"Sorry."
Seeing the three idiots—Tayuya, Anko, and Jaune—bowing in front of me, I had to fight the urge to clutch at my head.
Just where should I start…? Still, it's not like the story's going to be very long. First, let's see… Yeah, let's start with how I was searching for Robyn with Anko.
Well, there wasn't much to this part of the story. It was a little sad, but in the end, neither of us found any clues.
As I was considering regrouping with everyone, a torrent of water came flowing out of the mountain. All that was fine. Well, it wasn't, but compared to the rest it was. I could easily just transmute a wall or blow the water away with wind pressure from my fists. You know, like how my missed blows had split the oceans while I'd fought the Grimm King? It'd be a variation of that.
The problem was when Tayuya absorbed the surrounding mana to erase the regenerating water, creating a giant illusion of herself. On top of that, Fiona followed suit. Seeing that, Anko meaninglessly did the same out of some sense of rivalry or something, and Jaune also joined in. When I tried asking them why they'd done such a thing, the answer that came back was that "it just kinda seemed like the thing to do."
I reflexively punched Jaune hard.
As a result, we were now in this disastrous situation, with a giant crab, scorpion, demon, and sheep having appeared in Draupnir. In a panic, I went as fast as I could to scold these idiots. Seriously, what the hell do I do? I mean, look at how completely terrified the beastmen of Draupnir are. Tayuya had meaninglessly changed the weather, and now what had once been a nice sunny day was ruined, marred by dark, sinister clouds.
This was just a small detail, but it'd been the effect of the Moon elemental spell 'Moonlit Night.' In the game, its effect was to switch day to night and vice versa. Xgate Online had six stages of light in its day/night cycle, which was linked with real time. Those stages were early morning, morning, noon, evening, night, and midnight. Depending on the stage of time, events and spawning-type monsters differed, or the spawn points of the monsters themselves would change location instead of the monsters spawned.
For example, monsters who were active during the day and slept during the night lore would all disappear from grasslands and forests during the night end of the cycle and instead start appearing in caves. By the way, the monsters that did tended to start off battle in a sleeping state, so there was merit for those who logged in during the night, since it made hunting easier.
Also, there was one race among the players that was very affected by this cycle. Of course, they were the nobles of the night, vampires. They were a really extreme race that would be stupidly strong if you logged in to play at night, but during the morning and noon times they'd take a huge stat debuff. It was only a matter of course that the devs were flooded with requests saying, "Do something about this shit system!"
That was only natural. Even if the character was a vampire, the players weren't. Some people held the opinion that the people who'd chosen to become vampires were at fault, but this affected other players who could only log in during specific times of the day too. There were people who could only log in during the day or during the night due to real-life circumstances, so, the devs were forced to add spells and items that could invert day and night in the next patch.
Of course, these effects didn't truly change the time in-game. If they'd done that, the entire game would've been thrown into confusion by all the players changing the time of day left and right. Plus, the load on the server would've also been huge. It didn't actually change day to night or vice versa. It only allowed the player to gain the effects of said time. For example, if used during the day, then monsters that only appeared at night would start spawning in the area, and vampires would also no longer be debuffed, among other things.
Although… Recently, my game knowledge has been really unreliable. I even start wondering whether what I'm saying is strange or not while I'm saying it. I mean, like…? Would this really be possible from a game as ridiculous as that?
Anyway, I got off topic. It's a bad habit of mine to just go off forever on a tangent once I think of it.
At any rate, my point was that the spell didn't actually switch night into day and vice versa originally. But of course, in-game systems like that wouldn't apply here. Tayuya had seriously managed to turn the area into night, with the sky wrapped in darkness as if it were the end of the world.
Wait a second. What the hell is going on with this planet's rotation? Switching day and night in an instant would mean fast-forwarding the rotation of the planet, but, like wouldn't changing the rotational speed of the planet be really bad? Also, since the law of inertia applies to a planet's spin, won't it be that way forever once it's been changed?
Taking Earth as an example, there was a theory that there used to be only five hours in a day. The Earth gradually slowed down, though, and now there were twenty-four hours in a day. The theory posited that in the future, the day might be even longer… Whoops, I derailed again. Anyway.
This world really didn't adhere to the laws of physics at all. Things were so obviously strange that even someone as dumb as I was could tell. It really was a fantasy world. Also, I have to apologize. I said that it wouldn't be that long, but that was a lie. This has gotten pretty long.
"All of you are so hopeless… Penny, why are you bowing too?" I asked while putting the hood of my robe back on, which had gotten blown off by the wind. I was only scolding the three idiots who'd turned giant, not Penny. But for some reason she was also bowing her head. I'd had to ask.
"No, I thought this would look better. This will help keep the hero's party over there in check, and it will show how powerful you are, master."
"Wha-?!"
Flustered, I looked off into the distance.
She wasn't lying. The hero's party really was there.
Goddamn, they're looking this way, and they're really scared. Now it totally looks like we're the invaders. This is totally just a scenario where a bunch of enemies show up in front of the heroes all of a sudden. Thanks to that stupid Tayuya's unnecessary lines earlier, the beastmens are completely terrified too. My public image is just getting worse and worse.
Hmm… What should I do about this…? Even if I say that I'm not an enemy and that I'm not scary, it won't be convincing or trustworthy at all, will it?
"Hmm?"
While I was thinking, I'd noticed something strange. Well, it wasn't exactly strange… From an objective viewpoint his movements were unusual, though. For some reason, a boy who was probably the hero broke away from the group and was walking this way.
What's this? Is he seriously going to try and fight me? Sorry to break the bad news, but this isn't bravery, kid. It's recklessness. Even if he were the hero, there was no way I would lose against someone who was only level 30.
Well, I guess I should just see what he wants for now. Even if he does try to take a swipe at me, it won't be any trouble at all with the differences in our strength anyway. I can just knock him out if he does try.