The Latest Game Is Too Amazing

To research the crafting materials for potions that I was interested in the other day, I’m on my computer reading the Another World wiki right now. Since it hasn’t even been two weeks since Another World’s beta test started, there’s a lot we don’t know yet, so the wiki has been updating frequently. It looks like the game has attracted a lot of attention, since it is, after all, the world’s first VRMMORPG. I don’t really like relying on game wikis like this, but collecting information on crafting in such a huge world without knowing anything would be unreasonable. It should be fine if I just keep it to the bare minimum.

There are already several crafting recipes posted on the wiki. Among them are the lowest to highest level potions. Potions for HP recovery, mana potions for MP recovery, and even the elixir which recovers both have all had their recipes revealed.

Even ingredient-related information like harvesting locations and monster info has been posted in detail. I should hurry up and memorize this.

I thought it would take more time than this, but apparently, other players have been progressing through the game faster than I expected. The kind of players that are mocked and called invalids have probably been cutting down on their eating and sleeping time so they could spend it hard at work on this. Naturally, I haven’t let it take over my life so much that I’ve abandoned the real world like that. I am a student, and since I’m not in a club, I can set aside about 2-3 hours for gaming on school days and almost the whole day on days off. …I guess I’m kind of spending a lot of time on this, huh. A- anyway, thanks to those guys, the articles are being improved, so that’s something to be grateful for.

Apparently, it’s possible to craft the low and lowest level potions with sahira weed alone. That’s simple, though the other potions need at least two ingredients. Well, even though sahira weed can be obtained easily, high quality sahira weed can only be obtained during quests. Obtaining the ingredients for higher level potions might be difficult after all.

There’s no need to rush to make potions, but after having killer bees hurl themselves at me, I’m worried about similar surprise attacks. Fortunately, since my HP is low, it can be fully restored by a lowest level potion. (My MP, on the other hand, takes more than one, so I’m still a bit worried, but unlike HP, it can recover over time.)

I have three lowest level potions left. By the way, I used two for the killer bees. Just in case, I’ll only have ten lowest level potions made.

I log into Another World and enter the tool shop. If you asked me what my first impression of the tools shop was, I’d say it’s probably more like a general store that sells daily necessities. I call them daily necessities, but the items that are crammed into rows are ones used for travel and dungeons, like ropes and lanterns. They also sell potions, of course. However, the only ones they carry are the low and lowest level potions.

…Why only low and lowest? I wonder if that means we need to make a crafting request for all the others. Whatever, for now, I’ll just have the potions made.

“I’d like some potions made.”

“Alright, how many should I prepare for you?” a grade school aged kid asks. It’s hard to tell from appearance and voice, but since the kid’s wearing pants, he’s probably a boy. I take ten sahira weeds out of my inventory and hand them to him.

“I have ten of the ingredients, so I’ll take ten.”

“Alright. The price is only 15 copper, so that’ll be one silver and 50 copper total.”

The potions sold in the shop are 30 copper. Sahira weeds are worth 10 copper, so it looks like bringing them here is cheaper after all. Satisfied with the results, I immediately hand over the money.

“I’ll mix them now, so please wait just a bit.”

The boy skillfully chops the sahira weed and mashes it with a mortar and pestle. Even potion making has been realistically reproduced.

“Is this your first time watching a potion being made, sir?”

“Yeah. I know the ingredients for the other potions, too, but this is my first time watching.”

“You know the ingredients? I’m jealous. I’m only an apprentice, so the only potion I know how to make is this one…”

“…Is the reason only two types of potions are sold here because you don’t know how to make the others, by any chance?”

The boy is dumbfounded for a moment, then smiles. Although, if anything, that smile has a trace of bitterness.

“No, that’s not it. The ingredients for the other potions are just hard to collect, since the monsters are strong. We ask for them at the Adventurer’s Guild, but it seems like it’s pretty difficult.”

In other words, the potions can’t be supplied unless the quests are cleared. That’s a problem. That probably means you have to accept quests or it’ll hinder your progress later. Just in case, I check the event window, but there are no new quests. I’ll ask about it at the Adventurer’s Guild.

“If you know the ingredients for the other potions, could you teach me, sir? Since I’m an apprentice, I’d like to get ahead on my studies,” the boy cautiously asks while looking up at me. That’s so cute… I, I gotta snap out of it, I’m not into that stuff. 

Anyway, the NPC AI is pretty well made. It allows a high level of freedom in conversations. Even though I have low communication skills, I can converse with it so naturally. Normally, I’d want to tell him to just look it up online in a situation like this, but it really does seem like a conversation with a real person, which sort of makes me want to give him a serious answer. This apprentice character who’s enthusiastic about studying is pretty refreshing, too. It’s a common archetype, but it’s so realistic and he’s such a good kid that it makes me want to root for him. I’m not so petty that I’d give a kid like that an indifferent response. This info has already been posted publicly anyway, so it should be okay to teach him. There’s a chance that a conversation like this could activate a new event. …It’s definitely not because the way he’s looking up at me is so girly and cute.

“Alright, I’ll do it.”

The boy’s face lights up, and when he thanks me, I automatically smile back, too.

“Thank you, Chaos. Please come again!” the boy whose name is apparently Pippin says, seeing me off as I leave the tool shop. Seeing him listening so enthusiastically put me in a good mood, so I taught him about the names, harvesting locations, and monsters of the ingredients for potions, mana potions, and elixirs. (He was especially interested in hearing about elixirs. Maybe he really wanted to make one?)

It’s really the wiki that’s amazing, though, I think, slightly guilty, as I walk away from the shop.

The employee of Maeldia’s tool shop was organizing the shelves, tending to the store as always. He was a boy with light green hair, chestnut eyes, and a gentle face. Without looking at his clothing, he could be mistaken for a girl. His name was Pippin, an eleven-year-old tool shop employee and apprentice alchemist.

Although, recently, his work and studies as an apprentice alchemist have been given less priority. He mainly worked long hours at the shop, replenishing sold potions. The reason was that his teacher, his father, was busy with harvesting work.

In addition to making requests at the Adventurer’s Guild for potion ingredients, his father went out to gather them himself every day. His father was a former adventurer and a master alchemist. Even though he wasn’t cut out for adventuring and had retired, dealing with killer bees and other monsters that lived near the potion ingredients wasn’t a problem for him. However, the ingredients for potions mid-level and above were a bit too much for him.

Monsters were becoming more active, so they had gradually become unable to supply potions of mid-level and above. The Adventurer’s Guild had done all they could to collect potion ingredients, but to get there, they had to pass through the territory of the orcs, monsters that had pig faces and large bodies. Since orcs reproduced quickly, they lived in large numbers, so inevitably, they weren’t able to harvest much.

On rare occasions, they ordered potions from the capital or other cities, but being shipped all this way caused many of them to spoil, lowering their quality and rendering them useless. Inevitably, potions of mid-level and above disappeared from this city.

But at this rate, there was no way to oppose the monsters. Because of this, the city even had a capable adventurer party escort him so he could periodically collect potion ingredients. Not leaving it to the adventurers allowed a few more high quality ingredients to be collected. But even going to such lengths, the potions mid-level and above ended up selling out within two days. Therefore, he had been going out to harvest quite frequently.

He had worried about what to do about the shop while he was harvesting, but his son, Pippin, had started tending to the store. Pippin was at the age where he wanted to play more than anything else, but he was smart and understood this situation quite well, so he had taken the initiative and begun helping out in the shop, since it was already capable of being managed by a single person.

His mother had already passed away, and his father was his only relative. But his father was risking his life for the city and collecting potion ingredients. He was proud of his father, and his desire to support him was strong. However, even if he knew that in his head, he couldn’t suppress the loneliness of his father being gone. He spent his days doing his job while taking his mind off things.

Today, he greeted a customer, as usual. This customer was a young man with black hair and eyes who looked about five years older than Pippin.

The customer requested him to make some lowest level potions. His father had taught him how to mix them, so he handled it as he usually did. Even if lowest level potions only needed grinding, mixing them took time. Therefore, most customers either looked around at the shop’s merchandise or left the shop to finish other errands.

However, this customer was watching him intently. Is potion making really that unusual? He was embarrassed and, more than anything, lonely without his father around, so Pippin tried talking to him.

The customer said that he knew the potions’ ingredients, but this was his first time watching one being made. Pippin, on the other hand, knew how to make low and lowest level potions, but didn’t know which ingredients were used for other potions.

Why wouldn’t his father teach them to him? If the reason was that he was too inexperienced to make something that required as delicate of a process as medicine did, they were already in a situation where the ingredient couldn’t be collected, so there shouldn’t be much meaning in that. The problem was the possibility that, after knowing the ingredients, he would consider entering orc territory and going to harvest them himself. Of course, since Pippin was not told this, he thought he was not being taught them simply because he wasn’t skilled enough.

The customer asked why the shop only carried two types of potions. Doesn’t he know the current situation? Pippin thought, feeling a bit depressed, but when he thought about it more, he realized that this was the first time he’d seen this customer, so he had probably just arrived in this city. Changing his perspective, he explained the current situation of monsters making it hard to collect ingredients. Then, the customer seemed to silently ponder this.

It appeared that he was worried about it. Perhaps he was considering the harmful effects of the potion supply being cut off.

Pippin was also worried about this, but there was nothing he could do about this situation. Wanting to change the topic, he tried switching to the one that had piqued his intellectual curiosity earlier, the potion ingredients. His father was busy, and the information on potions was still mostly unknown to him.

I want to try getting ahead on my studies to surprise my dad. I want him to praise me. With these boyish feelings, he tried asking the customer.

Pippin’s father, Nash, gets home around sunset that day. Pippin just finished closing up shop and preparing a slightly late dinner.

“Welcome home, Dad.”

“I’m home. Did anything happen today?”

Nash affectionately pats his son’s head. Pippin smiles with his eyes, looking like he’s in a good mood.

“A customer named Chaos came by today.”

“Chaos? Never heard of him, is he from around here?”

“No, that was the first time I’ve seen him, so I think he just got here. He taught me about potion ingredients. The harvesting spots, the monsters, everything.”

Chaos, that b*****d, what the h**l did he teach Pippin?! Nash curses internally. But he doesn’t breathe a word of it, solely because his adorable son looks so delighted that he doesn’t want to be a wet blanket.

“You sure do love studying. But monsters are dangerous, so don’t go out collecting them by yourself,” Nash warns as gently as he can.

“But that’s not all! Chaos knows a whole lot, and he even taught me the ingredients for mana potions and elixirs, too.”

Nash tilts his head. He knows mana potions. They’re potions for mages and other magic users to recover their magical power. The reason they aren’t made in this region is simply because the ingredients can’t be found nearby. But he’s never heard of elixirs.

“Pippin, what are elixirs?”

“He said they have the effect of both potions and mana potions,” Pippin says, smiling about how amazing they are.

There’s no such thing as a miracle medicine like that. He was probably just taking advantage of how innocent Pippin is and telling him whatever lies he felt like. Without even seeing his face, Nash’s opinion of Chaos sinks to rock bottom.

Nash gently tries to persuade Pippin that he’s been tricked. However, his sweet son insists that he hasn’t.

Then, I’ll just have to verify whether what he was taught is true or not, Nash decides, asking Pippin what he was told today.

…And the names of the ingredients as well as the places they can be harvested are almost entirely correct. Chaos even taught him the ingredients and harvesting locations of the highest level potion, which should have long since been lost! Even Nash is amazed by this.

What conclusion should I draw from this? Nash wonders, struggling to make a judgement. The highest level potions aside, the information on the potions’ and mana potions’ ingredients are all correct. In that case, he can’t laugh off the information on the highest levels and the elixir as lies. Pippin himself is strongly insisting that it didn’t seem like Chaos was lying.

If this is true, then that changes the situation tremendously. First thing’s first, the harvesting locations for the elixir’s ingredients. They’re located to the west of Maeldia, unlike the orcs’ territory, which is to the north. There are few monsters in the west that pose a threat, which makes it easy to harvest.

In addition, highest level potions are valuable items that are being researched not only in the Castal Kingdom, but in other countries as well. If he can successfully prepare them, there’s no telling how much of a political advantage it’ll give their kingdom. It would be a problem if, for example, the preparation method can’t be determined for either of them, but that should be gradually solved through research.

…And it may be possible to amass an enormous fortune with both.

He still can’t come to a conclusion by himself. In that case, he should consult someone in a higher position than himself.

Deciding this, Nash shuts himself in his room and writes a letter.