A Certain Middle-Aged Man’s VRMMO Activity Log - Chapter 50

The Majority of Bow Users are … Right Here.

The next day when I logged it, I received a Mail. Its subject was [The cloak is done yo~].
So it’s finally finished; I immediately head over to receive it.

“Okay, here’s the finished item desu. Since you provided your own materials, its 5000Glo ne.”

The one who said that and showed me the finished item is a Leather Craftsman player.

“Oo, this is a really nice item na, my thanks.”

With that little exchange, I handed over 5000Glo and received the cloak.

—
Bear Cloak

A cloak made primarily of Bear pelts.
It has the effect of reducing attacks from behind.

Quality 9      Def +15
Reduces Rear Attacks (Medium)
—

Amazingly it’s got a Quality of 9; is 5000Glo really ok for this?
When I tried to confirm it, the response I received in return was to not mind, and if it bothers me, then I should just take it and use it with appreciation.
Now then, just when I had decided to hurry and go hunting, one more Mail came.

“The sender is … Ayame? … I don’t remember anyone by that name naa?”

While puzzling over it in my head, for now I check the Mail. If it was mistakenly sent, then it should be fine if I immediately delete it.
While checking the Mail, the next sentences corrected my assumption.

|[My apologies for the sudden Mail. I serve as the Apollo’s Bow Guild Master; Ayame is my name.
At this occasion, I have just confirmed that Our Guild has committed a disgraceful, great inconvenience to you that centered around Nethar, and I have hurried to write this Mail.
We would greatly like to apologize face to face, so if you would somehow give us a call we’d be grateful.]|

Ua, it’s an internal dispute; it totally sounds like there’s been some disagreements …
Simply ignoring it would be simple, but this has the feeling that doing so will also bring lots of complications …
I guess I’ll have to go, though it’s troublesome.

Now that I have resolved myself, I launch Whisper Chat; the Whisper is to this Ayame.

[“A-, thank you for accepting this sudden Whisper; is this the Ayame-san who sent the Mail?”]

I check just to be sure.

[“A, you must be Earth-san desune; we greatly apologize for this occurrence, I am called Ayame, the Apollo’s Bow Guild Master. Right now would it be acceptable with you if we take some of your time?”]

Right now is fine; I want to hurry up and get rid of this problem right away.

[“That’s fine, please specify a location. But please don’t make it your Guild Room.”]

Because within the Guild Room would be really troublesome … I just don’t have that trust with them.

[“I understand … then, please come here.”]

She sent me a Mail with a map marking the place, and we ended the Whisper Chat.
Now then, it wouldn’t be good to make her wait too long so I should hurry up and move out ne. The specified place was the second floor of a certain NPC’s shop.
I guess it’s a good place to talk since people rarely go there.

When I arrived at the specified place, there were already 3 men there. …Huh?
Because the name was “Ayame”, I was certain that she was a woman but …? Tilting my head, I ask them, “Are you people related to the Apollo’s Bow Guild?”
When I did, the person sitting in the middle stood up …

“Greetings. I am the Guild Master, Ayame; it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Was the greeting that came. To make it easier to understand, it’s a Taka○zuka1 like beautiful woman in men’s wear. That surprised me.

――――――――――――――――――――

“It’s embarrassing to reveal the private affairs of Our Guild, but that is what we are to discuss…”
With that preface, Ayame-san began her story.
First of all, it looks like the reason for the establishment of Apollo’s Bow wasn’t for the salvation of Bow users like Nethar said, but a Guild that Ayame-san established during Open Beta, with the intention of gathering Bow users to play leisurely.
What did they do for the funds?
When I posed that question, it seems like in Open Beta, in order to hype up Guild making there was an event, and they could establish a Guild for cheap. And so a Guild that gathered some number of willing Bow Users was established.
It looks like they were planning on, when the Bow users increased at the time of the Official start, approaching them and guiding them in how to play with the Bow.

“And then the Official Service began, but …”

Saying that, Ayami-san let out a sigh.

“Thanks to the Wiki information, all the potential Bow users were basically weeded out, and on Opening Day itself …”

The bitter memories from Opening Day are coming back to me.
I had gotten involved with that Mohawk-gang party (though I’m only calling them that because their behavior resembles it)3, and got harassed on the basis that the Bow was absolutely no good.
And since they did it in front of so many people, it was truthfully quite painful. With that, the other people who had selected Bow probably thought that just carrying the Bow would definitely get them harassed.
No matter what you say, harassment between players is a painful thing.
Even if it was just because the Bow is hard to handle, the people who knew this information previously would even more likely avoid it.
For other people, the compulsion I had to defiantly take up Bow no matter what would be tough to handle.

“Even so, there were still Bow using players here and there. We called out to those people, saying it was fine if they joined is, and those people entered the Guild; we became a Bow Guild that was careful to avoid the gazes of others.
We thought that it couldn’t be helped before the criticisms towards Bow weakened.
At that time a certain video was uploaded; a video of the PvP between a Great-Sword user and a Bow user.”

So it’s me again …  have I been unconsciously raising flags all the time …?
Even though there are a lot of people who wait to properly line things up, those guys came to completely disturb me by giving me the full works of their extreme oppression. And then, at the final stages, they ‘gifted’ me one last PvP in order to fight…
Although you could say that I only had a winning chance in PvP was because they thought the Bow was weak…

“Because of that video, all of us were extremely excited; the Bow that was continuously called weak had defeated a Great-Sword user. Accurately shooting out the opponents weak spots will be more effective. For us, that one battle had confirmed that from now on into the future, the Bow will be able to make it.”

Of course the people who saw it would figure it out …

No matter how you look at it, the final blow for victory was kicking the arrow stuck in his face even further in, after all.
Come to think of it, it was from then on that my fighting style got brutal, na.

“After that video, the people who knew of our Guild’s existence and came over increased. With that, before we realized it, there ended up being over 200 people as Guild Members.”

At that statement, I just had to raise my voice in reaction.

“Tw, 200 people!? Even if we’re talking about the large-scale Guilds, they’re at best a little over 100 people, you know …?”

Between players, the scale of the size of the Guild is, up to 20 people is small-sized, up to 50 people is medium-sized.
And then anything over 100 people is thought of as a large-sized Guild. Even though it’s like that, for it to surpass 200 people is …

“Yes, before the Fairy Event began, I believe that just about every person who used Bow was in our Guild. I believe the exceptions, like Earth-san, were few in number. Whenever we went hunting, we’d bring sub-weapons like swords and staffs, and when there wasn’t any signs of people around we’d switch to Bow and raise the Skill Level that way.”

… Is that why I never saw any Bow users besides me …?
At the least, other than immediately after that PvP and now, after the Fairy Event ended, I hadn’t seen a Bow user other than me even once.
Thinking like that, the plan of this girl, that is Ayame-san, worked …

“… To be honest, we were very envious of Earth-san. Regardless of anything that was said, you carried the Bow and you fought with the Bow. For us … it wasn’t something we could replicate. We were afraid to be seen as Bow users.
Of course we had a deep regard for Bow, but we didn’t have the courage to proudly show it.
… that’s what probably started it, that is, the formation of the faction that centered around Nethar.”

Finishing her story up until there, Ayame-san let out a deep breath. The people to the right and left of her haven’t said anything.
They’re probably something like Ayame-san’s confidants.
Since she seems tired, I pulled out a Potion juice from my reserves and passed it over to her; when she began to bring out money, I interrupted it with a, “This time it’s fine.”

“Thank you very much … I’m sorry that this story’s gotten so long. Nethar and his group began to worship you.
Something like, ‘that man is absolutely necessary for this Guild.”
And then, after you achieved victory against the Fairy Queen in 1 vs 1 combat, I’m sure he though to pull you into the Guild using any means possible.
… I only first heard of everything after he had already approached you.
The result was that I was unable to stop the aggressive solicitation towards you, and for that I’m terribly sorry …”

Saying that, she went and lowered her head. The two men left and right of her also said, “We are terribly sorry,” and bowed their heads deeply.

“… If it’s like that, I understand your story, and I also accept the apology. Please be assured that I don’t hold you guys at fault … it’s just, what are you going to do about Nethar and his faction?”

It doesn’t seem like they minded my refusal from before, and I understand that the Apollo’s Bow Guild itself isn’t that self-righteously aggressive at all, so there’s no need to persistently blame them. It’s just, I want them to at least be able to check the movements of Nethar’s group.

“… Currently they are being penalized. We aren’t stopping them from scouting people, but we have frozen their power to invite people.
And naturally, we have already demoted Nethar from his position as Vice-Guild Master to a normal Guild member. Furthermore, we did not exile him from the Guild.
I was thinking that before exiling him, we should give him a suitable penalty within the Guild and take responsibility.

As for anything further, we were going to restrain Nethar’s faction, but …”

Aa, so they weren’t going to take the easy way and simply exile him. Then I don’t have any complaints.

“That’s more than enough; I don’t have the slightest problem with it.”

From this single statement, for the first time Ayame-san, and the two men left and right of her, let a clearly relieved look show on their faces.
This issue was really unpleasant after all… , I completely understand their feelings.

“Is it alright to say one more thing? That battle against the Fairy Queen was truly splendid.
At the time when your victory was decided, all of us gratefully gave you a standing ovation.
The Bow has more than enough promise, it has potential, those where the feelings we gratefully took from it.
From now on as well, definitely continue on, flourishing as the forerunner of Bow users.”

――――――――――――――――――――

Leaving that behind at the end, the talk finished and Ayame-san and the others parted.
For now, I understand how this situation came about … there really was a lot of places that were influenced by that one fight with the Queen.
For a little while long, itt seems like the invitations from all sorts of places won’t stop na …
From the devs there’s an expansion update coming, and the players’ second call to arms seems to be hinted to be close, so now that I realize it, I don’t have time to waste.
I guess I will turn my hunting into my training regiment today as well …  I don’t have even a fraction of the intention of being the forerunner, though.

SKILLS
[Wind-Blown Hunting Bow]Lv1
[Kicking Assault]Lv12
[Farsight]Lv47
[Craftsmanship]Lv47
[Cooking]Lv50
[Stealth]Lv38
[Physical Ability Reinforcement]Lv17
[Thief]Lv33
[Whip]Lv34
[Fairy Language]Lv99 (Forced Acquisition) (Unable to be moved to Reserved Skills)

Reserved Skills
[Woodworking]Lv28 
[Blacksmithing]Lv33
[Alchemy]Lv40

ExP 14

Titles Possessed:  The One who Charmed Even the Fairy Queen, The One who Defeated a Great Foe Alone

A/N: Because of the opinions that I cut the story by starting a new line, I limited myself and tried to reduce the number of times I started a new line.

In addition, the reason that Bow users rarely entered Earth’s line of vision has been demonstrated.
It’s because that lady has her own way of thinking.
The debate on which way of thinking is correct doesn’t have any meaning, since both are correct.
Also, I was thinking of making it a gathering of idiots at first, but that would have too much so I reconsidered.

Also, I was thinking about writing an activity report about the casualties from that challenge soon; please look forward to when I put it together.