Otherworld TRPG Game Master - Chapter 294



Chapter 294 – S5. Dragon Analysis Research Society

Whirring──

“Simulation paused, stabilizing player consciousness, entering refresh phase.”

“Mm. No issues. Gordius’s condition is good too.”

Vrrrrr.

The bright light of the magic circle dimmed and transformed into a gentle glow. The magical noise that had been ringing during operation faded into a soft hum, like a computer entering power-saving mode.

No anomalies in the data storage. The intelligence sharing device is functioning smoothly. And the research materials… can wait until later after a little rest.

I quietly declared.

“Operating time approximately 21 hours, I solemnly announce the successful conclusion of Chapter 1.”

“Wowww.”

Clap clap clap. After celebrating our half-success with weak, dry applause, we collapsed onto the floor, hand in hand.

I’m exhausted.

“Ugh…”

Yuna whined like a sleepy baby otter, crawling over my body. Aisha, seeing this, clicked her tongue.

“…Why are you being so dramatic? I don’t know about the others, but Mima, you’re an information lifeform, so you should be able to eliminate fatigue, right? Just extract it.”

“Extraction? Deletion? Living so comfortably can lead to losing your humanity.”

“And you’ll end up with a mountain of inefficiency. Can’t you see the disorganized information piling up? Get to work.”

“Ah, shut up. Don’t try to take away my excuse to cuddle with the Master of the Tower.”

Yuna stretched out her hands to cover her ears. It’s a small hand, I realize anew. With my hearing blocked like this, I’m invulnerable to Aisha’s nagging. Oh, how cute.

Aisha clicked her tongue in annoyance and began sorting the data.

Yeah, why is it that you’ve been managing sessions just fine until now, but this time you’re sprawled out in exhaustion? The reason is simple. There was a lot to do this time.

First, the fusion of science and magic.

To explain again, I’m a high-performance calculator, not a high-performance scientist. I could pour modern scientific data into Gordius’s head, but that alone… is lacking and disappointing.

If I told Gordius to create everything from scratch and he failed, wouldn’t that mean the first step of the session wouldn’t even be established? I had to lay the groundwork.

To showcase the genius of Woo Chae-rin, who appears as a brilliant scientist in the story, I needed papers or… some kind of creative output.

So what do I do? If I can’t do it, I can have someone else do it.

Before pushing this session forward, I sent a terminal and a letter to Hart of the Northern Duke. Thus, I made a request to the grand alchemist living in the North. What was the content?

I wanted to borrow a bit of your brain while you sleep.

Yes, the magical engine of Woo Chae-rin that emerged from the session, her papers, the robots coming together, and most areas needing creation… I borrowed the head of the alchemist guild leader, whatever their name is!

It’s a technology applied from the dream-world of the Succubus Queen. Besides alchemists, I distributed sleep aids (which only siphon a bit of processing power while they sleep) to the graduate students being churned out within the academy.

I wove together those precious minds into a dream and used them like my own think tank. Controlling that was a task in itself, and it was a bit tough. Having multiple brains can get complicated.

But the results are as brilliant as the effort put in.

“The magical engine is actually running?”

“With this, I can save some costs on the magic stones for the session!”

It had been put into practical use.

There is a minor drawback that the efficiency of the magical engine is proportional to the wizard’s skill, but if this technology becomes widespread, the world might change. Arcane punk, perhaps.

With this, creating giant robots in reality is no longer a dream. I should coax Gordius to push for commercialization as soon as he comes out.

The rest is omitted.

And next, of course, is the research and analysis of ‘that.’

I merely shaped the physical quantities of the ‘Great Beast,’ without adding any other special effects. And in that state, I projected the characteristics of ‘that’ from the ‘Magic Sword’ onto the Great Beast.

It’s similar to the Cthulhu session but different. The evil god could interfere with the session system itself, but the Great Beast is completely controlled as an entity ‘within the story.’

We don’t know much about ‘that.’ It was a measure to observe it while incorporating it into the session.

In short.

The abilities displayed by the ‘Great Beast’ within the session mean that they are the abilities of the original ‘that’ which we didn’t know about.

The characteristics revealed so far are as follows.

[Disruption of Aiming (Conceptual)], [Self-Recovery], [Continental-Level Brainwashing], [Dragon’s Breath], [Mutation], [Magical Power Detection], and all sorts of other things yet to be revealed. A flurry of absurd utilities poured forth.

What I’ve gathered is merely 1%, so there must be many more abilities beyond this.

Even if I’m incredibly lucky and these utilities are all there is to ‘it’, this b*stard is on the same level as a goddess shooting divine beams from the heavens. It’s not some hardware like the ‘Great Monster’, so it’s bound to be even more troublesome.

A goddess firing Dragon’s Breath…? I don’t even want to imagine it.

I clutched my head and howled.

“…How the hell did my past self manage to bind and seal this? Is there anyone who can slip into my mental barrier and ask ‘Promise’ about it?”

“Better not to know than to know. It’s obvious what kind of answer would come back.”

“That’s true!”

Let’s consider the worst-case scenario. If this b*stard suddenly resurrects and starts roaming the world, how are we supposed to confront it?

“Long-range combat is tough because of the crunchiness!”

“Crunchy… right, the superior version of the sugar-coated ability would make concentrated fire ineffective. We’ll probably have to take it down with close combat. But then we’d need to break through the Dragon’s Breath… and its damage reduction rate was considerable, wasn’t it?”

“Dragon’s Breath is honest magic that grows stronger in proportion to its size. It processes information into a special structure, so if the main body resurrects, it’ll be incredibly tough. The sheer amount of information is significant.”

“How can we possibly melt that down with Yuna’s ‘Subtraction’…?”

We must also contend with the utilities. The ‘Great Monster’ turned the world upside down shortly after its appearance, so ‘it’ could certainly do the same.

“We can’t afford to give it time.”

“Right, if we give it time… it feels like there won’t be anything left even after we hunt it down. There’ll probably be a global war breaking out.”

Thus, the conclusion is drawn: we must swiftly sever the head of this presumably incredibly tough entity, like a speedrun.

That’s impossible.

We must prevent ‘its’ resurrection at all costs. The cleanest way is to chip away at it while it’s trapped in my mind.

But if it does resurrect and we have to fight…

Stocking up on powerful artifacts like Dragonheart.

It seems the best strategy would be to attack from within rather than fighting it externally.

I asked Yuna while giving her a playful nudge.

“…Alright, we’ll take a day off and then move on to Chapter 2. Does anyone know if I missed anything?”

“Um, about the ‘Great Monster’, it seems like there’s… one more phase? There were hidden characteristics that haven’t been revealed yet. Yeah. We don’t need to prepare for that, right…?”

Ah, that.

Am I really going to neglect preparations for a happy ending?

“It’s fine. That’s what the wristwatch tattoo I got is for.”

No matter what happens, the story will end with everyone smiling.

—

I suggested taking a day off, but in truth, there’s no time to rest. I need to prepare for the session.

The flow of time inside and outside the simulation is different. Roughly a 1 to 10 ratio.

This means that players consume content at ten times the speed, and the game master has to keep up by creating sessions at that same accelerated pace.

Gordius spent well over thirty days within the session, so one might argue that it doesn’t adhere to the 1 to 10 ratio. That part is a slight trick, much like what I did during the Irid phase.

Sleep, conversations with extras, simple studying—these unimportant aspects were all skipped, leaving only the memories of having done them in my mind.

Now, what do I need to accomplish before the session starts tomorrow… let’s see.

How the world has changed in ten years, how the gas has evolved, which aspects of the magic engine have advanced and which have regressed, and what Gordius can do at the center of it all.

It seems I just need to whip up something like this.

Sitting at my desk, I scribble with a magic pen. I conjure multiple magic circles, manipulating them simultaneously while also conducting some research.

The accumulating fatigue can be swiftly extracted and converted into data, just as Aisha suggested. My body, transcending human limitations, has its advantages in this regard.

As I immersed myself in my work, I suddenly realized how late it had gotten.

A wave of nostalgia washed over me. Unlike those days flipping through tattered textbooks in a shabby neighborhood, I’ve now gained an abundance of things.

I already have two lovers with whom I share my heart, and even a childhood friend who follows me around, enamored. The mere thought of whether to accept her feelings is an extravagantly burdensome dilemma.

While I was jotting down magical formulas, there was a soft knock on the lab door.

“Who is it?”

“Your beloved, Yuri Lanster. If you’re engaged in something you wouldn’t want others to discover… I’ll give you ten seconds to tidy up your appearance.”

“Come in. I was just engaged in the most wholesome of research.”

From noble mtl dot com

“How disappointing. I was planning to enter with five seconds to spare.”

Then why did you even ask?

Creeeak. The door opened. Moments later, I felt a soft weight settle against my back. Yuri’s arms wrapped around my neck. It was a back hug.

“What are you doing? Hoo.”

Her whispering so close sent shivers down my spine.

“…Don’t blow air in my ear. I’m in the middle of session work, though it’s not urgent. Is there something you need help with?”

“Yes. There’s something I can’t manage alone.”

“What is it?”

“Tada.”

Somehow, a small cup appeared in Yuri’s hand. The liquid inside shimmered a pink hue, and a strong scent of alcohol wafted from it. That’s definitely liquor.

“Let’s have a drink.”

“…”

I decided to have a drink.

A bottle of liquor on a small tray, two glasses, and a bowl of dried squid snacks.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, we shared the glasses. As for liquor… it feels like a distant memory. Ever since Yuna remodeled the walls of the tower with her drunken antics, non-alcoholic drinks became the norm in the tower.

The last time I drank was at a faculty gathering, sipping with some hairy men, and that was it.

Maybe that’s why the experience feels quite fresh.

How should I put it… should I say I don’t need any snacks? Or that just looking at the glass is satisfying enough? After all, there’s a visual stimulus.

The glass sensed my gaze and narrowed its eyes slightly.

“Should I have come without it?”

“Enough.”

“You seem to be regretting it.”

“I said enough.”

I slid my glass forward. Yuna loosened her tie and clinked her glass against mine. With a splash, the liquor swirled, and the scent of cherry blossoms spread all around.

So why did she come? Suddenly bringing liquor into the mix.

“I was wondering if you felt anything during this session.”

“……..”

I averted my gaze from Yuna and took a sip. She smiled faintly, as if she had guessed the answer correctly. Then, adjusting her glasses, she spoke her deduction.

“Even a simple punch carries an individual’s thoughts. How you grip it, how you swing it—if you observe closely, you can learn about the person too.”

“True. It’s an old cliché that martial arts carry meaning.”

“The same goes for the session. It’s a hobby you pour your heart into. Therefore—your thoughts are mixed into the session. That’s my conclusion.”

“……So?”

As my glass emptied, Yuna lifted the bottle. When I reached out to take the drink, her left hand caught my wrist. There was no escaping.

“If only you had been a little quicker… that’s what you kept emphasizing in the story.”

“……Yeah.”

“I’ve respected your decision to hold back until you eliminate the monster in your head. I’ve known that all along. So we’ve spent quite a long time together, but aside from a trivial prank, we haven’t done anything. I believe you haven’t even done so with Yuna.”

“That’s… true.”

After deciding to be honest about my desires, I stopped casting the spell to suppress my s*xual urges, but that didn’t mean I was making any progress. I kept my distance.

As the saying goes, while there may be people who have never done it, there’s no one who has only done it once. There was a fear that crossing that line would lead to nights of madness every day.

Above all, it was terrifying.

What if I were to have a child? The thought of being ruined by a failed extraction of ‘that’ is a tragedy so painful that just imagining it sends shivers down my spine.

Such thoughts lingered in a corner of my mind, keeping me at a distance, whether consciously or unconsciously.

“Even if everything falls apart, in the final moment… perhaps it won’t be left as regret. You might think, ‘I should have done it earlier.’ What do you think, Mima?”

“⋯⋯⋯⋯.”

“You mentioned the doppelgänger incident. Even in sad situations, we must strive to find joy. Do you not think your efforts are somewhat lacking?”

Under the relentless barrage of facts from Yuri Lanster, my head kept bowing like well-ripened rice. Perhaps that was true.

“Mima.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve come to give you courage. Before we are lovers… we are friends. Before love and being loved, I simply wish for your happiness.”

You saved me, didn’t you?

With a soft clink, Yuri filled my glass to the brim and offered her advice.

“Beyond fear, there will be happiness. Try to act a little more proactively.”

“⋯⋯Is that so? Is it really okay? But what if you all dislike it?”

“You share baths with Yuna, yet you have a long tongue. Well, if you feel awkward because you’re inexperienced, you could practice with a friend or two…”

It wasn’t temptation. That made it all the more tempting.

Really, it felt as if she was saying she would join me if I was worried. Yuri was asking with her usual indifferent expression. As a friend.

That… strange consideration stirred complex emotions within me. It felt like a muddle of affection and friendship. Both endearing and dependable, in a way.

I covered my face with both hands and mumbled.

“⋯⋯Then. Would it be alright to, you know, kiss? Just casually, between us.”

“Mima. You’re acting like a pubescent boy.”

It must be the alcohol. Probably.

After that, we engaged in mundane conversation. What did I think about starting a new costume trend at the academy? I heard Aisha was playing dress-up, so why wasn’t I included? Just things like that.

As we sipped our drinks and chatted softly, we didn’t go to bed until the early hours of the morning.

—

And the next day.

“I want to pass a bill that allows expressions of affection, like kissing, to be naturally permitted between us… Ugh──?!”

“Y-Yuri?!”

As soon as I finished my sentence, I was tackled by Yuri Lanster, leaving me gasping for breath for about ten minutes.