The Dolores family mansion.
It was night.
The mansion was surrounded by high stone walls, and when the back door opened, a garden spread out.
On the manicured grass, lights stood in rows, and just as Duke Dolores had said, all the lights were on.
In the center of the garden, there was a pavilion.
A place covered with vines on the roof, with a wooden bench and table.
Sebas was sitting there.
Holding a teacup in one hand, facing the night wind.
He originally tended to like being here at this time.
A time to check that the mansion's lights were off, and organize tomorrow's preparations in his head.
But today was a little different.
-Please, Sebas.
When he lowered his gaze from the pavilion, darkness entered his eyes, and at the end of the garden, a newly built annex came into view.
More precisely, it was a workshop made by hastily renovating an old warehouse.
It was a building that the Duke had urgently ordered through a crystal ball.
'A smithy for a child.'
Orange light was leaking through the workshop window.
The lamp was on. It meant the child was inside.
The Duke's message was as follows.
-If he happens to be scared, or if he sheds tears, please comfort him.
Sebas set down the teacup and looked toward the workshop.
A child who would be scared.
Would he really be?
Sebas had already served the masters of Dolores for three generations.
He had seen it earlier in front of the mansion.
When the servant reached out to take the hammer, the look in that child's eyes.
The eyes that had reflexively hidden the hammer were eyes that sought to protect what was his.
A child's eyes? How could a child show such persistent eyes?
Obsession, and something entangled with it… intense emotion.
Having served three generations and seen countless people, he could not believe those were the eyes of a 13-year-old.
Still, the Duke had told him to do it.
Sebas took a sip of tea and waited quietly.
After all, the Duke would also be listening at the second-floor window.
Then.
A sound came from the workshop.
"Kkiyahoo!!"
"……?"
Sebas's body flinched.
Could he be crying?
Just as he half-rose to check the situation.
"Ang, ang! Nice~ perfect, yo, yo, you little punk."
"……?"
An incomprehensible shout filled the garden.
It seemed he was not crying, after all.
Was a blacksmith's work originally like that?
Wondering if it was an important process, he tilted his head.
"This is it! This is it!!!"
"……."
…It seemed there was no need to comfort him.
Sebas sat back down and drank the cooling tea.
***
After putting Ruby to sleep.
Dolores walked out of the room.
The hallway was quiet. Beyond the window, the garden street lamps were visible.
"……."
Dolores headed to the end of the hallway.
Not to her own room, but the opposite side.
In this mansion, there was one room that no one could open.
Sebas, Ruby, and any of the servants were the same.
Only Dolores could open this door.
Click.
The magically locked door was unlocked.
The door opened.
Inside was dark. There was only one window, and no curtains were drawn.
"……."
There was only one thing in the room.
A single rope hanging from the ceiling, catching the moonlight.
At its end, a circular knot was tied.
On the day she decided there was no more meaning in living, she made this room.
The days when her pulse froze, her senses vanished, and while her sister disciples climbed that high place, only she stood still.
This room was her end.
The fact that she could end everything at any time might paradoxically have kept her going.
She held on until Ruby came.
After Ruby came, she thought it would be only until this child grew up.
That was Dolores's deadline.
If she set a deadline, she could live one more day.
However.
Shhk!
When Dolores gestured, the rope before her eyes was cut. She could not even see well what cut it.
With a thud, it fell to the floor.
"……."
Dolores looked down at the rope fallen on the floor.
She did not look at it for long.
The moonlight shone on her gloves.
The sun emblem engraved on the gloves held that light and shone.
There was a reason left to live. There was something left to confirm.
That alone was enough.
Dolores left the room.
Click.
The door locked again.
This room would probably never be opened again.
And the place she headed to was.
"…Lionel."
She hoped he would not overdo it.
The miracle that child had gifted her.
It would not be wrong to say most of its value had already been repaid in advance.
So it's okay not to overdo it.
There is enough time.
Thud thud thud thud….
Dolores forgot her dignity and ran somewhat urgently toward the window.
And in the bedroom in the center of the hallway.
Ruby, who had not yet fallen asleep, heard footsteps passing through the hallway.
Her master always stayed at least about an hour when she entered that room.
When she came back from that room, her footsteps were slow.
Today was different.
'She came out quickly…. '
Ruby, under the blanket, slightly raised the corner of her mouth.
***
Dolores.
Don't expect too much from me.
"I told you not to expect anything."
I got up from my seat, spread both hands, and looked at the sky.
Then I extended the index fingers of both hands toward the sky.
-----------------------------
[Total Results]
[Marvelous] [59]
[Excellent] [5]
[Normal] [0]
[Bad] [0]
[Terrible] [0]
-----------------------------
"Sorry, but don't expect me to fail."
To the rhythm game gallery regulars and other haters who said I was dead, I deliver this message.
I am still alive.
Though the world is a bit different.
-----------------------------
[Final Success Rate 36%]
[Failure Rate 64%]
-----------------------------
[Attempting……]
-----------------------------
[Enhancement Success]
-----------------------------
[Chore Gloves][☆☆☆☆☆]
[Enhancement Level 18 → 19]
-----------------------------
Bang!
The gloves were momentarily dyed red.
Actually, I didn't care about enhancement or anything.
When I came to my senses, it was Enhancement Level 19.
What is this?
First, there are a few things I felt while doing Enchant.
First, as the Enhancement Level goes up, the difficulty increases.
The time limit increases, it demands more concentration, and the speed gets faster.
These circles are called Hit Circles. In falling-type rhythm games they are called notes, but since these are circles, Hit Circle is correct.
Anyway, the speed at which the circles narrow got faster with each level.
After Enhancement Level 10, it became noticeably faster.
So when I snapped out of it, this guy was the result.
-----------------------------
[Chore Gloves][☆☆☆☆☆]
[Enhancement Level 19]
-----------------------------
So this is like Attack 20 grind gloves, isn't it?
Enhancement Level 19 on trash equipment with no stars.
Hmm… maybe I wasted my time?
No. It's practice.
It was fun, too.
I opened the Enchant Log.
There was something like this.
[Enchant Log]
[18->19][Failure]
[18->19][Failure]
[18->19][Failure]
[18->19][Failure]
[18->19][Success!]
Success on the 5th try.
If I broke through a 36% chance in five tries, even if my luck wasn't great, it wasn't all that bad.
Yeah, well, I've come this far.
Should I go to Enhancement Level 20?
Let's try one last time. I've been at it for a while, so I should stop.
[Current truly truly truly truly last, 5th time]
[It's about time I got sleepy, so last / I've used a lot of powder, so last / I can hear birds, so last — 5th variation]
Oh my, Yuna.
You're not asleep yet?
[Uwaaah….]
Well, that's that.
[But, oppa. From what I see, it seems there's a destruction possibility from Enhancement Level 15 onward….]
Ah, right.
That's right. From Enhancement Level 15 onward, if the timing was late, the destruction rate increased.
When I sneezed and missed the timing, getting [Terrible], the destruction rate suddenly increased by 1%.
Of course, I had never failed other than that.
What destruction? There is no destruction in my dictionary.
[So, um, looking at the difficulty just now, it's getting harder, right? It's not that oppa can't do it or anything, so for risk management, we should show it to Lady Dolores too, so it's absolutely not that oppa can't do it or anything.]
[Maybe… how about adding just a little, just a very little more powder…?]
"……."
The correlation between the amount of powder and difficulty was concluded about two hours ago.
Up to a certain threshold, sprinkling powder lowers the difficulty of Enchant.
Beyond a certain amount, the equipment doesn't absorb the powder at all.
But the biggest problem was.
That sprinkling powder lowered the difficulty.
"Kim Yuna."
[Uh, yeah?]
"Do I look like I'm bad at it?"
[No no no no, that's not it—]
Lower the difficulty?
What does that mean?
"I, here."
Tap.
"Rather, I'll reduce the amount of powder."
This is it. This is what's right for me.
[Warning! Less than the recommended amount of Enchant Powder]
[Enhancement Level 19 → 20]
[Recommended powder: 3g or more]
Nope.
And.
"Yuna, because I respect you, I haven't said anything until now. But the song, this is too gloomy."
I didn't say to play pop songs, but she keeps playing only something like classical music, seriously.
The fact that I couldn't get all perfect, I mean all Marvelous, is definitely because of the song.
Even without that, not getting all Marvelous had been very bothering me for a while.
[Oppa, think about it… This is Otherworld, so how would there be pop songs…?]
[I just played songs going around the Inner Tower Community….]
"Really? Then I guess there's nothing we can do."
Inner Tower songs are a pain, though they do seem addictive.
"Enchant start."
Whooom….
The gloves dyed with red energy blinked before my eyes.
Enchant began.
I picked up the hammer with a light heart.
How hard could it be, anyway?
[0:02:00]
The time doubled.
Just as I felt something unusual.
Hit Circles appeared.
But.
"Uh, what the hell."
There were two.
Two circles appeared at the same time.
At different positions, they were shrinking with the same timing.
So that's why it warned me.
Until now, no matter how fast the circles were, they came one at a time.
No matter how fast the speed was, I just had to match the order.
Same timing altogether….
Sorry, but there is a solution even for this situation.
There are two notes, but I can play two notes with one finger.
The best method is to split the beat.
Hit the first 0.2 beats early, and the next 0.2 beats late.
Here, the 0.2 beat depends on my senses.
Clang!
A strike that cleanly splits the two.
There is a technique like this. The context is a little different, though.
It's called a Trill.
Tap tap!
[Marvelous]
[Marvelous]
Tap tap!
[Marvelous]
[Marvelous]
"Hahaha!"
Laughter comes out. This works.
I pounded in a trance for a total of two minutes.
Just when I felt my body was moving on its own.
-----------------------------
[Total Results]
[Marvelous] [97]
[Excellent] [10]
[Normal] [1]
[Bad] [0]
[Terrible] [0]
-----------------------------
[Final Success Rate 19%]
[Failure Rate 81%]
-----------------------------
Now, it's 19%.
It can't be helped that the ratio of Excellent increased and one Normal appeared.
I'm not a metronome, and I don't have two hammers, so how could I smoothly get Marvelous on both at once?
So I waited with a trembling heart.
[Attempting……]
"……."
It wasn't a probability worth expecting, but.
[Enhancement Success!]
Bang!
"……!"
The red light of the gloves wavered.
The red color slowly disappeared from the ends, and green light filled its place.
And the moment that green light covered the entire gloves.
-----------------------------
[Chore Gloves][☆☆☆☆☆]
[Enhancement Level 20]
-----------------------------
The grind gloves became Enhancement Level 20.
"……."
I lifted the gloves.
A soft green light shone above my head like a lamp.
"Kim Yuna."
[Yeah….]
"Say my name."
[Waaah… Kim Yujin! Kim Yujin…!]
"Who is the GOAT."
[Waaah… Lionel….]
As expected, she's no amateur.
Her reflexes are fast. You are my soul partner.
I looked down at the gloves wrapped in green light.
"Alright, shall we test the performance?"
I threw off the simple gloves I was wearing.
I put on the Enhancement Level 20 gloves.
"……."
What is this? I don't feel anything.
The moment I equipped them, the green light disappeared.
Could it be that because they're junk items, the effectiveness of enhancement is also low?
Well, I guess that could be possible.
Henrik said that the higher the star count of equipment, the harder Enchant is.
It seems the easier the Enchant, the lower the effectiveness.
"Alright, let's go out for now."
There's nothing to regret.
This is just the first step. I just look forward to the day I get to handle difficult equipment.
I smiled and grabbed the workshop door.
Crrrrrack!!
"?"
The iron door handle embedded in the wooden door was ripped out, completely destroyed.
"……Wha, what?"
The flattened 'thing that used to be a door handle' in my hand came into view.
There was a hole punched through the door.
"Huh?"
Wait a moment.
I quickly started assessing the situation.
The conclusion I reached was this.
After carefully, very carefully taking off the gloves.
Looking at the door that wouldn't open because the handle was gone.
I realized I was now trapped in the workshop.
"……Butler Sebas!!"
From early morning.
I had to call Sebas through the window.
The second day after coming to Dolores's mansion.
I destroyed the workshop.