Pandora of Fantasy And Reality Chapter 30

Invitation

Nanako was gone now from Ponsuke’s party.

The three sat down on a bench at the plaza after they logged in and did nothing except looking absentminded.

The death penalty to the players who were killed by the malicious  players had been removed. The management would also give present to the  players who were victim to the incident, depending on the result of the  investigation.

However there was something else that weighed their minds.

「We’re back at square one.」

Originally they had to clear the quest called [Angry Fire Dragon] in  order to head to the next capital, but the quest’s difficulty level was  high.

It was set so it couldn’t be cleared just by a single party.

After all their level was restricted to fifty and below.

High level player that limited their level could participate, but  fundamentally only players who wanted to progress from the Capital of  Hope to the next stage would challenge this quest.

Ponsuke sighed.

「You know, Rook said this. Crawl up with your own strength. That guy is inflexible in a strange place.」

Alfie’s legs dangled back and forth as she sat and listened to Ponsuke’s words.

「That’s fine. It’s just as he said, we should clear this on our own.  But if only there’s a raid group that will invite us to join them.」

Mariela put her elbow on her lap and placed her chin on her hand.

「We got rejected a lot though when we tried to join a group. They  thought that we were just casual players because of our job or race. And  the quest also looks impossible to be cleared with only casual  players.」

Casual player――the term referred to players who prioritized enjoying the game while disregarding job or race.

The three of them too couldn’t deny that they belonged among the casual players.

But, many casual players liked to challenge boss without checking the  game guide or making preparation first and got annihilated as the  result.

Challenging the quest and dying repeatedly could also be fun, but the  three of them wanted to progress ahead quickly, so they didn’t want to  do that.

「Haa~, what are we going to do now.」

Ponsuke held his head in his hands, then several players appeared.

「Say, you are Ponsuke-san aren’t you?」

Ponsuke lifted his face. Standing there were four players in female avatars. They were waving their hands to Ponsuke smilingly.

Ponsuke ogled them, but then the two who were stting beside him elbowed him on his sides.

「Yeow! ……T-that’s right, I’m Ponsuke.」

The four players made a suggestion to him.

「Will you login around this time three days later in the real world  time? We’re forming a raid party to challenge the Angry Fire Dragon  quest, but we still have one slot open for a party. Right now we have  three combat parties and two craftsman parties……what do you think?」

They were going to challenge the Angry Fire Dragon with a raid party that consisted of five parties.

Ponsuke and others stood up after hearing that.

Not only Ponsuke, even Mariela and Alfie were leaning forward eagerly toward the four players.

「We accept!」

「Please do!」

「Finally luck is going our way too!」

The four players smiled wryly.

「You three did a great job just the other day. We’ll be reassured to  have you guys with us. For now we’ll contact the party of the raid  leader. Let’s do our best to aim to the Capital of Temperance.」

Ponsuke nodded his head up and down to the female avatar who winked adorably at him.

Mariela and Alfie stared reproachfully at him, but Ponsuke paid them no mind.

◇

At Akito’s part-time workplace, Mild.

It was almost 9 PM and the stream of customers had cut off.

There was no customer inside the store. Akito inspected the cash  register while purchasing electronic money that could be used in  Pandora’s Box Garden.

「Eh?」

But, he was surprised when he saw the purchase history.

Yakumo was tidying up the surrounding of the register and refilling  the plastic bag and the like, but she reacted to Akito’s voice and  turned toward him.

「What’s wrong? You’re buying electronic money again? You shouldn’t waste too much money with that.」

Akito shook his head.

「No, I’m keeping it firmly within the range of my allowance. Rather  than that, I found that the employee Kurita-san had been buying quite a  lot of it himself recently.」

The log showed Kurita’s name appearing a lot of time.

All of them showed him purchasing the 50,000 yen card which was the maximum limit.

Yakumo felt a bit exasperated.

「……The amount of money he’s using started increasing since several months ago. This might be a bit bad.」

Akito tilted his head.

「But he’s a full-time employee, and also an adult, so it’s no wonder  that he can spend more money right? I’m a bit jealous though.」

Akito was paying for the monthly usage fee each month.

In addition he also sometimes purchased paid items for around several thousand yen.

The amount of money that he could use was very limited.

Yakumo looked exasperated.

「Stupid. Even an employee shouldn’t be able to use up this much  money. He must be using his saving or doing other part-time work……or  perhaps he borrowed money.」

Using his saving.

It would be fine if Kurita simply had other part-time job to earn money, but it would be a different story if he borrowed money.

「This is a bit worrying, so I’ll tell this to the other employee. You  too Naruse, the school can suspend your part-time work if you use too  much money for game, so be careful.」

Akito nodded with a troubled look. Yakumo pressed her fingertip on her temple.

「It’ll be annoying if my partner get replaced at this point. We will  also get the fresh recruits soon. It’ll be troublesome if you leave at  that busy time.」

She must be relying quite a lot to him.

(That makes me happy but, she isn’t looking at me as a man just I thought. Well, it doesn’t matter.)

Akito said 「I’ll be careful」 which made Yakumo smiled.

「Good.」

Looking at the clock, the time was already past nine. It looked like  the two university students who should take over for the next shift was  coming late again, Akito thought.

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That day.

A lot of students were staying behind in the classroom even though school was already over.

The teacher stood on the podium and displayed the letters that he wrote on the board.

「It’s already June. There’ll be the first term exam at the end of the  month. I think all of you are already aware but, it’s important to make  effort daily. Your grade won’t improve if you only review the lesson at  the last minute which will influence your future――」

Most of the students ignored the teacher’s lecture.

The reason was simple. All of them had finished learning the school  materials inside VR world――a space where time was compressed even more  than the game.

Something like test existed more so that the students could experience the atmosphere and accumulated experience.

There were also some students who worked hard and felt fixation to  their test score, but the real elites like Maya would get perfect score  without even doing anything.

Their latent ability was just different.

The teacher finished explaining and cleared his throat.

「Now then, about the summer vacation that occupied everyone’s mind.  Everyone here is applying for license of general vehicles. The school  also has the stance of supporting this license acquisition, so you all  will be given help but……Aoba.」

The teacher’s gaze turned toward Riku. It made the gazes of the others also gathered on him.

Riku looked a bit embarrassed.

「It looks like you’re applying for bike license instead of scooter,  but do you actually have a bike? Or are you going to buy one after  this?」

Riku answered the teacher seriously.

「No, I don’t have one, and I don’t plan to buy one for the time being. But it’s cool so I’m thinking of taking the license.」

The teacher looked troubled.

「Unlike the general vehicles, vehicles like bike don’t have automatic  driving function installed. You know how many of student’s accidental  death came from bike accident right? Remember this, you must never do  something stupid okay?」

It was common sense for automatic driving system to be installed in  the general vehicles, so the minimum age for taking the license was  gradually getting lowered.

With a license, someone could buy car and travel freely without driving it themselves.

People were still required to obtain license like in the past was just for emergency.

Akito whispered into Riku’s ear after the teacher returned to his explanation.

「Why are you applying for bike license?」

「……Actually there’s a rumor that bike will get reproduced in Pandora.  There’s a chance that it might happen after the large scale update, so  I’m thinking to get the license for it before that.」

Akito looked exasperated and turned toward the teacher.

(So he only applied for it to ride one around inside game.)

Akito looked around.

It seemed most students planned to get license, but Maya wasn’t among them.

(Well, an elite like the president don’t need something like license I guess.)

The elites like Maya aimed to obtain the qualifications like  government certification that had higher difficulty level and even other  qualifications that were even more difficult.

They had no free time to take something like car license. There was also no need for it.

In contrast, the average students like Akito needed to have car license.

It was a qualification that would also be useful for when they worked, and it would also be convenient for travelling.

(The elites also have it hard huh.)

Akito thought about Maya who was absent from the classroom while listening to the teacher’s explanation about the schedule.

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After returning to her mansion, Maya lied down on her bed before going to the cram school.

Maya said while lying down.

「……I really wanted the license」

Maya rolled on her bed in frustration.

The car that she wanted was a rugged car that wouldn’t suit a young lady.

Large car was more popular among the youths compared to small automatic car.

「I really wanted a Humvee!」

The rich young lady Maya hugged her pillow. What she wanted was the  military vehicle Humvee, a really rugged car that was colored red.

Such car wouldn’t suit her at all no matter how anyone looked at it,  but the person herself seriously wanted it. She had been thinking of it  until the purchasing stage.

But her parents opposed it and she couldn’t take the license.

License was necessary when purchasing a car, so Maya couldn’t buy it.

She herself was thinking that riding such a car would be questionable  for a young lady like her, but she wanted to have a tough car far more  than cute car or sports car.

「……Even though I took a liking to it because it somehow reminded me of Ponsuke」

Maya’s sensitivity superimposed the Humvee and Ponsuke together.

She sighed and got up on the bed, then she tidied her disheveled hair and prepared to go to the cram school.

She sent a glance at her magazine. Then her shoulders fell in disappointment. She still couldn’t give up on it.

「Humvee……I was going to name it Ponsuke」

……It was a serious sickness.

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At night.

Akito returned home from his part-time work and took out a pamphlet from his bag.

The plan for taking the license was written on it.

The required fee was expensive for a student, but there was no problem because it had loan included.

There would be no problem at all because he would be able to obtain the license without borrowing money from his parents.

「Looks like I’ll be able to manage somehow with the deposit.」

He checked his bankbook. He still had enough money saved up to pay  for the deposit. He could pay for the rest by paying 20,000-30,000 yen  per month in installations.

The apartment that he rented for living alone was extremely cheap  because he was still a student. There was also school discount for the  energy bill which greatly helped him.

After he finished paying for this loan, there would be another  qualification that he needed to take, which would cost money again.

Pandora’s Box Garden was a large burden for Akito who couldn’t waste money.

However he had no intention of stopped playing.

The large device that was placed at the corner of his room.

He thought about replacing it with something smaller, but for the time being there was no problem with using this one.

「……It will also cost me money again, so I guess I’m fine with this one.」

He sat on his chair and turned on his PC. Nanako’s face suddenly rose in his mind. And then the faces of the other two…….

The faces of the orcs also came up.

And then he looked at his own hands.

「That time……」

Before fighting the malicious players, he experienced death for the  first time as Ponsuke. Even now he still remembered how it felt like  something tried to take over his mind.

「Just what in the world was that? Was it just a hallucination?」

There was also another thing that was in his mind.

It was his weight.

「I don’t look much different despite rapidly getting fatter.」

During the lunch period at the school, Akito headed to the infirmary  and tried weighing their weight using the scale there. There he found  out that he had gotten five kilos.

However there was no change to his appearance.

He stood up and headed to the washroom. He took off his shirt and  became half naked, but the area around his stomach looked flat.

No, it was too flat and it felt like the muscle definition there had improved.

「As I thought it might be because of the part-time work. Perhaps carrying those heavy boxes counted as training?」

It was pointless even if he kept worrying about it. Akito stripped  off all his remaining clothes and took a shower. However his body  stopped before entering the bathroom. Then he wore his clothes and  headed to the entrance.

The electronic chime resounded inside his room. And then a voice spoke.

『Naruse-san, a package for you.』

The male’s voice said the name of a transport company. Akito opened the door.

It was a package from his parents. He signed the acceptance form and took the package with one hand.

「That’s amazing. That package is heavy you know?」

The deliveryman smiled wryly, but Akito replied to him with a smile.

「I’m used to carrying heavier box at my part-time job.」

Akito finished signing the form and returned inside his room. He placed the package on the table.

When he opened it, he found a homemade cooking inside from his mother.

All the foods had been packaged neatly. He placed them inside his refrigerator.

「Kaa-san is really a worrywart.」

There was a letter inside the package even though she should be able  to call him by phone. He took the letter and read it. He could feel his  mother’s concern for him from it.

「Even though it hasn’t been three months since I lived alone. I need to tell her that I’ll go home for the summer vacation.」

But, here his gaze turned toward the VR machine at the corner of his room.

「……As expected I won’t be able to bring it back home with me.」

Akito thought that he wouldn’t be able to login for a while during summer holiday.

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