章節 97: Choice Made: Wires

Looking at the system prompt, Kirou sank into contemplation for a moment. As a formerly trained assassin, he has learned to use many weapons close to mastery level, but he never took that final step. While this can be attributed to him focusing on too many at once, thus making it hard to achieve mastery in each, it is also a fact that he never tried to achieve such a level with them as well. Thinking back, out of his entire arsenal, Kirou has truly only mastered the use of three weapons; his knives, the gunblade tonfa, and his wires, and the main reason for that was due to them being the very first three weapons he learned to use from his bastard master before he started to diverge his talents on other weapons.

With all that thinking done, Kirou took a deep breath before releasing a sigh as he thought to himself, 'If I ignore the others, my main choices are just those three. That means I truly only have three chances to do this. Since that's the case, let's go with the one that I truly need now.'

Having come to his decision, Kirou looked at the display still floating before him. A smile formed on his face as he spoke, "Since this is something I've been needing to address for a while now, I'll start with my wires." After Kirou spoke, the display before him changed.

[System: You have selected 'Wires' as your choice of weapon. Is this your final decision?]

Seeing that the bastard system actually asked for confirmation instead of just accepting his answer caused a crafty expression to form on his face. As he made the confirmation, a thought appeared in his mind, 'I can almost smell the trap that this bastard system is cooking up just for me.'

As if to prove Kirou's thought process correct, he received a system prompt to reflect a change in his quest based on his selected weapon of choice.

[System: Your chosen weapon for the duration of this quest is 'Wires'.]

[System: Based on your previous usage of this weapon and simulations that were done using your previous actions as a base model, your quest has been updated]

Quest Description Update: Since your chosen weapon is 'Wires', the quest objectives have been changed to match this weapon's usage criteria. These actions will replace the standard requirements previously displayed.

Bind your targets: 0/100

Hunt your targets and defeat them as follows:

Dismemberment- 0/100

Decapitation- 0/100

Splitting in Two- 0/100

Freestyle- 0/300

(Same as before, no more than 10 targets of the same name will count to this score)

*Defeat Weapon Master Bladesmith's Clone: 0/1 (Combat will take place deep within the <Nameless Training Ground>. The clone will be at level 25 and will only use its claws. Escape condition is to make it through the are and get to the door where Bladesmith will be standing in one piece)

Looking over the changes in his quest criteria, Kirou had to do his best to prevent Bladesmith, who was standing before him and looking at him with a wolfish smile, from seeing his lips twitch and veins visibly forming on his head. If one were to ask him if he didn't expect the system to pull a fast one on him, Kirou would be lying if he said he didn't expect it. That said, what the system pulled was more than a fast one; the system was out for his blood.

Just the fact that the second objective had been updated in such a way, requiring him to kill an extra hundred monsters while asking for a few specific killing methods already caused him to grit his teeth in anger. As for the third objective, Kirou would be a fool if he dismissed the asterisk that appeared next to it. He can already feel a bad premonition just by looking at it. Seeing that he was now stuck with it, Kirou could only release a sigh while silently cursing the system within his heart.

'If you thought my methods from before were something you had to govern, just wait. I'm definitely getting even later, you bastard system.' That was Kirou's inner thoughts as he showed Bladesmith a reluctant but determined expression. For now, he would play by the system's rules and perform the quest as it should be done. That said, the system had made a mistake in triggering Kirou's long-dead black heart as this transgression has now awoken it once more.

*******

Somewhere within the vast world of Immortal Era, there was a floating island within the sky, completely inaccessible and undetectable by any player within the game. On this floating island, there housed a single building. This building was designed to look like a simple, lavish mansion on the outside, but was secretly a large scale laboratory within.

The lower floors of this laboratory housed many machines coupled together. Each part looked menacing and important on its own but together, it formed the supercomputer responsible for running and maintaining the world of Immortal Era. In a sense, this was the body of the being that controls Immortal Era.

Next to the large supercomputer sat a being that looks like a small dark elf girl. If both Kirou and Navi were present, both would recognize this chibi dark elf. For Kirou, the being would look like a young, practically child-like version of Navi. As for Navi herself, she would recognize this girl as the one who gave her the weird quest in which she acted as the helper during Kirou's character creation. This chibi dark elf girl was in actuality the spirit given form of the large supercomputer right next to her or the AI of the supercomputer.

Before this child stood a globe, similar to the one that Kirou saw during his character creation. After touching a point on the globe, a display appeared before the child. On this screen was Kirou's reaction after seeing the 'update' to his class advancement quest and the child had a cheeky grin on her face as she saw Kirou doing his best to control his facial expression.

"Hmm, hmm. That will teach you, Mr. Big Bad Wolf. That should take you down a peg for all those crazy stunts you keep pulling. Let me see you do something crazy like that again, I dare you. I double dare you. Hmm, hmm," said the child with a smug expression on her face.

In essence, this child is the one Kirou has been cursing all this time as the 'bastard system.' Whether or not he knew or comes to know the truth about her, he wouldn't care as his impression of the girl was long since set in his mind.

Having done a few tricks to get back at Kirou, the loli dark elf decided to minimize the display before her and get back to her job of properly managing the game. Just as she did so, however, a frightening chill traveled down her back, forcing her to stumble and fall on her butt. After checking herself and finding nothing wrong, the loli scrutinized her surroundings before speaking under her breath, "That's strange. That chill made me feel like some ferocious beast had locked me in their sights but that shouldn't be possible considering where I am and what I am. Was that a bug? I better make sure that everything is alright with my body." Following those words, the loli got to her feet and started examining the large supercomputer.

With those thoughts in mind, the loli dark elf got to work in examining her main body, not knowing the fact that her actions have just triggered a certain 'Wolf's' dark nature. Well, that's a story for another day.

*******

Having accepted the quest, Kirou realized that he could no longer equip any of his other weapons besides those that made use of his 'Wires'. While he was doing this, Bladesmith was sitting by the side, drinking from a bottle of alcohol that he pulled from who knows where. Due to the interference of the 'system', Bladesmith had no idea that Kirou's quest had changed from the one he had given. Even if he knew, Bladesmith probably wouldn't have cared and would have instead beamed as it went to show that his eyes weren't wrong.

With the release of a sigh, Kirou leaned back into the couch he was on, Bladesmith watching his actions while taking a swig from his bottle. Bladesmith could tell that Kirou was now contemplating how he would go about completing the quest and he was in no rush to push the young pup into starting such a strenuous task. As Bladesmith was thinking this, Kirou got up and went back to the forge section of the cottage. Bladesmith watched as Kirou took out some strange materials that he couldn't identify from a distance from his inventory and got to work in creating a new item, a glove from the looks of it.

Making use of the recently obtained snake leather, along with a few other materials he had on him, Kirou got to work in crafting an item. As he did this, he thought to himself, 'Since I'm gonna do this, I might as well do it right and start from scratch. I should probably make something similar after I log out to help on that side as well.'

While Kirou was busy thinking such things, his hands never stopped moving and soon, a pair of black fingerless gloves were now sitting on top of his anvil. Bladesmith sat in the lounge area and watched Kirou's actions, but said nothing as he took another swig of his liquor. Although those gloves look more like pieces of armor as opposed to a weapon, Bladesmith was a weapon master himself and he has seen many things during his life. Someone making a weapon using a piece of armor as the base isn't something new to him but he was curious as to what Kirou was making.

While Bladesmith was simmering in his curiosity, Kirou took out some smaller tools from his inventory and got to work in connecting some wires to his newly created gloves. He spent roughly half an hour on this, connecting the wires to certain sections of each glove and making sure they were connected correctly as a bad connection would force him to restart the process from scratch. After another ten or so minutes of fine-tuning his creation, Kirou was finally done with his new toys and went ahead in checking it out.

Weapon: <Snake Leather Wired Gloves>

Weapon Level: 20

Weapon Type: Epic

Weapon Requirements: +25 Dex, <Mana Control>

Attack: 70-95

+5% chance of bind

+5% chance of poison, dealing 3% of the target's max health as true damage for 5 seconds. Effect stacks 5 times. (Only if the glove itself hits the target)

+5% chance of bleed, dealing 2% of the target's max health as true damage for 5 seconds. Effect stacks 5 times. (Increases to 15% if the target is bound)

+10% chance of laceration, dealing 5% of the target's max health as true damage for 3 seconds. The effect doesn't stack on itself. (Increases to 25% if the target is bound)

Description: A pair of gloves made from the leather obtained from the Scarlet Eyed Boa that had some thin wires attached to it at various points. This glove makes it easier for the wearer to manipulate the wires attached as the creator attached a special gem that acts as a medium for energy inside each glove. This glove's creator was definitely thinking something bad when he created this glove, hmm.

Looking at the last line of the description, Kirou had no idea what to think. From the looks of it, the system was keeping a VERY close eye on him and the things he makes while in-game. If he hadn't already decided that he would get even with the system for the stunt it pulled earlier, he would actually feel bad for the system now to be dealing with a player like him. Too bad, that ship had already set sail and got sunk.

With that in mind, Kirou didn't forget to check if this newly created weapon meets the criteria for his current quest. Looking at the weapon, he noticed that unlike the rest that was greyed out, the Snake Leather Wired Glove were glowing, signifying that he could equip them as he liked. This made Kirou nod in satisfaction as he would really go nuts if the system banned him from using even this basic wired weapon.

Seeing that Kirou was finished with his craft, Bladesmith got up from the couch and went over to Kirou in the forge section. Having arrived, Bladesmith spoke up, "You mind showing me this new toy of yours? It looks like another toy I might find interesting."

Kirou looked at Bladesmith with a raised eyebrow before shrugging as he spoke, "Sure." Kirou then passed the glove over to Bladesmith for him to examine.