Chapter 230: A Chinese Animation World
Yukari had once again entered her self-imposed exile state. This time the hit felt heavier than usual — the gap between her result and everyone else's had been wide enough that recovery would take longer than the usual five-minute sulk. Ten minutes, maybe. Possibly a full half hour.
Whatever the duration, the certainty was that she'd be back to full operational capacity afterward. She always was. Genuine withdrawal had never once stuck for more than an hour.
Kaguya-sama: Yukari-nee has now said "winter hibernation" seven times, "sleep" eight times, "summer hibernation" four times, and "autumn hibernation" once. That's twenty total!
Kaguya-sama: Twenty separate withdrawal episodes in under a year!
My True Form Is Cola: Terrifying… is Yukari-senpai's golden-retriever-loser stat maxed out? Who's secretly stealing her luck behind the scenes?
I Am Thor, God of Thunder!: Golden-retriever-loser? What does that mean?
My True Form Is Cola: A blonde girl whose every attempt at anything ends in failure.
My True Form Is Cola: To summarise: blonde + attractive + fails at almost everything + perpetually dejected = Golden Retriever Loser. The textbook case here would be the Street-Corner Illustrator!
Street-Corner Illustrator: Eriri, currently mid-deadline, makes her dramatic entrance!
Street-Corner Illustrator: Wait — pfft — I am NOT a loser! What does "golden retriever loser" have to do with me?! cries
Street-Corner Illustrator: Speaking of which — what did everyone else get from the gift package? I got 2,900 Points, a badge, and a one-time direct upgrade to Armament Haki Mastery level.
RawrSoFierce: A certain youkai sage has just taken a second devastating critical hit.
Street-Corner Illustrator: Huh? Meow??
RawrSoFierce: Well played, Eriri. Keep it up.
Street-Corner Illustrator: Wait, Σ?
"…"
In Gensokyo, Yukari had her face buried in an oversized pillow. Beside her sat a half-finished bag of charcoal-grilled beef-flavoured youkai ration.
She stayed face-down for several seconds, then surfaced. Her eyes had lost some of their usual sparkle.
She looked at the bag. Reached in. Pulled out a handful of pieces that resembled, structurally, nothing so much as dog kibble.
Ate them.
The unfortunate part was that the ration was, objectively, delicious. Crisp texture, well-seasoned, exactly calibrated to her preferences as though someone had reverse-engineered her palate specifically for this product line. This made it worse, not better.
"It tastes good. That's not the point. If I converted this to Points it'd be worth maybe 10 a bag, and everyone else got items worth at minimum a thousand each. Unacceptable! Why is it always me!"
Nobody had an answer for her. Even Ryū, as Admin, had no theory for why her luck was this consistently poor. He hadn't interfered with anyone's results — there was no mechanism for him to interfere even if he'd wanted to. The randomness was genuinely random, as far as he understood it, and he didn't understand it especially well.
While she sat with this unresolved frustration, a notification chimed.
She'd entirely forgotten her declared "autumn hibernation."
She opened the Chat Group and found Ryū had tagged the entire membership.
She read through the post.
"A group quest?"
A group quest. Less than an hour after the previous group activity had concluded. She had no working theory for why the timing was this tight — presumably quests triggered on some random schedule independent of recent activity, though that was speculation. Ryū might know more. He usually didn't share the underlying mechanics even when he did.
Eternally Seventeen: Autumn hibernation concluded, Yukari returns!
Eternally Seventeen: Is this another quest-slot competition? I am absolutely claiming a slot this time. If I don't get one, may the Admin gain ten pounds.
Kaguya-sama: …Yukari-nee finished her autumn hibernation that fast?
Edward Newgate: Gurararara — that was maybe twenty minutes.
Edward Newgate: Did autumn simply end in twenty minutes?
Eternally Seventeen: Ahem. Let's not dwell on the details.
RawrSoFierce: A genuinely vicious curse, that one. This menace cannot be allowed to continue unchecked. Off with her head.
RawrSoFierce: Quest cap is two people this time, difficulty looks moderate. Also — this isn't a group quest exactly, it's a "New Member Joining Quest," with an extra word in there. Read carefully before you start cursing my waistline.
Eternally Seventeen: Ahh, close enough, really.
Admiral Kizaru: A joining quest — that means another new member~
Admiral Kizaru: Joins are happening fairly often lately. With this one, we should be at seventeen members?
RawrSoFierce: Sixteen now, plus one, seventeen, give or take.
This was, by most chat group standards, an extremely slow growth rate. The Dimensional Chat Group had been operating for the better part of a year — long enough for Ryū to age from zero to nearly one. In that span, even counting every joining quest, the total membership had reached seventeen. Less than two new members per month on average.
Most online groups could pull in hundreds of members within minutes of opening. The Chat Group had taken the better part of a year to assemble a roster smaller than a typical school classroom.
While Ryū was preparing to run the dice selection for the quest slots, another notification appeared — visible only to him as Admin.
He read it.
His expression shifted into something between surprise and mild confusion.
A second task had appeared. Unprompted. Not the joining quest he'd just posted — this was a genuine, full group quest, triggered independently.
[Group Quest: Two groups of veteran Reincarnators have descended on the Star Hero world, conducting large-scale plunder of the local "Rainbow Stone" resource and causing significant casualties.]
[Task 1: Two groups of veteran Reincarnators, in pursuit of their Sacred Ground missions, have shed the blood of innocents in this new member's world and have been classified under the Extreme Malice faction. Eliminate all veteran Reincarnators present in this world!
Participants: 2 Time limit: 10 days Reward: 10,000 Points]
[Task 2: Recover the Reincarnation Watches from the Reincarnators. Each Watch recovered grants the participating members an additional 500 Points.
Participants: 2 Time limit: 10 days Reward: 3,000 Points]
[Note: Because these two tasks overlap and occur in the same world, the New Member Joining Quest has been merged into this group quest as Task 3.]
[Task 3: The new member "Maidang" of the Star Hero world is currently facing a major crisis. Assist the new member in escaping this crisis to complete this task. If the new member dies, the task is judged a failure and the new member will be forcibly returned to their home world.
Participants: 2 Time limit: 10 days Reward: 1,000 Points]
The new member's world happened to trigger a quest at the exact same moment they were joining. Two separate tasks merging, with the joining quest folded in as Task 3. First time I've seen this.
He screenshotted the windows and posted them.
RawrSoFierce: @All Members — the task has been updated. Take a look.
Eternally Seventeen: Tasks merging? Interesting. Does the two-person cap still apply even after the merge?
RawrSoFierce: Yes, still capped at two. No more than that.
Edward Newgate: This new member has terrible luck — their world gets hit with two separate threats at once. Frightening, really.
Kaguya-sama: Reincarnators again? They just don't let up.
Kaguya-sama: Though they're functionally our personal ATM at this point. Whenever Points get tight, kill a Reincarnator, recover the Watch, 500 free Points.
RawrSoFierce: …That's an unsettlingly accurate way to put it.
RawrSoFierce: This new member, Maidang, really did draw the short straw.
"…"
Ryū recognised the world immediately from the title alone — Star Hero. He remembered watching this domestic animated series as a kid. Genuinely well-produced for its category, with voice acting that didn't feel awkward the way a lot of Chinese animation from that era did. It had aired on state television at one point. The production eventually collapsed under budget pressure and the studio walked away from it unfinished — a familiar fate for ambitious domestic animation of that generation.
Even by current standards, the show held up. Eighty, maybe ninety out of a hundred on craft alone.
He recalled — from before his transmigration — that the franchise had gotten some kind of revival, a feature film reboot with a title he couldn't remember. He'd never watched it. He'd been afraid it would ruin the original for him.
Maidang. The protagonist of Star Hero, right? Sounds like he's in serious trouble. Based on the task description — even setting aside whether it's directly tied to the Reincarnators — this is a life-threatening situation.
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