Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter 24

Chapter 24: A Midnight Rendezvous - Part 1

I returned home from the eventful raid, ate some dinner, and bathed. After that, I lay on my bed thinking about my next steps when I received a call from Risa on my terminal.

I’d taken my chance to snag both girls’ numbers when Kano had brought up exchanging contact details, for which I was extremely impressed with myself. Plus, I couldn’t have done it without Kano. At times like this, I was proud to be Kano’s brother. And so, my barren contact list now featured nonfamily contacts for the first time!

As I savored the feeling for a while, I answered the call. I wondered what she wanted.

“Did I wake you?” asked Risa. “Sorry for calling so late. Are you okay to talk now?”

“No, I was up,” I replied. “And you’re not interrupting anything important.”

It was past ten at night, but I could hear the sounds of passing cars over the phone. She was out walking somewhere.

“I’ve been mulling things over and wanted to hear your thoughts,” explained Risa. “You know, about how this world works, its relation to DEC, that sort of stuff. We’ve had no one to talk to about those things, you know?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ve picked up on quite a few things since I got here, and it’d be good to have someone to share my thoughts with.”

Risa’s slow, drawn-out speech mannerisms made her sound like a bit of an airhead. But she was a top DEC player with sharp observational skills, so she’d probably discovered some details about this world that I’d missed.

“And since I’ve got your number now,” said Risa, “I thought, why not give Souta a ring?”

“Right,” I said. “Should I come over to you? It’d be better to talk these things through in person.”

We had a low likelihood of being under surveillance already, but I didn’t want to discuss it over the phone.

“Sounds good,” answered Risa. “Let’s meet up at the park on the hill behind the school.”

“Got it,” I responded. “I’ll get ready quickly and head over.”

I hung up and clambered to my feet.

The park on the hill? I thought. Meeting someone there at this time of night...

The scenic park on the hill behind the school offered an impressive view of Adventurers’ High and the rest of the town, which made it well-known as a popular date spot at night. My heart started beating faster. I was heading to a prime date location to meet up with a cute but unhinged girl.

Feeling a little excited, I threw some clothes on. I also picked up one of my items—it would be handy to have when seeing Risa, just in case.

I descended the creaking stairs and went to the door until I bumped into my mother. She was in her pajamas, wearing a beauty face mask.

“Oh, are you heading out?” she asked.

“For a bit, yeah,” I said. “I’m taking a key with me.”

“Be safe,” she said, waving at me and beginning to rummage through the fridge. The Narumi house was as tranquil as ever.

I walked at a fast pace, not wanting to leave Risa alone too long this late at night.

***

The hill was originally two hundred meters high. Excavations following the discovery of the dungeon at its base led to the reduction in height to eighty meters. Nevertheless, the hill’s peak offered a wonderful view over the town, adored by families during the daytime and couples at night, who visited the restaurant on the peak and looked out from the observation deck.

I navigated through the darkness of night up the hiking path that led to the peak. Even though I passed a few lovey-dovey couples holding hands on the way, I felt generous tonight and did not wish for their destruction.

About ten minutes later, I reached the park in the dead of night. The usually busy park was practically empty. It was nice and quiet here, the perfect place for our conversation.

“She told me she’d be waiting on the bench,” I said aloud, scanning the park that was illuminated by fancy bollard lights. “Oh, there she is!”

Risa had noticed me already and lifted her hand to wave. She wore a light brown blouse with cute shirring and a casual pair of beige wide-leg pants. Her mature appearance helped to make her fashion sense look quietly confident. Before now, I’d only ever seen her wearing school clothes or dungeon armor, so her outfit made my heart flutter.

“That was quick,” remarked Risa. “I didn’t think you’d get here so soon.” She smiled and invited me to sit beside her on the bench, seeming to be in a good mood.

“I need the exercise, so I power walked here.”

I was glad to have the chance to sit down since I felt worn out. The area was outside the magic field, so I needed to use my muscles to climb the hill without relying on physical enhancements.

“Sorry for calling you out so late!” apologized Risa. “But I got to thinking about something, and it kept me up.”

“I’ve had some things on my mind too,” I said. “And finding the right time and place to talk about this stuff wasn’t easy, so I’m glad we’re here now.”

Risa and I were each one of the few players who’d come here from another world. I trusted my family with almost anything, but I couldn’t talk to them about my world or DEC. With Risa, things were different, and I’d been hoping to get the chance to talk things through with someone in the same position as me.

“Ha ha, me too,” said Risa, giggling. “We’ve chatted at school and haven’t had a proper discussion since finding out we’re both players. Strangely, we’re in this position now when you think of what our relationship was like in the game.” She stared at the night sky as though she were recalling old memories.

Both of us had been bitter foes in the game and would kill each other on sight. Now that we’d been dropped into this peculiar situation, we somehow sat together on a park bench to consult each other. It was definitely strange, even a little funny.

I looked up at the night sky too. Yet the lights from the town made it difficult to see even the first-magnitude stars. This spot was a great vantage point for admiring the nighttime town but not so much the stars.

Risa paused briefly before asking whether there was anything I wanted to talk about first. I deferred to Risa to choose our topic in the spirit of ladies first for our talk.

“Thanks,” she said. “Okay, so first... I wanna talk about what we found out about the gates today.”

“You mean how their room isn’t on the map?” I asked.

Risa nodded.

The Adventurers’ Guild would send large numbers of their staff into the dungeon to construct the maps they distributed to our terminals. However, the gate room was missing from the map. Perhaps this meant nothing, but I found it strange, as did Risa.

Moreover, the fifth-floor gate room was close to the floor’s entrance and in a spot possible to stumble into while raiding due to the large volume of adventurer traffic. Despite that, I’d never encountered another adventurer in the vicinity, and it didn’t appear on the map.

“One possibility is that there’s a spell on the area around the gate room to keep players away,” I suggested.

“That’s what I was thinking,” agreed Risa. “If so, why doesn’t it work on me or you? Or on people like Satsuki and Kano, who’ve learned the secret about the gates?”

“Maybe it depends on whether you’re aware of the gates?” I noted.

It was possible that being aware of the gates was the key to bypassing the spell, which suggested the magic being used was one that manipulated perception.

“But if it were just the gates we had to explain, then I’d say it’s a spell,” said Risa. “There are some other things I’ve noticed that depend on awareness.”

When I asked her to explain, she mentioned that Satsuki hadn’t known about Fake. This skill was the first one adventurers would learn from the Thief job, so it was inconceivable that a student of Adventurers’ High would be unaware of it, especially a high-achiever like Satsuki.

Risa had wondered whether Fake wasn’t common knowledge, so she’d checked in the guild library and could not find any record of the skill. Apparently, adventurers who’d become Thieves hadn’t received Fake.

She believed this meant that one prerequisite for acquiring the skill was being aware that it existed. If you didn’t think it existed, you wouldn’t get it. Risa hypothesized this system generally applied in this world.

“That makes sense,” I said. “It would also explain why you can acquire Plus Three Skill Slots or find the gate rooms if you’ve learned about them, like Kano.”

“So far, there’s Fake, Plus Three Skill Slots, and the gates,” said Risa. “But I expect plenty more things in this world that require awareness to work.”

The remaining question was what criteria determined which things were universally known and which weren’t, but this seemed simple enough.

“I bet the features packaged in the original version of the game work for everyone, but those added in updates need awareness to work,” I said.

“Yep,” agreed Risa. “That seems the most likely.”

The state of knowledge about the dungeon in this world was like what was in the game at the time of its release. Most of the jobs and skills referenced in this world were those available from the initial release.

But Fake, Plus Three Skill Slots, the gates, the slime room, and other places were content added shortly after the game’s release. Generally, the people of this world didn’t know about any of these or guarded them as secrets restricted to small groups if they did.

Maybe this world was a simultaneous recreation of the initial DEC release and the heavily updated version I’d been playing before arriving here. People’s awareness allowed the two worlds to coexist as one.

“The good thing is,” continued Risa as she giggled, “this makes it a piece of cake to figure out what’s okay to share and what isn’t.”

“It makes it clearer what advantages we have as players too,” I remarked.

I’d already known about a few cheats available to former players, like the use of Manual Activation or skills from our game characters. Now, I’d discovered that every bit of content from updates was a potential weapon that could give us an edge. This fact could change my strategy. However...

“There’s a bit of a problem with Fake, though,” I said.

“Yeah?”

I told Risa about the big-breasted ninja—I didn’t know her name—from The Red Ninjettes I’d met during my rank-up exam. I was sure she had been using Fake and had become incredibly interested when she learned that I was using it too.

Fake wasn’t common knowledge, but it was likely that particular groups like The Red Ninjettes were aware of the skill and guarded it as their own secret. If so, that was a significant privilege they’d be sure to want to keep to themselves. The ability to hide your strength and disguise your abilities allowed you to trick your opponents into underestimating your ability. Thus, you could get away with that as much as you wanted if your opponents had no reason to suspect you could fake your stats. Such would be a huge advantage in war and espionage. So, how would they react when they saw an ordinary high school student using their secret skill? I understood why Kirara Kusunoki had delivered me an invite to attend their clan celebration.

“When is the celebration?” asked Risa.

“After the Battle of the Classes,” I replied. “I was planning on going, but I’m not sure that’d be a good idea anymore.”

They would probably think their top secret information had leaked and might even consider me a threat. I’d need to keep a careful eye on The Red Ninjettes.

“They’ve probably looked into you and your family already,” warned Risa.

“And after looking into me, they decided to meet with me directly...”

“How much do you know about The Red Ninjettes, anyway?”

Their public persona was that of a flashy clan of sexy Thieves. Their leader, Haruka Mikami, was a celebrity who was a frequent conversation topic in the media. But their true identity was an elite clan that performed missions for the Adventurers’ Guild and the government. That was what the ninja I’d met had said, at least.

“They show up in Sanjou’s main story in DEC too...as the bad guys,” elaborated Risa.

“Really?” I asked. “I didn’t know that. I never gave BL mode a go.”

I’d known Kirara had joined forces with Sanjou and supported her, so I’d assumed The Red Ninjettes were good people. The invitation I’d received and Kirara’s attitude hadn’t seemed threatening, not giving me any reason to doubt my assumption.

Still, Risa explained that The Red Ninjettes were an extremely conservative clan, and they would mercilessly attack anyone that threatened to disrupt tradition or the state.

“Knowing that, are you sure you wanna go to their main base alone?” warned Risa.

She had me there, and I said, “But ignoring their official invitation and running away won’t work forever either. I’m at a loss...”

“You probably wouldn’t be in any immediate danger,” said Risa. “If that’s what they wanted, they would’ve come after you by now.”

She reasoned that the game’s version of The Red Ninjettes would’ve acted swiftly and unhesitatingly if they had wanted to force me to reveal information or to silence me. Instead, they’d chosen the more leisurely route of inviting me to enjoy their party, suggesting they weren’t planning to attack me.

They’d likely investigated me to find out which organization I worked for. Since I didn’t work for anyone, their investigation wouldn’t have any results. So, they were still treating me with caution and likely planned to use a face-to-face meeting as a chance to investigate further.

“I think I’ll go along,” I declared, “but I’ll take appropriate precautions.”

The meeting wasn’t likely to become a battle, but it wasn’t impossible either. I’d send my family to the dungeon on the day of the party to be on the safe side.

Risa smiled at me. “In that case, let me teach you something cool as thanks for power leveling me. You might find it useful.”

She thrust her arm forward and began drawing symbols in the air. I watched closely, wondering what was about to happen. Suddenly, even though we weren’t inside a magic field, her skills activated.