V1C6

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Episode 06 – New Faces

“Beginning data extraction…“

“Backup creation in progress…“

“Now sending data to Reclamation Command Ship Amaterasu. Please wait…“

“Backup complete.“

The central control area of Susanoo could be seen from miles around. The first floor of this giant tower of steel was lined with terminals equipped with monitors and keyboards that players could use to save their progress or store items and currency.

Items in the storage would then not be available through the inventory but would be preserved in the event of death.

“So that’s what other games call the ‘bank’ in short,” said Letty.

“I guess so, yeah.”

Thanks to our [Backpack] we weren’t particularly encumbered at the moment so once we were done saving, we headed for the exit.

“But more importantly, are you really okay with this?” I asked Letty.

She tilted her head. “Hm? What do you mean?”

I couldn’t help but shrug at the sight…

“I mean our party,” I explained. “Like I said, it was supposed to be until we reached town.”

“Eh…?”

As if I just hit a sore spot, Letty’s face turned into a grimace.

To be fair, I was the one who came up with the “until we reach town” condition. But she didn’t object so I thought she agreed…

“I-I know but… I had fun during our adventure in the forest, so I thought…”

“Is that… so?”

I couldn’t fathom how she could have had fun walking through a forest with a boring old man like me, though.

“Plus, you really helped me back then.”

“Did I…?”

“Like, when I fell down from my pod for example.”

“That… was just me being at the wrong place at the right time…”

“O-or when you were super quick t-to come up with the lantern plan…”

That’s also something I happened to remember by chance. Although, that would have been a little tactless for me to say right now.

On another note, we were still standing in the middle of the central control area… Which means, a lot of players were in hearing distance. Which means, I was starting to feel the stabs from their gazes…

“Can’t we… stay together…? I-if you don’t want to, I won’t force you…”

“Ah, no, it’s not like I don’t want to,” I clarified, “I was just wondering why you’d want to stay with me is all.”

As the word left my mouth, Letty put a hand to her chest and breathed a sigh of relief.

“If you ask me, I’m grateful to have a combat-oriented player with me because I only plan to take a few self-defence skills so…”

“R-right! You can leave the fighting to me! I will protect you!” she said with renewed confidence.

I felt like my pride had just taken a hit, though.

“Let’s call it interdependence— Ah, wait no, it feels a bit wrong. How about mutual assistance?” I hurriedly proposed.

“Fine with me!”

There’s also no denying the fact that this was my first game and that having a companion was plain and simply reassuring. Besides, now that I had gotten to know Letty more, I felt like I could be at ease with her.

Anyway, we decided to officially continue our little party.

We had left the central area and were now walking around town when Letty asked, “In that case, how about we add each other?”

“Add?”

When she saw my bovine eyes, she hurriedly showed me her [Mirror].

“If we add each other as friends, we can see if the other is logged in or even make long-distance calls.”

“Interesting. I didn’t know there was such a feature.”

From what I understood, if we were registered as friends, the TEL feature would then become available.

Since we didn’t know each other’s schedule, we would lose any means of communication once we’d logged out.

The moment I agreed, Letty happily touched the confirm button. “There, it’s done!”

Instantly, Letty’s name appeared on my friend list.

“Heeel-loooo!!”

“Wha—?!”

The sudden deafening voice of Letty ringed in my ears and almost made me lose my footing. I looked to the side in panic to see Letty grinning ear to ear.

“Excellent, looks like it’s working perfectly!”

“‘The hell was that. Don’t scare me like this…”

“He-he-he…”

I guess that was the so-called “TEL” feature… Dammit, almost gave me a heart attack.

As I held my chest still in shock, Letty took pity and adjusted the sound settings for me. “… and if you go to that screen, you can see who’s available and start a call with them.”

“Please start with that next time…” I said wearily.

She raised an eyebrow and gave me an amused look.

“In any event, now we can contact each other, right?” I said.

“That’s right,”—she grinned— “feel free to call me anytime!”

“Sorry but, as a personal rule, I don’t contact anyone unless it’s urgent.”

I had barely finished my sentence when Letty gave me a sullen look.

“A-anyway, let’s do what we can while we’re in town,” I said, trying to drop the subject. “We could try strengthening our weapons or craft ourselves armours,” I proposed.

There should be players who went for the [Crafter’s Pack] so they might be able to craft us something. With any luck, they might even be able to use the materials we looted from the wolves earlier.

“And also, wouldn’t it be a good idea to get ourselves Skins?”

“Skins?” I cocked my head as Letty dropped another bomb on me.

She sighed in exasperation and started to explain what she meant. “A Skin refers to a part you can use to change your appearance,” she said.

“Remember how you looked exactly the same as Length?”

“Yeah… So that would explain why some players had—”

“A human appearance? Yes, that’s because they used a Skin,” she finished.

“That way you can be unique. They’re sold in NPC shops and aren’t that expensive so I would recommend using some!”

Indeed, never mind Letty who was a rabbit-type Lycanthrope, I looked like every other humanoid type model. A bland and expressionless figurine. I’d literally be just another face in the crowd if I stayed that way.

“You sure know a lot, Letty.”

“I looked it all up when we took breaks in the forest.”

Looks like she gathered information on her side while I was scrolling through the “Survivalists’ Refuge” thread.

“D’you know of any Skins shops?”

“You can see them on your map. There is one not too far from here.”

And so, I let Letty take charge of the navigation through the town.

We found the store somewhere on the road connecting the central control area and the gate. One after another, skeleton-looking players were sucked in a shop that was clearly not designed to hold that many people.

“Is the shop that big?” I asked, perplexed.

“Well, it’s a game. There’s no need to have people wait to enter.”

“Ah, yeah, I’m glad that part isn’t realistic.”

No point in adding unnecessary stress in the game, I guess.

Without tarrying any further, Letty and I dived into the mass of silver figurines.

“Welcome!”

As we stepped in, a skeleton NPC—bare of any Skin—came to greet us. I supposed NPCs didn’t quite grasp the concept of marketing.

Inside, there were far less players than what we saw enter earlier. Mannequins of all ages, genders and shapes were displayed in lines and added a touch of horror to the store.

“If you would like to TRY a SKIN, PLEASE USE the fitting rooms OVER THERE!”.

Urged by the broken-yet-clear voiced NPC—if that makes sense—we both hurriedly made our way to one of the fitting rooms that lined the far wall.

“Woah.”

The moment I stepped into the dressing room, a display prompting me to select diverse parts appeared. It looked like one could try on different parts using the screen.

Each wall of the fitting room had a mirror that let players check their appearance from different angles.

“Seems like we can do pretty much what we want. Let’s see… every part is worth a hundred Bits.”

[Bit] refers to the money in the game, and every player starts with 1,500 Bits. With that in mind, it looked like one could be a bit fancy.

“I sure do look… unrefined, right now.”

The appearance that reflected in the mirrors was truly one of a bland, plain figurine fresh out of the factory.

For the face, the only customizable parts were the camera-eyes and the vocal organ. I couldn’t change my eyebrows, ears, or nose. Also, body hair was only available to Lycanthrope type airframes.

After playing around with a few presets I ended up with what looked like to be a man whose special power was to have no special power.

“Well, I guess that’s what the default male Skin looks like.”

With no armour equipped I thought I’d end up butt naked, but a default tee-shirt and a pair of trousers safely kept the game from being R18+™.

I had way too much fun with the presets, so I wasted a few minutes just randomly changing parts.

The appearances one could choose were limited by the gender one selected during character creation. Nevertheless, it was possible to achieve a trap look if one spent enough time tinkering around. Obviously, I had no interest in that at all, so I refrained.

“Alright, enough playing around. Let’s get this over with.”

Fashion isn’t my forte so I might end up with a somewhat avant-garde appearance with a touch of je-ne-sais-quoi, though.

I went and chose a preset that looked to be close to my age, tweaked it a bit, and reached for the confirm button.

“Hmm… Should I dye my hair a more eccentric colour?”

That said, black hair is still what I feel most comfortable with. Had it been a classic screen-and-keyboard game I might have dyed it a quirkier colour, but I’d feel weird doing that in a VR game.

“OK, that’ll do. Let’s go with this.”

Black hair, black eyes, your typical Japanese person. I adjusted a few settings and it looked close enough to the real me. Granted I’ve been a little greedy and went for a more muscular build. But one should be allowed that much freedom—it was a game after all.

The hair and the skin feel a bit… ‘attached’, but for a mechanical doll, this is pretty close to the real thing. It still has a flesh and blood feeling about it.

I exited the fitting room triumphantly and 100 Bits were automatically pulled out of my wallet.

“Looks like Letty’s not done yet.” I looked around the store but couldn’t spot her two red bunny ears.

There was a table in front of the fitting rooms, so I sat there and patiently waited for her to be done with her customization.

“I think Lycanthropes shouldn’t need to tweak the original Skin too much,” I said thoughtfully.

Unlike the humanoid type, the default airframe for Lycanthropes was covered with fluffy fur. Although the face—like my old one—was still a bland silvery mask so she might want to spend time tweaking it to her fancy.

“I’m done!”

Letty’s voice came from behind and tore me from my thoughts.

“Ah, fina—”

I turned around and came face to face with the definition of a beautiful girl. That clearly wasn’t the bunny I was looking for.

I stared at her, dumbstruck as a sea lion who just watched his caretaker eat his fish.

Eyebrows knitted, Letty came closer.

“Is that any way to look at a girl?” she asked.

Her red bunny ears and ruby-like eyes were unchanged. However, her metallic mask deprived of any expression had turned into smooth white skin, fringed by long red hair.

She was wearing white clothes that were supposed to be the same quality as mine, but somehow, it looked more high-grade on her.

“Ah, sorry, you were so pretty I hardly recognized you…”

“Eh?! Tha-that’s not…”

The words jumped out of my mouth before I could think twice. Letty’s white skin turned red in embarrassment.

“So-sorry, that was creepy.”

“Ah, no, not at all. It’s fine. Yes, totally fine.”

She quickly pivoted away from me, slightly clapped her cheeks, and turned back to me.

“Alright, now I’m fine!”

So it was creepy after all…

“Sure?”

“Totally. Well, let’s go then.”

“R-right…”

She took my hand and dragged me out of the store. We jumped back into the crowd and left behind us the NPC clerk who shouted broken farewells.

As we emerged on the main street, Letty murmured something I couldn’t quite catch. “You lo…k go…d, too, Ledge.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Never mind!” She puffed her cheeks and turned away.

Tips

◇Type: Humanoid

One of the four autonomous-type mechanical dolls.

This airframe is highly scalable and adaptable to various environments. Often discarded for more specialized airframes and labelled a “jack of all trades but master of none”, the humanoid type is nevertheless a keystone of the Reclamation operation as it can be deployed almost everywhere.

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