Chapter 44: Saving the World?
While the group on-site was talking things through, the other members back in the chat had no idea what was actually happening in Kaguya Shinomiya's world — nobody had turned on their camera feed.
To say they weren't curious would be a lie. There had already been one Group Quest before, and last time Yukari had opened her camera for a livestream.
But this time was completely different from the last.
This time, the target was a traverser.
And this traverser even had a System.
Even Whitebeard, who had participated in the previous quest, was intensely curious.
To say nothing of the members who hadn't had the chance to join one at all.
Crazy Diamond: @RawrSoFierce — Admin-dono, any chance you could turn on the camera feed?
Crazy Diamond: Curious… curious… curious… curious… ×100!
The Little Wandering Planet: Please, could one of you open the camera for just a sec? Sniff sniff sniff.
Edward Newgate: Please, could one of you open the camera for just a sec? Sniff sniff sniff.
We, Ying Zheng: Please, could one of you open the camera for just a sec? Sniff sniff sniff.
Crazy Diamond: Please, could one of you open the camera for just a sec? Sniff sniff sniff.
Crazy Diamond: Wait — did Whitebeard-jiisan seriously just type 'sniff sniff sniff'?! Hssss… the mental image is too beautiful. I literally cannot picture it.
Edward Newgate: Gurararara! I merely copied the message.
Edward Newgate: The Little Wandering Planet typing 'sniff sniff sniff' — now THAT'S the truly horrifying image!
Inside the world of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Ryū heard the chat group's notification chime in his mind.
Splitting his attention, he let his consciousness slip into the Dimensional Chat Group.
Sure enough, someone had pinged him.
Ryū shook his head with an amused, helpless smile, then typed out a message.
RawrSoFierce: Right now it's close to 11 PM in Kaguya's world.
RawrSoFierce: We've decided to move out tomorrow morning.
RawrSoFierce: The quest gives us 30 days, so there's no need to rush. As for turning on the camera… we'll sort that out tomorrow morning too.
Crazy Diamond: It's nighttime over there? I see…
Edward Newgate: Gurararara! It's only just dawn on this old man's end.
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: [Image] It really is nighttime out here.
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Most of the Shinomiya household staff have already been placed under control. Now we can use little Kaguya's family's resources to look into anyone who shares the traverser's name.
There was no denying it — in moments like these, Yukari was genuinely invaluable.
As the Gap Yōkai, belonging to no race and answering to none…
What most people remembered about Yukari was her boundary manipulation.
But aside from those boundary powers…
Did anyone seriously think Yukari knew nothing else?
Of course not.
No matter how you looked at it, she was the legendary Yōkai Sage.
Her breadth of knowledge, her centuries of experience and insight — within Gensōkyō, hers was among the most encyclopedic. The fact that she could casually produce an entire cultivation system for magical practice said everything about the sheer range of things she'd mastered.
It was just that in the chat group, she tended to come across as a bit… unserious.
Which led people to assume her boundary manipulation was all she had.
Her boundary powers were, of course, still the strongest thing in her arsenal.
She had reached the threshold of touching the very source of that power.
Whether operating in another world imposed any limitations, however, was unclear.
Probably only she herself knew the answer to that.
Kaguya-sama: Father was placed directly under Yukari-nee-sama's psychic control… I know it won't actually hurt him, but it still feels… strange.
Kaguya-sama: For some reason I feel like I'm an accomplice.
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Relax, relax~ Little Kaguya, there's no need to worry. After all, what we're doing here is saving the world!
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Doesn't thinking of it that way just clear everything right up?
Kaguya-sama: Mm… I suppose there's a tiny bit of logic in that.
Edward Newgate: Saving the world, you say? Gurararara! That does seem to be about the size of it. Even though this old man didn't get the chance to join this particular quest, the news little Kaguya posted makes it clear — that so-called zombie virus could very well engulf the entire world!
Edward Newgate: And killing the traverser, halting the virus, and recovering the System… that does qualify as saving the world.
Reading through the chat log… Ryū's expression turned a touch odd.
Even he, the Admin, hadn't thought to frame it in terms of "saving the world."
Because generally speaking, saving the world…
Wasn't that something only heroes did?
Ryū didn't consider himself a hero.
What he was after was nothing more than the interests of himself and his group members within the Dimensional Chat Group. His own interests went without saying, and since the members all treated him as their leader, looking out for their interests a little was only natural.
Beyond that?
He couldn't care less.
* * *
At the moment, Ryū and Wolffy were in Kaguya's room.
Yukari, meanwhile, had gone with Kaguya on a stroll through the Shinomiya family's sprawling mansion, placing every person they encountered under psychic control, one by one.
Then, leveraging the Shinomiya Zaibatsu's vast resources, they began the search for a person named "Meyu Inkyo."
There would almost certainly be multiple people sharing that name.
But with careful screening and filtering…
Identifying the traverser among them…
Wouldn't actually be all that difficult.
Besides, they had already narrowed the search area down to H City itself — the Japanese city where the zombie virus had broken out.
There was, of course, the old wisdom about a rabbit not eating the grass around its own burrow. But Ryū figured… if the guy's System was literally called the "Apocalypse Fabrication System," then the whole point was to manufacture a large-scale apocalypse. Under those circumstances, what did "not eating the grass around your own burrow" even mean?
If he put himself in the traverser's shoes — if he'd gotten the same System…
As long as there were no family ties holding him back, who would bother avoiding their own city?!
The first target would be the very city he was living in!
"Thankfully Kaguya's house is enormous… and she mentioned there are plenty of spare guest rooms. Plus, with Yukari having the Shinomiya household under psychic control for now, we won't have to go looking for lodging elsewhere."
Ryū stood at the window, gazing outside. Then he turned his head, and his eyes landed on a laptop sitting on Kaguya's bedside table.
The laptop looked brand-new — probably a recent purchase.
He opened it and searched for a map of Japan.
He needed to find out exactly how far they were from H City.
If the distance was too great…
That would be a problem.
But to his surprise, H City turned out to be separated from Kaguya's city by just a single small town. Cross that town, and they'd be right in the heart of the zombie-virus-ravaged H City.
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