Getting Hooked

Since we were there anyway, I had Penpen teach me about Homes.

Monsters can't enter inside the fence, and apparently you can even store the Home and redeploy it at a new location.

Nice, a safe zone. If I had enough SP, could I get a base like this too? Looking at the SP usage options, at the very bottom was "Home: 150 SP".

… Yeah, that's impossible for now — and going just by SP from level-ups, you'd need to reach Lv 70 to have enough.

This should probably be noted as a warning on the wiki… Really hoping someone discovers SP acquisition methods other than leveling up. There are some, right? Probably. Maybe. Hopefully… There are, right???

We could trade the Baby Turtle corpses via inventory, so I handed them over and got some tomatoes she'd grown in her field in exchange.

"You've got tomatoes."

"If you punch grass in the forest, seeds drop sometimes… Wait, that thing's huge!? This isn't a Baby Turtle!"

"No, that really is a Baby Turtle. The parent's a boss about the size of a truck. Couldn't beat it, so I enhanced my legs and ran away."

"Seriously!? Should I relocate my base maybe?"

"It's pretty far on the other side of the mountain, so you're probably fine."

So that's how the farming system works. Huh.

I checked the tomato I received too. "Fresh tomato. Smells of earth"… is what it says. Is that a good rating? Well, it only says fresh, not tasty, so maybe it's actually a bad rating.

Anyway, we'd finished trading, so it was finally time to head to town — or so I thought, but she said, "Actually, can we do it tomorrow? I'm really sleepy…"

When I checked, the clock had already passed midnight, so I told her I'd log in again after work tomorrow and we parted ways.

Since we had the opportunity, I had Tria-chan in auto-mode help with the farm work. Muscle training if there was time to spare.

That said, the field was small, so there probably wasn't much to help with.

"Spirit-sama, please come back… no wait, um, I'll be awaiting your return."

She said that, so I tapped Tria on a whim and a heart mark popped up.

Now then. Time to chat with my coworker about our progress during work today too.

"So yeah, I encountered another player for the first time. She was doing farm work at her Home."

"Home! So that's a thing too! 150 SP is more expensive than the gun yo!"

Looks like my coworker didn't know about Homes either.

"Also, there was a voxel display mode in the graphics settings."

"I hadn't looked through the settings that carefully either yo. Hmmm, good info. Then I'll share some prime info too yo!"

"Hm? What?"

"During auto-mode, if you tap or mouse-over the character on screen, you can give headpats yo!"

"Ah, now that you mention it, a heart mark did appear. So that's what that was."

So I can give Tria-chan headpats, huh. I see.

I'll try it again when I get home.

"What, you already knew yo? Ah. But there seems to be some kind of character affection system, so you should pat them regularly yo."

"… Couldn't petting them too much make them hate you?"

"Ugh, that does seem possible yo… I'll be careful when petting yo! But when I pet Alto, tons of heart marks appear, so she shouldn't hate me yo!"

Affection. So that's a thing too.

Come to think of it, players are called "Spirit-sama". The controlled character and the player are separate entities.

"I overlooked a lot of settings stuff so I'll check it out when I get home yo."

"By the way, how far along are you? I'm at Lv 20 like I mentioned, but I decided not to challenge the Great Turtle and ran away. Going to the Adventurers' Guild tonight."

"If we're in the same town, maybe we'll meet at the guild yo. Also, you're leveling fast yo. I'm only at 14 yo. But my guild rank went up to C yo!"

"Oh, congrats. No idea if that's fast or slow though."

"Thanks yo. Hmm, as a player, the rank-up is about average I guess yo? Don't know about NPCs, but there seem to be lots of adventurers stuck at D yo."

Apparently C-rank is for "veteran adventurers who complete request after request, including subjugations," making it the most populated tier.

Probably means the wall to break through to B-rank is tough.

"I had her hunt goblins during idle time, so I think the guild point equivalent was just right yo."

"There are guild points?"

"I think there's hidden data yo? Like how the company evaluates us, kind of like that yo?"

That's true. Though if they found out we were chatting about unrelated stuff during work, our evaluation would probably drop.

"Come on, a bit of small talk is the lubricant for smooth business operations — it's necessary yo!"

"But the topic is games though?"

"That's beside the point! Actually, isn't finding common topics outside of work and using them to smooth workplace relations basically unpaid labor yo? Shouldn't we be getting paid for this yo?"

"That would be amazing. Getting paid to play games."

"Ahaha, true yo. Oops, there's a customer, gotta go handle it yo!"

"Yeah, good luck with customer service."

"I'll be back, yo."

"Hurry up and go, or the section chief will yell at you."

"Yo～"

I wished our jobs could be done in auto-mode by AI too, but then realized we'd just get fired. Besides, the final check is human work no matter what happens.

And well, having a job is what lets us eat. The money I spent on this game came from work too.

"If you could buy SP through microtransactions, things would be so much easier. I want a Home too… huh?"

Complaining about game systems is a sign I'm getting hooked, isn't it? Hmm. Well, I've definitely gotten more than five onigiri worth of entertainment out of it, so that's fine.

… If microtransactions get added, my coworker might start cutting into their living expenses to whale.

Alright, time to do my best at work too!

…

Maybe I'll check the wiki a bit. Just a little.

The game isn't running so it's fine… Ah, everyone's still floundering around. Barely any updates…