Chapter 53: 5,000 Points
The ten minutes flew by. A bit of shitposting in the group chat, and just like that, the feedback analysis was complete. The pop-up notification—visible only to Ryū—appeared once more.
[System Notification: Thank you for your feedback, Admin "RawrSoFierce." The reward for Quest 2 has been revised. Details below.
[Original] Group Quest 2: Travel to the world of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War –
Geniuses' War of Love and Wits. Halt the spread of the bootleg zombie virus!
Time Limit: 30 days
Party Size: 3
Reward: 1,000 Points
Note: Following Admin "RawrSoFierce's" feedback, multiple unreasonable
elements were identified in the original Quest 2. Revised version below.
[Revised] Group Quest 2: Travel to the world of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War –
Geniuses' War of Love and Wits. Develop a serum to eliminate the zombie virus!
Time Limit: 40 days
Party Size: 3
Reward: 5,000 Points
Note: Thank you for your timely feedback, Admin "RawrSoFierce."
Bonus reward: 100 Points.]
"Tch. It actually changed… I figured it'd just be a formality."
Ryū murmured to himself, half-impressed.
And there was the 100-Point bonus on top of it.
A hundred Points wasn't a fortune—on a good day, a single Daily Sign-In could net you that much—but a free meal was a free meal.
Take Ryū's current balance: roughly 2,000 Points.
Think of those 2,000 Points as two thousand yen sitting in your bank account.
When your account only has two thousand yen…
And someone hands you a hundred more for free…
You're really going to say no?
Ryū would absolutely not say no.
Free is free.
A hundred was plenty!
"And the reward jumped from 1,000 to 5,000 Points. That's almost half the value of the Apocalypse Fabrication System itself. Seriously, that System really is the bargain-bin option…"
Ryū couldn't help taking another shot at Meyu Inkyo's System.
If it weren't for the rule that Group Quests had to be completed in order before you could claim their rewards…
He'd have recovered that System already.
Not that he was in any rush. He wasn't worried about the Apocalypse Fabrication System growing legs and running off. Every time he got close to Meyu Inkyo's corpse, a prompt popped into his head: [Recover "Apocalypse Fabrication System"? Yes / No]
In other words, even with the host dead, the System wasn't going anywhere.
It could only sit there like a good little lamb waiting for the slaughter.
Since this System Notification was on the longer side, Ryū took two separate ultra-HD screenshots and posted them straight to the Dimensional Chat Group.
* * *
RawrSoFierce: "@Everyone [Image] [Image] Feedback successful!"
RawrSoFierce: "The original 1,000-Point reward has been bumped to 5,000 Points, and the quest requirements have been tweaked slightly."
The Little Wandering Planet: "5,000 Points! Wow—add the 11,000 from recovering the System and the 2,000 from killing the traverser, and that's 18,000 total!"
Crazy Diamond: "*sharp inhale* So this one mission could mint four members with 10,000+ Points each!"
RawrSoFierce: "Not necessarily. Kaguya's a special case—she's not on the official quest roster, but she happens to be in this world. So the bonus 10,000 Points for recovering the System won't go to her."
RawrSoFierce: "But the 2,000 for the traverser kill, the 5,000 for the virus quest, and the base 1,000 for the System recovery—she'll get all of those."
Crazy Diamond: "That's still almost 10,000! Enough to learn the full Six Powers set AND max them all out to mastery, right?"
Edward Newgate: "Mastery-level Six Powers… Little Kaguya's combat strength would rival a Marine HQ Commodore. Or at least a Branch Vice Admiral."
Whitebeard couldn't help but marvel. Since when was getting stronger… this easy?
Not that he'd ever complain about having too many Points.
The 3,000 Points he'd earned from the previous mission had all gone into Physical Enhancement.
Granted, with a constitution like his, 3,000 Points didn't strengthen him by all that much.
But Whitebeard could clearly feel the old injuries—the ones that had been piling up for decades—weren't weighing on him as heavily anymore.
His whole body felt lighter.
At this rate, another ten or twenty years of life didn't seem like a problem.
And if he could get enough Points to keep enhancing himself…
Those accumulated wounds might eventually vanish entirely as his body grew stronger.
Edward Newgate: "Of course, Little Kaguya probably hasn't seen real combat yet. In an actual fight, she might not be able to beat an HQ Commodore."
Kaguya-sama: "Speaking of which, Whitebeard-ojii-sama… how strong is a Marine HQ Commodore, exactly?"
Edward Newgate: "Hmm. Let this old man give you a simple example: if you threw a single Rankyaku slash, you'd cleave clean through a building."
Kaguya-sama: "!!!"
Crazy Diamond: "Jealousy is tearing me apart at the cellular level. These are the tears of a bottom-tier group member. Kaguya-chan, carry me plz."
We, Ying Zheng: "Jealousy is tearing me apart at the cellular level. These are the tears of a bottom-tier group member. Kaguya-chan, carry me plz."
The Little Wandering Planet: "Jealousy is tearing me apart at the cellular level. These are the tears of a bottom-tier group member. Kaguya-chan, carry me plz."
Edward Newgate: "Jealousy is tearing me apart at the cellular level. These are the tears of a bottom-tier group member. Kaguya-chan, carry me plz."
Kaguya-sama: "Pfft… You people are going to meme me into the shadow realm."
Despite what she said in the chat, Kaguya was secretly a tiny bit pleased. So this meant she'd be able to break into the group's mid-tier combat bracket, right?
She couldn't match Whitebeard, Yukari-nee-sama, Admin-dono, or the Little Wandering Planet—whose idea of a greeting was dropping onto a world and wiping out all surface life.
But mid-tier was nothing to scoff at!
At least she wouldn't be dead last anymore.
* * *
"As long as I get strong enough, even if my extraordinary power gets exposed in the real world, nobody will be able to do anything about it. In the face of absolute strength… every scheme and conspiracy crumbles like a house of cards."
Recalling something Admin-dono had once said, Kaguya's eyes grew resolute.
In fact, she'd already started drafting a plan to grow stronger.
Step one of the plan: shout "Admin-dono is amazing!" at the top of her lungs.
Then Admin-dono would carry her to greatness.
Yep… it was that simple.
But isn't that a bit… too sycophantic?
Kaguya deliberated for exactly one second.
She ultimately concluded that sucking up to Admin-dono didn't really count as sucking up. Besides, Admin-dono himself had said it: a loyal simp… simps their way to having it all.
Wait—did I just call myself a simp?
"These absurd thoughts… I should just focus on working hard myself."
Kaguya decided that she did, in fact, still have some self-awareness.
☆☆☆
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