Pandora of Fantasy And Reality Chapter 136

Days of Clearing

The clearing of the World of Rage――was genuinely difficult.

Its difficulty level was naturally the hardest so far. As expected  from the world that was rumored to be the last in Pandora, its clearing  difficulty level was high.

Not only the monsters were powerful, the map was also fundamentally vast.

The small town that Ponsuke and co discovered was now becoming a  place for the players who were working hard to clear the game to gather.

Due to the AI’s management, the town was becoming more developed the more the gathered players spent money there.

Ponsuke and others caught sight of a lot of flying ships around the town when they visited.

「Are those the flying ships of the clearers?」

There were five flying ships at the sky.

Players came down from the flying ships and resupplied in the town, and then they departed.

It was said that the clearers were spending their days going around  searching for fortress in order to get the right to participate in the  capital’s clearing.

There were cases where a guild couldn’t clear a fortress even if they  luckily found one, but what happened in most cases was snatching by  other guild.

Mariela who was walking beside Ponsuke watched the players that they passed by while saying,

「There’s a lot of people here because this place is treated as the  frontline’s base huh. Even so, the number of guild with flying ship is  increasing.」

The cause was Ponsuke’s guild.

They managed to conquer a fortress with high difficulty level using  floating island, because of that others started to imitate them. But,  the amount of time and money needed to obtain a floating island and  turned it into a base couldn’t be underestimated.

Because of that most guilds turned their sight to flying ship.

Lighter who also went down to the town seemed to be curious about those other guilds too.

「We also haven’t found the Capital of Rage. We’re still at the stage  of searching around everywhere. How about we also gather airships to  search for it?」

Ponsuke shook his head.

「It’s impossible for us with our lack of manpower.」

「Yeah~. Our weak point is staff shortage after all.」

Ponsuke laughed.

「Wrong. It’s because we used up all our manpower for turning the floating island into flying battleship.」

Lighter and others got carried away and created a wall to protect the  floating island. While they were doing various things with steel  plate――someone said.

Let’s make it a battleship yeah!

Alfie was looking displeased.

「I don’t like the island’s look thanks to them. Ponsuke, let’s remake  it into something more fantasy. This place is dyed too much by that  bunch of men.」

Lighter was smiling bitterly.

「Ahaha~, we forgot ourselves with how fun it was. Besides, the NPC  creation contest was also heated up, and recently we have more members  and can do a lot more.」

NPC customization and leveling up.

In the end, other guilds also joined in the contest where Ponsuke and His Happy-Go-Lucky Friends emerged as the victor.

The victorious NPC was the maid NPC that was placed in their base.

She was wearing a red dress and white apron.

Her radiant blonde hair was styled into twintail……she cleanly hit the desires of the players.

Since then the number of players who wanted to join their guild increased. Ponsuke was in charge of interviewing them.

With the increase in membership, far from being a puny guild, they were growing to reach a size of a major guild.

(Well, I also have the motive of wanting to increase the number of comrades in our side though.)

Selector was influencing their surrounding for better or worse.

But putting it the opposite way, it was also possible to increase the number of their comrades.

According to the plan that Prey and others concocted, they were  investigating what kind of players to accept into their guild, even  their real life situation.

It seemed that Lighter got a call.

He massaged his forehead with his finger and stood up.

「Ah, Blaze-kun? ……Yeah, then come back here. Next will be the Capital  of Temperance after you rest up. Eh? You don’t want going to the World  of Temperance? Oi oi, I had explained to you that the drop item that can  only be obtained there is necessary hadn’t I? Besides, training the  newcomers is your job. Raise up our important corpo sla……comrades well.」

Lighter was smiling cheerfully after he finished the call.

Alfie hugged Ponsuke’s arm while her expression was twitching.

「Lighter is the worst. He almost said corpo slave just now.」

Mariela was also put off.

「Are you really a company manager in RL? I absolutely won’t join a company with someone like you as the president!」

Mariela was in disbelief.

She grabbed Ponsuke’s large finger while pulling him toward the stall that had come into view.

「Ah, crepe. Ponsuke, let’s eat that.」

「……Alright. Also Lighter-san, let’s be a little bit more prudent. I’ll take turn with Blaze-san later.」

「That’s no good. Because we need Ponsuke-kun to do that――」

That.

Ponsuke and other orcs who could control their Berserk now were made to――assault fortress.

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「HYAHHHAA! IT’S TIME TO RAIDDDDD!」

Lighter was shaking in happiness. He was looking on a fortress from Arcadia’s bridge.

The cannons that were placed on the floating island all fired at once at the fortress.

They moved their base and then immediately took down a fortress if they found one.

With this, Ponsuke’s guild was gathering great amount of fund and material.

They clearing group should be trying to imitate them.

But, the guilds that were trying to copy this method was still  lacking preparation. This period was effectively a time where Ponsuke  and co were monopolizing this method.

Ponsuke and others who were on standby inside the room located at the  bottom part of the island were exasperated from listening at Lighter’s  joyful voice.

「He’s really energetic.」

Prey was also smiling.

「It’s time to make profit after all. We can only do this until either the dev either interfere, or the other guilds imitate us.」

Either way, this profitable time period would be short.

This kind of situation wouldn’t continue for long in online game.

Even the management would react if many players imitated this method.

「……This is also great chance for us. After all we can recruit more comrades and become stronger inside the game.」

「Is it impossible to manipulate the system from outside?」

「Impossible. Pandora is severe at that aspect. Apparently your level  will get dropped to 1 right away if you forcefully try to modify your  level.」

The management was in control of the inside of Pandora, and Pandora  would be enraged if anyone tried to strengthen their avatar using  illegal access from outside.

Prey grinned.

「But, the same also applies to the dev. What they’re doing is nothing more than currying favor at Pandora.」

「……Hopefully that’s true.」

A call came while they were having such conversation.

It was from Lighter.

『Everyone~, have you all finished preparing?』

Ponsuke and co stood up, took off their equipments until they were  nly wearing loincloth――only Ponsuke was wearing a red underpants. Each  of them then started stretching to warm up.

「We can go anytime.」

The floor slowly opened. The fortress on the ground below came into  view. The place was smoking from the bombardment. It was in a terrible  state.

Difficulty level――six.

It was well within their capabilities to conquer this fortress.

「I’ll go ahead!」

Prey scrambled to jump off. Then he immediately activated Berserk at  midair. He already turned into his monster form when he landed on the  ground.

Prey went into rampage. The other orcs followed behind and jumped off.

Yes……first they bombarded the fortress until it was in tatters before the berserk orcs went down and suppressed the area.

「Lighter who thought up this idea is absolutely a demon.」

The guild was rapidly getting bigger.

The reason for that was their effort to take down a fortress as soon  as they found one. Because they conquered a fortress as soon as they  found it, the scramble for fortress in the time slot when Ponsuke and co  logged in was intensifying.

Ponsuke also jumped off and transformed midair.

When he landed on the ground, the other orcs were rampaging while no monster could be seen.

They then headed to the center of the fortress and a monster that seemed like the boss came out from inside the building.

Magic type.

That skeleton figure wearing a robe looked eerie.

「Magic type huh.」

The boss raised up its staff and generated black smoke. In respond  Ponsuke kicked on the ground and closed the distance all at once. What  the enemy was doing was casting magic that generated multiple bad  statuses.

But, Ponsuke ignored that and punched the boss.

The boss was blown away.

Undead――many of such enemy had powerful resistance against physical attack.

However, Ponsuke looked at his own fist.

「It feels nice somehow seeing your hand shining. It makes it like a finishing move.」

It was a fist for hitting enemy that invalidated physical attack.

The boss tried to stand up. Meanwhile his comrades who had finished defeating the monsters gathered.

The boss tried to cast magic at the orcs surrounding it, but the orcs  beat it up from every direction and it vanished into red light.

◇

The school entered the second term.

Akito was sitting face to face with Riku inside their classroom.

Their topic was about Pandora.

「You guys rampaged too much. There were even complaints coming at my place.」

「No way?」

「It’s true. They said that they can’t find any fortress even if they  look around everywhere because of you guys. You’ll get resented if you  act too flashily like that.」

Akito felt regret from overdoing it.

But――.

「Everyone will calm down after a bit more so wait for a bit.」

「You’re still going to continue?」

「No, because I think the other guilds are going to get their hands on floating island too.」

「So you guys are going to wait until then? It’s going to become a full-blown war between guilds over the remaining fortresses.」

There were also a lot of other guilds trying to take fortress on  their own like Akito’s guild. Apparently some of them even guilds from  another time slot changing their login time to their time slot.

「Many of the players logging in at out time have good manner after  all. So there’re also a lot of guys looking down on us. You might get  targeted by those guys.」

That made him felt headache.

「Are you serious?」

「You guys are famous people in our time slot after all. You guys better have more awareness about that.」

Akito nodded at Riku’s warning. Then several other boys gathered around them.

「Naruse, Aoba. We want to ask you two something.」

「Hm?」

Riku looked toward the boys.

Akito felt something was out of place when he saw the lineup.

(A honor student, a delinquent, and a boy in sports club? They shouldn’t be in the same group.)

The boys were the types who usually wouldn’t talk to each other.

But they looked like they were getting along.

「You two are also playing Pandora right? I even heard that you Aoba are quite a veteran.」

Akito nodded.

「I’ve only played for a little longer than a year.」

The honor student looked happy.

「Amazing. We’ve only played for half a year. We just finally arrived at the Capital of Love.」

The delinquent boy made a suggestion.

「Do you two want to make guild together with us? We’re going around  inviting the boys in our year. We got eighteen people already. What  about you two?」

Both Akito and Riku refused that suggestion.

「Sorry. I’m already in a guild.」

「Him and me are guild master so we can’t just leave.」

The boy with cropped head who was in a club still invited them even then.

「It’s just a puny guild anyway right? It’ll be better to join us instead. You two can bring your friends too.」

Riku answered with exasperation.

「I’m attached to it, and there’s no way our friends will accept that. Besides, what are you guys gonna do after making a guild?」

The honor student puffed up his chest.

「We’re going to join the clearing group.」

Akito looked impressed.

「That’s amazing.」

Then the delinquent said――.

「The clearing group is super popular after all. You’ll be able to get  girl easily if you say that you’re a clearer. Besides, you’ll be able  to throw your weight around at that side.」

Should he say that he was exasperated to hear such reason…….

(I can understand his feeling though.)

He really could only feeling exasperated thinking that Pandora’s influence had gotten that far.

The boy with cropped head begged.

「The other schools are also making their own guild, so there’ll be  turf war at this rate. We’re really lacking combat strength here. We’re  also inviting the girls, so our guild will be really big. How about it?」

Akito and Riku kept refusing even after that, and yet the boys were really insistent.

(Pandora’s influence keep getting stronger.)

It also influenced the hierarchy and caste in school.

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After school.

Akito finished his interview with the teacher and he was returning to his classroom.

They talked about the result of his summer break. His evaluation from  his part-time workplace was good and he had also accomplished his  targets in summer break, so the interview ended without really any  problem.

While he was walking toward his classroom while stretching――.

「Umm, you’re Naruse-senpai aren’t you?」

――Someone called at him so he turned around.

There were two girls standing there.

「Eh?」

It seemed they were first year. One of them was pushing the girl who was calling out to him. Their atmosphere seemed strange.

「E-err……please go out with me!」

A girl who was quite cute confessed to Akito.

He was shocked by the unexpected event. Then the other girl looked at Akito reproachfully.

「Senpai, can you give her your reply?」

「Ah, no……why me? We never even talked before this.」

He was flustered because this was so sudden.

The cute girl lifted up her head and looked at him with a really nice  smile. It was evening with orange sunlight shining in on the  corridor――coupled with the girl’s smile, it made a romantic scene.

「I heard. Naruse-senpai is in a famous guild. I want to go out with someone who’s a member of a famous guild.」

Akito took a step back.

(Just because of that?)

Normally such reason was impossible, but the girl looked serious. She  was cute and also sexy. Normally someone like her wouldn’t be troubled  with finding a boy to be her boyfriend.

And yet, she confessed to Akito because of Pandora.

Akito shook his head.

He would be lying if he said he didn’t feel happy. But, he mustn’t go out with her here.

「Sorry. I can’t go out with you.」

「N-no way」

「Besides where did you hear that from? That’s just a false rumor.」

「Eh? But, this girl I know……」

From what she said, it seemed that she was Kanaho’s acquaintance.

It seemed that Kanaho let Akito’s name slipped out when talking to  her. She didn’t say it clearly but, apparently from there these two  girls misunderstood that Akito might be a member of a famous guild.

「……It’s just a misunderstanding.」

When he said that, the two girls walked away from him angrily.

「What. So it’s not like that just as I thought.」

「I also thought it’s strange. Because that senpai is so plain.」

The two said that while walking away.

Akito smiled wryly while thinking to warn Kanaho later.

(Kanaho-chan, just what did you say to them?)

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Inside an apartment room

It was night.

Kanaho was talking with Anri while hugging a pillow.

「Listen to this Anri-san!」

『Inaho-chan, what’s the matter?』

「A girl who eavesdropped on me tried to confess to Ponsuke-san.」

Apparently the two girls who confessed to Akito accidentally  eavesdropped on Kanaho’s conversation. She knew the two girls in  question and she sometimes talked with them but――that was all.

『……Are you serious?』

「Ponsuke-san said that it’s a misunderstanding and rejected her.」

『As expected from Ponsuke!』

「……But, those two made noise after that saying that they were tricked. Even though it was them who confessed.」

Kanaho strongly hugged her pillow.

The pillow made a strange sound. And then――its inside burst out.

『Who’re these girls? Do you know their Pandora’s name and their RL info?』

Kanaho operated her tablet.

「The students of our school recently gathered and made a guild. They’re members and made a ruckus there today.」

Kanaho told Anri the guild’s name. Then Anri immediately investigated it.

『Aa~, it’s just a puny guild. Looks like they’re going to have  establishment ceremony or something at the Capital of Love. There’re a  lot of guild like this recently.』

Anri laughed, but even Kanaho could feel that she was angry.

Kanaho was also laughing.

「That’s right isn’t it~……what should we do?」

『……Ponsuke will get angry if we go wild won’t he? As expected it’ll  be bad if we crush them but, we also just can’t let them made fun of our  guild master like that.』

They continued their conversation for a while before deciding that  they would discuss it with the others later. Then they cut off the  phone.

Kanaho looked around her.

She saw the inside of her pillow that was scattered around――.

「I need to clean up.」

She stood up and went to pick the cleaning tools.

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