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Chapter 55 - Arc 4 - Brawling in the Streets: Reputation Scores, and a Kickball
🕑 Added 2024-07-08 18:39:03 +0000 UTCSakura is bored, but you don't have to be. You can read this Sunday's chapter today, on Monday, when it's released. Because I'm not very good at this schedule thing.
Oh well, I hope you enjoy the chapter.
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Boredom is an odd concept. It can happen to anyone, at any time. It’s considered one of the most potent problems in an apocalyptic situation, right behind things like basic survival. Maybe it’s the lack of being with her team causing her to be hesitant to whip out her new switch and make the opinion of the already not super liking her people drop even further, maybe it’s that they’re only really staying at each place for an average of half an hour, maybe it’s that at this point killing the undead is basically just walking through them with Rollout active or sitting back while Tenten thwacks them like moles.
Whatever the reason, Sakura is bored. One-shot dungeons suck, they’re not like Gato’s tower at all! They’re long and awkward and the enemies aren’t dropping good loot and it’s just so boring! At first she was relieved, but the hesitance to dive into hell because of trauma only lasted so long, and now she’d truly like to stab something to death, if only to feel something… Not like that, that didn’t come out right.
So far in this dungeon they’ve explored fifty safe rooms, fifty, five oh, it’s monotonous and the novelty wore off so long ago that she’s no longer scared of the zombies, she’s treating their mangled corpses like playthings. Currently, she’s using a severed head as a ball to kick around while they walk, and even that’s becoming boring very quickly. There aren’t even a lot of the zombies anymore because while the corpses themselves are probably generated by the dungeon, the dark meister is running out of magic to animate them or something. This last trip she didn’t even use Rollout she just walked down the hallway with her sword and sliced a few heads off while Tenten complained about a cramp of some sort. Poor girl, they’re far away from any chocolate… Shit, they found chocolate and she ate it!
Okay, her bad. Tenten gets the next bar.
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So far in this dungeon, they’ve looted enough ammunition for Tenten’s shotgun that she will likely never run out, which is good because she’s not completely sure she can reverse engineer these rounds. Something about unknown chemical compounds and explosive testing being dangerous.
They’ve also started finding another ammunition type by the buckets, specifically rifle rounds. They’re long cylinders which catches Sakura by surprise, but of course it really meant Tenten got hugging the bullets again. “There’s a chance, Sakura, there’s a chance!” She had done a lot of excited shouting, Sakura for her part, had waved it off and started the look out for the gun the rounds go to.
She appreciates that her dungeon generating powers - assuming these are caused by her in some way - is profitable for the girl with the big hammers. She just wishes it was her that is getting all the love.
They’ve found twenty-seven First-Aid sprays. Which are full heals by the way, she’s not a fan of the implication that she needs this much healing for this dungeon, but they might save lives later so she can’t complain. She’s probably going to save them for allies who get seriously injured since they can’t just nap it off.
They’ve found a bunch of gemstones seemingly poofing out of thin air, like so many she has not one but two sealing scrolls designated just for them. If nothing else, if the stones stick around, she’ll be upgrading Haku’s setup back home. What she wouldn’t give for a Naruto clone to talk to right now, these two are so stiff and boring…
And keys. So many keys. So many damn keys… She’s not even sure if they actually go to any doors! She’s under the impression the dungeon read a loose game concept from her memories and generated this long ass hallway that never seems to end and implies a comically large mansion. She’s held onto the keys though, for the same reason Neji’s holding onto all the documents, they might come up.
Speaking of Neji, he’s going a little mad. He clearly thought they’d be done by now, and if the lack of foes is any indication they’re probably done this part soon. They still haven’t found even one genin or chunin, let alone the final boss, so the fact that this is already becoming an endurance test for her patience is hella not a good sign, and despite his earlier words, Neji seems to have less patience than her.
At least she has all these cool systems she’s never played with.
It turns out there’s a database for her reputation system. The way it works seems to be 1-10000, with 1 being, well she doesn’t know because even Ami has 2,000 out of 10,000, and is labeled [Hates your Guts] so like, maybe the 1,000 that Ino got was more significant than she thinks if it’s capped at 10,000 and there’s a curve of bad to good in the middle of the scoring rubric.
She doubts it’s important though, for Ino at least. It’s been made pretty clear that Ino’s loved her for a good long time, so becoming more in love with her probably isn’t a huge detriment, even if Sakura would rather the system not mindfuck her friends in the first place.
The important people - besides Ino, obviously - are Tenten, Neji, Lee, Sasuke, Naruto, Haku, and Kakashi
Tenten is 6200, which is [Friendly]
Neji is 4200, which is [Negative with a friendly leaning]
Lee is 7000 which is [Very Friendly with a casual leaning]
Sasuke is 7500 which is [Crushing a little]
Naruto is 8000 which is [Unsure if Dumb Sister that’s Cute or Cute Dumbass that happens to be his Sister] - which at least tells her that these are custom and not necessarily on a romantic bell curve, it’s possible someone could be at 10,000 and not be interested in her, which she likes the implications of because she’s not interested in anyone but she likes to think people have high reputations with her.
Ino was 8300 before the +1000, so her feelings were likely less overwhelmingly powerful and more that they were long-standing and potent via time, care and good experiences reinforcing their friendship. It does raise a lot of questions as to how this even works. Maybe turning the complex emotional state people have for each other into numbers just isn’t a very accurate way to portray them without nuance.
Whatever the case, the system is being helpful, so she’s not arguing.
Attached to Naruto is Kurama, at 7000, which is [My Master’s Pet Dumbass] which has a lot of implications and she’s not really sure what to do with them, but context clues tell her the Kyuubi has a name, and enjoys laughing at her. Maybe she should start mocking the Kyuubi in conversation, and get him in on the vibe of the conversation if he’s going to participate behind a screen like that.
She should probably be flattered but she’s honestly just miffed, and a little sad. She’s watched a lot of interactions over the years while feeling left out, what if the Kyuubi feels the same?
Haku is 8000, at [Honored Manager] which is cute, and she appreciates the confirmation that high scores don’t mean romance and that her people are more complicated than that.
Kakashi, is 5000, which is [My Favorite Student]
This tells her that he’s not a fan of them, but, to be fair, she doesn’t think he’s a fan of anybody. He’s shown genuine care for them, so maybe certain people have different ways of being interpreted by the system and Kakashi’s 6000 is Naruto’s 9000.
Ultimately, as cool as this system is, she probably won’t be putting much weight on it. Even without Kakashi making the system weird by having a positive outlook and a low score, it just doesn’t feel good to look at.
Cheat codes are fun but when all they do is turn your friends into numbers, well, she’d rather be hated by everyone than win that way.
She closes that with a sigh, and gets back to contemplating recipes in her head for when she starts a cooking skill the moment she gets home - she hasn’t forgotten her mental promise to surprise Kakashi - while slashing heads off. “Have they gotten weaker?” Sakura asks.
“Yeah, for sure.” Tenten agrees, “I haven’t seen them go red in like thirty rooms either, I think they’re running on some sort of power source and are running out of it.” Glad to see Tenten agrees, even if she doesn’t use the same lingo. The Dark Meister is running out of mana, and she’s under the impression this part of the dungeon likely stops when he completely runs dry. From there, either he’ll receive a powerup right at the end, or the dungeon will become about clawing their way through real opponents to get to him and end his life.
It’s a hot take on the ‘clear the castle to get to the master’ idea a lot of older games went with, but she’s here for it, both literally and figuratively.
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They didn’t even rest at the last three safe houses, they just stopped in, grabbed the documents and loot, mostly gemstones, and kept walking. She’s glad the system took the later Resident Evils into consideration with the loot. While she’d love an awesome magnum or something, she can definitely get into gems.
They’ve seen a grand total of twenty zombies, and this last trek they haven’t found a single one.
“I think we’re almost done.” Sakura says, “at this point the biggest threat is these floors on my poor feet.”
“Aww, poor things, I bet they’re cute.” Tenten says, “We should dress you up in cute shoes when we get back, see what stands out.”
“That’s kinda weird, Tenten.” Sakura points out, “That’s a weird thing to say.”
“What can I say? I like shoes.” The older girl shrugs, giving her a smirk.
Does she need an adult? Is Tenten one of those people?
No, probably not, she needs to stop applying her small charm - 20 by the way, super proud of it - to real-life situations and assuming that just because she notices something now means it’s a big deal. That’s how it used to be, not anymore, and things she notices will become even smaller deals as her charm gets even higher because she’ll notice more things and do it more easily.
Either way. “Ino’d probably like that,” she decides after a long moment, “she has a lot of shoes too.”
“Oh, see? We don’t even have to break the bank, your girlfriend can dress you up.” Tenten teases her, and all Sakura can do is gulp.
They’re almost out of this part, it’s so close, now if only there was a real indication that the ending was near besides their assumptions and the lack of enemies. There are so many documents too, like, what could they even be saying at this point that’s new? Neji’s basically read an entire novel.
Comments
Dopplerdee
Honestly I would be shocked if Kakashi has anyone who isn't dead or Gai above 5000... or Obito but he thinks Obito is dead so same difference.
