Chapter 48: Item Shop (1)
After finishing our chat at the family restaurant, under the pretext of buying dinner I parted from the two and wandered around the front of the station.
Both hands empty, I continued walking without buying anything.
It’s not that I’m pretending to window-shop. Because there’s someone I want to meet, I’m deliberately walking around here and there like this.
“…Basically it was just a game that combined text adventure with combat and training.”
I end up sighing at the target I’m having trouble finding.
In the original, Alter disguised as an Earthling walked around the front of the station and found “that shop” — but in the original after depicting several background graphics of the shopping district, it only put out a back-alley graphic with “Here it is…”. Honestly, the only information is “back alley in front of the station.”
If this were an RPG I’d probably understand how to walk where to arrive, I think as I sigh again.
Thinking it’s about time to call it quits, I peek into a back alley one last time — and discover a rat scavenging garbage.
A situation that would make a normal human frown. But I breathe a sigh of relief of “Finally.”
I slip into the gap between a Chinese restaurant and a building. Straight, straight ahead through the place lined with the back doors of restaurants and such — and arrive there.
Chuu-chuu, chichi, the rats are squeaking.
I don’t know the species of rat well, but several of them with long tails and plump bodies were at the dead end.
Extremely unsanitary — it looks that way, but in truth it’s not.
——Because these guys are not Earth rats.
I step into the rats’ territory.
The surrounding rats squeak as if threatening, but I ignore them and stand before the knitted rat plush sitting at the deepest part.
In front of the hand-sewn cute yet unfitting-for-this-place thing, I give a small bow.
“Mr. Rat, Mr. Rat, I’ve come to shop.”
——Oh shit, somehow I feel like dying.
A man who suddenly starts saying something like this in front of a rat plush, and at the deepest depths of a back alley at that.
What is this guy, a pervert or a crazy bastard. If I saw such a guy, I’d run away at full speed. I understand well why Alter made Moldiana do it in the original. Of course you wouldn’t want to do this yourself!
A short silence.
In the quiet where even the rats’ squeaks have vanished, my vision suddenly twists gunyari.
My sense of balance is thoroughly mixed up, and I almost return the earlier meal, but I grit and endure.
I put force into both legs and cover my face with my right hand.
——What is this, the original protagonist Alter smoothly “entered the shop”…!
In the original text it was only described as “a strange sensation of the whole body being shaken,” and even Moldiana who was accompanying him only felt a little unwell.
I knew it, but the original protagonist’s specs seem far higher than the likes of me.
I clenched my teeth and endured the unbearable disgustingness of having my whole body shaken — and in an instant, my body, my vision, stabilized.
“Welcome to the Rat’s Variety Shop~. First time, isn’t it~, customer~.”
——Chuu-chuu-chuu-chuu Mr. Rat, za-za-za-za Variety Shop, san-san three hundred sixty-two days~♪
At the song flowing with a pop melody, I breathed a sigh of relief that I had finally arrived.
“The Rat’s Variety Shop.”
That is the item shop in the original game. Or rather, this maker unifies the item shop as “The Rat’s Variety Shop” even in other works. What kind of obsession is that.
Precisely because of that, I had seen the figure of the girl with rat ears and tail currently before my eyes.
Appearance-wise a girl looking from upper elementary school to first year of middle school. Gray hair grown long enough to cover her back, wheat-colored skin, wearing a navy apron dress, with embroidery of deformed running rats on the hem of the skirt.
The girl who bows toward this side while putting on a sleepy expression, I know her.
——Mr. Rat, “in this worldview” appears as a Diabolic.
“In this worldview” is because in other games she is a beastman or a youkai, or appears as an ordinary human despite growing rat ears and tail.
And in every work she appears in this position of “The Rat’s Variety Shop” and does business with the protagonist. Only the appearance is common, and she is given a setting that does not feel out of place even when contacting the protagonist in each work.
Incidentally, she is not a capture target in any work. If you buy a lot she takes off one piece of clothing at a time, but no matter how much you contribute you can only see the naked standing picture. For a rat isn’t she too chaste.
Well, leaving that aside.
One thing I had been curious about from before.
“…Why three hundred sixty-two days? Isn’t that super incomplete?”
“The Rat’s Variety Shop rests all employees for the three days of the New Year~.”
Oh my, for a rat it’s a white enterprise!
Can I get hired after graduating, no, confirming the usual labor conditions comes first…!
“However~, you found this place well~ — Atel Octo-san~.”
While putting on a blank face, Mr. Rat says that toward me — toward Shusawa Senjumaru.
According to her, “Rats lurk everywhere~.” In every work she is an existence that seizes the initiative like that.
But I have knowledge of the original game. I have no intention of antagonizing, but to gain advantage in negotiation—
“…You’re not very surprised~, is it because you possess memories of another world after all~.”
“Kh…!?”
“Ah~, this side is surprised~. I’ll say it in advance~, the source of information is secret~, you ’know’, right? How Mr. Rat uses information~.”
“…To protect myself. If attacked, scatter information to the enemies of the one who attacked.”
“Correct~. In the original’s bad end~, for some reason the Sacred flooded Alter-san’s base~, and it was game over~, why was the base exposed~, mysterious isn’t it~.”
——Chuu-chuu, chuu-chuu, Mr. Rat laughs.
Tarari, cold sweat drips. Mentally punched from an unexpected angle, my heart won’t stop racing.
Because I have previous-life knowledge negotiation is advantageous — that soft idea was smashed. Not by the original protagonist, not by the queen, not by the last boss, but by a mere item-shop NPC.
My legs feel like trembling. I want to run home right now, and I want to quit being a Vigilante. The fact that my greatest and only strength has been exposed is scary, scary beyond measure.
But even so.
Even so, I face forward — and stare at Mr. Rat.