At Kyoto Academy High School Division Cafeteria.

The group of two girls now has a male newcomer. Shirayama Kazuya, or Kazu, joined his two childhood friends discussion and sit on an empty seat. He then swipe his hand and ordered a free cup of water from the menu.

The water comes from the building's rain water filtration system. Hence, it was free to take.

Looking at the drone carrying just a cup of clean water, both of the girls were rendered speechless.

Extremely frugal to the bone!

Noticing the weird stare from the girls, Kazu turned his head.

"Hmm? What's wrong?"

"No, it's nothing."

Emi quickly dismissed it and silently closed her eye. She already known his circumstances so she did not say anything. She has known Kazu for a long time since her childhood, including his economic situation.

He comes off from a not so wealthy family. Kazu has a younger brother and a sickly younger sister in the Middle School Section. His father is a low-wage salaryman and his mother took a job as a caretaker at a kindergarten. His family had to struggle to pay for their tuition fees, along with the younger sister's treatment.

It was completely understandable why he would be so frugal.

But even so, there are someone who did not read the mood and situation.

"Ahaha, Kazu-cchi... Are you satisfied with just a glass of water? If you want, you can order something, I'll pay the bill."

"Nah. Thanks, but I'm good. I'm the type who likes plain water more."

Kazu politely declined, but Rena only shrugged.

"Again with your stubbornness... You don't have to be so reserved. We're friends, aren't we?"

Says Rena as she took another sip from her drink.

Hearing Rena's remark, Kazu just smiled wryly.

Although he loved money, he wouldn't be so shameless to blatantly mooch from Emi or Rena. Other people would be fine, but for his two childhood playmate, his pride doesn't allow it. Besides...

'It was just water anyway... Any other drink is the same, just water.
No matter what kind of water it is, in the end it would ended as a piss in the toilet!
Food also the same, entering from the mouth and went out from the ass!'

From Kazu's view, food in the real world is not worth to yearn anymore.

'If I want to indulge with food, I can just eat at Ascension. I can enjoy any meal there without a single penny spent!
Real world food, a pack of synthetic food is enough!'

Synthetic foods, made from gene-edited yeast in a special nutrient fluid to promote growth, are capable of providing a low cost, edible source of carbohydrates. Originally developed as a staple food source for researchers in extreme places such as the Antarctic Base or the Mariana Trench, but later commercialized to the public to reduce the problem of food shortages.

The final product looks like a paste that can be consumed right away, only with a lack of flavor. Usually consumed together with artificial seasonings which are also sold separately as another products.

Although, this artificial seasoning, Kazu was reluctant to buy it. For him, as long as it can fulfill the need of sustenance, any food is acceptable. No matter what the food was, at the end it will end up as a lump of feces.

'Rather than spend money to buy food, it would better to safe some cash to pay electricity bill!'

Of course, this is only Kazu's treatment on himself. He can be cruel to himself, but not to his family. For his family, he would be not so frugal to cut off their meal with synthetic food. Especially for his sickly younger sister. She had to eat nutritious food to ensure her health.

Besides, getting treated with meal didn't mean he would get any money from it.

On the contrary, it would only make an uncool impression of him towards the two girls.

Pride! Pride!

"Enough with me. Let's talk about other things. Let's see... Emily, how is your doing in there?"

In there, means... in the game.

"Can't be called good, but in these days, I have done clearing all the mutated spiders near our guild base.
Fortunately, the Knights were fast enough to secure important trade route so the impact to our economy was small."

Emi sighed heavily.

These few days, she did the hard work of cleaning every leveled up spiders before they could do more harm to their guild territory. It was very exhausting process with so little exp to gain. Not really worth the effort. However, she can't just leave it alone because these spiders can threaten the lifestyle Players in their base, which in turns, hurt the guild's economy.

Many crops has been damaged, trading route has been filled with danger, material collection such as herbs or ores has been interrupted.

Thankfully, the spider's level was limited to just those spiders. After they are cleared away, the new spiders that had spawned has their level returned to what it should be.

After borrowing the guild's reserve forces, Emi cleared away the threat from their territory.

"What about you, Kazu-kun? Did you find Black Phantom's trace?"

"Not at all... Black Phantom was too slick, he didn't leave any trace."

Kazu shakes his head in defeat. Emi let out another sigh.

"I suppose so. Truly worthy for being called Phantom."

"Black Phantom...! That bastarddd....!!"

The moment Black Phantom was mentioned, Rena gritted her teeth in anger.

♦♦♦

 

Because of Black Phantom, the raid that had been so smooth because of Hecate's strategy, was failed.

They had supposedly one step away from success before this guy(?) come and ruined it all. Not only that, she was robbed of her Healing Wand from that incident. Without it, her Sacred Healing Set became broken and its effect can't be used!

This set of equipment obtained by trading her Glory Points which she had painstakingly collected little by little. It took her very long time to collect the required 400 Glory Points by participating the guild raids. But, the efforts made were not in vain.

During those raids, she had to ensure a quarter (25 person) of the party's health to not fall below the red zone. She had do that with her meager staff, swinging it often until her arm hurts like it was about to fall off. But since she obtained the Sacred Healing Set, that no longer became problem.

The moment she equipped the set, her healing power greatly boosted by more than 800%!

A single Heal with the wand can restore a person up to ~6.000 HP while its higher form, High Heal can restore ~30.000 HP. She can also just spam once every few minutes, a group healing spell belonged to Priest and Priestess Jobclass, Area Heal. Each cast of it with the wand could restore ~8000 HP to everyone within the spell area.

That would be enough to ensure nobody in the party's HP falls into red zone during the battle.

And if required, she can also cast a higher tier form of the spell, belonged to High Priest and High Priestess Jobclass, Aurora Heal. In exchange of the steep MP consumption, Aurora Heal could restore ~45.000 HP and it has 5 times wider area than her normal Area Heal.

At the current stage where the Genesis Guild's raid members maximum HP ranged about 10.000 to 30.000 HP, Rena's healing power was simply overpowered!

Never been before, the job of nannying the party and the raid group become such a relaxing job.

However, those good things now just a history. Now that the wand has been robbed, gone away the +800% healing boosts and other bonuses from the set.

♦♦♦

 

Rena couldn't help but wanted to puke blood every time she remembered that fact. But when she recalled the guild emergency meeting a few days ago, her expression softened.

'Fortunately, it seems Leon intended to redeem every equipment that Black Phantom has sold, including my wand.
I guess I'll have to be patient with my old staff for the time being.'

Although her old staff quality did not even reach half of the Healing Wand, but at least it is still better than nothing.

Meanwhile, Kazu and Emi who are in the middle of conversation, done with reporting each other progress.

"So, what are you going to do next?"

"Well, I already cleaned the spiders so I currently free. I plan to do some relaxation party with Rena and Ruri."

"Oh, Hecate-chan is joining?"

"Yeah, she already agreed to join. We plan to party after we finish our classes. Kazu-cchi, you want to join too?"

Rena answered as she drank the remaining content of her juice and continued,

"We'll just use the Capsule Pod at Virtual Station Room later."

The Kyoto Academy has 10 Virtual Station Rooms, spread over 10 different locations in the Academy. These rooms are mainly used to hold virtual classes for the VR department, and each room has at least 200 Capsule Pods. When there are no classes, students are free to use any of them, provided they are not skipping class during the time they used the VR Capsule.

The downside of these Capsule Pods was that they are only Standard type, compared to many Cyber Cafes which mostly use the Premium type. But that was hardly the problem for the trio since the one they bought was also the Standard type.

♦♦♦

 

Currently, there are 4 types of Capsule Pods available, which is:

1. 1. Basic type.
      Other name, the poor type. Costs only ¥65.999, the most cheapest Capsule Pod.
      It only has the basic dive function in the Virtual World by reproducing only three of the five basic senses, namely sight, touch and hearing. People who used this type will not be able to taste food inside the virtual world, nor feel its fragrance.
      Eating food in the virtual world while using this to dive would be similar to chewing wax.

   2. Standard type.
      Costs ¥149.999, which is also the one most people use. Kazu, Emi and Rena bought this type.
      Along with the features of the Basic type, these Capsule Pods are also capable of reproducing the senses of smell and taste.
      Complete reproduction of the five basic senses!

   3. Premium type.
      Costs ¥649.999, primarily used by Cyber Cafes and wealthy people.
      It has the Basic and Standard type features with other additional feature, that is... the ability of sexual activity!
      People who used the Basic and Standard type is like people who suffering with ED!

   4. Executive type.
      Costs ¥11.999.999... If you have this kind of money, why not just buy a suite instead?
      Equipped with very comfortable massage chair and nutrient solution set. Prioritized SSL Quantum Connection queue.
      People who have tried to sit on this chair would find that they are hesitant to move away from it.
      The embodiment of comfort and pleasure!
      It is said that people who use this type will be able to dive continuously until the nutrient solution runs out. Unfortunately, the 8 hour login limit law is mandatory by the government so this feature cannot be used.

♦♦♦

 

Kazu fell silent for a moment, taking Rena's offer into consideration, before he agreed.

"Count me in! My investigation took a dead end anyway. I should take some break for a moment.
It's been a while since we partied together. You don't mind, do you, Emily?"

Emi: "Of course! Welcome to our party."

Rena: "Then, it's decided."

With that said, the three of them keep chatting unimportant conversation until it was time to go to class.