The next day, we gathered once again at Penpen’s Home.
"Man, yesterday was seriously rough, y'know... it was so bad that 10 SP didn't even feel like a fair trade, huh."
"Was it really that bad? My end was an emergency request with a strict time limit."
"We didn't have a time limit, but if we'd left it alone, the contamination would have spread, so we had to hurry anyway, y'know. Did you know? Even if you just touch Defilement with your hands, the foul taste spreads into your mouth, huh...!"
That sounded horrifying.
"After six months of training, Nika-chan became able to perform purification by touching it with her hands or bare skin, but for some reason, her tongue still senses bitterness and acridity when she does. Her taste buds must be having some kind of rejection response, huh..."
"That's... well, my condolences?"
"I wouldn't have been able to endure it if I hadn't had the steak I got from Penpen-shi, just in case something like this happened, y'know."
"I'm just glad I could be of help, ssu!"
I see, so she had prepared a palate cleanser in advance.
"But purifying it with just hands takes so long that I actually thought about trying to purify it by eating it, y'know. Putting it in your mouth makes the purification more efficient, huh."
"Hey now, if you eat dirt, you'll ruin your stomach."
"Microorganisms and bacteria are wiped out by the Defilement, so that part isn't much of a problem, y'know. It’s just that the taste, texture, and lack of moisture are the absolute worst... sipping muddy water would be hundreds of times better... and it just consumes a massive amount of Vitality and mental energy to counteract it, huh..."
Wasn't that a life-threatening problem? All these "justs" were piling up into a mountain of issues, just like at my real-world job.
"Thanks to that, it took about three days to completely purify an area with a two-meter radius, y'know. I wouldn't have been able to endure it if I hadn't had the pancakes I got from Penpen in my Inventory... right, Nika-chan?"
"That's right, Lord Spirit. Penpen-sama is a lifesaver! I respect her more than anyone, second only to you, Lord Spirit."
"Ah, well, it did take you two a full day to finish the request, ssu. Oh, Tria-chan and Alto-chan both said, 'The Lord Spirit is calling for us today,' before disappearing and heading over there, ssu."
Come to think of it, I hadn't checked the elapsed time on this side, regardless of how much time had passed in the real world.
"For us, it only felt like a few hours. I feel like I'm finally starting to get used to the time discrepancy... or maybe not..."
"I feel like the Time Acceleration Rate for Nika-chan's events is high, y'know! And the rate of suffering is high too, huh!"
"They do say that time flies when you're having fun and drags when you're suffering, ssu."
"It's the defeat of physics, huh!"
"As long as we're not jumping into the past or future, it can still be explained by science... probably."
Probably. We weren't jumping, right?
If I talked to my colleague in the real world after this, he wasn't going to say he was still in the middle of yesterday's request, was he?
"You also called your first character, Alto-chan, to help with the request, right?"
"Yeah, y'know. Monsters kept attacking while I was purifying, so I needed a guard, huh. Besides, those things were in a tattered zombie-like state due to the Defilement, so I couldn't even get any materials from them, y'know."
"Purifying that disgusting Defilement on top of dealing with attacks from monsters that don't even drop materials... that really was a 'bad' situation in every sense of the word."
"Good work, ssu. Here, Nika-chan, have some hot chocolate, ssu."
"Thank you very much, Penpen-sama. I'm so happy I could cry."
I wondered if there was enough for us. There was! As expected of Penpen.
"By the way, I tried taking on an SP Request from the Adventurer's Guild today too, ssu."
"Oh, you took one. ...Wait, you took it today?"
"That was a quick return, huh."
"Well, that's just the usual Time-space Distortion for you, ssu. It was a request to gather and deliver some medicinal herbs, ssu."
Gin-chan had stealthily gathered the rare medicinal herbs from the depths of the Chimera's Cave, then Penpen handled the preparation of the herbs before delivering them.
Apparently, the quest was titled "Helping the Alchemist Working Hard to Save a Sick Childhood Friend."
"We got 5 SP for that, so it was probably a pretty sweet request, ssu!"
"Must be nice, huh. I want to take more easy, low-reward requests too, y'know. It's definitely more efficient to just grind through easy ones, huh."
"It seems like a lot of the requests being offered are related to Nika-chan."
"Well, she has a Unique Skill, after all—being able to purify Defilement, ssu."
"That's a violation of the Antimonopoly Act, y'know!! You guys are more than welcome to do them too, you know—these purification requests, huh!!"
No can do. We couldn't purify Defilement, and we certainly couldn't digest it either.
"But one way or another, it feels like the requests being passed to us as SP-reward missions are things only we can do."
"That's usually how the requests the Guild Receptionist introduces work, ssu. They recommend jobs appropriately suited to your skills. That's the Guild's true strength, ssu."
"Ooh... that's true, but how on earth does the Guild track our skills, huh? I don't recall ever reporting that we could handle Defilement before taking the request, y'know."
"Well, that's because it's a game."
"Exactly. It's easy to forget, but it's a game, ssu."
"...That's right, huh! I was starting to lose track of the boundary between the game and reality for a bit. Dangerous, dangerous."
Information like the protagonist's Status was probably shared automatically; it was a game, after all. It wasn't like having a perfect request ready for us was a bad thing.
All right, it was time to get started on today's requests. Alto was going to do her best to get herself a Home. The Warehouse feature was surprisingly convenient.