Bonus Short Stories

Powerleveling

December, 2044

A few days had passed since the battle against the Tri-Zenith Dragon, Gloria.

“Leveling is soo boring...” grumbled Tsukuyo Fuso, one of the kingdom’s Superiors and the leader of its largest clan, The Lunar Society.

She was currently wand-bashing monsters in the Tomb Labyrinth.

Her secretary both in game and out, King of Assassins, Eishiro Tsukikage, was binding said monsters with his shadows. He would prevent them from moving, and she would beat them — a highly orthodox way to raise a newbie’s level.

The reason why she, who was far from a newbie, was doing something like this was because her level had been reset as a result of using a potent skill that had that as the price. She was now working to recover her lost levels.

Some would question why she was bashing them instead of using skills, and the answer to that was because she’d ran out of MP and SP needed for spells and the like. She’d drunk so many MP and SP potions that they barely had an effect anymore, so she had to resort to this newbie-like method of leveling.

Being a Superior Embryo, Tsukuyo’s Kaguya was very demanding in terms of MP and SP, and at her now-low level, she didn’t have nearly enough of either, so she ended up doing this quite often. Any new levels gained did little to fix the problem.

“They say time is money, and I’m here doing this...”

As contradictory as that may have seemed, she thought about how effectively she could’ve leveled up before her level was reset.

In Infinite Dendrogram, there were two basic ways of leveling up — killing other creatures or completing job quests. Both methods provided the person with shapeless data energy called simply “Resources,” and crossing a certain threshold of it gave them a level.

Levels gained through fighting were easy to understand for all those familiar with video games — you received Resources from enemies in the form of XP. Some of the loser’s Resources went to the victor, and some returned back to nature. With monsters, Resources could also become items. This was especially obvious with UBMs.

The distribution of XP in group battles was directly related to performance. Attacking, defending, supporting... everything you did in battle influenced the amount of XP you would receive. This distribution was why Eishiro was only doing the binding and Tsukuyo was doing the attacking. Though, whenever Tsukuyo had the MP and SP for it, she would contribute to the battles by debuffing or supporting instead. In parties, it was actually possible to turn on a setting that made the distribution equal, but it was unusable due to the immense gap in levels between Eishiro and Tsukuyo.

Now, as for job quests, the other leveling method... the way they made people level-up was actually unknown.

Job quests were arranged by the guilds for the respective jobs and offered to those who had them. While the source of physical rewards for completing these jobs was very clear, it was still a mystery where the Resources that caused level-ups came from.

It definitely wasn’t the guilds distributing these Resources. Completing job quests just seemed to imbue the achiever with Resources from the natural world itself. In fact, some guessed that that was actually the case — that it was part of natural law to give Resources to those who completed job quests.

This was actually one of the foundations for the many job-based religions on the continent, including the kingdom’s state religion. “Those who fulfilled their duty today will be given the power to live better tomorrow” was quite a popular idea among them.

“My case is pretty troublesome...” Tsukuyo grumbled again.

Many would reset their levels to improve their builds, and they would generally have an easier time leveling than before. After all, level resets were often focused. Losing a single job would mean losing only a small amount of stats, meaning that fighting to regain the levels would be fairly simple.

Tsukuyo, however, dropped down straight to level 0. Even if she tried to make up for it with the equipment she had, items that increased by percentage weren’t that effective at low levels, while items that gave fixed bonuses weren’t that potent. Naturally, she couldn’t be all that effective at powerleveling.

Job quests were another option, but that was difficult, as well.

In fact, it was impossible for her.

Tsukuyo was, after all, the High Priestess and the leader of The Lunar Society, and the kingdom’s job guilds for the priest grouping were owned by the state religion. It would be bad for her reputation if people heard that she, the leader of The Lunar Society, was working for a rival religion. Even if the magnanimous state religion wouldn’t care, the onlookers would.

Another thing that would be bad for her reputation was the very fact that she was now low level and desperately trying to climb back up.

“Lady Tsukuyo,” Eishiro tapped Tsukuyo on her shoulder.

“Ah. Gotta hiide,” she replied as she sunk into his shadow.

Eishiro did the same right after finishing off the bound monsters.

They’d done this to hide from an incoming party of Masters.

About a minute later, Tsukuyo and Eishiro rose from the shadows.

“Let us go elsewhere.”

“Okay.”

Tsukuyo was the leader of the top-ranking clan, one of the country’s Superiors, and thanks to her role in defeating Gloria, one of Altar’s Big Three. She enjoyed that reputation, but it made it all the more difficult to show herself in the state she was now. That was why she always hid when people came, then moved elsewhere.

It was a chore, but she had to maintain her majesty as one of the kingdom’s greatest. She wanted to hide herself as she was not just from the general public, but also her own Lunar Society. The only ones she trusted enough to help her level were Eishiro and maybe Ichiro Shijima.

Though, Ichiro couldn’t leave Torne right now, so he couldn’t be here to assist her. Not even Tsukuyo was cruel enough to take away the family time of a man who was said to have not long left to live.

Eishiro, on the other hand, had to put up with her business in and out of Dendro. He’d actually been helping with her inefficient leveling for several dozen hours now, all while making time for college work and chores in real life. His loyalty was equal to steel.

“...I know this is all we have, but just how long will it take for me to get back my levels at this rate?” Tsukuyo sighed as she thought about how many hours of this she would have to go through.

“Let us progress patiently. We have time,” said Eishiro, standing next to her with a gentle smile on his face.

Eishiro collapsed in real life just three days later.

The End

The Overworked Control AI

A Certain Day of a Certain Month

The term “control AI” had a different meaning in Infinite Dendrogram than it had in real life. The control AIs outside were artificial intellects using the processing power of supercomputers to their full capacity. The control AIs inside, on the other hand, were actually Infinite Embryos — Embryos above even Superior.

However, due to their immense calculating power and unique abilities, they were able to manage Infinite Dendrogram well enough to be considered control AIs. They had their own set roles and managed various phenomena. One managed the Embryos before they were implanted in Masters, one created the UBMs that would act as barriers spurring Master evolution... they each had their own field and played a part in keeping things running smoothly. All the jobs were necessary.

Since what they were responsible for differed so greatly, there were natural differences in difficulty, as well. The most notable example was control AI no. 7.

“Ph...ew...”

A gloomy-looking woman with profound bags under her eyes. This was the avatar of the Duchess.

She didn’t appear the way she had because she wanted to. The clothing was her choice, yes, but the bags under her eyes and the general gloominess was the result of her extreme fatigue.

Her job was maintaining Master vision and translation. The latter job was basically the same as any translation software’s. She would translate the many languages spoken by the cosmopolitan Masters from all over the Earth into the language used in Dendro, and do the reverse when it had to be done. Nuance, tone, volume... all was always done perfectly, but it was relatively simple. The problem was that she was doing it for potentially millions of Masters at once, which would be more than enough to overheat the usual supercomputer.

However, if asked, she would surely say that it was the easy part of her job. What kept her busiest was the management of Master vision.

A Master could choose between three types of vision: realistic, CG, and anime. She had to create the visuals for potentially millions of Masters in real time and project them into their visions, which would instantly make the usual supercomputer explode. Even this Infinite Embryo was on the verge of dying despite her supreme calculation abilities.

“Sakuga is... so hard...”

The greatest burden came from drawing for those who’d chosen the anime style visuals. It demanded far more effort than either realistic or CG visuals, and had to be delivered without a split-second of lag. It was actually the least used of the three kinds of visuals, but the users were extremely vocal, complaining on the internet about how the food didn’t look right or how they didn’t like the artstyle. It was quite disheartening, considering how hard she was trying.

“...Whose idea... was this... again...? Who said... that we should add... anime visuals... to reach a... wider audience...?”

For a moment, she tried to remember which colleague was responsible for her hardships, but even that required more calculating power than she could afford, so she just stopped thinking.

“...Meow...”

On her knees, there was one of Cheshire’s clones, sitting there like a plush toy. No colleague could help with her work, so he was there as small source of comfort. This was basically animal therapy. Cheshire actually knew who suggested adding the anime visuals, but he didn’t say anything to prevent a potential battle between colleagues.

Anyway, thanks to the hard work of the control AIs, Infinite Dendrogram continued to run smoothly.

The End

A Story for Another Time

August, 2043, Noz Forest

It happened on a certain day, in a certain forest. There was an adorable little princess. Her name was Theresia. She was the third princess of the kingdom, so she was very much a princess. She was now in a forest because she’d been kidnapped by an evil slime.

“I will now commit serious crimes in the kingdom to become a villain. I thought about what would be a ‘serious crime’ and chose to kidnap you,” the evil slime spoke pure insanity as he committed the crime and kidnapped the princess.

But there was a scary monster in the forest many would call an “UBM.” She was in big trouble. The princess prepared for the worst, but it turned out that she didn’t have to. A man in a costume and a hamster showed up to save her.

The details made it an intense, breathtaking adventure, but that was a story for another time. The chaotic battle ended with the monster’s defeat and the evil slime’s retreat after he fixed his sights on the man in the costume. Since this event, the man in the costume would be targeted by the evil slime many times. Slimes sure were sticky, huh?

The incident had been resolved, and the princess was now riding a big hamster while a man in a wolf costume was walking next to her.

If you ignored certain factors, this would be like a page straight out of a fairytale. However, it might actually be a psycho-horror scene. After all, the man in the costume walking next to her was in an awful state.

The fight against the evil slime and the monster left him without an ear, made his right eye dangle out, and opened a hole next to the left eye that showed the man inside. There was also blood in many places on him. Some of it wasn’t his, some was. Honestly, he looked like a slasher straight out of a horror game, and the mere sight of him could make children cry.

However, the princess, who was quite tough for a few reasons, didn’t show much of a reaction. The problem now was that, even though she was okay, if he was to take her to the city, they would think that he was responsible. In fact, they would probably arrest him even without the princess.

“Hrmm...”

Despite acting like a goof most of the time, the man in the costume was actually perceptive enough to know that himself, so he did something to fix it.

“Lemme change. Woof,” he said before changing into a store-bought bear costume.

It had a bow tie on it, making him look like an amusement park mascot.

“...”

The princess looked unexpressive, but upon closer look, you could see a faint smile on her face. She wasn’t bothered by a costume straight out of a horror flick, but she couldn’t hide her preference for cuteness.

Maybe I should ask, she thought, deciding to ask her father for similar costumes.

The princess would go on to do exactly that, and since it was extremely rare for her to request for things, it affected not only her father, but sisters, as well. She received a huge number of costumes, but that was a story for another time.

At any rate, the princess was safely brought back to the castle. This was how the fates of the princess, the man in the costume, and the evil slime began to intertwine. As for what it would eventually bring... that, too, was a story for another time.

The End