“I’m heading back first.” Kotoko waved her hand.
“On the Descender’s side, you keep watching.”
“As you command.”
…
Meanwhile, far away in the otherworld, Natsuka watched the cooled-down atmosphere in the chat group and could only let out a helpless sigh.
At the end of the day.
Since up until now he had basically been maintaining these relationships by hunting for group members, dragging people in, and mingling in fandom circles, apart from the handful of acquaintances who chased the Unseen Horizon alongside him, the rest were, when you got down to it, still just internet friends.
People like Kazuma and Blank — he hadn’t even seen any of them in the flesh at all.
If he hadn’t been a hardcore gamer himself, he never could have dragged this bunch of people into the same group in the first place.
Truly, hikikomoris are terrifying.
As Natsuka thought, he was rapidly calculating.
The number of [Test Slots] he could currently produce was actually not many.
Even if he waited a few more days, until Ryuu received the letter and his skill gave him another stretch of stat-value gains.
But one had to remember: summoning an existence even close to a “Heroic Spirit” was itself an extraordinarily exaggerated, high-magic-consumption operation.
In the short term, he simply couldn’t spread the recruitment out on any kind of large scale.
Thinking up to that point.
He simply tossed a single line into the group.
[Natsuka: “On my end I only have two test slots available for now.
If interested, DM me.”]
Having said that, he didn’t bother waiting for the main group’s reaction, but instead quietly tapped open a private chat window with an old friend.
[Natsuka: “You there, you there, poke.”]
[Shadow: “?
You’re still alive?”]
[Natsuka: “?”]
When I type out a question mark, you’d better have a problem.
Natsuka drew in a deep breath, couldn’t be bothered to mess around, and went straight to the point.
[Natsuka: “On my end there’s a fully realistic, claimed 100%-realism full-dive game.
Are you interested?”]
[Shadow: “Can it let my physical body tank a nuke?”]
[Natsuka: “It can’t.”]
[Shadow: “Then not interested.”]
[Natsuka: “…”] The source of this chapter is g.com.
Natsuka nearly slammed his phone down on the spot.
No, this isn’t right.
The plot isn’t supposed to develop this way!
Glumly, he picked his phone back up.
He thought it over and decided he might as well make the matter a bit more explicit.
After all, if it was a chuunibyou on Shadow’s level, then he might, on the contrary, actually be even more likely to accept a setup like “another world.”
And so he hammered out more text at lightning speed.
[Natsuka: “You can’t tank a nuke inside the game, but once you become an adventurer, you just might be able to.
Want to come to another world?
Let’s go on a passionate duo queue!”]
Once the message went out, it sank into the sea, never to be heard from again.
Meanwhile.
Somewhere in a mountain forest.
Shadow was staring at the group chat, replaying the video Natsuka had just sent over and over again.
In the video, Natsuka’s face was the picture of sincerity — he had even deliberately given a wink.
“The video itself has no issues — livestream quality,” he murmured under his breath, analyzing.
“But the time of day shown clearly looks close to dusk.
Reverse-deducing from that, the location where Old Natsuka currently is has a significant time difference from where I am.”
“Combined with the surrounding environment…”
The corner of his mouth pulled up just slightly.
“Heh, this idiot — he actually thinks he can pull off such a clumsy method of asking me for rescue.”
With that, he snapped his phone shut, pulled the collar of his clothes up high, and tucked the crowbar from inside his backpack smoothly up his sleeve.
Then, on his phone, he rapidly booked a plane ticket.
“Just you wait.”
“Your Daddy Shadow — here he comes to save you.”
…
Over on the DanMachi side.
Natsuka stared at his phone, a single bead of cold sweat sliding down from his temple.
“This guy…
he wouldn’t actually go running off to find some kidnappers’ den that doesn’t even exist to rescue me, would he…?”
As for who, among the group members, was most suited to be in the first batch of test subjects.
The answer was, without a doubt, that the first one to come to mind was [Lord Shadow].
This guy — whose life goal was “tanking nukes,” and who maintained year-round high-intensity training — was an ultimate-tier chuunibyou whose physical condition was, at the very least, special-forces-grade and up.
But the problem was.
This guy really did do things his own way sometimes.
So Natsuka could only hurriedly do damage control over private messages — and, after considerable effort and a great deal of cajoling, he finally managed to talk Shadow down and stop him from actually impulsively running off on a rescue mission.
“Hahh…”
Natsuka let out a long, drawn-out sigh.
Meanwhile.
On the top floor of another high-rise, in a room whose heavy curtains were drawn shut without so much as a gap.
Sora closed the chat window, and with a complex expression, looked toward the Shiro in his arms.
“Hey, imouto-yo.”
“Mn.”
“Did he just say…
that world is as real as this trashy reality?”
“He did.”
Shiro was sprawled out on the floor as if she had melted, drowsily nodding with her thumb in her mouth.
She hadn’t slept properly in who knows how long — the area beneath her eyes had taken on a faint bluish tinge.
Sora’s entire face froze up.
“Then doesn’t that mean…”
“Mhmm.”
Shiro curled herself up tighter, her whole self starting to tremble.
“Scary.”
“Reality — so scary.”
“The world outside the door — also so scary.”
But after a moment of silence.
Shiro slowly lifted her head again and rubbed her eyes.
“But…
full-dive…
wanna play.”
“Eee — nooo!” Sora immediately clutched his head, his face the very picture of breakdown.
____
👻🔥Read More: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Danmachi: Summoning Ruri Gokou, And other Chuunibyou Brats
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