Golden Experience

Chapter 5: “Error Message”

In all her fights to the death, Riley had never been beaten so badly before. If it ever felt like she would get done in, she would immediately run, but she was even able to squeeze out a victory when attacked by monsters or wild beasts. None of their group had ever suffered a serious wound.

The white girl in front of her was unnaturally powerful. She wasn’t that tall; at the same time, she wasn’t that short either. Probably around the same height as Riley. The fact that her ears were on the sides of her head piqued her interest, but if she remembered correctly, that was in fact where those elf people were supposed to have them. Her white hair went all the way down her back, and it barely swayed it all as she dodged Riley’s attack. “She’s really strong” or “she’s really fast,” neither of those assessments were true at all, yet none of Riley’s attacks were effective. She immediately realized that it was because the white girl was doing something. Even though both she and Remy had engaged her at the same time, they were both completely powerless. Riley had a feeling that she had to do something or they were sure to lose. And that premonition came true.

At some point she blacked out, and when she woke up, all four of them were tied up and lying on the ground. Kerry was struggling and flailing, trying to get free, but the white girl just touched her or grabbed her and then Kerry began to scream and cry like she had never before. The white girl frowned, wanting Kerry to be quiet, and slapped her. It looked like that cut Kerry’s lip, and she began to bleed. Seeing that, Riley, Remy, and Marion all began to raise hell, but they quickly stopped. It was the most well-behaved they had ever been in their entire lives. They had never seen the patient Kerry cry like that. They didn’t think they’d be able to take the punishment she was getting.

After that, every time Kerry caused a scene, the same thing would happen again. Eventually, Kerry also became quiet and obedient.

The white girl gave her name, and Kerry did the same. Kerry’s rough way of speaking caused the girl’s mood to sour a bit, which made everyone else’s faces pale in turn. After calming herself, the white girl made Kerry drink something from a weird little bottle. Almost immediately, Kerry’s swollen cheeks deflated, and her face returned to how it usually looked. Kerry’s eyes became as round as plates as she looked back at the girl. The other three girls all did the same. So this was what a “magic potion” did.

Kerry began telling the story of how they got here. The other three girls piped in with details when necessary too. They thought the girl would get mad if they spoke up without permission, but instead she just smiled and listened.

Maybe the white girl was actually a nice person. They attacked her, but she didn’t kill them, and it didn’t feel like she was going to take them somewhere to sell them off either. If she wanted to sell them, she didn’t need to ask Kerry about their past, and she wouldn’t have needed to use a magic potion on Kerry either. They had never met a human like this. And not in the sense that she wasn’t a beastkin. If their mothers had been like this girl, strong and kind, the four of them might well still be living in the settlement even now. Riley wondered if the other three girls were thinking the same thing.

Kerry kept talking while crying. She was the most patient one among them, so Riley thought she didn’t cry, but she was wrong. Kerry just thought she couldn’t cry since she was the oldest. She had to be strong, for them. Since the white girl was here now, and she was stronger than Kerry, Riley hoped that Kerry didn’t have to hold it in anymore.

?

After hearing the general story of the bandits’ lives, Rare heaved a sigh. It was certainly a lot heavier than she was expecting, but from the way they told the story, it was clear that the girls’ memories were based on their actual experiences. She’d have to consider what that meant.

Ignoring the world simulator rumor, this game’s world was extremely large. Or, rather than “extremely,” it might be better to say it was “unsettlingly expansive.” If the publicly revealed specifications were accurate, the surface area of the game world was twice as large as Earth’s. They apparently employed a random map-generating algorithm and spent many years running calculations and building map and object data, but would that really be enough time to complete this realistic of a field twice the size of the planet for players to run around in? Not only that, putting the size of the area aside, even if the various races were set to coexist without any problems, how many AIs would it take to realize such a thing?

Even if the number of digital creatures equipped with AIs on the level of intelligent life had a lower population density than that of the humans on Earth, if they had to compete with stronger creatures for territory, with the amount of land in this world being twice that of Earth, they would need at the very least a few billion individual high-spec AIs. That would be all the races of humanity, the monster races, and whatever else included. Who the hell could program these memories for all those AIs? And to then scatter those AIs across a world twice the size of Earth, there can’t be any inconsistencies in any of their stories. How was this even possible?

Beyond all of that, a few years before the servers went up, there was another rumor that the world simulator ran on accelerated time, a thousand times faster than real time, something even more unbelievable. But now, it really had to be true: This game was an otherworld simulator.

That said, Rare wasn’t well versed in technology, so she wasn’t suited for unraveling these kinds of mysteries. In the end, these were just the ramblings of an amateur dancing to the influence of hearsay. What Rare didn’t know was whether those tasks were possible to complete in seconds with AI; for example, by developing a specialized AI that can develop another AI… Maybe there was actually technology that would allow for a super efficient and surprisingly simple solution to those issues she speculated about.

She sighed again and decided to just stop thinking about that stuff, instead telling herself to start thinking about the bandits who were right in front of her—these little girls.

They were all pretty shabby. Their hair had grown out untended, the fur on their ears and tails had become all clumped and knotted and felt unpleasant to touch. The four of them appeared to have the same color fur at first glance, but in truth they were just all so dirty that it was hard to tell what color it should be.

They were all young girls, and considering how few of them there were, they could be mistaken as just naughty thieves or burglars, but they were actually serious bandits who were ready to kill. Kerry and Riley, the older two, were about the same height as Rare—a little under 160 cm—and seemed healthy enough, but the younger two, who should be close in age, were clearly much smaller. They must not have gotten enough nutrition in their childhood. Their lives and circumstances were pitiful, and it’s not like she didn’t feel sorry for them, but the fact that they didn’t hesitate to take lives in order to defend themselves and survive with everything they had endeared them to Rare.

In both the real world and in this world, their way of life branded them as felons. However, they didn’t seem to have a price on their heads, they moved their bodies well, and they seemed to have a talent for knowing when to run.

She had confirmed that they were bandits now, but it felt like a waste to simply turn them into XP. Was there a gameplay system for NPCs to permanently follow you?

“I see… Thank you for telling me about your histories. You’ve all done your best. However, today you were forced to submit to me; if you continue doing things the way you have been, one day someone will take everything away from you. Do you understand that?”

The four girls all looked shocked after hearing Rare’s evaluation. Apparently they had never thought about it before. Maybe it was best not to expect too much.

“In order to survive, you’ve all needed to commit various crimes, but you need to be more discreet. And by ‘discreet,’ I don’t mean you should avoid people altogether, but rather you need to become someone that people don’t think of as special when they remember you. You only go to town to buy clothes and food, so to the townsfolk, they wonder, how do you normally live your lives? Where did you get your money? You probably got that money from killing other criminals or traveling merchants, but as soon as they know that for sure, you’ll have bounties on your heads before you know it. Well, actually, killing other criminals probably isn’t a problem.”

“But wait, when we go to town, we don’t have a place to sleep, and there aren’t any other people like us, so we gotta steal money.”

“Ahh, I gotta start from there, huh…”

Rare began by teaching them how money was earned legitimately. She had to explain how a monetary economy worked, what economic activity was, how society was structured, how the six countries came into being—this history could be found on the official game website, so she just parroted that back to them—and other basic information. It got to be too much seeing them all bound on the floor, so at some point she freed them and they put their clothes back on.

Rare let them ask whatever questions they wanted, so by the time the lecture was over, around five hours had passed. She had originally planned to blast off right out of the gate and kind of sped through character creation, but now that proved to have been a pointless endeavor. However, considering how she was able to forge a connection with these NPCs instead, maybe it didn’t turn out so bad. Although she had yet to find out how useful these NPC girls would be.

With these thoughts occupying her mind, she glanced over at the girls. They were all staring at her with sparkles in their eyes. She didn’t know if the passionate gazes came from respect or affection, though.

“Miss Rare the elf knows a lot. We’ve never met someone like her. And she’s nice.”

“And she’s really strong. And really nice.”

Kerry and Riley were falling over themselves to compliment her with twinkling eyes. The younger pair were also nodding their heads in agreement.

“Nah, I’m not really that nice you know. I just enjoy explaining things to people, so really, I’m just doing whatever I want here.”

“Yeah, but no one’s ever politely explained all this stuff to us before.”

“Even back at the village, when we asked ’bout something we din’ unnerstan, they just said ‘don’ ask ’bout stupid stuff’ and hit us.”

“That… sounds pretty harsh.”

That said, villages tend to have a mentality of “population = labor,” so maybe that’s just how things were. If they were to spend their whole lives in that village, then they didn’t need to know about monetary economies or the founding of the nations. The villagers might’ve reacted that way simply because they didn’t know the answer to the girls’ questions. She herself might’ve reacted like these girls did now sometime in her past.

“See, you really are nice,” Kerry said, looking straight at Rare. Then the reverence faded from her eyes, replaced by uneasiness. “Miss Rare the elf. I have a request. I want you to become our leader.”

<<The required skill has not been learned. In order to tame [Kerry], you must learn the [Subordinate] skill.>>

Well that’s an interesting error message.