Chapter 4 (1/2)

“s.h.i.+njo-kun, wait! Where are you going? It’s dangerous.”

“Seki, k.u.miko, you guys go with everybody else.”

I looked at the stair leading to above ground and silently did a u-turn. I wanted to retrieve the contents of the treasure chests that weren’t opened. I doubted Nanami’s group would share any gems or gold they find, so I needed to get to it before they did.

Seki Midori and k.u.miko following me were probably going to be a hindrance, but I’ll let them be for now. Most traps were already activated and we just ran into monsters not too long ago, so I didn’t expect another set of monster to pop out again.

“If you’re going to follow me, do it quietly and stay behind me.”

I picked up a stone and threw it towards an unopened treasure chest. The treasure chest opened with a loud “whoosh” sound. It looked as if some sort of a trap activated, but was actually harmless. Until the third floor, treasure chests had a pattern to it.

Stone bullets, poisonous needles, simply loud noise to scare people and harmless ones. The treasure chest traps only activated from one of eight different directions around the chest, so you could safely disarm the trap by minding your angle and throwing a rock at it.

“Is it alright to open the chest?”

“I wouldn’t be opening it if it wasn’t alright. Now, help me carry this.”

Since I didn’t have a backpack with me, I wouldn’t be able to carry too much, but opening about five chests would suffice for now. I handed gold and gems to Seki and k.u.miko after I scrounged inside the chest. They were quick to stuff their pockets with gold. Without more pockets, we couldn’t carry it all.

“Let’s go to the town.”

“Yea….. this is amazing.”

Seki had a stupefied look on his face and k.u.miko appeared to be trying her best to hold in her laughter.

Why are you laughing? This isn’t a laughing matter.

…. well, she always did have a strange personality.

Just outside the stairway leading to the surface was “the town”. There was no other way to describe it. In the dungeon of Genocide Reality, this was the only town. It didn’t have a name either, so there was nothing else to call it other than “the town”.

So, the town looks like this from this angle.

I let out a voice of admiration while looking at the bright sunlight pa.s.sing through the ceiling. It was the beautiful sight of a neat medieval European looking town built with wood and stone.

Nothing looked out of place, but anyone with sharp enough perception would have noticed that something was wrong. This town had no liveliness about it. The town didn’t have a single residence about it.

There were no homes because n.o.body lived here. All the facilities made for adventurers were automated. It couldn’t be helped because it was an older game, but there were no NPCs.

It was like a Medieval Europe themed amus.e.m.e.nt park without any staff. It was a real sight to see the town in person, but I was surprised by something else entirely.

Geno-Real was a limited 3D game, so looking up was impossible. So when I looked up to the sky, “that” surprised me.

I thought this place was above ground. But this town was surrounded with high wall that were square like a Go board, and it certainly was not on the surface.

The real surface existed far up above the walls. This town existed on the bottom of a gigantic stone dug in the shape of a pestle and there was a gla.s.s ceiling about 5-6 meters above.

I reflexively threw a rock towards the gla.s.s ceiling. The unique sound of “Duuuun” from when magic activated in Genocide Reality echoed and the rock bounced back without even scratching the ceiling.

“Wait, s.h.i.+njo-kun. What are you doing?”

“I wanted to test out if I could break that gla.s.s, but doesn’t seem possible.”

“Does that mean we can’t climb up?”

“Yea, I thought we were saved when we got to the town, but we’re still trapped.”

Right now was time for lunch, but a full moon was up. Or was full moon during lunch the norm in this world? I stared at the bright full moon in the middle of the blue sky.

I couldn’t reach the ceiling, never mind the moon. We were like birds in a cage.

If that gla.s.s couldn’t be broken by magic, then leaving this place by climbing up was impossible. Only place that we could go to was the dangerous underground dungeon.

Nanami’s group was discussing something in the middle of the town. Saying “there’s no signal for the cellphones!” just now, shouldn’t it have been obvious long ago? That s.h.a.ggy hair game maniac was still repeating “This world is a game, a game world!” excitedly over and over again. Though he knew where the town would be, people didn’t seem to fully trust him  yet.

I was looking at him with ever increasing sense of annoyance and silently screamed ‘teach them how to make a health potion already’. He finally started to show how to use magic to make the potions. People seemed to trust that s.h.a.ggy hair more after seeing the effect of the potions on the wounded.

That was enough for me. I had no intention of slowing down to keep the pace with those slowpokes. I didn’t plan on sticking with Nanami’s group, so it was time to go solo.

Seki was looking up, so I thought he was just looking at the gla.s.s separating us from the outside world, but he was staring at the full moon with a face that looked as if he was about to cry. Maybe he was calculating the angles or the slopes of the moon.

I sneaked behind Seki and brandished a rusty knife towards him. Suddenly, the knife was stopped by some sort of invisible wall. As expected, any sort of negative acts were forbidden in the town.

The tests were mostly over.

“Oi, Seki, don’t just stand around dozing off. Let’s go shopping.”

“Ah, wait for me, s.h.i.+njo-kun….”

Seki and k.u.miko followed behind me. We headed to the General Store. We needed to buy up all the necessary items first.

“Guys, buy a backpack with the money you grabbed. Remember to buy at least 2 flasks to make potions with, though I’m going to buy 10.”

“Can we really use this for ourselves?”

“You guys earned it, you guys keep it. If I need more money, I just need to head down, so use however much you want. If you have leftovers, put them in the backpack. You can also exchange the gems for money in the shop. You can use them as equipment too, so remember not to sell all of it.”

Gems from the dungeons could be used as subst.i.tute in place of mana potions. The king of jewelry, diamonds, could be used for any kind of magic when turned into mana source. Red ruby was for mage type magic and blue sapphire was for monk type magic. Green emeralds gave temporary resistance status boost like poison resistance. There was a considerable advantage from just knowing what each gems did.

For topaz… even I, who was one of the three people who wrote a walkthrough for Genocide Reality in j.a.pan, didn’t know its effects. I ran several English websites through a web translator, but there weren’t any mentions there either. Maybe it had a hidden effect, maybe it did nothing after all. Genocide Reality had lots of items that didn’t have any effects to give a sense of realism.

Also, peridot, which was cheaper compared to other gems, temporarily slowed the thirst and hunger gauge from going up. Also, Lapis Lazuli had a temporary intelligence boost. They were easy to get your hands on, so I decided to sell it all except a handful for emergency.

I was going to search the labyrinth, so I bought some ropes and other detection items as extra. The backpacks sold in the General Store were light and durable. Overall weight didn’t change, but it felt much lighter than carrying around things by hands.

“I’m hungry…”

“Say, s.h.i.+njo-kun. About that…”

At the end of where Seki was pointing, there was a familiar red sign with a “M” emblem. It was a McBurger. Even in the US, McBurger was popular. This town looked Medieval from a glance, but there were several parodies like this store in Geno-Real.

“I’ll get the “Thank You” set.”

“When’s that even from?”

Well, it couldn't be helped since it was an old game. The counter looked like a typical McBurger, but there weren’t any cas.h.i.+ers. It was just a vending machine that you needed to press the b.u.t.tons for. I picked the Thank You set, but every combo cost a single coin. I felt they set the price half-a.s.sedly, but took my burger, fries and a drink.

“Delicious. It tastes like the old McBurger before the quality started dropping.”

“s.h.i.+njo-kun, you should stop pretending like you know how things tasted back then. Plus, it says it’s made with 100% orc meat on the wrapper…”

It tasted like real beef anyways, so I didn’t care much about it. It was all the same in the stomach. I shoved the salty fries into my mouth while sipping away at the iced coffee.

“Well, since we’re in town, let’s go to the inn.”

“Eh? I was thinking more about taking a break (at the love hotel) with Wataru-kun.”

I was talking to Seki, but k.u.miko interrupted. She acted like this every time such a topic came up, so I ignored her.