スタートライン
「私が初めてこのモンスターと遭遇した時は、人の形をした提灯をぶら下げていました」
「人だと!? それは悪質だな!」
「まあ、ユーミルはラクダの時点で引っ掛かってたけどな」
リィズの話によるときちんと服も着ていて、弱って助けを求めている様子すら見せてきたのだとか。
あのラクダのように動きに不自然さはあったものの、見た目だけは完璧だったそうだ。
本体の強さに関しては、時間を掛ければリィズ一人で倒せたそうなので、それほどでもないとのことだ。
しかし、どうやって人間の姿を真似ていたのだろう?
まさか食べて情報を取り込んだりとか? ......想像すると怖いからやめとこう。
「擬態していたのは割と美男子でしたが、私がそんなもので騙されるわけがありませんので。いくら外見を整えても、中身の醜悪さは隠せませんから」
「お? お? 自己紹介かな?」
「......捻り潰しますよ? ユーミルさん」
「やっぱり自己紹介ではないか! 暴力的!」
「でもユーミルさん、リィズちゃんの外見が良いのは認めてるんだ......」
視線の先の砂漠にはラクダの姿が多いが、どれが本物なのか近くで観察しなければ見分けがつかない。
わざわざ擬態しているのだから、あの中のいくつかは本物なんだろうけど。
棘の生えた植物もいくつか生えているし、それ目当てで野生のラクダがこの場に立ち寄るのだと思われる。
......あの植物のどれかも、もしかしたら擬態か?
むしろ、この状況で不自然に人間が居たら擬態だって直ぐに分かるんだけどな。
「あ、思ったそばから無駄に露出度の高いお姉さんが」
ああいうのだと分かり易い。
何も知らない状況で男性が見れば、思わず近寄ってしまってもおかしくはないが。
その下に潜っている存在を知った今となっては引っ掛かりようがないわけで。
というか、踊り子風の衣装なんだけど冷静に考えたらやけどするじゃん。
この炎天下であの服装はないなぁ。
とそんな様子を観察していたら、視界が突如闇に閉ざされた。
「! 見るなハインド!」
「そうです! あんなものを見たら目が汚れます!」
「痛い痛い!? 指が目に入ってる、入ってるから! 砂も巻き込んでるってぇ!」
慌てて二人が跳びついてきたせいか、視界に滅茶苦茶にノイズが入りまくる。
現実だったら充血して目が真っ赤になっているに違いない。
「は、ハインド君、大丈夫!? ――もうっ、駄目じゃない二人共!」
「せ、セッちゃんに怒られた......だと!?」
「ご、ごめんなさい......」
意外な人物から雷が落ち、驚いた二人の手が俺の顔から離れた。
セレーネさんが水を渡してくれたので、それを使ってバシャバシャと目を洗う。
すると視界のノイズが収まり、徐々に元の状態へと回復していく。
「ありがとうございます、セレーネさん......」
「ハインド君は少しの間、そこで休んでて。私達は先に、あのお姉さんに擬態してるミミックリーアングラーを倒してくるから」
「え、三人でか!? ハインド抜きで大丈夫なのか!?」
「......ユーミルさん、こうなったのは私達のせいですから。それに、私は一刻も早く、ハインドさんの視界からあの擬態をしているモンスターを消したいです」
「お、おお、確かにそうか。すまなかった、ハインド。ちょっと行ってくる」
「ああ。気をつけてな」
そう言ってユーミルがロングソードサイズの『デザートアロイソード』を、セレーネさんがこれまた大型の『デザートアロイクロスボウ』を持って駆け出して行った。
リィズは『ガーヤト・アル=ハキーム』を脇に抱えている。
セレーネさんとリィズ、それに俺の防具も、見た目は前と大差ないものの『サーラの布』を使って更新済みだ。
なので現在の装備的には、その辺のモンスターに後れを取ることはまずないだろうと思われる。
俺は『デザートアロイスタッフ』を抱えて、一人残されたこの状況に溜息をついた。
自分も試したかったんだけどな、新装備の性能。
でも、まだ景色がぼやけて見えるし戦闘参加は危ないか。
仕方がないのでその場に適当に腰を降ろす。
この目のダメージに対する無駄なリアリティは、ただただ不便だな......ん?
でも、逆に考えると対人戦では目を狙えば――
「ハハハハハ! 何だそのぬるい攻撃はぁ!」
元気な声に視線をやると、ユーミルが仁王立ちで大魚の突進を受け止めているところだった。
その言葉の通りダメージがほとんど入っていない......セレーネさんの鎧はすげえな。
続けてリィズが『ダークネスボール』で足を鈍らせると、セレーネさんが低い射撃態勢から『ブラストアロー』で敵を掬い上げるように空高く打ち上げた。
そしてユーミルが跳び――『ヘビースラッシュ』で豪快に両断。
『ミミックリーアングラー』は二つに分かれて砂漠の上へと転がった。
そのまま光の粒子になって空気中に霧散していく。
――あ、レベルが上がった。
パーティ状態は解除していないからな......何もしていないのにレベルが上がるという、この虚しさよ。
しかしリィズの調査は確かなようで、『ミミックリーアングラー』の取得経験値はかなりのもののようだった。
戦闘能力に関してもリィズの前言通り、擬態で誘ってからの最初の噛みつき以外は脅威にならない印象。
タフなHPだけが取り柄のモンスターのようだ。
これなら楽にレベルを最大まで持っていくことができるだろう。
後で改めてリィズに礼を言わないといけないな......良い狩り場だ。
『トビ様 が レベル40を達成しました!』
おっと......見間違いでなければ、字幕に見覚えのある名前が流れたぞ。
トビがレベルキャップに到達したという内容だったな。
プレイヤーネームは重複禁止なので、同じ名前の別人ということは有り得ない。
プレイしている時間帯は似た様なものなのだから、タイミング的には何もおかしくないわけだが。
それにしても早いな。もう移動が終わって、決闘の準備を整えたわけか。
これはコンビの片割れも相当なゲーマーだな。
こちらに戻ってくる三人も同じものを見たのか、途中で一瞬だけ立ち止まってから再び歩みを再開した。
新装備の性能にすっかり浮かれていたユーミルが、戻るなり焦った顔で俺に話し掛けてくる。
「今の見たか、ハインド? まさかの、まさかのトビに先を越されるという事態なのだが!? なんてこったい!」
「ああ、見たよ。これは負けてられないな――よっと」
砂を払って立ち上がり、微量HPが減っているユーミルに『ヒーリング』を発動。
もう大丈夫? と声を掛けてくれるセレーネさんに問題ないと手で合図し、俺は気合を入れて杖を握り直した。
「うし、こっからは何も考えずに狩りまくるぞ! HPとMPの管理は俺に任せて、全員攻撃に集中してくれ!」
「うん、頑張ろうね」
「トビさんに負けているなんて、我慢できませんしね。さっさと私達もレベルをカンストさせましょう」
「応! こんな前哨戦で躓いていられるか! 目指せ大会優勝ぉぉぉ!」
俺達は『ミミックリーアングラー』を狩った。
周囲にそれらしい擬態が一切見えなくなるまで、狩って狩って狩り尽くした。
それによって、どうにかその日の内にレベル40を達成。
これでようやく決闘に集中することが可能になった。
副産物として、帰りがけに数頭の野生のラクダを捕まえることにも成功。
これは街で適当な値段で売って、それなりの金を得ることに。
更には『ミミックリーアングラー』のドロップ品である『アンコウの切り身』、それと『アンキモ』を大量に取得したのであった。
どう見てもこれは武器や防具の素材じゃなくて食材だなあ......ホームに戻ったら、あんこう鍋でも作ろうかな。
Chapter 70 - Starting Line
[The first time I encountered this monster, the lantern was hanging while taking the form of humans.]  (Riizu)
[You said humans!? That's quite underhanded!!]  (Yumir)
[Well, Yumir fell for it when it took the form of camels though.]  (Hind)
According to what Riizu said, they were even wearing clothes properly and looked weakened as if they were asking for help.
Their movements were a bit odd like with the camels, but their appearance was perfect.
Regarding the strength of the monster, with enough time, Riizu is able to defeat it alone, so it's not that strong.
However, how is it able to mimic the appearance of humans?
Don't tell me, that it extracts information from them after eating them or something like that?...Just imagining it is scary so let's leave it at that.
[It mimicked a relatively handsome guy, but I'm not the type of person that would be deceived by something like that.
[Oh? Oh? Was that a self introduction?]  (Yumir)
[...I'm going to crush your finger you know, Yumir-san?]  (Riizu)
[Look, wasn't that just a self introduction!? So violent!]  (Yumir)
[But Yumir-san, you are admitting that Riizu-chan's outer appearance is good, huh...]  (Selene)
Looking ahead towards the desert, there were many camels, you wouldn't be able to tell which ones are the real thing unless you got closer and observed them.
Since they were mimicking them on purpose, there are probably a few real ones within them.
There were a few plants with spines growing out of them, so it makes you think that the wild camels used those as a landmark to stop here.
...Even some of those plants, could it be that they are being mimicked too?
In fact, if there were some weird people here in this situation, you wouldn't be able to properly tell what was mimicked and what wasn't.
[Ah, just as I was thinking that, an older girl with a pointlessly high degree of exposure...]  (Hind)
That one is easy to understand.
Though it wouldn't be weird for guys to approach her without thinking if they didn't know anything.
Now that we know what's underneath, there's no way I would fall for it.
To begin with, if I thought about it calmly, she would burn herself wearing those dancer clothes.
There's no way someone would wear those clothes under this blazing sun.
As I was watching that, my field of view turned dark suddenly.
[!! Don't look Hind!!]  (Yumir)
[She's right! If you were to look at that, your eyes will be corrupted!]  (Riizu)
[It hurts!! Your fingers are going into my eyes, they are going into my eyes!! I'm even swallowing sand!!]  (Hind)
It might have been because both of them jumped at me while being flustered, but my field of view was all distorted.
If this was real life, there's no doubt that my eyes would be bright red.
[H-Hind-kun, are you alright!? -Jeez, you shouldn't do that both of you!]  (Selene)
[S-Secchan has...gotten angry!?]  (Yumir)
[I-I'm sorry...]  (Riizu)
Since an unlikely person has gotten angry, both of them got surprised and removed their hands from my face.
Selene-san handed me some water, so I used it to wash my eyes.
With that, the blurriness disappeared and my vision gradually returned to normal.
[Thank you, Selene-san...]  (Hind)
[Hind-kun, rest over there for a while. We'll go first and defeat that Mimicry Angler that has taken the form of a woman.]  (Selene)
[Eh, with the three of us!? Are we going to be fine leaving Hind out?]  (Yumir)
[...Yumir-san, it's our fault that it ended like this. Besides, I want to remove what that monster is mimicking from Hind-san's sight as soon as possible.]  (Riizu)
[O-Oh, you are right. Sorry about that, Hind. We'll be going away for a bit.]  (Yumir)
[Ah. Be careful.]  (Hind)
After saying that, Yumir with her longsword size {Desert Alloy Sword} , and Selene-san with her really big {Desert Alloy Crossbow}  broke into a run.
Riizu was carrying her {Ghayat al-Hakim}  under her arm.
Selene-san, Riizu and my defensive gear didn't look that different compared to before, they were just an upgrade using the {Sala cloth} .
That being the case, I don't think our current gear will fall behind against the monsters around here.
While holding my {Desert Alloy Staff} , I sighed at the fact that I was left alone here.
I also wanted to try out the new gear...
However, my vision is still blurry and participating in the fight like this would be dangerous.
Since it can't be helped, guess I'll just find a place over there to rest.
This pointlessly realistic damage to the eyes, is just inconvenient...Hmm?
However, on the other hand, thinking about it, if we aimed at people's eyes in PVP-
[Hahahaha! What's with those lukewarm attacks!!]  (Yumir)
When I looked towards the cheerful voice, I saw Yumir stopping the charge of the fish with an imposing stance.
Just as her words implied, she was barely taking any damage...Selene-san's armor is amazing...
Following that, when Riizu's {Darkness Ball}  stopped it in its tracks, Selene-san took a low angle firing stance and scooped it out from the ground sending it flying high in the sky with {Blast Arrow} .
Then, Yumir leaped and...heroically cut it in half with {Heavy Slash} .
Having been cut in half, the {Mimicry Angler}  fell over on the desert.
Like that, it vanished by turning into particles of light.
...Ah, I levelled up.
I mean, I'm still in the party after all...this emptiness of leveling up without doing anything...
It seems like Riizu's investigation was accurate, seems like the experience we got from {Mimicry Anglers}  was quite high.
Their fighting strength is also as Riizu said, other than the first bite when they bait you with mimicry, they didn't seem that strong.
Its only redeeming quality was that it has high HP.
If it's like this, we will probably be able to reach level cap easily.
I have to thank Riizu again later...it's a good farming spot.
{Tobi-sama has successfully reached level 40!!} 
Oh...unless I'm mistaken, there was a familiar name in that announcement.
It was a message about Tobi reaching level cap right?
There can't be two players with the same name, so it can't be another person with the same name.
It's also something that is possible with the amount of time he has played, so the timing wasn't really weird.
Even then, he sure is fast. So he already got there and finished his preparations for the duels, huh?
This means that his other party member is also quite the gamer, then.
The other three party members that are coming back here seem to have seen it too, they stopped for a moment on their way back and then started walking again.
Yumir, who looked merry from testing out the new gear, returned looking irritated and talked to me.
[Did you see that just now, Hind? To think that...to think that Tobi would get past us!! Damn!!]  (Yumir)
[Ah, I saw it. Guess we can lose to him then...there we go.]  (Yumir)
I stood up while brushing off the sand from my clothes, and used {Healing}  on Yumir, who had taken a very small amount of damage.
[Are you fine already?] , after being asked that by Selene-san, I signaled that there were no problems with my hand, I got motivated and grasped my staff.
[Alright, starting from now on, let's not think about anything and just focus on farming! Leave managing our HP and MP to me, everyone just focus on attacking!]  (Hind)
[Yes, I'll do my best.]  (Selene)
[We can't tolerate losing to Tobi-san after all. Let's get to level cap right away.]  (Riizu)
[OK! I refuse to fail in the preliminaries! Let's aim for winning the whole tournament!!]  (Yumir)
We farmed {Mimicry Anglers} .
We kept hunting and hunting until we didn't see anything that was mimicked in our surroundings.
As a result, we managed to get to level 40 within the day somehow.
With this, we could finally focus on the duels.
As a byproduct of this, we were also able to capture a few wild camels.
With this, we should be able to sell them in town at a suitable price and earn quite a bit of gold.
Furthermore, we managed to get {Monkfish's fillet}  and a big amount of {Ankimo}  as drops from the {Mimicry Anglers} .
No matter how you look at them, these are not materials for weapons and defensive gear but ingredients for food...once we return home, maybe I'll make some anglerfish hotpot?
VRMMO no Shien Shokunin ～Top Player no Shikakenin～
ＶＲＭＭＯの支援職人　～トッププレイヤーの仕掛人～
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/vrmmo-no-shien-shokunin-%ef%bd%9etop-player-no-shikakenin%ef%bd%9e/
Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy Harem Slice of Life
Adventurers Beautiful Female Lead Blacksmith Brother Complex Calm Protagonist Childhood Friends Clan Building Cooking Crafting Curious Protagonist Dense Protagonist Elemental Magic Fantasy Creatures Game Ranking System Gamers Hard-Working Protagonist Healers Level System Love Interest Falls in Love First Love Rivals Male Protagonist Misunderstandings MMORPG Ninjas Possessive Characters Priests Siblings Siblings Not Related by Blood Sword And Magic Virtual Reality Younger Love Interests Younger Sisters
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n4014ds/
二階堂風都