Chapter 261: World-Shaking Wisdom

After returning to Room 7012, Asagiri took out the phones belonging to the three dead Players and placed them on the table.

"If you want to draw items or take a new Player identity, you have to tap the eye icon app on the corresponding phone within twenty four hours. But only thirteen hours have passed since we entered this Dungeon, and there are still fifty nine hours left. We can’t take them out with us, so we might as well just draw items or equipment directly."

Iwanaga Kotoko nodded and picked up one of the phones.

"Mm, drawing is fine too. Equipment from Players at that level probably won’t be especially useful to us, but we might still get some practical items. We already used up the hand sanitizer and the music box in the earlier fight, and the sniper rifle is out of bullets. Without ammo, that thing is just a heavy chunk of scrap. Maybe we’ll get the right bullets later."

"According to your earlier plan..."

Yuuki Asuna stared at Asagiri’s profile and asked tentatively,

"If we pull equipment that isn’t very useful to us, can we give it to Ashikaga sensei?"

"Mm. Honestly, I’d rather give her the phones of dead Players directly. Compared to a single piece of equipment or an item, registering a new Player identity is obviously more valuable. Once she registers, she can inherit all of that Player’s items and equipment too. It’s just a pity that by the time this Dungeon ends, the twenty four hour limit will already be long over."

Asagiri said that while tapping the eye icon app on the first phone screen.

To be honest, he did not have high expectations for whatever items or equipment might be drawn from the three phones.

After all, only powerful Players had a real chance of obtaining powerful gear. The three Players he had killed with ease even while weakened were clearly not that strong. Their equipment and items were unlikely to be of much use to a team at his level.

But this time, the result was unexpectedly good.

[Obtained Equipment: Gift of the Night Mother]

[Ring of the Night Mother (Quality: Purple, Excellent): A ring bestowed by an existence known as the "Night Mother," worshipped by a certain assassin organization. While wearing this ring, the power fluctuations produced when the Player uses various abilities will be greatly reduced, and the Player’s own presence will be completely concealed, greatly lowering the chance of being detected by perception based skills.]

"Phantom, this one is yours."

Seeing the pure black ring Asagiri handed over, made from some unknown material and set with a tiny skull on the band, Kato Megumi extended her left hand.

But she did not take it.

Instead, she lifted her other hand to tuck her long black hair behind her ear, then smiled faintly.

"Can you put it on for me?"

"No, that won’t work."

Asagiri shook his head with a smile.

"That costs extra."

Kato Megumi blinked.

"What’s the price?"

"A kiss."

At those words, Kato Megumi’s expression stayed calm, but a clear blush still rose across her face. She glanced at Yuuki Asuna and Iwanaga Kotoko sitting nearby. The former looked helpless, while the latter clutched her white beret dramatically and cried out in accusation.

"How could you! How could you!!!"

Yuuki Asuna rolled her eyes.

"When he put a ring on you, Phantom and I didn’t cry and scream like that."

Iwanaga Kotoko replied with absolute righteousness,

"I’m a hypocrite."

Yuuki Asuna: "...I genuinely don’t know what to say to you."

Seeing that neither of the two girls looked truly angry, only exasperated, Kato Megumi quietly let out a breath of relief. Then she leaned closer to Asagiri, lightly kissed his cheek, and whispered,

"Let’s leave it at this for now... The rest... we can talk about after we clear the Dungeon."

"Okay."

Asagiri smiled, then slipped the Ring of the Night Mother onto Kato Megumi’s left ring finger.

After that, Yuuki Asuna and Iwanaga Kotoko performed the remaining two draws.

Yuuki Asuna drew a blue quality longsword with an effect that increased the enemy’s pain when striking biological targets.

Iwanaga Kotoko, on the other hand, had much worse luck. She drew only a white quality plain baseball bat, which was obviously beginner tier junk from a first stage novice Dungeon, something that Player had somehow carried all the way into a third stage Dungeon.

Still, that was normal.

Most Players kept at least a little useless clutter in their inventories. Throwing it away felt wasteful because it was technically system certified gear, but keeping it served no real purpose. In a sense, that also reduced the value of killing Players and taking their phones to draw rewards.

Perhaps that was intentional. The system might have set things up that way precisely because it did not want the overall number of Players to drop too sharply from rampant PvP.

"Thinking about it carefully, that Thousand Faced Cursed Entity was actually pretty strong."

Iwanaga Kotoko stroked her pale chin. Since the temperature had finally returned to normal, she had changed back into her favorite Western style dress. Sitting in the pleasantly cool, air conditioned room, she casually placed her white stockinged legs across Asagiri’s lap, brushing restlessly against him from time to time.

"The only reason we managed to eliminate it so smoothly this time was because it hadn’t absorbed any truly powerful Players, and the number of parasitic Players under its control wasn’t that high. If we had let it keep growing... it probably would have become extremely troublesome."

"That’s exactly why we were sent here."

"Huh?"

Hearing Asagiri’s absurdly calm tone, Iwanaga Kotoko looked genuinely confused.

"You’ve got another idea?"

"Mm... online game matchmaking." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Seeing the blank looks on Iwanaga Kotoko, Kato Megumi, and Yuuki Asuna, Asagiri explained with a smile,

"In competitive online games, there’s usually a mechanism that tries to keep both sides at roughly equal strength. The goal is to make sure everyone in a match has a decent experience. Of course, very few developers can actually do that well. But if you think about it from that angle, the hidden rule behind this system, that it won’t create a challenge that is absolutely impossible to clear, follows the same logic."

He crossed one leg over the other and continued casually,

"If the four of us and the White Suit Team hadn’t entered this Dungeon, then for the remaining ordinary Players, the difficulty would have been way too high. So maybe this is part of the system’s balancing mechanism."

Yuuki Asuna nodded in a way that suggested she half understood, then asked curiously,

"But what if we hadn’t chosen this Dungeon? There were three options that day."

"Did you forget? We registered only one day in advance. Because we have advanced Player privileges, by the time we signed up, most ordinary Players had already locked in the Dungeons they were going to enter. The other two options available to us were also third stage Dungeons, and their difficulty was probably about the same. From the system’s point of view, it didn’t matter which one we picked."

Yuuki Asuna frowned slightly.

"Then what about the Players in the other two Dungeons at the same time...?"

"Most of them probably died. A total wipe is possible too."

Asagiri shrugged. Then, feeling Iwanaga Kotoko’s little white stockinged feet constantly rubbing against him, he suddenly grabbed them and started tickling the soles.

Iwanaga Kotoko instantly dissolved into laughter, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she begged for mercy like some arrogant little devil finally getting what she deserved. Only then did Asagiri let her go.

Then he looked at Yuuki Asuna and continued with a smile,

"But isn’t that what a death game is from the start? Players who perform well in beginner Dungeons get stronger rewards, then keep throwing themselves into danger again and again, surviving all the way to the end. Only then can they become high level Players. If ordinary Players want to reach that level, they have to do the same thing. Risk their lives, overcome the hard parts, and survive. Otherwise, sooner or later, they die."

After saying that, Asagiri stood up.

"Alright, I’m going to sleep. Anyone coming with me?"

Iwanaga Kotoko shot to her feet so fast it looked like lightning.

"Me, me, me, me! Oh no, my mental energy is depleted too, I’m suddenly super sleepy~"

"I think you’re just..."

Yuuki Asuna stopped halfway through. Her face turned red.

No matter what, she had good manners, and her personality was nowhere near as shameless as Iwanaga Kotoko’s. Saying the rest out loud was simply beyond her.

Then Kato Megumi calmly dropped a bombshell.

"Then let’s all go together."

"Huh?"

Yuuki Asuna gasped so hard it nearly echoed around the room.

"Y you... you too...? Wait, could it be... but this is still inside the Dungeon..."

Seeing Yuuki Asuna’s utterly shaken expression, Kato Megumi let out a quiet sigh.

"What I mean is, if the two of them go to sleep alone, they might do something inappropriate. But if all four of us stay in the same room, then that problem is avoided, and it’s safer too, right?"

"So that’s what you meant..."

Yuuki Asuna finally exhaled in relief, then looked embarrassed over how badly she had misunderstood.

At that exact moment, Asagiri said meaningfully,

"Can it really be avoided? I have my doubts."

"Doubts, my foot."

Yuuki Asuna walked over and lightly poked his cheek with her fair index finger.

"This is still inside a Dungeon, you know."

Asagiri’s eyes widened in sudden realization.

"Oh? So the key point is that we’re in the Dungeon, not that the four of us are together? Got it."

Yuuki Asuna’s face turned bright red.

"You... don’t twist my words."

"Don’t worry."

Asagiri reached out and stroked Yuuki Asuna’s flaxen hair. Then, with perfect seriousness, he declared,

"My world shaking wisdom tells me that now is the perfect time... for a world shaking party!"

.....

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