Being Peroroncino’s elder sister, she looked like a pink slime. Although she called herself guro-kawaii, nobody agreed with her. Everyone was certain that she had said so to trap them.
Momonga, Peroroncino, and then Touch Me greeted her, which she returned in kind.
Several other people had arrived in the room after Momonga and Peroroncino. Momonga had done his best to pop smileys at them as they came, but when he was absorbed in conversation, he sometimes forgot to do so. However, he would definitely notice if she arrived. After all, pink slimes were especially outstanding even among this clan of heteromorphic beings.
Bukubukuchagama’s body wobbled as she flowed toward Momonga and the others. She might be a slime, but she could move fairly quickly.
According to Bukubukuchagama, she said it was like walking on her own two feet, albeit with the hassle of wearing a long skirt.
She reached Momonga and the others and immediately sat down. Although the body of a slime did not possess feminine curves, one could still approximate a place which should have been her waist from the way her body was bent.
“Yo. You seem to be talking about something serious. What’s up?”
“It’s nothing much. Just discussing what we’re going to do today.”
“Haha, well, it’s just like what my brother said. Touch-san, what will we do after today’s meeting?”
“Come to think of it, it’s about time. Everyone… oh, that’s pretty good. Everyone’s here.”
Struck by Touch Me’s words, Momonga looked around. He saw 27 other heteromorphic beings of all kinds — it would seem the entire clan was here. This was quite rare, even for a regular meeting.
This clan was a rarity in that it contained no students, only working adults. As a result, their free time hardly overlapped, and it could hardly be considered a good guild. Having all the members together was not a common thing.
“Hey, Yama-chan, good evening~”
Bukubukuchagama waved a slimy hand, and an ugly giant waved its gigantic hand back at her.
“Ah, good evening, Bukubukuchagama-san.”
It was a gentle woman’s voice.
This was Yamaiko, the nephilim. Unlike giants, who were demihumans of a sort, nephilim could not hide their ugliness no matter how they tried to disguise themselves. It was hard to imagine that within that body was the only other female member of the group, besides Bukubukuchagama.
She had said in the past that she might change her character race, but given that she still had not done so, she must have found it oddly satisfying.
The gracefully seated Yamaiko slowly stood up, and lumbered over to them with heavy, plodding footsteps.
“Yama-chan~ call me — chan too~ Ne, how about it~”
Yamaiko displayed an “Oh dear” emoticon as she descended into thought. Then, she replied:
“…Buku-chan?”
Bukubukuchagama froze. Yamaiko realized that she did not like that name, and tried something else.
“Then, Bukubuku-chan?”
Bukubukuchagama collapsed into a pile after suffering another direct hit, and in a dull, demoralized voice, she said:
“…Sorry. Please don’t say Buku-chan.”
Because of her job, she could deliver on a truly evocative performance when she put herself into it. This was a voice of a defeated soul in anguish.
“Ah… sorry about that, Chagama-chan.”
“It’s not bad, but, hm… it doesn’t sound cute enough.”
Her little brother was saying something along the lines of “Look at your appearance”, but Momonga and Touch Me remained silent.
They knew that saying nothing was the wise choice.
“Okay! Next, call me Kazecchi.”
“Kazecchi? I thought you wanted — chan?”
“I do~ Yama-chan~”
A revitalized Bukubukuchagama swiftly oozed up next to Yamaiko’s side.
Like Yamaiko, Momonga and Touch Me had no idea why they had to call her Kazecchi. They looked to the only person who might be able to shed some light on this.
“Ah, big sis… she had a less mainstream stage name, Kazeumi Kumi. Her old fans used to call her Kaze-chin. She changed it several times, but she liked it the best.”
“I see…”
At a glance, the pink slime seemed to be spinning round and round the nephilim. Although it might be a kind of dance, this bizarre, unbelievable sight reminded onlookers of some wicked ceremony. Of course, it was an everyday scene in a clan of heteromorphs.
“Then, my apologies for interrupting you ladies’ fun, but since everyone is here, we should be able to begin. Or rather, the faster we start, the faster we finish. Oi, guys, the meeting’s about to start.”
After Touch Me raised his voice and stood up, so did everyone else. Everyone shuffled to the round table, one by one, finding a place they liked and sitting down.
“Then, we shall begin the meeting. I have some things I want to discuss with you later, so I hope everyone can give me some time. Next, has anybody discovered anything this week? Does anyone have anything to share?”
One could say that these meetings were conferences for communication. It was a weekly organized sharing of information and requests for help. That said, new information did not come easily.
According to the developers’ website, Yggdrasil was a game of exploration, and so many things were mysteries. It was a game where all you were told was the controls before being thrown into the deep end. While a lot of information had already been collected, most of it pertained to dungeons or other locations, and it was estimated that only 30 % of the nine worlds had been mapped so far.
For instance, there were the World-Class Items, also known as the “crapped out”. There were supposed to be 200 of them in total, but according to the developers, only 50 had been found so far. Many players had tried hard to look for them, but this was all they could come up with.
As working adults, the members of the clan played during their free time and did not have time for in-depth investigations. Therefore, they usually did not have any information worth mentioning.
However, today was different.
“Yes.”
A hand went up in response to Touch Me’s question to the clan.
Described in a word, the speaker was a ninja. He wore the stereotypical ninja outfit and a weird mask, with two swords at his waist. Saying he was anything other than a ninja would be a lie.
He was one of Momonga’s earliest comrades — Nishiki Enrai.
“Nishiki-san. Did something happen?”
“Indeed, Touch-san. This is a truly incredible discovery.”
As he said that, everyone else went “ohhhh” in curiosity and excitement.
“—I’ve discovered an unexplored dungeon.”
Joy and curiosity were masked by surprise, and many of the clan members made even greater sounds of awe.
Everyone asked Nishiki Enrai questions. Momonga, Peroroncino and Touch Me were no different. The only one who didn’t seem excited were the girls, Yamaiko and Bukubukuchagama.
The game Yggdrasil was composed of nine separate worlds. Each of them was ridiculously huge, and there were many places within them which were difficult to explore. For instance, there were gigantic swamps, verdant expanses of rainforest, scorching deserts, and the like. One needed special equipment to delve into the dungeons there, as well as a proper strategy and the determination to throw one’s life away for the trip. Even so, there were many people who wasted their time on a trip.
This was because these hard-to-find dungeons contained monsters which dropped valuable data crystals. Anyone would be excited to find a hitherto unexplored dungeon. One could say it was a gold mine.
In addition, discovering a dungeon could affect the world ranking of a guild. So there were no downsides to it.
“Where exactly did you find it?”
The one who asked on behalf of the incredulous clan members was not the clan leader Touch Me, but the man who had taken a goat-headed demon as his avatar, Ulbert Alain Odle.