Pandora of Fantasy And Reality Chapter 116

Fighting Mixer

What kind of thing a mixer was inside the game?

It would greatly differ depending on the game.

VR gave the player immersive experience, so the mixer there would be  different than online game that was played from behind a screen.

The way the player reacted would differ when they were actually  seeing the other side for real rather than from just across the screen.

Now then, with the liberation of the World of Chastity and the  revision of the marriage system, mixer and marriage interview became  even more frequent inside Pandora.

What the player sought from their partner wasn’t race or class, but  how long they had played──how much login time they had accumulated. Also  how many boss they had defeated, whether they fulfilled the condition,  that kind of thing.

They were a member of a guild.

They had defeated a boss with a small party, they had carried out a large scale raid.

They had participated in clearing battle, they had participated in  events……each player had prepared a list filled with various  requirements. They would be able to obtain large merit if they could  marry someone who fulfilled those requirements.

In other words, the system was switching to evaluate the effort of the players inside the game.

「Sorry to have make everyone waited! The first mixer fight will begin now!」

The number of the gathered players was extremely many. It showed just  how much interest the players held toward in-game marriage.

They would be able to obtain merit just from getting a partner after all, so the number of player who wasn’t interested was few.

Not only players who were seriously thinking of clearing the game,  even the mid-ranked players and the casual players were also showing  interest to marriage.

The host was wearing a suit with his hair styled into pompadour. He was standing in front of the players while holding a mike.

He was raising his voice on the prepared stage to fan up the  excitement. Meanwhile Ponsuke was looking around at the surrounding.

(Hmm~, there are a lot of people.)

Many of the players were looking at the host.

Beautiful woman, joke character, extremely polished avatar, avatar  that was made from a sample data with only few edits added. All kinds of  avatars were gathered here.

Ponsuke who was usually surrounded by his guild members was feeling  thrilled seeing this gathering that was different from usual.

(Or rather, what does he mean by mixer battle?)

It seemed the objective of this event was to communicate with each  other by fighting monster together so the players could find their  partner inside the game.

Ponsuke had been expecting something that would be more like the standard mixer, so he was astonished by this event.

「First we shall have all of you joining a party randomly. Your tag  will show a number after this. Please come on the stage in turn based on  it.」

They would join a four-man party that was decided randomly.

Then the party would head out toward a designated spot. When they arrived toward that spot, they would switch party again.

When they came back to the venue at the end, they would have interacted with various players.

(But depending on how you look at it, I guess this isn’t a bad idea.  After all a person’s true character will show up in battle.)

Pandora was an immersive type game. It caused a player’s personality to strongly come out no matter what.

For example a coward would choose to fire magic from the rear as support rather than going to the front.

If a player wasn’t cooperative, most of the time they would ignore their teammate and went forward alone.

It would be troubling to marry someone who wasn’t somewhat cooperative at least.

This mixer was meaningful in how it would allow the players to ascertain that through battle.

「Then the first group!」

Number was displayed one after another on an antique looking bulletin board.

Ponsuke looked at his own tag and waited until it was his turn.

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Ponsuke’s party departed from the venue. It was a party that was filled with surprising lineup.

──After all they were all male.

「Isn’t this wrong for a mixer?」

Ponsuke’s words caused the other players who were harboring the same doubt to complain.

「Yeah. It’ll still be understandable if some of us here are female playing with male avatar though.」

The four’s avatars were male.

All of them were also male in the inside.

There was no point in doing mixer with this kind of party.

「This event is fucking slovenly. The guys planning it is planning to  use the event this time as just a trial anyway. Guess they are they type  of guys who thinks everything is all ok if they just work harder next  time.」

「To think I’ll be told to go play with other man after paying the entrance fee. It’s not funny at all.」

It was nice and all that the party composition was decided randomly,  but the four thought that the host should do something about this  grouping where all of them were man.

One of them checked the marriage system’s working.

「Uoh! ……The marriage can be done even between two males.」

「Seriously!?」

When they checked it themselves, it was possible to marry even if  they ignored their avatar’s gender. After all there was also some races  that didn’t have gender differentiation of male and female.

The management allowed this same gender marriage in consideration of  that kind of race and to show that they prioritized the player’s gender  in real life rather than in game.

Ponsuke covered his face with one hand.

「……But this is a bit」

Everyone of them was manly man with not a shred of femininity in them.

There was the orc Ponsuke, a player with bearded avatar that looked  like a veteran warrior, a man dressed like a bandit, and an intellectual  looking magician.

Their party had good balance, but all of them were male.

「……Let’s go to the next stop quickly.」

「Yeah. I hope my next party will have female avatar.」

「Eh? Won’t it be better to be matched with a player who is actually female IRL? The avatar is just avatar in the end.」

They were conversing while walking, but then a monster appeared.

Humanoid monsters that were made from mud appeared one after another. The four of them drew out their weapons.

Ponsuke too took out his great shield and great sword. He stepped forward in front of the other three and took the tank role.

The magician casted an area attack magic from behind. The bandit  style man withdrew from the hit range while tossing item at the  monsters.

The warrior launched an attack to the monsters.

Ponsuke put himself on the way of the damaged monsters and endured their attacks while strongly grasping his great sword.

His great sword shined strongly, then he twisted his waist and launched a wide powerful swing.

The monsters before him were slashed and turned into red particles.

Behind him the magician spoke.

「……Orc is really reliable huh.」

The bandit too spoke while putting away his knife.

「They’re also visually tough looking. Even so, there are a lot more orcs recently aren’t they?」

The warrior also defeated a monster before returning back.

「That’s because there’s someone playing as orc among the clearing  group after all. Apparently those guys took advantage of a loophole in  the game and cleared a world on their own. Those guys are aiming to pull  off the second jackpot.」

The bandit tilted his head.

「What do you mean by that?」

The magician explained.

「He mean they are trying to imitate the successful guy in the hope of  getting the same success. The loophole would be fixed up after the  large scale update anyway, so it’ll be hard for them to try playing as  orc after this late.」

Gazes gathered on Ponsuke.

「Ponsuke-san, is playing as orc hard just as we thought? My friend  used orc as his avatar, but he said that his heard broke immediately  after that.」

Ponsuke was at a loss of how to answer their question.

(I think……his heart broke, because of the NPC’s treatment right? That’ll definitely shock anyone.)

「……Rather than hard, the race has great status growth, but you can’t  customize it on you own, and you also have to do the strengthening  events.」

The warrior shook his head.

「That’s not for me. I really love being able to customize by myself. It’ll be hard if I can’t do that.」

Ponsuke and the other three were having quite a lot of fun talking while heading to the next stop.

They registered each other as friend when they arrived.

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『Why is her talent low even though she’s our child’s daughter!?』

『Even though we thought it would be guaranteed that his children will be talented if he married you』

『We held high hope for you, but this is unfortunate.』

One player was wearing a depressed expression.

Her name was [Naia].

She was a player who was tired with real world and ended up playing Pandora.

She herself was someone with excellent talent and she had walked through the path of elite until now.

However, after she married a man who she met through arranged  marriage and birthed a child, it turned out that her child didn’t have  the talent that her husband’s family sought. Now they were treating her  coldly.

They were both elites.

Both of them also came from families of high standing.

Arranged marriage was a common method of marriage in this world where  talent was heavily emphasized. It wasn’t that unusual of a story. The  number of woman who chose marriage while thinking of her children’s  future rather than her own love life wasn’t few.

That Naia recalled the words that were said to her the day before she participated in this mixer.

Her husband’s parents were considering for their son to divorce and  search for another wife. Her husband wasn’t objecting to that.

『What a great waste of time.』

『But, your child is a girl so there is a use for her.』

『The next wife should come from a family with slightly better standing──』

There was no married couple feeling between them.

She was treated like a maid.

She got sick of it and she ended up in Pandora as the result of searching for a place of refuge.

She didn’t really know much about game, even so she was able to become quite a good player after playing for some time.

She wasn’t interested with clearing the game, but she participated in  this mixer as a part of her effort to search for a distraction.

However──.

「This is different from what I imagined.」

She was imagining something more enjoyable, and yet when the lit was  opened, it was simply her doing something usual with players who she  didn’t know.

Naia didn’t understand what was so fun about it.

Usually she wouldn’t really be bothered about it. She would imagine  the monsters as her husband and parent-in-laws while hacking them apart.  It gave her great feeling.

This time when she was free from housekeeping and child-rearing was also important.

It would become a great problem in the real world if she neglected  housekeeping and her child, and if she went to a mixer in the real  world……her husband would happily take it as evidence and forced her to  accept the divorce.

Naia’s mood sunk when she thought that.

The woman who had the image as a slightly ferocious warrior inside Pandora sighed.

「Ah, are you perhaps also in group 58?」

She looked at the player who talked to her.

「Yes. I’m Naia of group 58.」

「That’s great. My name is Ponsuke. We’ll be in the same party for the next part.」

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──Floating island.

The guild “Ponsuke and His Happy-Go-Lucky-Friends” had bought a  floating island and immediately worked hard in building their base.

Blaze’s party appeared from a portal. The craftsmen who were waiting for them received the materials that they had been farming.

Blaze stared at the magnificent sight of floating clouds around them while talking to a craftsman.

「This place is really taking shape well. Or rather, you guys are starting from the foundation works?」

The craftsman was checking the materials while talking.

「Yeah, that’s right. You can’t make a large base if you use the bases  that are sold in the market after all. Besides, we ended up having to  compromise with the building after the discussion with the girls.」

The compromise was the result of the talk, or rather them killing each other.

In the end the quarrel was resolved with buying a floating island while the girls were giving a say in the style of the base.

Because of that, a large scale improvement was being carried out on the floating island.

Blaze looked impressed.

「Even so you guys are really composed. I thought that you guys would be swamped with work for a while after that.」

Blaze’s party members were also interested with the base. They were looking around with interest.

The craftsman said something like 「Yep, that’s it for today’s quota」 before saying,

「Guild master never touched the guild’s fund and item after all. Or  rather, he himself keep adding to them so we don’t need to worry about  the fund.」

Ponsuke was higher ranked as player than he thought.

He kept polishing his player skill, and then he made use of his training in his fighting. He was plainly strong.

Mariela and Alfie who were usually accompanying him were also plainly superior player despite their usually horrible action.

Because of that they could earn a lot if they wanted to.

「Ponsuke-kun is earnest after all. Unlike those two. By the way……what is Ponsuke-kun doing?」

The portal shined when Blaze said that.

Coming out from it were Mariela and Alfie who were wearing their main equipments.

Mariela was carrying sinister knives in her hands.

She was like an assassin with such atmosphere……like a person who was a real bad news.

Alfie was holding a shotgun that was decorated with gold and silver.  She also had other firearms on her back. It was like she was planning to  go to war alone.

「Where is SOLOLYYYYYY!」

「I’m going to bash his head open like watermelon!」

The two immediately broke into a run as soon as they showed up. They  ran around the floating island while screaming SOLOLY’s name.

Blaze stiffened.

「……Eh? What’s with that?」

The craftsman scratched his head.

「No, you know……guild master, he’s going to a mixer event today, so  perhaps they snapped from that? That SOLOLY, he was telling the girls  who wanted to crash into that event the wrong location.」

SOLOLY had leaked the info of Ponsuke going to a mixer event behind Ponsuke’s back.

But, he also leaked the wrong info about the event’s location at the same time.

「Aa, so that’s why those two are like that.」

Lighter complained at the two girls because their running around were  getting in the way of their works. Alfie shot him and more players  gathered, making the quarrel even bigger.

「You guys are making ruckus since morning! We’re busy here damn you!」

Lighter was also looking angry. Blaze was curious about that.

「Did something happen with Lighter-san?」

「……About that」

The portal shined again while the craftsman was talking.

Appearing from there were Noin and Fran who were heavily equipped with armors and weapons.

Their eyes were bloodshot.

「……SOLOLY. Where is that guy?」

「I’ll kill that deviant.」

Blaze was letting out cold sweat seeing Noin’s dangerous atmosphere and Fran’s furious aura.

The two were walking toward where Mariela and Alfie were making ruckus. Blaze couldn’t stop them.

Or rather, he didn’t want to call out to them.

The craftsman was laughing.

「The tricked girls kept coming back looking like that ever since the  morning. They kept making ruckus after that, so of Lighter-san is  angry.」

The laughing craftsman was actually looking tired too.

Blaze thought.

(Ponsuke-kun……just what in the world are you doing?)

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