A Certain Middle-Aged Man’s VRMMO Activity Log - Chapter 51

OVRMMO 51: THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE NEXT GENERATION

Toaru Ossan no VRMMO Katsudouki
Author: Shiina Howahowa
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The Challenge from the Dead pre-preparations.
As well as the siblings of the ridiculous crafted equipment preparations.

The Footprints of the Next Generation

After a long time, there’s an announcement from the devs about what’s considered to be the 2nd great combat area and player upgrades.
For the server’s stabilization they finally arranged for a line-up of optimizations, and now it’s become possible to receive twice the number of people; in order to make the custom VR’s necessary equipment more stable as well, they finally decided to order additions.
With that, after last time’s maintenance, they had added another abnormal status.
The [Break Arm] status, to put it simply, is when you put your opponent in a state where he is unable to hold onto held weapons or shields; it’s that kind of brutal abnormal state. Of course the conditions were announced; one way for this condition to occur is if the hand and arm is effectively stunned or petrified.
And one more way to end up in this condition is if you take the greatest damage, 25% or more of your HP, on your hand or arm.
And once it occurs, the result is that you will drop your equipment, and continue to be in a state where you are unable to pick it up for several seconds.
But, monsters and other players will not be able to steal the dropped equipment.
… For those who have had their rare equipment stolen before, they can rest assured.

Following that, they also announced the highly anticipated addition with the next update; the completely random dungeon titled [Challenge from the Dead] was going to make its appearance.
A randomly generated dungeon with a 1 hour time limit, the goal would be to see how far you can delve.

By the way, the first goal seems to be the first 10 descending floors.
‘Random’ really does mean completely random, so there could be a light forest map, but there could somehow also be a dungeon-like dark map there as well; they also announced that there’s also a large variety of traps, including traps whose gimmicks have never been seen before; if you just try to go forward with brute force you’ll soon join the ranks of the dead, or that’s what the PV has been showing all this time. The devs are brutal as always.

It’s certainly a PV aimed towards advertising the 2nd great combat additions, but …
That PV has collected together all the actions of players that have stood up until now.
The people whose faces came out that I knew were Zwei, Grad, and Silver also made an appearance.
… As for myself, they used the sequence where I defeated the Fairy Queen in the PV.
It doesn’t really show the Fairy Queen well, but from the whip’s restraint to the bow&kick combo, all of it’s there. Don’t show everyone that ~!
Even if I yelled that there’s no way I would get it to stop, even though I have a bow that I can only have in a fantasy.

―――――――――――――――――――

Anyway, in order not to lose against the devs’ brutish ways, I’ll have to put my battle abilities in order.
When I think about that, from hereon I predict that a shield is probably going to become necessary.
I expect that only being able to evade to defend myself is going to make things way too harsh in the future.
Not to mention, since the usually solo me has a high tendency towards playing solo, there’s no way I will always be able to make surprise attacks, and with the new dungeon that’s going to be even more likely.
… But you know, having a regular old shield isn’t really that interesting, naa…?
Anyway, the type you carry by hand is obviously rejected, since if I can’t pull draw my bow there’s no point; as expected it’s going to be the type you stick on your arm … if I do that then the buckler-type, Small Shield would be the safest.

And from here the true strength of the strange-weapons maker can be demonstrated.
Even though I knew about a good bow, I couldn’t implement its mechanisms in the X-Bow; the compound bow, that is.
Using pulleys, it’s easier to put more power behind the draw of the bowstrings; truly a bow with nothing to criticize, but no matter what I did it was impossible to work that mechanism into the X-Bow, so I let that one pass.

But next time I try to craft a bow lets use that mechanism …
Anyway, since crafting will raise the Shield Skill to some degree, let’s begin crafting.

Previously I’ve been gathering meat dish materials and practicing with the shield steadily in repeated battles.
Carrying a hastily made iron shield in my [right hand], I defensively received opponents’ attacks with the shield, and the Skill Level grew steadily.
As for why the right hand, it’s because I’m planning on equipping the shield to my right arm; anyway, I wasn’t planning on making a straightforward shield to begin with so it doesn’t matter … I’ll probably be standing out in a bad way again, but I’ll just ignore that … aa, ignore that!

For now I’ve upped my Shield Skill to about 5 on Wolves, so now I’ll use Rock Ants in the forest to raise the Skill further.
These Rock Ant shells might also have some merit to use, so I’m also collecting materials at the same time.
Naturally, I’m using Thief Skill’s Radar to properly keep an eye out in order not to pull other Rock Ants in by Link.
The result was spectacular; in an instant the Shield Skill shot up to 25; the initial Skills really do level fast.
Assaulting Kick also shot up by 4, so here’s a pretty nice spot; if I come here again tomorrow I bet I’ll be able to advance and specialize in the buckler-type Small Shield.

By the way, the Shield’s next specializations are Small Shield, Medium Shield, and Big Shield; Medium Shield corresponds with things like kite shields, and Big Shield corresponds to things you can pretty much hide your body behind, like tower shields.

After I returned to town I transferred to Nexia; my objective is an Advanced crafting set.
With Cooking finally reaching 50, I’ve advanced on to the next level, Advanced Cooking, and I’ve finally become able to use the Advanced crafting set.
With this it looks like I’ll be able to make steamed items, so I intend to try to make meatbuns. For that reason I bought cake flour-like wheat flour; after this will be more experimenting. Though I have doubts whether I’ll have the time …

Now is the task of crafting ingots; anyway, if I don’t make them I can’t proceed.
In order to make the compound bow, it looks like I’ll need a mountain of materials again, and on top of that I’ve already decided on the deformation mechanism I’ll be needing to some degree for my own compound; anything beyond that will just be unnecessary time and effort.
And then, because I’ll have to make arrows strictly for the compound’s use, I’ll be using up even more tons of ingots … no matter how much Light Metal I have it’ll never be enough …

Once I make one of them the rest will be easy, but the fact that the first step is especially difficult is a reality that doesn’t change even if we’re in “One More’s” world.

…  Even more so in making the reverse bow1 … I bet, when I finish it all my blacksmith buddies will definitely ask, “Can you even use this thing?” Maa, there should be no problem; since it’s a battle weapon designed specifically for me, then it’s fine.

In the end, today I only hectically moved around collecting materials and raising the Shield Skill.
The Dungeon addition is in one week; it has a feel to it, like challenge yourself on how far you can raise your battle power by then.
After I choose my Shield specialization, then I’ll probably concentrate full-force on crafting the compound.
Looks like Cooking will be done in between as a break …

SKILLS
[Wind-Blown Hunting Bow]Lv1
[Kicking Assault]Lv16 ↑4UP
[Farsight]Lv47
[Craftsmanship]Lv47
[Shield]Lv 25 (NEW!)
[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
[Advanced Cooking]Lv1 (NEW!)

ExP 7

A/N: There have been comments coming in here and there saying, “What about the compound bow?”
But in order to use it here I couldn’t use it for the X-Bow.

The ridiculous equipment will soon increase in comrades.
In other words, Earth has completely charged down the path of unique weapons.

 
google reverse compound bow, or else you’ll only find pictures of ships with reverse bow.

T/N: Thank you LYNKZ and ROBERT for your donations! (and no I don’t have a patreon atm)
Sorry for the delay, and then it’s a short chapter too … ugh. rl’s been a bundle of stress, but now that I don’t have to call people every hour until sht gets done and we’re not in danger of things we’ve been planning for months falling through at the last damn second because people won’t answer their phones, I’m back to translating.
Slight mistranslation in previous author’s notes. The author stated that he was preparing for the “Challenge from the Dead.” Sorry. It was a little confusing until I realized it was a proper noun. So “casualties from that challenge” is actually “Challenge from the Dead.” It’s not that not-understandable of a miss, right? … right?