Since I had the opportunity, I asked Penpen to tell me more about "Homes."
Apparently, monsters couldn't cross the fence, and better yet, you could pack up the entire Home into your inventory and redeploy it wherever you moved next.
A portable safe zone sounded like a dream. I wondered if I could get my hands on a base like that if I saved up enough SP, but when I scrolled to the very bottom of the exchange list, there it was: "Home: 150 SP."
Yeah, that wasn't happening anytime soon. If I relied solely on the SP gained from leveling up, I'd have to hit Level 70 just to afford it.
This was the kind of thing that needed to be flagged on the Wiki as a major noob trap. I just had to hope there were other ways to earn SP besides leveling. There had to be, right? Surely. Probably. Most likely... Please let there be.
I traded the Young Turtle carcass through the inventory menu, receiving some tomatoes she’d grown in her field in exchange.
"So you have tomatoes."
"Sometimes seeds drop when you hit the grass in the forest-ssu... Wait, this thing is huge! What do you mean 'young' turtle? This isn't a baby at all!"
"No, that really is just a Young Turtle. The Parent Turtle is a boss the size of a truck. I couldn't touch it, so I buffed my legs and bolted."
"Seriously!? Maybe I should move my base-ssu?"
"It’s pretty far on the other side of the mountain, so you probably don't need to worry about it."
So that was how the farming system worked. Interesting.
I checked the item description for the tomatoes I'd received. "Fresh tomatoes. They smell of earth." Was that supposed to be a compliment? It only said they were fresh, not that they actually tasted good. Maybe they were terrible.
Well, now that we’d traded, it was finally time to head to the Town—or so I thought.
"Actually, can we do it tomorrow? I'm beat..." she said.
When I looked at the clock, the hands had already passed midnight. I told her I’d log in again tomorrow after work and we called it a night.
Before logging off, I set Tria to Auto Mode to help with the farming. If she finished that, I told her to move on to strength training. Though the field was small, so there probably wouldn't be much for her to do.
"Spirit-sama, please come back safely... No, what I mean is, I shall await your return."
Since she said that, I happened to tap Tria on the screen. A little heart icon popped up over her head.
The next day, I caught up with my colleague at work to discuss our progress.
"So, I finally ran into another player. She was doing farm work at her Home."
"A Home! There’s stuff like that too, da-o! 150 SP is even more expensive than a gun, da-o!"
It seemed my colleague didn't know about Homes either.
"Also, there was a Voxel Display Mode in the graphics settings."
"I didn't look into the config settings that closely, da-o. Mm-hmm, that's good info, da-o. Then I'll tell you some top-secret info too, da-o!"
"Hmm? What is it?"
"When it’s in Auto Mode, if you tap or mouse over the character on the screen, you can pet them, da-o!"
"Ah, come to think of it, some heart marks appeared. So that's what that was."
So I could pet Tria. I see. I'd have to try it out properly when I got home.
"Oh, so you knew, da-o. But it seems there’s also an Affection Level for characters, so it’s good to pet them regularly, da-o."
"Doesn't it seem like they might hate you if you pet them too much?"
"Whoa, that sounds possible, da-o... I'll be careful when I pet her, da-o! But when I pet Alto, tons of heart marks come out, so she shouldn't hate me, da-o!"
Affection Level. So there was a system like that too. Come to think of it, the player was referred to as "Spirit-sama." The character and the player were clearly separate entities in this world.
"I missed a lot of stuff in the config, so I’ll check it when I get home, da-o."
"By the way, how far has the story progressed on your end? Over here, I made it to Level 20, but I gave up on fighting the Great Turtle and ran away. I’m going to the Adventurer's Guild tonight."
"If we’re in the same Town, we might meet at the guild, da-o. Man, you level up fast, da-o. I’m still 14, da-o. But my Rank at the guild went up to C-Rank, da-o!"
"Oh, congrats. I don't know if that's fast or slow, though."
"Thanks, da-o. Hmm, maybe the rank up is about average for a player, da-o? I don't know about NPCs, but it feels like there are plenty of adventurers stuck in D-Rank."
Apparently, C-Rank was the tier for veteran adventurers who handled subjugation quests and general requests with ease. It was the most common rank, where the bulk of the population resided. Likely, B-Rank was where the real wall was.
"I had my character hunt Goblins like crazy while I was away, so I think my Guild Points or whatever were solid, da-o."
"Are there things like Guild Points?"
"I bet they exist as Masked Data, da-o. I mean, we get evaluated by the company in a similar way, right?"
That was true. Although if our boss found out we were chatting about games during work, our evaluations would definitely tank.
"Nonsense, a bit of small talk is the lubricant that makes business run smoothly; it’s necessary, da-o!"
"Even if the topic is a video game?"
"That's different! In fact, isn't creating a common topic outside of work to bring in as lubricant actually unpaid labor? Shouldn't I get a salary for this, da-o?"
"It would be great if that were the case. Getting paid to talk about gaming."
"Ahaha, true, da-o. Oops, a customer, da-o. I’m gonna go handle them, da-o."
"Yeah, good luck with the customer service."
"I’ll be back, da-o."
"Just get going already, or the section manager will get mad at you."
"’Kay, da-o."
I found myself wishing our actual jobs could be handled by AI in Auto Mode, but then I realized we’d just end up unemployed. Besides, the final check always required a human touch. And at the end of the day, work was what put food on the table. The money I spent on the game only existed because I had a job.
"If SP were available through microtransactions, life would be a lot easier. I really want that Home... wait."
Complaining about the lack of pay-to-win features was a surefire sign I was getting addicted. Still, I'd already gotten more than my money's worth out of it—certainly more than the five rice balls the game cost.
If microtransactions ever did start, my colleague would probably dump their entire living budget into it.
Anyway, time to get back to work.
...Actually, maybe I'll just check the Wiki for a second. Just a quick peek.
I'm not actually playing the game, so it's fine... Ah, looks like everyone else is just as lost as I am. There haven't been any updates at all.