Chapter 7: We Don’t Have Anything Like That Here…

The fortress we had to pass through in order to reach the mountainous region ahead—where the city of Grasport lay—had its gates firmly shut.

The fortress itself consisted of a massive wall stretching from east to west, dividing the kingdom’s territory, with a central keep positioned at its heart. Apparently, unless you passed through the gate built into that keep, there was no way to proceed any farther north.

It was like a fantasy version of a shortened Great Wall of China.

Armed non-player character soldiers hurried back and forth in a flurry of activity.

"What’s going on, nya!? Why can’t we pass through the gate, nya!?"

An impatient cat-eared maid—whose skirt left very little to the imagination—snapped at the spear-wielding soldier standing guard before the gate.

"What is it? Adventurers? Right now, large numbers of vicious monsters are pouring down from Mount Andares into the northern region beyond here. Even seasoned adventurers have no guarantee of survival. On top of that, monsters have been assaulting this fortress intermittently as well. We can’t open the gate."

"Don’t let NPCs do whatever they want, nya! Just let us through, nya!"

"N-P…? …Honestly, the things adventurers say make no sense. In any case, these are the orders of Her Highness Princess Evangelin. The gate will not be opened."

There was no opening at all. The NPC soldier remained completely unyielding. I dragged the still-protesting cat-eared Ririka away from the gate, and together with Clarice and the crossdressing shota elf Natsumi, we stepped aside to discuss things by the roadside.

"There, there, Ririka-san, easy now, easy. Be a good girl and calm down, okay?"

"Don’t ‘easy’ me, nya! Ririka is a Cait Sith, nya! Not a horse, nya!"

"Hey now, if your blood pressure goes up too much, it might have a bad effect on the middle-aged guy in the real world, you know."

"It won’t, nya! I’m not a middle-aged guy, nya!"

This was getting us nowhere.

Ignoring the noisy cat ears, Natsumi and I began talking things over.

"Still, this is a problem. Gates being closed like this never happened in the game."

"They said vicious monsters are flooding out. Was there ever an event like that?"

"I’ve never heard of one. But Mount Andares was added after version 3, and it had a lot of powerful monsters."

"So that means monsters from that area spilled outside their designated zone."

"There were strong monsters in the forest, too—ones that weren’t there before. Maybe it’s all connected."

"It’s definitely related to us being transferred to this world, nya!"

Having regained her composure, the cat ears declared this with a smug expression. Unfortunately, it was also the most obvious conclusion possible. Her emotional state might have stabilized, but her already-questionable intelligence showed no signs of improvement.

"I was thinking, nya. Maybe it’s not that we were transferred into the game world and became characters, but that the inside of the game itself became reality, nya. That’s why NPCs and monsters started moving freely with their own will, nya. And all us players just had our characters gain personalities, while the real us closed a game that had already ended service and went back to our normal lives, nya."

"I thought about that too, but if that’s the case, why did I—someone who never even played this game—end up here as a character from a completely different one?"

"Coincidence, nya. Bad luck, nya."

"That’s pretty blunt. Still, setting Clarice-san aside, that theory would explain the NPCs and monsters. It’s a little scary to think my consciousness might be different from my real self’s, though."

"If monsters started ignoring level-appropriate zones and roaming freely, that would be a serious problem for the people of this world. You see that sort of thing sometimes in Western games."

This situation might be far bigger than we’d originally expected—possibly affecting the entire world.

"At this rate, who knows what’s happening to the city of Grasport. I hope it’s still standing."

"That would be a disaster, nya! The only other place with hot springs is the Aste Empire on the opposite side of the continent, nya! Without using a temple warp, there’s no way we could get there, nya!"

"Even if we did, it might be in the same situation as this place. For now, we need to find a way past this fortress."

"Bring out the airplane, nya. Let’s just go with that, nya."

"I told you, that’s a last resort. First, let’s see if we can talk to whoever’s in charge here and negotiate."

Once people got used to taking the easy way out, nothing good ever came of it. I had no intention of indulging the cat ears.

We headed back toward the gate.

"What is it now? I already told you, I can’t open the gate. Hurry back to the royal capital and wait for instructions from the guild."

"Well, about that… we were thinking maybe there’s something we could help with. It looks like a tough situation, and we are adventurers, after all. Dealing with monsters is kind of our specialty."

"Don’t overdo it, old man, nya."

"Adventurers or not, you’re just three young women—and that little one there is an elf, isn’t she? An elf dressed like that… how old are you? This isn’t a game."

"Oh, no, she’s actually a level 100 spirit caster. And this cat-eared one here is a level 120 magic brawler."

"Level…? Like adventurer guild ranks or something? Either way, no matter how confident you are in your skills, no means no."

NPC or not—or perhaps precisely because he was an NPC—the soldier refused to budge. As I was wracking my brain for another approach, I heard the sound of hooves and a voice calling out from behind us.

"Hey, you there, guard! What’s going on here? Who are these girls?"

Turning around, I saw several knights on horseback. At their head was a white horse fitted with an extravagantly decorated saddle—and astride it, just like the knights—

There was a slut.

She had long silver hair styled into vertical ringlets and sharp blue eyes. She was tall by the standards of this world, with a full, well-built figure—yet her absurdly oversized breasts, massive ass, and thick thighs made her proportions feel completely unbalanced. Honestly, it was too much. That alone would have been tolerable.

If I had to categorize her equipment, it would probably be “see-through micro-bikini armor.” Calling it a bikini was generous; there weren’t even straps connecting the pieces. Instead, tiny transparent plates—like clear glass—were affixed directly to her body, with gold ornamentation barely concealing the areas that absolutely couldn’t be shown in an all-ages rating. One wrong move and it would be over. In fact, it already felt like I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to. Even her cape was see-through, like a lace curtain. Did that even serve a purpose?

"Princess Evangelin! You have returned!"

At the sight of this shameless woman—someone who would probably be told to show restraint even in a two-dimensional dream—the gate guard stiffened and snapped to attention. It didn’t look like sexual arousal, though.

"Hm. It doesn’t look like you were seducing village girls for fun. What’s going on here?"

"W-well, these girls say they’re adventurers and that they want to head north, so they asked us to open the gate…"

"I see. I had heard there were many women among adventurers. How valiant."

She spoke arrogantly, but this was clearly our chance.

I leaned in and whispered into the conveniently placed cat ear of Ririka.

"Hey, I don’t want to believe it, but judging from the guard’s reaction, that woman seems to be the one in charge here. If we get on her good side, she might let us through."

"That’s Princess Knight Evangelin, nya. I don’t know why she’s here, but yeah… even in the game graphics she looked like that, but in reality she’s even more… that, nya. I really don’t want to talk to her, nya."

"I think she’s dangerous too, but we don’t really have a choice…"

As both the cat ears and I hesitated at the thought of speaking to her in that outfit, Erika’s voice suddenly came through the communicator at my waist.

"There is no need for that, Master. At present, numerous wild native organisms with threat levels equivalent to E−− through D− are approaching from the north of your current position, along with several large native organisms equivalent to threat level C−. The primitive defensive wall and fortress located there have a high probability of collapse within one hour. If we conduct a temporary withdrawal using the Hummingbird, the obstacles will be removed, allowing passage on foot afterward."

At Erika’s report, the cat ears went pale.

"Nyanya!? That’s no good, nya! If a bunch of strong monsters start roaming around near the starting town, the balance will completely collapse, nya!"

"Well, the balance is probably already collapsed, and I doubt they’ll just ‘roam around,’" I replied.

This was seriously bad.

Even so, abandoning the fortress NPCs and running away didn’t sit right with me. And if the city were destroyed, surviving in this world would become extremely difficult.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack! A massive horde of monsters is heading this way!"

Before I could think any further, a soldier’s shout rang out from atop the wall.

Tension rippled through the nearby soldiers all at once.

"Damn it, the reinforcements didn’t make it in time…! Even with the forces we have, we’ll hold this fortress! All units, prepare for battle!"

At the command of the slutty knight—apparently a princess knight by title—the soldiers sprang into action.

"You lot are better off inside than out here. Get into the fortress!"

We were ushered inside through what appeared to be a service entrance, following closely behind the slut knight. Amid the chaos, we stuck to her back, passing through the bustling interior of the fortress before emerging onto the top of the wall.

From beyond the wasteland ahead, at the foot of the distant mountains, a gigantic monster could be seen charging toward us, kicking up enormous clouds of dust. Countless other monsters ran alongside it.

"This can’t be real… is this the end of the world…?"

"With that many monsters… can we really hold them back…?"

Shaken by the sheer scale of the horde, the soldiers murmured in despair—only to be sharply rebuked by the slut knight.

"If we fail to hold this line, the royal capital will fall! The people will suffer! Everything we hold dear will be placed in danger! Heroes of Granseal! Do not give voice to fear! Stand firm with unyielding resolve! Not a single monster shall be allowed to pass beyond this point!"

At her shout, the soldiers rallied and roared back.

"Ooooh!"

Beside me, watching the scene unfold, the cat ears nudged my side with her elbow and whispered.

"Nyahahaha, Ririka just came up with a great idea, nya. ‘Thor Hammer,’ nya. The surface-attack laser mounted on a Wyvern-class assault ship, nya. We can use that to burn all those monsters to ash, nya. I’ll pretend to cast a grand spell so the NPCs get scared and grateful, nya."

"Thor Hammer… on a Wyvern-class ship?"

"Good idea, right, nya? Hurry up and get it ready, nya."

"We don’t have anything like that…"

Wyvern-class assault ships were primarily used for planetary suppression and carried extensive surface-attack weaponry.

In Warfire Universe, they were low-cost battleships players often relied on early on. As a tradeoff, however, they were poorly suited for fleet combat—large, easy targets with ineffective armaments.

"Why don’t we have one, nya!? That was one of the strongest assets in Ririka’s fleet, nya!"

"Don’t put surface-attack ships into fleet battles. Besides, a Bahamut-class railgun or a nuclear missile has far more firepower. Once you can build Leviathan-class ships, dismantling Wyvern-class vessels for resources is the standard approach."

"Then… how about using that Bahamut-class railgun…"

"That would probably blow up the fortress along with everything else around here."

"Then what are we supposed to do, nya!?"

"This isn’t a fleet designed for situations like this. For now, I want to support the soldiers as discreetly as possible, without drawing attention."

As Ririka said, if we had Thor Hammer, it might have been useful here—but wishing for what we didn’t have was pointless. While I was trying to come up with an alternative plan, the crossdressing shota elf Natsumi, who had been silent until now, spoke up.

"I’ve never played that space fleet game you’re talking about, so I’ll leave that stuff to you. But in the first place, what happens when monsters and NPCs fight in Sword Blaze Online? In events, NPCs can die, but out in the field they usually don’t fight or die, right? They have some kind of immortality flag, don’t they?"

"Now that you mention it, that’s true, nya. If NPCs tied to events or towns died, it would break game progression, nya. Maybe none of these guys can actually die, nya?"

"In Western games, important NPCs sometimes die. But in a world that’s become real, with people acting of their own will, it would feel strange if they couldn’t die. Not like we can ask someone to die as a test, though."

"We won’t need to ask, nya. Looks like we’re about to find out, nya."

At the cat ears’ words, I looked out beyond the fortress.

The monster horde had already drawn dangerously close.

A large-scale battle between monsters and non-player characters was about to begin.