Unique Monster, there should be no such information available here and doing something like that would basically be a fool’s effort. But since the music box seemed to be its entirely own existence even before the Orchestra, doing just that might be hitting a nail right to its head. And what do you know…… Doing just that really turned out to bring me a whole jackpot!

And it’s all thanks to the data that was sleeping in the deepest recesses of the Behemoth’s tenth layer. It was the data on the very first owner of this particular music box. Its first owner allegedly bought it as an antique in a antique store, and then the blasted thing was just passed down to his grandson, and then to his wife, his daughter, best friend and finally his father. And I think that it is needless to mention that in here, but just like with every other heirloom out there…… Every owner of this thing managed to influence the music player in some way. Or should I say, leave a part of themselves inside of the music player. And that machine was supposed to remember it all.

This music player was supposed to have been brought on board of the Leviathan at the same time as the Gods decided to abandon this planet and venture into the stars. It was passed onto someone who then passed it to one of the soldiers stationed on board of the Behemoth, changing owners a few more times before eventually finding its way into Doctor Andrew’s hands. And that’s basically it, I guess.

「The Orchestra has the power to inherit the will of its former owners, it’s a way in which a dialogue with humankind before the Era of the Gods could be conducted…… But if that is the case in here, then WHO exactly ARE you……?」

I touch the panel with my finger and music starts to play. “Diva Elise” and “Orchestra” that appear as a result, with the start of the music track being a trigger here…… Ahh, I get it. I understand now. The strange feeling that I was getting from that screenshot that I managed to take during the JGE. The reason why the Orchestra is contained inside of a space that looks like a theater. It’s all because the existence of Orchestra is the world on its very own, one that was contained to the past existences of people who came into contact with it!

But if it was indeed like that, then wouldn’t that be really strange? The pieces of information that I managed to obtain here would simply not connect with one another. It would feel like someone was intentionally messing around with me. But then there is this particular piece of info:

「Elise Jitter Doll was never the owner of the music player to begin with.」

When it comes to the music player, it’s only Elise’s singing voice that is associated with it, not Elise Jitter Doll herself. It was strange that the “Diva” takes the form of Elise, even if she didn’t have any song worth mentioning herself…… But that was not it. True, the Diva might have appeared, but it was only her voice that belonged to Elise Jitter Doll. In other words, would it really be possible to reconstruct the whole figure of Elise Jitter Doll, based only on the sound files provided? Without any image data to speak of?

But then, even if I was forcibly convinced that there was indeed some creepy occult forces at work here that managed to conjure Elise Jitter Doll as a whole, the mystery of “Why was Elise Jitter Doll chosen in the first place?” would still remain to be answered.

Because it was something that was only natural to assume.

「And that is because some of your previous owners was actually one of the members of Sternbloom, isn’t that right……!!」

The “theater” Orchestra, the “Arena” Orchestra, and the battlefield where you try your best and where the challengers sways and tremble. It is assembled according to the song that flows out of the mouth of the “Diva” …… Whoa there, is this the War Orphan that I spy forming over there? It’s been a long time since I’ve met him, but I’ve only met him once and quite honestly I thought that after I managed to dispose of it once, I would never have to see its ugly face again.

For the time being, there are two basic things that I seriously need to consider.

The first one being:

Why was Elise Jitter Doll chosen to inherit the music player in the first place? After all, she was as different as diamonds and glass when compared to galaxy-class idols. Especially so since there were members of Sternbloom amongst the successive owners.

And then the second thing:

Since the battle with “War Orphan” was originally accompanied by the Great Sigmonia Battlefront War, how am I to clear the arena that has become a hellish picture of annoying screams and screeching in an instant?

Inside of the theater, which has become a characteristic terrain with a crystal crown in the center of the mortar hole, I glared at the reproduction of the “War Orphan”, that flew around while passing through the spiders, hundreds of legs, and the afterglow of the scorpion that appeared with a roaring sound. I then hold my swords at the ready.