40 Pioneer Gathering
Editor: Crembo.
-Morning, My House-
-My POV-
"Do you remember the plan?"
"Yes." she nodded.
"Then, can you recite it?"
She nodded. "Always stick close to master and if I feel something strange, immediately tell master."
"Perfect." I patted her. "Sorry for giving you all this trouble."
"Please don't be, master. In fact, I'm very happy that master is counting on me." she gave me her sweet smile.
IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!!
"Bara!!" I hugged her.
"Master!!" she hugged me back.
And they lived happily ever after… I wish I could happily ever after from just a hug.
It has been… almost a month since Bara appeared, and things have changed since she started living with me.
Firstly, the first week of her 'arrival', the house felt much 'livelier'.
"Master! Look! The fire! It appeared! It actually appeared! Oh no! The floor's on fire!!"
"…" I silently smiled.
"Master! Look at my clothes! Isn't this cute? Or maybe the other one is cuter? Just wait for a minute! I'll change into it now!"
"…" I silently smiled.
"Let met help, Master! I'll cut the vegetable! I'll cut the meat! *THUNK* AAAH!! THE CUTTING BOARD!!"
"…" I silently smiled.
"MASTER!! MASTER!! MAAAAASSSSTEEERRRR!!"
"…" I silently 'smiled'.
*pat**pat**pat**pat*
"FUNYAAAAAA!!"
*patting intensified*
… That was like, my everyday life in the first week. I patted her head every time she was out of control. I honestly think she was just excited from finally being freed/separated from me, so I couldn't blame her for being overly excited by everything.
Speaking of "separated from me", her figure changed after that day. She became a younger version of my trap self. In short, she turned into a Loli… I wonder why…
Beside the Loli part, she's not human, she's a magical being, just like Koakuma. There is a different feel to it when I sense different beings, like, there's a difference between Youkai and Fairies.
Secondly, her room. Placing her in my room was out of question. Everyone needs their own space to have their privacy, including me. So I made another room across from my own, and yes, that meant the house had suddenly grown bigger if someone saw it from the outside. But… well…
"Master, can I request something?"
"Hm? Of course, if it's not dangerous, I'll absolutely grant it."
"Then, um, can we sleep together? I…can't sleep very well because we always slept together at the start. So… can you do it?"
"…"
… I already gave my word... we both slept together in my room.
... with our own individual futon. I'm a gentleman.
… Moving on, I got her a change of clothes and her daily necessity from the System. We took turns using the bathroom, and I really made sure to check the bathroom before entering if it's still used by her or not. I don't want that cliché 'accidently seeing you naked' bullshit and she might forget to lock the door too… and also, I prefer seeing a girl in a swimsuit over seeing them naked anyway.
As for everyone's reaction to Bara… well, I'm just gonna explaine it another time, so for now, let's focus on the task that's happening soon.
[The Pioneer Gathering]
[A celebration for the Users that have survived for a certain amount of time inside their Universe. All Users will be sent to the Special Universe that we created. Expect many good surprises from us. We hope all of you enjoy it.]
[User can bring a companion to this event. Limit: one companion.]
[User will be transported one week after receiving this announcement.]
Yep, Pioneer Gathering. It also means there's other Pioneers beside me.
The idea that other people also got to become a Pioneer like me was completely out of my mind before I read that message, that's why I was completely taken by surprise when I read it. That wasn't the most important point in that message, however.
'Many good surprises' & 'hope all of you enjoy', I'm sorry but as a pessimistic person, those kinds of lines are the equivalent of 'come here, we've got candy' from a stranger.
So of course, as the logical person I am, I started training so I wouldn't get my butt kicked by the System, and since I could bring a companion, I invited Bara to train together with me. She was okay with it and we trained to work as a team in the simulation room. It was fun, including the time when she tried to impress me with her Pyrokinesis.
Bara suddenly went in front me.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"
Flames appeared and then immediately raged powerfully in front of us. They were so powerful that they created a fire wall.
Bara looked back smiling at me while sweating from her forehead.
I saw a silhouette start to appear in the fire in front of her.
A bot suddenly leaped out through the fire wall.
[Lv.30 Fighter Bot]
Bara reacted too late to its sudden appearance so I went in front of her this time and sliced it in two.
Since Bara was surprised at what just happened, her hold on the fire was disappearing, revealing our enemy that was in the fire until now.
I saw many bots still standing in the distance, their bodies were melted but they still could move despite the damage they suffered. It seems like the bots were quite resistant to fire.
"I know you're awesome but next time, let's stick to the plan, okay?" I pat her head.
"…Okay." I heard her small dejected voice.
Since I felt bad for her, I pat her head again in the end. She's so cute!!
There was also buying and upgrading my Abilities and Items.
I bought back my Enhancement and Flight Magic from the system after they were transferred into Bara, the total cost for them are 40,000 AP. I also bought a new ability.
[Immortal Vitality Lv.1 – Lv.2] = 60,000 AP.
[Increase User's Endurance, Max Vitality, Vitality Regen, Max Energy, and Energy Regen.]
[Lv.63 increased to Lv.70]
I got the idea to buy the skill when I saw Bara felt tired from the training. My train of thought went from 'how do I make the training less tiring' to 'won't it be easier if we don't have to feel tired'.
I know it sounds great at first but then after a while, I realized how big of a mistake I just made.
I couldn't fall asleep anymore.
I laid down in my futon and closed my eyes. After what felt like an hour, I started wondering why I hadn't fallen asleep yet. I started thinking and then I realized it was because of the skill I just bought.
Thank god I had enough AP to let me buy another skill to let me sleep. There was the option to just use medicine to let me sleep, but I'm a type of person that doesn't want to rely on medicine to keep me healthy. I doubted I could even do it now because of my Gaia Tattoo.
[Sleep Control]: 9,000 AP.
[Lets User control when they will sleep or not]
It sounded dubious but it did let me sleep so I won't complain about it.
I was also playing around with magic. With Nature Magic activation as the base example, I discovered different types of magic.
[Fire Magic Lv.2]
[Water Magic Lv.2]
[Wind Magic Lv.2]
[Earth Magic Lv.2]
[Light Magic Lv.2]
[Lv.70 increased to Lv.71]
Now I could make various types of ammunition anywhere I wanted and use Vector Change to throw them at things. As a side note, magic is bullshit. I kept using it until I realized that the mana you used changed into what you wished for, and then it depended on how you applied the mana to do certain things. Because of that, I realized that Flight was actually a hard thing to do, I just cheat with the system. Talk about pay to win. Oh yeah, I also showed Bara how to do magic. Sadly, she could only do fire, but she does fire better than me.
As for items, I promised myself that I would upgrade the Gaia Tattoo, and so I finally did it.
[Gaia Cell]: 400,000 IP.
[A single gene that contains the power of Gaia. Grants the User Greater Status Effect Immunity, Increased Strength, Increased Endurance, Increased Maximum Vitality, Energy, and Mana, Increased Vitality, Energy, and Mana Regeneration, and Increased Nature Affinity]
The Tattoo disappeared, but a green streak appeared in my hair, and apparently my pupils turned green too. Even though I'm not a fan of the color green, the item's effects make up for it. Color coordination is the most important thing dude!! Now let's hope by the time I meet Yuuka in the future, I'll at least be strong enough to entertain her. I can't see myself winning against her even as I am right now.
I guess that wraps up what I did until today. Now, Bara and I were drinking while sitting on the first floor.
"…It's taking a while, isn't it, Master?" she said before she sipped her tea.
"…Yeah, I wonder if we could just get transferred right now." I said before I sipped my tea too.
[Affirmative]
And we both disappeared from our house.
-Unknown Room?-
In the blink of an eye, we were in an unfamiliar room. Very smooth transition. No bumps. No vision blur. We both even still had our cups in our hands. We just blinked and we were suddenly not in our house anymore.
"… Master." Bara said with an accusing tone.
"… Sorry." I apologized.
We both started looking around the room. It was a white room with many round white tables arranged around us in a circular manner.
"What room is this? " I asked.
[This is the Feast Room for the Pioneers. The First Event in the Pioneer Celebration. Pick a table and enjoy yourself.]
"First Event? There's still more?" I asked further.
Silence. The System wasn't answering my question.
'Weird. Does it not want to answer my question because the answer's obvious, or does it just not want to answer?… Well, whatever.'
"What did it say, Master?" Bara asked. Interesting tidbit, even though Bara was born because of the System, she couldn't see the system like I do.
"It said that this is the Feast Room, the first venue of the event. We just have to pick a table and something will happen, I think." I explained.
"Heeeeh, Feast Room, huh?"
We decided to go to random table in the corner of the room. After we arrived at the table, two floating chairs appeared beside it.
"Neat." I said.
I moved the chair against the wall so that I could see when people started appearing in the room, just like we did just now. Bara followed suit and put her chair close to mine.
[You can order any food you want, just say the name and it will appear on your table.]
"… Really? Then, I want spaghetti."
*pop*
Spaghetti appeared on my table.
"Spaghetti?" Bara asked, puzzled.
"Yes, spaghetti." I nodded. "What do you want?" I asked her.
"What do I want?" she was still puzzled.
"It said I can order anything."
She looks at the spaghetti and then at me. "Then…I want a hamburger."
"Hamburger it is." and a hamburger immediately appearws on the table.
This was great.
It was peaceful and silent.
But that changed when a crowd suddenly appeared in the middle of the room.
"WOOOW WOOOW!!" "WHAT THE HELL?!" "WHERE IS THIS?!" was about what I could pick up from the sudden cacophony of yelling.
'So noisy.' I complained.
One by one all of them grabbed their weapons and pointed them at the others, then immediate fell silent.
They all looked tense, glancing warily at each other.
Since it seemed like they hadn't noticed us yet, I decided to look at their status.
'Lots of them are in the 40's-50's, fewer people in 60's, no one in 70's, …wait, Lv.25?! What was that girl doing until now if she's that weak?! '
*ting*
I blinked.
They all blinked.
I looked down at the source of the noise.
It was my fork. It made a noise when it hit the plate.
They all turned to look at me.
All of them wordlessly pointed their weapons at me at the same time.
'What a bitch. All I did was eating and they're all pointing their weapons at me.' I thought.
I start enhancing my whole body, including the fork in my hand. I sensed Bara also enhance herself after I did it first.
"…You people wanna go?" I taunted them, I was very confident that I could send all of their attacks back at them using Vector Change.
Some of them were affected by my taunt, they were preparing to do something, but suddenly half of the crowd made surprised expression.
'Did the System finally give them the explanation? Moreover, only half of them look surprised, is the other half their companion? Meh, don't care if it's man or woman, don't care about their faces and names, all that matters is their level because it signifies how much of a threat they are.'
Now the ones that looked surprised were looking unsure at what they were doing, 'if you people are unsure, how about fucking off?'
One of them came forward. A guy with armor that I recognized from the wh40k series, Lv.60's. "Are you and the little girl beside you Pioneers?"
I breathed in and out. 'This guy's only asking, there's no need to be a jerk.' I thought. "Only I am the Pioneer, she's my companion." I said to him.
His expression said that he didn't believe me. "But then, how come you were already in this room before all of us? Surely, you must be someone important to the System."
"Nonsense. As long I remember, the System has never shown any sign of favoritism, it only gave challenges and their rewards. And for your other question, I only asked it to transfer both of us sooner because I was bored of waiting." I explained coolly.
"Challenges? You mean Quests right?" one of the crowd chimed in. He had a robotic arm, Lv.50's.
"No, those are two are different things, a Quest is when the System gives you trouble, and a Challenge is when you ask the System to give you trouble."
"What?! I've never heard of that Challenge thingy!" shouted a guy in a bizarre outfit, Lv.40's.
"You will have heard it if you ever think a Quest reward is not enough for you… All right, I'm getting tired of answering all these questions, how about you people scatter and pick a table to sit?" I suggested.
"Sit? But there's no chairs besides yours," said a woman, Lv.40's.
I just ignored her question and continued eating my food. Yup, this is probably why the System won't answer my trivial questions. Too tired to answer the obvious.
I heard many unsatisfied grunts but eventually all of them did scatter to fill the empty tables.
I blocked their sounds because they started getting noisy again at their tables.
"Master, they are a rude bunch." Bara was pouting. SO CUTE!!
"Yeah, they pointed their weapons at us for no reason, they didn't even say sorry about it. It's tiring when dealing with people like these." I made a small smile because of what Bara did.
We were having a little chat while we drank warm tea from the System. After a while, the system gave me another announcement.
[Attention all Pioneers]
[Here is the System congratulations to all of you on behalf of The Creator.]
[Congratulation to everyone for making it this far. You are the 18% remaining Pioneers that have set out since the start of the program.]
'18%?!' I was shocked. I looked around to count the people in the room.
The number matched.
18%.
18 people.
I saw some people getting agitated. I undid the sound barrier to hear what they were saying.
"""EIGHTEE-*mute*""" Okay, bad decision, mute everything again.
[The causes of death for the deceased Pioneers were either bad luck, bad decisions, or both. We are happy that all of you have taken the opposite paths, allowing to survive until now. There is no need to mourn the fallen too deeply, because they had signed up for this task, and picked their destination universes on their own.]
'And we also don't have to feel sad because they're strangers. Tips for happier life right there, by me.' I added in my heart.
[We're sure that after meeting with each other, all of you are eager to test your skills among your peers, and that's why the Second Event, Combat Tournament, will be held soon.]
A screen appeared at the center of the room, showing what I thought was the tournament bracket.
[You will still get a reward even if you lose. However, the further you are in the tournament, the better the reward it will give you.]
[The event will start in 10 minutes. Any Items, Equipment, and Skills are allowed. The winning condition is when the enemy Pioneer surrenders, falls unconscious or the dies. We will reset every Pioneer's condition after the fight is over. Please prepare yourselves.]
And the announcement ended.
"… Well, that just happened." I summarized what the System announced to Bara. "What do you think? Are you scared?" I asked.
She shook her head negatively. "Nope. We just have to do our best. Besides, didn't Master say that meeting with Yukari-san is scarier than anything in the world?"
"Haha, yeah, you're right. There's nothing scarier than that, and this is probably much easier than a Danmaku game." I smiled.
I looked at the tournament bracket. It seemed like there were 2 separate groups, group A and group B, with 9 people each. Although I said 9, only 8 of those people will fight progressively against each other until there's only 1 left, and then that 1 guy will fight the one that has been sitting out this entire time, it's like, you need to defeat that one guy to go the grand final.
I'm in the group A and I start at the bottom, so this is gonna be fun.
I took out both my swords and strapped them both to my left hip.
Bara also started wearing her combat gloves.
"It looks like the fight's gonna be 2-on-2, we're gonna use this strategy." I took out an item to show her.
"Oh, that? Then, I'll do my best!"
"Yup, please do your best so that we can gang up on them."
After waiting for a while, the Combat Tournament started.
-Fight 1-
We were teleported into an empty white room, and I could see our opponents on the opposite side of the room.
Our opponents were a Lv.50's guy and Lv.25 girl. The girl had a red ponytail and a sheathed sword hanging on her hip. Her clothing was similar to a school uniform but in a fantasy setting. You can totally see how much I gave a fuck about the dude just because he's a dude… And the girl was pretty cute too.
*poke* *poke*
Bara wordlessly poked my side with an accusatory glare.
"I'm only assessing how powerful our opponent are, I don't know the reason why you're poking me, Bara." I used my most casual tone while saying those words, I also smiled.
But she didn't believe me and then turned to the girl.
She immediately enhanced her whole body, pouring more mana into her fists.
'Welp, that girl's gonna get punched in the face now because of me. R.I.P.'
[Attention Fighters]
Floating words appeared between us and our opponents.
"Master, I can see the words." Bara said.
I nodded to let her know I heard her.
[The fight will start in 5 seconds]
"They are too far for me to use it, let's close in, use me as cover." I said.
[4]
"Yes!" Bara answered in high spirits.
[3]
Our opponents drew their swords.
[2]
I applied enhancement to my whole body.
[1]
I prepared the item in my hand.
[Start]
I immediately skated toward them using Vector Change to push me forward. I could sense Bara following from behind.
The guy shot lightning from his sword at me.
Counter Armor.
The lightning bounced off after it hit me.
They were surprised.
Just a little more.
Now it was the girl's turn to shoot fire from her sword.
It bounced off me again.
Now!
Mimicry String!
The string connected to the guy.
I stopped, he also stopped.
Bara ran past me.
The girl was confused when the guy stopped moving.
Bara threw a punch.
The girl blocked her punches but still got sent flying.
Bara chased after her.
And now, it was just the two of us.
"Hello, how is your day?" I greeted him while muting the fighting noises that were happening behind him.
"Kuh! What did you do to me?! I can't move!" he tried to move, but of course he couldn't because I was stronger.
"So rude, don't you know that when someone greets you, you should greet them back?" I commented. Give me a hand fan and I'd be Yukari.
"Answer me!!" he shouted. I could see his companion flying again in the background.
I wiggled my finger. "Non non, if you want answers you should fix your attitude." I smiled. What is this feeling? I didn't know overpowering someone could feel this good, no wonder Yukari likes acting like this.
"Dammit! Dammit!!" he continued to struggle. His companion went flying again in the background. "Eat this!!" His body started giving out a glow and electricity went rampant around him. The string conducted the electricity to me but I stopped it before it reached me.
I could see Bara waving at me from behind him.
'... I don't see any blood on her clothes, that mean the girl is just unconscious right? ...right?' I thought.
I started walking toward him, he also start walking toward me.
"What?!" he exclaimed.
We both moved closer to each other.
I raised my palm, he mirrored me.
Our palms touched.
Now I could control how his blood moved. I made the blood in his heart go crazy, his heart exploded.
[Winner: Arah & Bara]
"Great." I said in relief.
-Fight 2-
Hawkman and Hawkwoman doing a pose.
Hawkman flew into the sky, Hawkwoman flew from below.
Arah teleported behind Hawkman.
Arah and Hawkman divebombed into the ground.
Hawkman yelled a surrender just a millimeter before hitting the ground.
We won.
-Fight 3-
A Loli and a teddy bear monster.
Bara ordered me to stay put and started fighting the teddy bear.
I supported her fight using Telekinesis in a subtle manner.
…I see, she's wearing white lace underwear…
We won!!
…Ouch, how did she know?!
-Fight 4-
A guy and his dragon girl.
We attacked, the dragon girl defended.
We used magic, the dragon girl deflected.
The dragon girl used magic, Bara dodged, and I deflected it back.
The dude is just a Mana Tank for the dragon girl.
The dragon girl has a tight defense but all we needed was just one shot.
And we eventually did it.
One lucky ricocheted earth bullet from me.
He started bleeding, the dragon girl flinched, she showed an opening, and I took it.
We won.
-Fight 5-
A ninja and a talking samurai sword.
He disappeared from our vision.
We start sweeping the area with a fire storm and lasers.
We hit him.
We won.
-Fight 6 (Grand Final)-
This guy actually has a fucking Gundam.
He shot his beam.
I deflected it back at the Gundam's cockpit.
It hit.
It was destroyed.
We won.
"…It's anticlimactic." Bara commented.
I nodded in agreement.
[Congratulation to the Tournament Champion]
[Victory Reward: 300,000 AP, 300,000 IP, a Skill Seed]
[Skill Seed: A seed containing a skill that has the potential to grow into the greatest skill in the System Skill Catalogue]
[Account Upgraded from 'Pioneer' to 'Senior Pioneer']
[We hope that all of you still survive by the time your Second Anniversary arrives]
[Good Luck]
After the message ended, just like the first time we arrived, in the blink of an eye both of us arrived back in our house.
'It's super anticlimactic!! So tired, mentally tired.' I thought.
"Master~ I'm tired~ carry me to bed~." Bara lazily clung to me, SO CUTE!!
"Leave it to me!!" I carried her to the upper floor with full vigor.
But in the end, we both immediately fell asleep in the same futon because of how tired we were at that time.
The Missing Spring: Prologue
-3rd Person POV-
A certain ghost princess passed through a certain house door in Muenzuka.
"Excuse me~" she leisurely floated inside the house.
Because the fox was tending her duties and the cat was trying to gather her own subordinates, the house only had one occupant, the boundary woman.
"Yukari, are you sleeping?" The ghost princess lightly called the boundary woman's name.
The boundary woman softly grunted in her bed. She was already aware of her presence when she invaded her home.
"Thank goodness, truthfully, I'd like to request something from you…"
The boundary woman softly grunted for her to continue.
"Thank you, then can you weaken the boundary between life and death?"
The boundary woman didn't grunt.
She was awake.
She had completely woken up after hearing her request.
She immediately calculated what she would do with it.
And she concluded that she would fail at what she was doing.
But because she was her friend.
The boundary woman rustled an arm out of her blanket and pointed it upward.
Because she was the only one that understands her.
She put her arm back into her blanket.
She would fulfill it without question.
"Thank you Yukari, see you next season." she warmly smiled before she left the house.
With the ghost princess out of the house, the boundary woman tried to go back to sleep again.
There were many unknown variables in Gensokyo, but she only calculated the variables that were absolutely required to know the result of what would happen to her friend. She also knew another thing that would absolutely happen.
She knew this winter would be longer than usual.
Author note:
Heyo, author here, for people that haven't following my thread in the Spacebattle forum, for the past weeks, I've been working and moving my stuff to my new house, that's why I didn't post anything.
About the release frequency, there'll be no more weekly release, it's just gonna be whenever I want. It's hard. Writing the story has become hard for me lately. I guess this is what you called 'Burned out'. You people probably feel it too at the end of Arah part, I kinda hurrying to finishing this chapter. So yeah…
I saw the PV for 'To Aru Index season 3' sometimes ago, I don't know how I feel about that, I probably not gonna watch it because I'm not really interested in anime anymore, I hardly watch one nowadays, beside, it's probably stop at the end of the first season of the novel series (I think the 2nd season novel is the New Testament.)
