Chapter 406 - 406: The Real Akie Omoi Is Cold

I went back to base, logged out, and connected to the site.

That I verified the leashed NPC.

That two Master-class monsters came out at once.

I wrote about the named high-level monster too.

A contact had come to the phone.

Blue Sky Magi.

This one still had not given up.

A pain. I will block him.

He said he met TANGE and Back on the MANHUNT user exchange site. Nearby, so they did something like a PvP offline meetup.

I cut TANGE and Back off from Blue Sky Magi. He might bring some helper again. Does not learn.

Ignore. Ignore. I blocked him.

A contact from that TANGE too. I had heard on clan chat they beat a Master-class monster together with Masters from another clan.

Working. Good.

Chat has too much info and they cannot get it across, so they want to meet and talk.

I want to do lewd things with the women. By position I have to accept.

Not in the mood, and I replied.

They said they would pick me up by car right away, so I named the parking lot of a nearby convenience store. Home is no. We only just met.

They said they would treat dinner too, so I left a note in the kitchen and went out. I walked to the convenience store parking lot. The sun was already low, and still hot.

By the time I reached the parking lot I was sweating, so I bought an iced coffee.

I was drinking the coffee, rattling the ice in the cup, and someone spoke to me.

"Aoi."

This voice. I knew right away. Akie Omoi. The real one.

"Omoi. Yo."

She ignores me completely at college, and what wind is this. Coming back from somewhere, maybe. She is holding a shopping bag.

Feels like a while since I saw Akie in casual clothes.

Over a short skirt, a thin light-blue cloth makes a skirt to the knees. A panel skirt, I think they call it.

The thighs showing through look the same as Akie in World. Lewd.

Top is a short-sleeve white shirt. Clean.

Long hair tied in one at the back today.

Damn. Cute after all.

I want to break the promise with TANGE, go back to World fast, and fuck Akie.

"What are you doing? Waiting for someone?"

"Yeah. A bit."

"Hmm. Hey. A contact came from Karen. Through someone."

That bastard. I will not deal with him, so he came from the side.

"Did you do something? To Karen?"

"No. Nothing."

Is that why Akie talked to me, unlike usual.

A me who was a little disappointed.

"Hmm. He will not meet, so tell him to meet. I told you. Later."

Cold. Message delivered, done.

I waved at Akie and watched her back go.

I might fuck her in real life too.

"Aoi. Sorry to keep you."

A car had arrived in the parking lot at some point, and TANGE spoke to me.

"No, thanks."

"That just now, the one you carded, right. Girlfriend?"

He saw.

And she is not my girlfriend.

Did it look like that?

"No. A childhood friend."

"That so. Sorry. Then let us go."

TANGE's car was a kei car. Back in the rear seat. He bowed his head, so I bowed too.

I told them a nearby family restaurant and we headed there. They said eat anything, so I ordered the summer vegetable curry from the fair.

Summer is curry. I eat curry anytime.

Until the ordered menu came, report time.

TANGE and Back had been active around Maines, a place prospering mainly as a mine city.

The first thing they grabbed there was Skeleton info. On the way, they learned DD-Unit had beaten it.

Back joined TANGE in the village he was staying in, and they moved through nearby villages.

In one village they grabbed Frog info and headed there right away. Frog is a frog monster, as named. They use sticks and stones as weapons, skillful.

A stretching tongue has a punch-like hit if it lands.

When Frog levels went up they were more trouble than expected, so they pulled back once.

Frog had a lot of higher status-ailment monsters, Poison Frog, Paralyze Frog.

Ongoing poison damage drops the ability to keep fighting hard.

They got poisoned in a fight, had a healer treat it, and got poisoned again right away. Poison in the next encounter too. Paralysis added, and they judged it dangerous.

"If the clan master had not warned us, we might have forced it."

They thanked me.

Another Master happened to be in the village, so they joined up.

The clan arkhe is not up to DD-Unit, and still a gathering of serious players.

Their clan master telos heard their clan master was Blue, and encouraged them. It will be tough, do your best.

That telos. He did not say anything extra, right.

In the end they joined three arkhe parties, five parties total, and hunted the Frog Master-class monster, Frog Lord.

The attached SR monster was Slime King.

Neither carded, they said.

The first encounter was telos, so the hunt credit went to arkhe.

Good work.

Not forcing it is correct. Survive first, and get info. That matters.

Then, at the two's request, we did PvP. Practice this time, of course.

"Uoh?"

Back let out a small voice seeing our party. Surprised the levels went up? Six lined up too.

"A swimsuit party?"

That way.

"Still from the Gillman fight."

I made the excuse.

"That HP at that level means allocate points after all, right."

"…"

I stayed silent.

Same clan, so HP and the rest are shown.

Still, do not ask what I cannot answer.

"I noticed something."

Back's level had gone up too. This side was still an easy win. That Back opened his mouth.

"Um. Do not look down on me. I pulled a woman's card at the World base, and, well, I rubbed her breasts. Really real. Sex is impossible, of course, so only rubbing."

Oh, Back. You were a man who gets it after all.

A confession that makes me want to hand over the custom build. I will not.

"And, I thought doing that would drop loyalty, so I checked."

"Huh. How was it?"

"Strange. It went up a little."

"Serious? Rub breasts and trust goes up?"

"Yeah. And even though I did not take her into combat, one allocate point occurred."

Oh. A fact I did not know either.

Liner set it like that.

"Eh. I might try too. I thought there might be some penalty, so I have not done that."

"Ah, um. Later."

"Why?"

"I probably rubbed for about an hour."

Something, Back. More fixation than me.

I pull back. Putting my own stuff on the shelf.

"That so. Then I will try after I get home."

TANGE is trying after all.

The character who gets her breasts rubbed for an hour, poor thing.

Then PvP with TANGE next.

This one took a bit of time. I won through without wide-area magic.

"Strong. As expected of the clan master."

"No, no. You are pretty good too."

"Still, a Master-class monster solo."

"Ah. A single party. That is right."

"Impossible. You are not serious even now, right?"

Well. Yeah.

"The DD-Unit bunch look amazing too, but you might be a couple heads above. Even with lower levels."

Thanks for the praise.

"Still, that childhood friend's card from before is still R."

Hm?

Right. Scan characters can have rarity raised.

"If she has reached a certain level, an extra scan has a chance to raise level. You are not doing it? You did and missed?"

"No. I have not."

Huh? Was that written on the site I checked?

"Ah. This just became possible in the MANHUNT main update the other day. On the World site, a lot of people already paid to raise the rarity of the first scan card. An article was already up in the update contents."

"The detailed items are not updated yet?"

"Probably. It is a Demon God festival."

That so. Then I should have scanned Akie on the sly today.

No complaints about now. Anytime is fine.

"If rarity goes up, stats rise, and a skill can get added, so I think you should do it."

What. Then scanning is required going forward.

"How do I raise the rarity of our UC card?"

"Pull the same card and synthesize. Or raise it to a certain level and use that level as the cost for a rarity rise."

"Level goes back to 1?"

"Yeah. Skills reset too."

That is something to think about.