Chapter 33

Xiaoming stood at the classroom door, took a deep breath, and firmly gripped the secret letter from his mother.

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In the midst of cherry blossoms dancing in the wind, Misaki opened the old diary and read the words of promise written there.

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Amid the results of the survey, character introductions are included. In fact, I had been writing character introductions here and there, but I kept thinking, "I'll release them on Inventory when I have enough," so some of the information is outdated or lacks recent updates. However, as a document that gives a sense of the author's history... I'm sorry, it's a compromise, please forgive me.

I thought about writing from the perspective of Pencilgon during the Pencil Dynasty era or from the perspective of NutsCracker for the forbidden spell, but after lightly considering the plot, it became about one chapter long, so I reluctantly gave up. I even thought about an introduction where Yangwu's father disappeared for a week along with his diaper purchase history... If you're someone who really enjoys fishing, you might understand the reason.

Name: Tennei Eien

PN: Pencil Warrior, Arthur Pencilgon

Age: 24

Gender: Female

Special Skill: Can pose even when caught off guard

Likes: Fireworks, Thrills

Dislikes: Boredom, Slugs

Favorite Game Category: Strategy games

Disliked Game Category: On-rails games (no room for strategic negotiation)

Game Style: Fireworks craftsman type. She works diligently to prepare for a single explosive moment. The preparation itself is not something she enjoys but rather dislikes. Her negotiation skills with NPCs are outstanding, and even when in an adversarial relationship, she can take actions that ultimately benefit Pencilgon.

She is skilled at changing tactics on the fly to make her constructed situations work, and her improvisational ability is high. However, when the fundamental premise is broken, she becomes a mediocre player.

Details: A teenage idol and model, admired by many. In reality, she is a type of person who can say "Tama-ya~" at the sight of a spectacular explosion. A thorough hedonist, she prefers thrills over peace and pleasure over stability. In real life, such behavior would quickly lead to financial trouble, so she seeks thrills in the game world.

She is the mastermind behind the "Unite Rounds [Pencil Dynasty] Incident," a culmination of her efforts to create a grand explosion. Her hedonism extends to loving self-destruct mechanisms. Naturally, she rigged the royal castle with a large amount of explosives, and the players who became her subordinates were unaware and were blown away with the castle.

She uses her real face in the game, but mimicking celebrities in character creation is not uncommon, so she has not been exposed yet. For now.

Her recent worry is being found out for playing full-dive games and being asked, "What kind of games do you play?" She can't tell fans who admire her, "Well, today I sold a clan where my younger brother was the leader to another player and destroyed it."

She believes there is no superior younger brother.

Additional Information: Her family home is not far from the Yangwu family. Her younger brother, Orsuro (Kugen), attends a different middle school, so Rumi is unaware of his existence. However, if he were to attend the same high school as the protagonist, which is a prestigious school, it would be an IF story and thus not mentioned.

Name: Aki Makoto

PN: NutsCracker, DeepSlaughter

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Special Skill: Virtually all-purpose in full-dive

Likes: Lewd jokes, "Sanraku"

Dislikes: Herself, reality, women who look happy

Favorite Game Category: Online games

Disliked Game Category: Offline games

Game Style: Virtually all-purpose, with 80% of her resources wasted on using lewd jokes to confuse opponents. Her brain is fully adapted to full-dive, allowing for voice changes, non-human forms, and parallel thinking. She is a strategist in a different aspect from Pencilgon, more of a cult leader type. She increases her allies by intertwining empathy and dependence.

Details: A player who wastes talent on lewd jokes, capable of destroying games. She is the daughter of "AKIGAYA" and "Aki Makoto Corporation." Yes, she is a girl.

Due to certain reasons, she has largely abandoned reality and immersed herself in the full-dive VR world. She is a dark character, embodying the author's dark side. Her darkness is so deep that she tried to balance it with lewd jokes, but the chemical reaction resulted in her current state.

Her obsession with "Sanraku" is not just a game but a stage for her enjoyment. While she is not wrong in enjoying the game, she fundamentally diverges from Sanraku's approach.

Name: Yangwu Rumi

PN: None

Age: 14

Gender: Female

Special Skill: Identifying brands of clothing and accessories

Likes: Tennei Eien, bulk buying

Dislikes: Lack of money, capitalism (when lacking money)

Favorite Game Category: None

Disliked Game Category: None

Game Style: None

Details: The protagonist Rakuro's sister, born into a family of hobby enthusiasts. She is likely the top spender in the family in terms of continuous spending (though her mother is the top in instant spending).

She is naturally fashion-conscious and works multiple part-time jobs to buy clothes, accessories, and cosmetics. Her work as a reader model is not a hobby but is heavily influenced by her idol, Tennei Eien. She has the blood of someone who puts all their effort into their hobbies, so she works hard at various part-time jobs to earn money. As a result, she is the most versatile in the family. For some reason, she can make cocktails (learned at a daytime café and nighttime bar) and repair cars (learned from maintaining a mobile ice cream shop). In terms of a certain TRPG, she has about 35 skills, making her a monster.

She is treated as a cult follower by Rakuro, but she doesn't know why. Even if she found out that Tennei Eien is actually a devil with a twisted nature, she would still think, "Even a bad Toa-sama is great!" and remain a cult follower.

Recently, she discovered that her brother has a relationship with Tennei Eien and managed to exchange contact information with her idol. In the timeline after "Tanoshii Nijikai Dai Sanji," there is a hidden setting where she encounters Eien at a photo shoot and almost has a heart attack when Eien speaks to her affectionately.

She is strong in miniskirts and thighs.

Name: Oki Akane

PN: Dragonfly, Aki Azusa

Age: 15

Gender: Female

Special Skill: Never giving up

Likes: Challenges

Dislikes: Giving up

Favorite Game Category: All types

Disliked Game Category: Visual novels

Game Style: RTA (Real-Time Attack) type, repeatedly trying and erroring to reach the optimal solution. She rushes in and experiments, then thinks of the correct answer after failing. Her style is intuitive, so it doesn't quite align. However, her mental toughness in continuing to challenge until it clicks is truly formidable.

Details: A new player who descended into a niche game, a tough and muscular junior... now a time-attack type athletic junior ninja girl who can shoot beams from her mouth. Her name "Oki Akane" is a play on "Oki Akane," so her in-game name is usually related to dragonflies, like Katsuo (Kei).

In real life, she is a star in the middle school track and field world, with an excellent aptitude for running. She started to build her stamina to counteract her frail constitution, but it eventually led to this.

She has cleared a significant number of bad games, not because she likes bad games but because she received a full-dive game console as a gift for qualifying for the national championships and could only afford cheap games from a wagon. Incidentally, she received a game for making it to the national best 8.

While she may seem like just an athletic type, her essence is a deep aversion to the act of giving up. She won't stop until the challenge becomes impossible. She has seen classmates who can easily do things she can't but find them tedious, so she refuses to be on that side.

She once struggled with the fact that her victory meant someone else's loss and tears, but she was inspired by a legendary track and field athlete's words: "The winner must revel in victory; humility is the greatest insult to the loser." This shaped her current personality.

She strongly empathizes with and actively helps others who work hard and challenge themselves, and she shows displeasure towards those who hinder them. However, she doesn't think of:

"Crushing them with an overwhelming score difference and smirking"

"Beating them thoroughly and smirking"

"Throwing them into despair and smirking"

So she is still a light attribute.

Name: Silvia Goldberg

PN: Argentowl, Silvia

Age: 20

Gender: Female

Special Skill: Cymbal Kick

Likes: Galaxia Label

Dislikes: Being a third party

Favorite Game Category: Galaxia Heroes, Fighting games

Disliked Game Category: Management games

Game Style: Heroic, moving like the hero "Meteus" from the Galaxia Comic "Meteus." Her main focus is on foot techniques. With her remarkable stamina and battle sense, her performance never drops, and the longer the battle, the higher her tension rises, making her a superior version of the protagonist. However, unlike the protagonist, she has pushed the Meteus style to its limits, so she lacks the protagonist's versatility.

Details: The best fighting game player in America, essentially the world's strongest. However, since she focuses almost exclusively on the Galaxia Heroes series and shows little interest in other fighting games, it was rumored that she might not be unbeatable if she played other games. At an event six months before the main story, she swept through five opponents in a row.

She has a charming personality, accustomed to performing in front of people due to her American Dream. While she is not inherently malicious, her skill level, known as "Real Meteus," has led her to empathize with the character and eagerly await the appearance of her fated rival, "Cursed Prison." Therefore, she is cold and harsh to players who challenge her with Cursed Prison.

She likes Katsuo (Kei), leading to a Katsuo explosion. She fully utilizes her age advantage to appeal to Kei, but her overwhelming strength makes her a wall that Kei must overcome, a wall she herself has built, a bitter irony.

Her emotional expression is thin, and she is a cool girl, but with the release of Nefholo 2, her brain glitched, and she gained emotions. However, the glitch means she can turn emotions on and off but not control them, leading to extreme laughter or crying.

Name: Sabei Natsuren

PN: Rust

Age: 16

Gender: Female

Special Skill: Early rising

Likes: Nephilim Hollow, close battles

Dislikes: Incomplete, abandoned

Favorite Game Category: Robot games

Disliked Game Category: Management games

Game Style: She can judge what an opponent can do based on their specs and what they are actually doing, and then respond with what she can do and what she can actually do, a parallel thinker. Therefore, she is weak against new and unknown opponents. The more she delves into a game, the stronger she becomes.

Details: A hardcore Nephilim Hollow player. She is the Crimson-Winged Emperor who met Sunraku in deep despair. To stop the comet-like "Kingfisher" Sunraku, she used the information she had on "Ctharind of the Abyss" to tie Sunraku to the world of Nephilim Hollow.

She seems quiet but is as passionate about Nephilim Hollow as Sunraku is about bad games, and her enthusiasm infects other players, making her a kind of charismatic leader. She has a rule that if she loses, she switches to a different mech. Her third mech, "Crimson-Winged Entwined," was undefeated until she was brutally defeated by the extreme build "Fiddler Crab" on her first encounter.

Her next mech is designed to counter the trend of "Ambush Hermit Crab" builds.

Her in-game avatar is almost her real face, with only her hair and eye color changed and her height slightly lowered. If her head size is increased and her coloring is changed to Japanese, it becomes her real appearance.

She was a cool girl with thin emotional expression, but with the release of Nefholo 2, her brain glitched, and she gained emotions. However, the glitch means she can turn emotions on and off but not control them, leading to extreme laughter or crying.

Name: Kashiwano Ha

PN: Mord

Age: 16

Gender: Male

Special Skill: Speed reading

Likes: Diligent people

Dislikes: People who belittle after listening

Favorite Game Category: Tower Defense

Disliked Game Category: Fighting games

Game Style: Commander or Operator type, capable of leading the front lines to some extent, making him strong and convenient when giving orders from a slightly rear position. However, the convenience varies depending on the game's system for distance communication.

His individual combat power is average, but with a partner who can accurately recognize and execute his orders, the danger level is extremely high. For example, when teaming up with strangers in Nefholo, he achieved a string of victories.

Details: A hardcore Nephilim Hollow player. While often overshadowed by Rust, he has the insight and skills to command the best pilots, supporting Rust's play in Nefholo. However, in Shanfro, there are few means to communicate with distant teammates, making it difficult to fully utilize his abilities.

In real life, he is often scouted for combat sports due to his physical prowess, with a vertical jump over 170 cm. However, he is a herbivore at heart and avoids rough activities. His childhood friend Natsuren is in the homeroom club, so he naturally chose the same club. Incidentally, his avatar has a male face, but his height and other data are almost the same as his real data, though not as muscular as typical male game characters.

He is known for the mysterious language "Mord" in my work, indicating his low and long-lasting laughter. He laughs at trivial things and can continue laughing for over a minute once he starts, often getting scolded for it. However, he doesn't laugh at boring jokes or bad performances, so a "Mord" situation is quite serious.

In Nefholo, new threats like "enemies who start telling rakugo during battles," "enemies who deliberately use bizarre motions," and "enemies who start impromptu skits and set up death flags" have emerged, leading to a difficult future.

Name: Saiga Hyaku

PN: Saiga-100

Age: 24

Gender: Female

Special Skill: Helmet splitting

Likes: Rock baths, miso soup

Dislikes: Shoulder pain, eye strain

Favorite Game Category: Shangri-La Frontier

Disliked Game Category: Games with a fixed optimal solution

Game Style: Compared to her sister, who is a block of unique items, she has fewer unique items but can multiply skills, magic, and tactics. She is good at games but more so at excelling in various areas, with games being one of them. Like her sister, she is skilled in self-defense, making her strong in general. However, she struggles against improvisational types, those with a 70% win rate, and those who poison before fighting, as well as those who learn and evolve through trial and error.

Details: A well-rounded individual, skilled in both academics and sports, with good social skills and proper etiquette, born into an old family. She has been blessed with multiple talents but at the cost of her romantic luck. However, her older sister and younger sister are also bad at love, suggesting it might be genetic.

In real life, she is a top career woman, working as a corporate warrior during the day and as the leader and "Hero" of the