The Sheltered Elite

Penpen came back from eating the "Delicious Steak" in the other room.

"Bwehh…"

"Hey, Penpen, get a hold of yourself, Penpen! You've got the most ridiculous look on your face!"

"Ah, guess the 'Delicious Steak' was just too good, huh."

"It was sooo good… To think food that delicious exists, that's VR for you…"

Penpen murmured with the expression of a maiden in love.

Though her beloved was a steak.

"Someday, learn to make a steak like that for us, Penpen."

"I want to say that's impossible, but I can't help wanting to push my Cooking skill further. I can obsess over raising the meat from scratch at the ranch, after all."

Right. You could raise meat from scratch at Penpen Ranch. Not just fresh dairy, but meat too… What a combo.

That said, I had no idea how to actually process livestock… but it was a game, so it'd work out somehow.

"Did you know? Meat gets tastier when you age it. Doesn't apply to synthetic meat, but apparently enzymes break down the proteins and increase the umami. So after butchering, they'd hang it in a cool, dark place for several days."

"Whoa! That's great to know! You really know your stuff, Mahariku-san!"

"Heh heh heh, I suppose. Oh. And back in the day, there were places called supermarkets that openly sold pre-aged meat."

"S-Supermarkets… They really were super stores, true to their name!"

"And there were multiple supermarkets in a single town!"

"That's what they call a nationwide chain, right?!"

Wait, hold on? Supermarkets weren't the name of a chain. They were a type of store, like convenience stores, right?

And they still totally existed. Online supermarkets and everything. Sure, they rarely carried natural meat, but why were they being talked about like they'd gone extinct…

"Alto. Supermarkets still exist, right?"

"Mahariku-san is a sheltered elite, so she's not too savvy about commoner stuff, yo. For the record, I used to be sheltered too, yo. Nowadays I'm boxed-in in a whole different sense, though!"

"Ha ha ha, nice joke."

An elite, huh. Mahariku-san really did have that vibe.

"So what about Penpen?"

"She's probably just playing along with Mahariku-san, yo. Apparently she works at that kind of store."

I see. Mahariku-san's elite aura must have triggered Penpen's professional instincts.

The advanced-technique-level verbal technique of pretending not to know things you actually know in order to draw out conversation… Penpen really was a genius.

"Back in the day, there was something called rebasashi, you see. Eating liver raw was considered the pinnacle of flavor."

"Raw meat?! You'd die eating that!"

"Yes, naturally there were health hazards, and it ended up getting regulated. A sad affair…"

The meat discussion had apparently evolved, and Mahariku-san and Penpen were having that kind of exchange.

Rebasashi… What even was that?

"Hold on, yo. That's gotta be from before even Mahariku-san was born. How do you know about it, yo? Don't tell me you're lying about your age…?"

"Oh, Alto. There are quite a few VR programs that recreate the past, you know? Have you never played 'The Edo' or the 'School Trip Series'? The VR remake of 'Like a Dr*gon' is incredible in all sorts of ways."

"Can't say I have, yo."

"You all have VR that can even replicate taste, so try doing all sorts of things with it. You're losing out if you don't get your money's worth."

Hm? The only VR gear I had was that unopened headset box that showed up the other day, the kind you slot your phone into.

Ah. Could it be that Mahariku-san… didn't realize VR Mode worked with just a mobile terminal?

Put another way, she'd been using high-end VR equipment this whole time.

…

Yeah, it didn't seem to be causing any problems with the game, so no need to tell her!

"Oh right, Penpen. You haven't forgotten about your second chance, have you?"

"…Ha! That's right! Whether it arrived in real life… I'll go check real quick!"

With that, Penpen hurriedly fiddled with her controls and went to check if a package had arrived in real life. The left-behind Penpen-chan put on an awkward smile and scurried to a corner of the room to sit down.

"Hey, wouldn't it be a little scary if it actually arrived?"

"Would it, yo? Getting a package is pretty normal, yo."

"We've already registered our addresses for campaigns and stuff. Nothing strange about it."

"Even so, the delivery would be way too fast. She just used the item and it arrives instantly? How advanced are these delivery drones… Penpen's not back yet?"

"If it arrived, she won't be back for about two hours. She'd want to eat it, after all."

Rushing through unboxing, cooking, and eating would take about ten minutes. At ten times the speed in-game, that meant at least a hundred minutes on our end. Factor in time to savor the afterglow, and even longer.

"…Maybe I'll go check out quests at the Adventurer Guild while we wait. SP Quests are available at any guild, right?"

"That's right, yo. I'm close to getting my Home too, so I'll tag along, yo. I'll show you around～"

"I'll come too. Penpen-chan, when Penpen gets back, let her know we headed out."

"Eep!? Y-Yes, u-under… stood…"

And so, the three of us headed to the guild.