Chapter 7: The Kokoru Training Plan
Chapter 7: The Kokoru Training Plan
“Dang, it’s huge! This is insane!”
“Yeah! It’s awesome!”
Yano and I were overly impressed by the splendor of the room in which we stood. There was a plethora of unique items arranged atop display pedestals and in exhibits. Beside each item was a museum label that explained its abilities. A jaw-dropping amount of these artifacts and their dwellings lined the walls, spilling out of every nook and cranny.
Without a doubt, this was the great passion of a group of item lovers on display.
The museum, which must have been curated through generations of players, probably housed almost a thousand items. It was owned by Homura’s guild, Grand Museum, and it was located on their private island in the Lagoon.
We had come here in hopes of finding any leads concerning the best way to train Kokoru. Info brokers were great and all, but they didn’t help much if you weren’t entirely sure what information you needed. Redefining Kokoru himself was still a vague concept, so we didn’t have any specific info we could ask for.
Perhaps by looking at the items here, we could find something that would make us say, “This is it!”
Even if we didn’t find anything, though, I had always wanted to come here at least once. It was a nice little diversion.
By the way, I was here with Yano and Draco. Kokoru was back at the shop with Akira and Maeda, who were studying hard for the next test. It was coming up soon, and we desperately needed one of them to reach the top rank!
In their stead, we benchwarmers were on a hunt for a breakthrough. As the guild’s resident genius strategist, I was ready to figure out what to do with Kokoru.
One day, I would be able to brag that indeed, it was yours truly who had raised that boy!
“Akira’s! Akira’s!” Draco stopped in front of an exhibit and began chirping out words.
I think his vocabulary might be growing.
He even had our names memorized at this point. Except for Kokoru, that is, who he called simply “chicken.”
As for what was Akira’s, it was an item inside the display. Her favorite sword, Skyfall, was sitting there.
Right beside Skyfall was a carbon copy of it, which was actually Skyfall +1. In fact, Akira’s current weapon actually was Skyfall +1. Even further to the right was Skyfall +2.
“Imagine how annoying it was to get all these Skyfalls,” I mumbled.
The drop rate’s like one in a thousand, right? They have some incredible passion. That’s what happens when you get a bunch of item fetishists together, I guess. I wonder what their completion percentage was?
“Ooh. They’ve got plenty of guns and shields too!” Yano’s eyes shone with excitement.
It was only natural she’d be interested in seeing her favorite items on display. I totally sympathized.
“Ooh! This Black Thunder has double the range, wow! Who knew stuff like this was in the game? I want one!”
“Heh. Shooting distance is justice, for sure. I wonder how you get it? Since it’s OEX, maybe it's a rare monster drop?"
O means you can only have one at a time, and EX means it’s bind-on-pickup. In other words, the EX designation means you can’t try to sell it. Because it has no real market value, and can’t be given to other players, there’s no real point in forging an EX item yourself. Thus, this one had likely been a drop from a rare monster.
For some reason, there are some craftables marked as OEX. Want some examples? Hidden weapons, hidden weapons, and, uh... did I mention hidden weapons?!
“They’ve got bayonets, too. I love this Prism Bayonet! It’s so pretty!”
The display case Yano was pointing to contained a bayonet that reflected all seven colors of the rainbow. Just as she’d said, it was spectacularly beautiful.
I peered at the item’s label. “Says here it’s got an additional effect: ‘Deals elemental damage that matches the enemy’s weakness.’ So it’s like the seven colors have properties of each element, right? That’s pretty neat.”
This one was OEX, too!
“Maybe we should ask the info broker what drops this one,” Yano said.
This place was great for discovering new items you might want.
“Once things calm down, let’s see if we can’t hunt one of these down. Bet if we had Akira with us, she could earn us some super-lucky pulls.”
“Oh, really? For me?”
“Yeah, why not? We’ve been relying on you a lot lately, Yano. You’re the whole reason the guild shop is so popular too. Consider it a thank you for all you’ve done for us.”
Yano’s designs were so popular that our designer items had been selling like hotcakes. The made-to-order patterns that people could put on their favorite items were doing well too.
“If we’re talking about gratitude, I feel the same way.”
“Huh, really? I was just feeling bad because it seemed like I was using you.”
“Well, it’s like we’ve uncovered some sort of, uh... talent that I never know I had. All the customers love it, so it makes me feel that even a dummy like me can be useful. Embarrassing as it is, I’ve felt a real sense of purpose lately.”
Yano’s bashful smile was unbelievably charming.
She was one of those girls who seemed a little vain but was actually a good person on the inside. In a way, she might have been the most upstanding out of all of us.
“Then I’ll gladly keep using you to my heart’s content!”
“Okay! Leave it to me, boss.”
Now, deepening our friendship was great and all, but the Kokoru problem remained. Could the key to awakening him truly be found in this item museum?
Unlike players, NPCs like Kokoru didn’t have five talent slots. As a result, you had to make up for that disadvantage with good equipment—like my Equip Ring or Rush Ring, for example. You could change an NPC’s equipment just by trading them an item. Would we be able to find something useful here?
We wandered around the museum at length, checking out various items.
“Hm? What’s this one?”
I had come upon a display case with no museum label. Inside, there was a huge egg that looked like it belonged to an ostrich.
What had lain this egg? There was no way to tell without the explanation. They must have missed this one.
“Chirp? Hand...shake?” Draco once again stopped in front of an exhibit and tilted his head.
He was looking at a weirdly shaped lance. The tip of the lance, instead of being the pointy part that kills people, was instead metal formed in the shape of a hand offering a handshake.
What even is this?
Handshaker (OEX)
Type: Lance
Level: 20
Might: 1
AP Gain: 1
Poise: 55
Guard Break: 1
Effect: Enemies defeated with this weapon will not be slain, instead compromising and joining the user. As long as this weapon remains equipped, recruited monsters can be summoned or released. If a recruited monster is defeated or this weapon is removed, they can not be recovered.
Only monsters below the user’s level can be recruited. Only one monster can be summoned at a time.
Ineffective against rare monsters.
Oh?
It had low attack power, but the effect was very interesting. If you took down an enemy with this, you could recruit them, it seemed. Best of all, it worked on enemies up to the user’s level.
The important part, then, was that it didn’t use your stats to determine its effectiveness; it used your level. No matter how low Kokoru’s stats were, he could recruit things with this as long as he was a high enough level.
Monsters at the same level as Kokoru were probably way stronger than him. But if he equipped this and stocked up on recruited monsters... He might be able to stack up with the NPCs of other guilds!
“Ooooh! Look, here it is! This is the item that could save us!”
We would bring the enemy close to death, and then Kokoru would hit it with the finishing blow to recruit it. With the way things were going, I wasn’t sure if he'd even be able to deal 1 damage, but maybe we could fix that by raising his level.
If Maeda used Vengeful Blast, the counterattack damage might do the trick.
The “enemies defeated with this weapon” part definitely had some room for testing. If Handshaker guarded and counterattacked under the effect of Vengeful Blast, would that count as using Handshaker to defeat the enemy?
Furthermore, maybe Kokoru could land a hit if he used an Art. Basically, we could probably find one loophole or another.
If only we could get our hands on this!
“Huh? What is it, Takashiro? I wanna see.”
“It’s this one here, look! Handshaker!”
“Oh?”
While Yano was reading the item description, I shouted, “Eureka!”
A flash of inspiration had shot through me like lightning!
That’s it! If we put all our effort into this combination, we might have a chance at first place!
“We can do this, Yano! I know we can!”
It’s all clear to me now! I have the perfect plan for redefining our good buddy Kokoru!
I had to get my hands on Handshaker! Right then and there, I decided that tomorrow, another trip to the info brokers was in order.
◆◇◆
“Man, Takashiro. Sorry, but it’ll be hard to get this in time.”
“For real? How so?” I asked Kataoka, who was once again in charge of the shop.
That morning, I had left early to head to Bigsmax Info Brokers.
I’m the kind of guy who tries to find a solution the moment a question pops up in my mind!
The info I wanted, of course, was how to obtain Handshaker. I had judged the item to be absolutely vital to our success in the competitive guild mission.
“Well, this isn’t a treasure chest drop. Looks like it only drops from rare monsters.”
“Uh-huh, and...?”
“And the ones who drop this only appear as ambush events on the airship route to the Yucheim continent.”
“Urgh. So it’s Skyfall-tier.”
Another one-in-a-thousand miracle drop?! That’s pretty rough.
“Yeah. And the route there only unlocks after you clear a quest that becomes available at level seventy.”
“Aww, seriously? We’ll have a real tough time getting that done before the mission is over.”
“For sure. It’d take you over a month to grind that high.”
“Ugh!”
This difficulty level was way unexpected. I knew the feeling all too well—you’d find a really cool item in a strategy guide or on some wiki, which would of course be ridiculously hard to get.
This was essentially the same thing. I’d have to go back to the drawing board.
How lame! Here I thought I had an awesome epiphany, but now I’m back where I started! Still, I don’t plan on giving up.
Could I somehow speed-grind up to level 70 in just a month? Even if I could, I’d have to be blessed with a one-in-a-thousand drop after that.
In terms of expected value, a whole month was a tough sacrifice to make.
“Dammit. This was the one thing I needed, too.”
Before I came here, I’d even declared to Kokoru that we had a lead! The poor lad! His joy was far too premature, far too short-lived!
In my frustration, I ended up poking a weird statue on the counter. It was like a huge egg, but with a cute girl on the front saying, “Welcome!”
“Hm? Is this one of our products?”
I had some recollection of the design, but had we ever used an egg like this as a base item?
“Yeah. I go with Lady Nozomi to your shop just about every day. You weren’t there when we bought it, I think. Figured it might make a nice decoration.”
“Huh. Kokoru or one of the girls must have made it and put it on display.”
Ah, whatever.
Suddenly, a peafowl Birdman who’d been working alongside Kataoka interjected, “It may not be my place to say this, but Kokoru lacks both talent and willpower. Even this late in the game, I would suggest you apply for a change in candidate.”
I recognized him as Peater. He was much taller than Kokoru and had much better proportions.
With his level, growth rates, and skills, he was definitely one of the favorites. In fact, he seemed the strongest of all the Birdman characters.
Looks like Kataoka’s guild picked this guy.
They’d had to compete for him in the draft, but luckily, they’d won out in the lottery. His growth seemed to be going well, as his level was already a few higher than it had been at the start.
I let out a chuckle. “Heheheh, all the better. If that’s how you feel, then I’ll be even happier to announce that I raised him once he’s big and strong! I’m not giving up yet!”
“I have a feeling you’re a man with some strange proclivities.”
“Don’t worry about him too much, Peater. This guy’s a full-blown idiot.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Wow, Kataoka. I don't wanna hear that from you.”
Considering his obsession with Hime-chans, Kataoka was probably an even bigger idiot than I was.
“That said, if you can make something of him, then he won’t bring shame to other Birdmen. Good luck.”
When I’d seen him last, Peater hadn’t seemed to care about Kokoru in the slightest. Maybe he was actually a decent guy.
“Well, time to look for a different method. See you around, Kataoka.”
Once I left the info brokers, I decided to head straight to class.
Maybe I’ll think of something on my way there.
Just as the school’s front gate came into view, someone called out to me.
“Yo, Ren! Morning!”
“Oh, hey, Yukino.”
“Why the long face? Got something on your mind?”
“Eh. Just had a little bit of a disappointment, that’s all.”
“Hmm. Does it have to do with the guild mission?”
“Yes. We found a weapon that could potentially redefine Kokoru, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to get it. I was just trying to come up with a plan B.”
“That’s what you get for making such a ridiculous choice. You’ve gotta put in the work. You had first pick, and you went for the worst one. I even tried to stop you!”
“Yeah, well. The Emperor of the Underpowered is bound to make those sorts of choices.”
“Hahaha! That’s just about the most Ren thing you could do.”
“I’ll find a way. No need to panic yet; we still have time.”
As we chatted, we made our way through the gate. The moment we stepped onto the school grounds, we encountered a group handing out little pouches. They were spread out in order to make sure that every student got one.
Everyone involved was part of the guild Baddest of the Bad.
“Good morning! Here, please take one!”
The one who’d brought us a pouch was a young male NPC. His name was Alfred Freaze.
Oh, I remember this guy! He was the strongest candidate at the draft!
He’d started out at level 1, but his stat growths were impeccable. Evidently, he was growing at a steady rate; he was already level 20.
He also seemed incredibly affable despite his evil-sounding guild name.
I accepted the pouch he offered me. Inside were cookies, candies, travel-size packets of tissues, and more. There was also a single sheet of paper, which read as follows:
“We apologize for troubling you so often, and we humbly ask for your understanding. Normally, we would have a formal meeting with each and every one of you. Forgive us for having to communicate it to you in this format.
Sincerely, the members of Baddest of the Bad.”
I squinted at the note, wondering, What the heck? Why are they apologizing so much?