A Certain Middle-Aged Man’s VRMMO Activity Log - Chapter 47

Toaru Ossan no VRMMO Katsudouki

Author: Shiina Howahowa
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A/N: With the Event over, the laid-back atmosphere is …?

For Now, Normal Operations?

Right now I’m at the Woodworking workshop.
For the X-Bow that I’ve abused up until now, I need to do large-scale maintenance… or rather, it’s to make improvements. 
I had maintained it little by little while I was hunting, but this time it’s worn out to the point where it would be bad if I didn’t overhaul it.

First I should disassemble it into its parts. And now, replace both the main parts and the bowstrings of the wornout bow; the main parts were fixed by newly making them with good wood I singled out from within the area around Nexia.

Next, the X-Bow’s reinforcement part was iron, so I’ll change it to be Light Metal made.1
It certainly reduces the heaviness, but I’m using it because its strength is also improved compared to iron.
The parts that can be improved, should be improved.

Since the basic idea hasn’t changed, I didn’t go through the pains like I did when I first made the X-Bow.
Even the modifications of the fussier, detailed parts were easily done.
Afterwards, all that’s left is carefully reassembling it.
Since all the deteriorated parts were completely eliminated, by including the enhanced parts, though the overall appearance didn’t change, its performance has increased.

—
X-Styled Composite Hunting Bow Revised

A bow aiming to increase offensive power by adding 2 bows together in an “X”.
That an arrow can be fired from this strange shape can only be called a marvel.
The handling’s difficulty is greatly increased; a beginner with bows will absolutely not be able to use it.
With the parts largely all revised, the power has increased.

Quality 7      Atk+46
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With this I’ll be able to fight for a while longer.
After so long, for this quality to come out when I remade it is good.
The new bow’s form isn’t at all wobbly or floaty naa.

The bow’s pulling condition is also quite good.

“Um, if I’m looked at so much, I can’t calm down and focus you know?”

Looking over my shoulder I, call out.
There are other Woodworking Crafters there, but there’s also people who clearly don’t even have any Crafting Skills looking my way.

The reason is, even if I don’t need to say it, because of the last Event’s final battle.
Because of that, even if I don’t want to deal with it, the result is that I stood out; even just walking around gets me noticed.
These gazes are things that make me uncomfortable.
Not to mention, before the event I was mainly a Solo player, and with the Thief Skill I mostly hide myself to fight and kill my presence off, so I feel the stares even more strongly.

When I looked behind, most of the people immediately looked away.
Watching a bow being made is somehow interesting ne~?
Along with that, [He’s been doing strange things na~] they might be saying about the novelty of it, naa.
I pray that a situation like with the Queen before won’t come again.
… Maa, even if it does, because of the one time before it would be ok.

――――――――――――――――

Anyway, with my business finished here, let’s withdraw from the crafting station.
Even though I feel like hiding myself with Stealth, with that, even though I up the Skill Level, the speed with which MP is used has not improved, and because of the short duration I can’t hide, so I can’t misuse it in this situation. Truthfully you can only use Skills in places that allow their usage, so it’s not something great that you can use to *poof* away from the gathering gazes.
… I get it, I totally get it, but you know, naa.

That I would stand out this much because of the Event was something I didn’t think of.
After the Devs uploaded the video of that battle, the view-count became something amazing.
And from that they’re editing a portion and using it as one of the official promo-videos; because of that I’m standing out even more. The X-Bow has already become my trademark.
Is this what they call the pain of being famous? There’s probably nothing more troublesome than this na~.

But even so, there’s no way I can just not do anything.
I can’t stop putting out the Cooking stall, and I also want to go hunting to gather materials.
For now hunting should come first … so thinking I aimed for the town’s exit.
… I won’t be hunting Horned Rabbits, though, ne.

Once you go outside the town, is this opening day or something!? About that many players are there.
Yes, that’s right … there are a ton of players who took Bow.

Here and there are players loosing arrows all packed together in turmoil.
Everyone’s having hardships; with Bow your opening move is the only move so it’s tough naa.
With the situation like this, the training hall will also be packed full of people, no doubt about that.

Because there’s a lot of players for which the starting weapon, the vendors’ crude bow, is still a good weapon, it’s quite the mismatched scenery.

There’s especially a lot of attack types, probably because they chose the bow as a counter-plan to sword attacks and magic, so there’s a lot of heavy armor and light armor players.
Within this crowd, I wonder how many people will able to use the bow to any degree?
For now, to avoid getting in the way should I take my leave …

People swinging whips are also here as well.
Once Whip reaches 10 and you learn the Restrain Arts, the playing field instantly increases.
I hope they do their best to train to that level.

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As always, I basically assassinate Dread Wolves and Bears with the Stealth and bow combo, securing quite a large supply of meat. It’s almost like I’m poaching, but if I let that bother me then I’ll have lost.
I really don’t want to do another full-frontal battle ever again.

I’ve refused all requests for PvP. If I accept one than it will become a vicious cycle.
A major part of the scope of my abilities have already been found out, and I have no interest in aiming to be the strongest.
Somehow my desire to compete is pretty low desuyo …

Sneakily having fun like this is good enough.
… come to think of it, didn’t I just have a strange magic I learned? Right now there are no other people around, it should be fine to experiment.

Within the ring the Fairy Queen forcibly equipped on me, there was a restriction lifted for a magic called Prism Nova, so I should be able to use that magic.
However since its type of magic is unknown, there’s probably no way to improve the Skill.

I immediately try it out on my Bear opponent.
Just now I’d shaved off at least 80% of the Bear’s HP and limited its movement.
And now to trigger it … so it’s a magic that needs a designated target, theeen I’ll trigger it in the middle of the Bear’s heart.
The instant I triggered it my MP reduced by about 40%, and rainbow-colored balls came falling from above like meteors and exploded.

The Bear’s remaining HP was about 5%; I wonder if the power is weak because my own magic abilities are weak? … that’s what I thought, however.
The pitiful Bear had become a stone statue … what is the meaning of this?

After that I faced about 10 or so Bears and shot it at them many times.
The result; it turns out, [The damage is low, but it’s a magic that randomly inflicts on of several abnormal statuses] … that Queen had another ridiculous magic.
If I used this in front of people, there’s no doubt it will be treated like a cheat …
Other than when I’m in a really tight spot, it’s sealed, this magic is. Recklessly using it is a definite NO.

By the way, the abnormal statuses I can trigger are 7; Poison, Burn, Blindness, Confusion, Restrain, Paralysis, and Petrification.
Poison and Burn are often induced, but Paralysis and Petrification don’t occur often.
Maa, when Paralysis and Petrification are triggered, then at that moment the fight’s pretty much settled, naa.

And the cool-down is 20 minutes. If you think about the power, not being able to rapid-fire it is a given.

Somehow it’s become kind of unpleasant, so deciding in my heart that, normally, I will definitely seal this away, I returned to the town in order to do some cooking, but …

“Oi, you! Over there! I got some business with you.”

I heard a voice saying that. I don’t know who he’s talking to, but what a disaster naa.
If there’s anyone who has it in his heart to turn around and face someone who calls out to him like that, I’d respect him as a Buddha.
Someone who says that with such a stuck-up tone has got to be a troublesome person.

“You! Turn around, I said I got some business with you, didn’t I?!”

I don’t know who’s being summoned, but let’s get the heck away and log out; getting involved would be too much of a pain.
They say a wise man will stay away from danger.
Let’s do the cooking tomorrow; somehow I got really tired all of a sudden.

If he gets any more violent there’s always the “Call Game Master”, so there shouldn’t be any problems.

“Oi … you …”

Aa shut up, don’t you get that if you call someone like that, then anyone would get as far away as possible~?
Maa whatever, let’s hurry and enter an inn to log out.
And I was just finally able to get my cooking ingredients, naa.
Tomorrow I’ll make my rounds.

SKILLS
[Wind-Blown Hunting Bow]Lv1

[Kicking Assault]Lv12
[Farsight]Lv47
[Craftsmanship]Lv45
[Cooking]Lv49
[Stealth]Lv38 ↑1UP
[Physical Ability Reinforcement]Lv16
[Thief]Lv33
[Whip]Lv34
[Fairy Language]Lv99 (Forced Acquisition) (Unable to be moved to Reserved Skills)

Reserved Skills
[Woodworking]Lv28 ↑2UP
[Blacksmithing]Lv30
[Alchemy]Lv40

ExP 14

A/N:  The bulk of the Ring’s penalty comes mainly from the Prism Nova magic; naturally you can’t rapid fire it, it would be way too powerful.

But of course since it’s been player-ized it has been weakened.
Earth’s percentages are, poison 60%, burn 55%, blindness 30%, confusion 20%, restrain 15%, paralysis 6%, petrification 3%

The Queen’s percentages are, poison 95%, burn 85%, blindness 70%, confusion 60%, restrain 45%, paralysis 30%, petrification 20%; they are quite a bit higher.

It was important that there was no aria needed, since in the Queen’s fight it’s her symbolic magic.

PS, there is no cooldown time noted in its description.

 
If you don’t remember, the X-Bow is basically two bows put together in a shape of an “X”. The reinforcement part is an “x” shaped metal brace that holds the two bows together.

The jerk in the last part uses “kisama”, which is an extremely impolite way to say “you.” Normally I’d translate this to “you bastard,” but since he isn’t directly insulting Earth, just being impolite, I tweaked all the sentences to have a rude feel to them instead of translating “kisama” as a direct insult. It’s just changing punctuation/breaking up sentences, so I didn’t bother writing up every one. But, y’know, I’ll still let you guys know.