Chapter 138: CH 138

Chapter 138 – I wanted to eat it…!

“Lalalu…” I muttered.

“I thought it would be fine! I measured the available space within the carriage on our trip to the Ljungsmelis Republic!” She exclaimed.

“… You missmeasured then.” Lulu told her.

“It can’t be…” Lolita was disheartened.

We can choose three different countries as our starting locations, the Zabrina Kingdom, the Ljungsmelis Republic and the Tabarist Empire.

Our destination this time is, of course, the Tabarist Empire.

Back when the game was released, there was no particular difference in choosing any of the three locations, but it’s been almost half a year in Real Time since then.

As the field areas that each country unlocks are randomly determined, each country is bound to feel fairly different from the others by now.

Especially because some areas can also become base areas like Liber or the Mizuri Village, which can provide a variety of different materials or recipes.

Battle areas too can also vary quite a bit. Some can be simple field areas, while others can be dungeons that become harder and harder as you dive into them.

Dungeons tend to be more difficult than normal field areas, but how hard a given area is also tends to depend on how far it is from the city.

That said, the difficulty level is determined at the moment that the area is unlocked, so even if you unlock a new city close to a field area later on, the field area will still keep the same difficulty that it had before.

However, if field areas are neglected for too long, then a defensive battle will occur, where the Demon Trees try taking the area over.

With the major update, it seems like the amount of maintenance woodcutting required to avoid a defensive battle has been decreased, but the difficulty of the defensive battles has increased to compensate.

So far we only had to fight a single defensive battle in the Zabrina Kingdom, and it ended without much damage, but I’m not sure if things would remain like that in case a new battle occurred now.

However, the combat-focused Pioneers have also become stronger since then, so it’s hard to be sure about how it will go until a battle actually occurs.

And speaking of field areas, a new means of transportation called a Field Portal has been added.

It functions similarly to a Teleportation Gate, and it helps reduce the travel time between locations, as it allows you to instantly teleport to your destination.

Mika was very happy to hear of it.

Though of course, just like the Teleportation Gate, the Field Portals require Magic Stones to be used, and a higher travel distance means a higher Magic Stone cost too.

Nonetheless, it’s still a considerable convenience upgrade when comparing to the times where the only option was to use a carriage to move to the field areas.

Due to that though, the price of Magic Stones has risen, but it’s still within acceptable range.

Besides, locations that are farther from the city tend to have higher difficulty and give proportionally better rewards, so even if you need to spend some money to quickly get to your destination, you can compensate for that by getting high-rank materials on your hunting. Especially because your hunting time should be increased if the travel time decreases.

Though well, there is a chance this might increase the price of the available high-rank materials, but as the supply will also increase, I don’t think I mind it that much.

On another note, it’s apparently cheaper to go from Capital Sabrina to Dotril and then to Dotril Silver Mine, then to go directly from Capital Sabrina to Dotril Silver Mine.

However, plenty of people seem to prefer teleporting directly for the sake of convenience and for saving time, since it can take a while to get your turn to teleport if the Gate is crowded.

“Well, let’s store this Sugoroku board.” I told Lolita.

“No way… Let’s play it! It’s a great game!” Lolita replied.

“… It’s a hindrance.” Lulu plainly stated.

“It’s not a hindrance!” Lolita exclaimed.

“No, no, it’s definitely a hindrance, like… It’s obviously way too big for this carriage, so it’s gonna bother the other passengers. Let’s give up on it.” I told her honestly.

“Uuh…” Lolita groaned.

The time-killing item that Lolita enthusiastically prepared for our trip was quite amazing, but… It had one big problem.

Namely, the carriage was full. Even if we do have reserved seats for us three, we don’t have that much space. It’s not enough to play with a big Sugoroku board.

So, we had to slowly convince the reluctant Lolita to give up on it while the carriage moved.

But the other party was Lolita. Just because the Sugoroku failed, it didn’t mean that she had no other preparations.

“It’s a pity that we won’t be able to play this Sugoroku that I worked so hard to make, but in that case… Let’s play this!” She took out a different board game.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Monopoly…?” Lulu asked.

“Indeed! This one doesn’t take much space!” Lolita exclaimed.

“Is it like a small Sugoroku?” I asked.

Lolita giggled, “Sweet summer child, the history of Monopoly is very old!”

After accepting that the big homemade Sugoroku board was no good, Lolita took out a board of Monopoly.

It did seem to take less space than Sugoroku, but I don’t really know how to play this game.

Apparently I just need to invest some money on real estates and bankrupt the other players though, so I guess I should just try it out?

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******

“F-fifth house!? How!?” Lolita exclaimed.

“Scary… Is this beginner’s luck…?” Lulu muttered.

“I guess that’s my win?” I commented.

“O-one more time! Let’s do it again!” Lolita exclaimed.

“Sure, I think I got the gist of it now. What color should I pick this time?” I said.

“That’s bad, Lulu! Bucket’s absorption powers are larger than I thought!” Lolita exclaimed.

“You’re terrifying… Bucket.” Lulu commented.

I wasn’t quite sure how I won, but Monopoly seems like a pretty fun game.

Midway through it though, Lolita said that there are also some variant rules, so the way the game progresses can change a fair bit, but I’m not quite sure how they work.

It would be nice if I could understand it by the time we reached the Tabarist Empire.

******

It took us roughly six in-game hours to go from the Zabrina Kingdom to Capital Rivas of the Tabarist Empire.

Of course, the time did include a break, but it seems like this country was a bit farther away than the Ljungsmelis Republic.

But well, now that we’ve come here once, we can go back and forth whenever we want by using the Teleportation Gate, so it doesn’t really matter.

As for the Monopoly games that we used to kill time while on the road, Lolita changed it to a different game after I won three games in a row.

It was similar to what happened when we were going to Ljungsmelis Republic… I guess Lolita isn’t very good at this kind of game.

It’s heartwarming to see her determination to keep on trying to win anyways though.

“I couldn’t eat Lulu’s sweets! Again!” Lolita exclaimed.

“The world of competitions is truly ruthless, isn’t it?” I replied.

“… It can’t be helped because of the conditions we played with.” Lulu told her.

“Ugh… Sweets…” Lolita groaned.

“Well, let’s go explore the city.” I said, ignoring her.

Once again, we bet Lulu’s sweets on the matches, so Lolita, who suffered a complete defeat, couldn’t get a single bite of the sweets.

It was the same result from the trip to Ljungsmelis Republic, so I can’t help wondering why she decided to compete under those same conditions…

Well, it was a different game and she seemed to be confident about this one, so I guess I can understand it, but… Unfortunately for her, the results were disastrous.

Lulu didn’t bring any new sweets this time around, but since she is always trying her best to improve, those sweets were incredibly delicious.

Even among craft-focused player Pioneers, there aren’t many who specialize in sweets.

Or rather, there are probably about as many people making Magic Circles as there are people making sweets.

There are more people cooking, but almost none of them focus on sweets, and Lulu is surely the best among the sweets-makers.

So, even if Lulu can’t base herself on the work of many others, she still tries her best to make new originals and raise her skill level, which leads to her creating many incredibly delicious sweets.

“Uuuuh… I wanted to eat it…!” Lolita exclaimed.

“Yeah, yeah, such a pity. But hey, look ahead, there is a Japanese-style gate in front of us.” I told her.

“… It’s a shinto-styled gate.” Lulu muttered.

“Ah, it seems like the Tabarist Empire has a Japanese theme to it.” Lolita said.

“Perhaps the equipment sold here is of the same style?” I wondered.

“I saw nothing about it…” Lulu replied.

“Ah, yeah…” I said.

“The equipment and recipes don’t change between countries.” Lolita complemented.

Since we came here to sightsee, I didn’t really look up much information about this country, so I was quite surprised by the sight.

Both the Zabrina Kingdom and the Ljungsmelis Republic had a feeling of a medi-fantasy town, but the Tabarist Empire was not like that.

But at the same time, it’s not really surprising that there is a Japan-themed country. It’s actually a fairly common sight in games.

Unfortunately though, as it’s one of the starting countries, it also sells the same equipment and recipes as all others.

It would be quite interesting if Japanese-styled things were sold here, like samurai armors or katanas.

Still, I think it will be nice to do some sightseeing here.

And after passing through the Shinto gate, we could now see the main street, which was surrounded by cherry blossom tress!

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