The New Gate (LN)

Shin told them about the scene he had seen at the previous supply stop as they moved on. The impact of the zombie horde had been so great that he had completely forgotten to mention it.

“A scene from the past, huh? I haven’t seen it.”

Neither Schnee nor the other members of the group had seen it. It seemed that only Shin and Yuzuha, who were there, had seen it.

“I wonder if what Shin saw was the old Kardamia scene? Or was it Arkhan?”

“I don’t know. In Arkhan, there are only recognizable buildings in the final area, and in Kardamia, there are no recognizable features in residential or commercial areas.”

To put it another way, Kardamia was so unique that anyone who knew it other than the candidates Shin mentioned could easily recognize it. The stalls were overflowing with dubious items, and the atmosphere in the back streets, for example, was a black market. It was said that there were explosions every day as a result of experiments, so there was always seven-colored smoke somewhere in the city. The problem was that it seemed that if there were no people, there would be no such things.

“For now, this seems to be the closest resupply point. I can’t resupply though.”

With no NPCs to sell items, they would just pass through. The store’s shelves were empty.

“Ah! Shin, that’s it!”

Looking where she was pointing, he saw a figure disappearing around the corner.

“Is that a scene from the past that Shin was talking about?”

“Maybe. This is the place we’ll pass. Let’s see what’s on the other side of the corner. Also, please raise your alert level. After seeing the scene from the past, zombies suddenly appeared.”

There was a presence from the beginning, but it started moving after Shin saw what seemed to be a scene from the past.

Milt became more cautious after Shin’s comment, but Tiera remained calm.

“But there’s no presence right now. Right, Yuzuha-chan?”

“Kuh!”

Yuzuha nodded in agreement as well, so it seemed like they didn’t have to worry about zombies for now.

As they walked quickly to the corner, a scene from the past spread out before them.

Instead of the existing buildings Shin had seen at first, where people and things were added to the existing buildings, everything, including the buildings, had become something else.

“It’s completely different from the one from before.”

Shin told the surprised members what he had seen at the previous supply site.

“It doesn’t look like a scene from an ancient civilization.”

“That’s right. It’s definitely a scene from before ‘The Dusk of Majesty’.”

Shin and the others nodded at Schnee’s confident statement.

Some of the passersby were clearly wearing equipment that seemed to be made for fun, and the names and product lines of the shops seemed to have nothing to do with seriousness.

In other words, there was a sense of laxity that was only allowed because it was a game.

In today’s world, that kind of laxity was rare, both in business and in equipment.

Equipment was directly related to life and safety, and business was directly related to livelihood, so no one would cut corners. Since Shin had actually seen such a scene, he was sure that the scene in front of him was from the time when it was a game.

“Hey, Shin, I see something that looks like Celciutos!”

“What?”

Milt, who had climbed up on the roof to look for anything that might help her locate the place, shouted, pointing at something.

When Shin also climbed onto the roof and looked in that direction, he could definitely see the distinctive hull of the ship.

“’If you can see the sea and the Celciutos is docking there, then it must be either the Kaganka or the Rokou.”

Both of the cities Shin mentioned have large harbors and Celciutos have docked there.

“Does this mean that there are Shin and the others from the game era?”

“If this were a scene from the game era, it wouldn’t be strange to see us. But back then, you could teleport from place to place.”

Just because Celciutos was anchored didn’t mean that Shin and the others were there. In fact, it was more likely that he wasn’t there.

“Besides, it doesn’t really matter if we were there or not.”

Saying that, Shin threw a stone he had picked up before going up to the roof.

The stone flew straight into a wooden box held by a young man walking on the street…and passed to the other side without colliding with it.

There was no change in the young man, and there was no damage to the wooden box that the stone should have penetrated.

In other words, they were illusions and could not be touched.

“As expected.”

Shin was not sure, since there were some illusions that could be touched, but he was mostly right.

“What do you want to do about it?”

“There’s no harm in it for now. We’ll just have to leave it alone.”

In the game event, such a scene from the past never appeared.

The door to the next area was visible at the end of the main road, so there was no reason to interfere.

After coming down from the roof, Shin joined Schnee and the others, telling them what he had seen and what he deduced from it as he walked away.

“Could this sight have something to do with the zombie outbreak?”

“I doubt it. They didn’t show up this time.”

This time, there were no shadows, no shapes, no signs of zombies.

“I prefer it that way.”

Milt interrupted Schnee and Shin’s conversation.

“Are you really that bad with horror? You fought undead in the Wraith Plains, didn’t you?”

“It’s not that I can’t fight, but I’m not good with zombies.”

Milt said she had a bad experience in another VR game where she was attacked by zombies.

“It was my first time in VR, so I didn’t know what to do. I was grabbed and bitten, and my internal organs were ripped out right in front of me.”

“I can’t help but guess the name of the work. But why did you choose that for your first time? There’s an age restriction, right?”

There must have been other VR games that were softer, such as those in which one could interact with animals.

“There’s no such thing as an age limit for games. I wanted to move my body as much as possible, so I did it on the spur of the moment! And I regret it very much.”

Incidentally, in real life, she was bedridden in the hospital and was caught up in a hospital checkup that resulted in her being scolded by her doctor and nurses.

“You’d probably get mad at that. I mean, how could they allow you to play games?”

“There are a lot of things to take care of, like mental health care. I was physically weak, but other than that, I had no problems.”

But the physical weakness was life-threatening.

“Look, I’m done talking about that! Next area!”

There was no reason to pursue the matter too deeply, so they stopped talking at the door.

Shin also had no intention of talking lightly while fighting.

Behind the door was the arena area.

What appeared were the same seven humanoids as in the first area.

Their formation was the same, with power types holding halberds and shields that appeared to be modeled after Shibaid.

“So it’s another test of strength?”

“It feels strange that we’re doing the same thing. But I don’t get the feeling that a trap is being set.””

Although he thought they were trying to lure him in, there were only so many traps that could be set in an unobstructed arena. Shin and his team stood in the same formation as before, waiting to see what would happen, and then the other side began to move.

“Is there really nothing there?”

“It’s strange, but we have no choice but to attack.”

Shibaid led the way as they collided with the humanoids.

As before, the shield shattered and the humanoids were thrown back.

The difference this time was that the rear guard dodged the humanoid projectiles. The bow wielder fired arrows, and the staff and dagger wielders cast fire and ice magic, respectively.

“I don’t think it’s time for this rear guard to come out yet.”

Shin, Filma, and Milt jumped out from beside Shibaid, whose momentum had slowed after blowing the halberd wielder away

Filma swung her 『Scarlet Moon』 and the enemy’s arrow flew through the air like a piece of wood as Shin stepped in and the magic lost its momentum.

Shin prepared his sword in the manner of “Cutting the Carp’s Mouth”*, and stepped in further. (TLN: It looks something like this: YouTube)

He had not been able to take a turn before, but this time he had already told Yuzuha and the others not to interfere, even if it was just to check their reaction.

Shin took one step forward and moved directly in front of the curved sword wielder. Then he drew his sword and unleashed a single slash. It sliced the curved sword wielder in half.

This was a combination of the movement-based martial arts skill 【Ground Shrink】 and katana martial arts skill 【Iai – Shadow Hunt】.

It looked like a single skill that combined movement and attack, but it was a so-called combo attack that was also used in the game era.

It was a technique to cancel the pause in the attack after a skill and link it to the next skill, and there were some who created their own original combos by combining multiple skills.

However, the difficulty increased as the number of skills linked increased. In addition, the repercussions after each skill also increased.

Shin, who mainly worked solo, did not use flashy techniques due to the large gaps in his skills, but rather used a few combos that linked one or two skills together.

“Sorry, but just in case.”

As usual, 【Analyze】 couldn’t be activated, so he didn’t know if its HP had gone down to zero.

Shin dealt another blow to the neck of the curved sword wielder who was about to fall to the ground.

In the game era, their weaknesses were the same as humans, so he should have been able to defeat the curved sword wielder with this.

Almost at the same time as he was about to finish him off, he felt the presence of a battle axe wielder approaching from behind, just as he was about to turn his back on his opponent.

But Shin ignored it and stepped towards the archer.

Before Yuzuha, who was still clinging to him, could unleash her magic, Milt blocked the axe that was swung at him.

“You can’t just ignore me!”

Their blades collided, sparks flying.

Looking at their respective weapons at a distance from each other, only the battle axe wielder’s blade was shattered.

Milt approached again without pausing.

She grabbed the middle of the hilt and began to twist it slightly.

Without losing her momentum, she turned and shifted the position of her hilt toward the stone end.

Her first spin was a deliberate miss, the second spin hit the blade of the axe wielder, the third spin made the axe wielder lose his balance, and the fourth spin smashed the axe along with the human figure.

“I didn’t need five rotations.”

Axe technique martial arts skill 【Axel Turn】.

This powerful technique could be performed up to five times, with the power increasing with each rotation. The skill allows the player to move freely to a certain extent while swinging the blade around the player, and some players have performed acrobatics such as kicking walls and trees while spinning and cutting enemies in half from the head. It was also a skill that was rarely used because it risked of turning your back on an enemy, even if only for a moment.

Filma, for her part, caught a great sword swinging down with her left arm and used 『Scarlet Moon』 to cut the human figure in half. Since she did not have a shield, she adjusted her arms and legs to have higher durability so that they could be used as shields. It was the same as Shin using his hand and leg armor as a defense in case of emergency.

Such adjustments were possible with the type of armor that was covered with an equal protective film that had the same defensive power as her equipment.

“Is that what the second area would be like?”

Shin muttered as he quickly annihilated the rear guard.

It was still early in the game. There was nothing to show for it.

“Don’t you think it looks a bit luxurious?”

“Ah, that’s what I thought too. The ornaments on the weapons were a bit flashy.”

Shin was thinking the same thing as Filma and Milt.

Although they were in a battle, the difference in strength between them was overwhelming, so they had time to observe their opponent. It seemed that not only the decorations but also the quality of the weapons had improved.

“It disappears after I defeat it. If there’s anything left, we can look into it.”

The humanoids that Shin and his team defeated disappeared, including their weapons. There were no dropped items either. This area seemed to be following the events of the game.

Since there was nothing to investigate, they opened the door to the next area.

What spread out beyond the door was a supply area with no visible signs of life.

“Will we see scenes from the past again?”

“I wonder. I think that’s the pattern so far.”

Scenes from the past were being projected at both the first and second supply points. There was no harm in that, but not knowing what it meant was problematic.

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