NOVEL NEXT 73. Closer to the End.
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5 days later...
The day of the Kaito birthday party is here and everyone inside the DSA guild obviously very busy. Almost everyone in the guild went to Lindarth to attend and take responsibility for the event. The only exception to this is Saitama who offered himself to stay at the headquarter since there must be someone who stays outside to monitor the situation when all of them are busy.
"This year, Saitama-sensei is not coming?" Crocodile asked, lit his cigarette. Both him and Aika are currently standing on the stage where Uta is going to sing later-- to check whether everything is okay for the last time.
"Yes. He offered himself to stay at the headquarter" Aika responded. "I am surprised you are here, Crocodile-san. I thought you hate this kind of party."
"You are not wrong, Fuwa. but there is something that I need to make sure happened smoothly." Crocodile answered.
Obviously, the reason he was here was to make sure that his plan worked. Besides, Kaito already warned him to come and as much as he didn't want to attend this party, Crocodile actually still respects Kaito as the leader quite a bit.
"Heee..."
"Let me guess, the duel event?" Aika easily guessed after thinking for a while.
"...You know?" Crocodile said in a surprised tone.
"I just guessing. But from your reaction, it seems I am right." Aika said while holding her chuckle.
"Tch. The owner is right... You are a really smart girl." Crocodile turns off his cigar with an irritated tone.
"It's not hard to deduce. Kirito vs Heathcliff was something that happened in the memories and one of the most important reasons why Kirito was able to discover Kayaba's real identity" Aika shrugged.
Hearing her perfect reason, Crocodile acknowledges her capability. and then asked, "So, what do you think about this plan?"
"...Not so reliable." Aika shook her head with a pessimistic tone and answered, "Unless there is a reason for both Kirito and Heathcliff to go all out during the duel-- they perhaps won't even take their duel seriously which defeated the purpose of your plan."
"Ah, about that. We are sure they are going to be serious since we have offered an extra reward for both of them if they won their duel." Crocodile scoffed as he already calculated that part.
"Mind you tell me what it is?" Aika asked with a curious tone.
"For the protagonist, Owner promised him to fund their entire marriage with the heroine-- and if they won, there is also an extra rare diamond ring crafted by Lisbeth herself that can be used in the wedding party." Crocodile answered confidently.
To be fair, this part was proposed by Kaito himself-- and once again Crocodile reminded how capable Kaito is as their leader, even though some of his plans sounds absurd.
"Ah, that's a very lucrative reward for Kirito" Aika praised. "How about Heathcliff?"
"I promise him to give a free ticket to Uta concert 10 times for their entire guild. And if he won the duel-- he wanted to Owner to answer a question." Crocodile continues to answer.
"...Isn't that bit too much?" Aika commented with a surprised tone.
She knows how expensive Uta concert ticket usually is, as it's the biggest source of their guild wealth and influence. Giving a bunch of free tickets to all Knight of Blood members for 10 times performance would be very costly, as they are also one of the guilds with the largest member in this world.
"Not really." Crocodile shrugged and muttered, "We are going to leave this world very soon, anyway. Any money or treasure that we have collected in this world would be turned useless very soon."
....!!
"Ah, you are right."
Aika immediately understood the reason behind his decision, especially right now when they already arrived on the last floor of the memories. They also don't have much time to left to properly finish this game, which means the proper way to finish the main task is to follow the memories, which is to expose the Kayaba Akihiko identity.
"Ahhh... It's shame this task would be over very soon. I am having fun in this world."
"Hmph."
Crocodile didn't say anything, but he also feel the same as Aika. It's impossible for any chat group member to not get attached to this world, as they already living here for more than 2 years by now.
...
After that, both Crocodile and Aika spend their time together in pleasant silence until Aika opened her menu and check the time.
"It's about to start. Crocodile-san, We should start to work." Aika reminded.
Crocodile nodded and replied, "I see. You got it hard, aren't you?"
"Can't be helped. I am the one who proposed this idea, and Kaito refused to be responsible even though he is the leader. I wonder why people still look at him as a great leader."
Once again, Crocodile didn't answer but just chuckle knowing Aika was right to complain, as everyone knows that Aika has basically done most of Kaito's work in the guild. After that, both of them when to off stage together since the event was about to start.
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At the same time...
"White tuxedo... It's a good choice."
Kaito is currently alone in the room trying the outfit for his birthday party at the top of the stadium, in the control room. Usually, at this moment, his girl group would be hanging around him by now to help, however, it wasn't possible since all of the group members are busy helping to make sure this party event would run without problem.
He could see players begin to fill the seats from the windows below, and some of the guild members doing their best to accommodate them like Nanoha and Mikoto. To manage more than a thousand players with just 20 players sounds impossible, but Kaito knows they would be fine-- since last year's party also worked quite well under Aika's leadership.
Personally for Kaito, The group task that is supposed to be 'hard' in this world feels easier than what he did in Sekirei's world, which proves that everyone is amazing on their own.
...
"Yosh... Now, I just need to wait."
After completely wearing his uniform, Kaito is ready to set go. According to the plan laid by Aika, just like last year he just needs to sit and act like a tough guy on the throne that has been set in the middle of the concert stage and then give a speech as the leader of the guild.
After that, he could just leave the party and leave it to others as part of the agreement with Aika, Kaito doesn't really want to spend all day at the party venue. In fact, most of the time, Uta would be up on the stage to fill the event. Hence, this is why the birthday party was located in the concert stadium-- since it's just a glorified free Uta concert in disguise.
While it should be no problem doing this, at the moment Kaito making a troubled face since he currently has trouble with something else.
...
"Should I announce the raid notice or should I ask Crocodile first?"
Yesterday, Kaito and his group also found the 75th-floor boss room location. According to his plan, Kaito could announce the invitation for all clearers using today's birthday party since today would be the perfect time to do so.
This would help as the first step of his own core plan to finish the main task by making the boss mutate and expose Kayaba Akihiko-- although he hasn't talked about anyone else about this except for Crocodile on the other days, not even his girls. He could tell even Crocodile was slightly against this plan which made Kaito wonder if his plan is actually wrong.
The only cons about this plan are that if 'righteous' members know about this plan, his reputation would be ruined-- since his plan would risk a lot of player lives that they have desperately tried to protect to begin with. But for the sake of lot more extra points to help him back in the high school DxD world, Kaito is willing to make such a decision.
'Is this a trap for me from the system? This group task no matter what I thought is kind of too convenient to solve my current situation' Kaito thought.
He can't help but thought like that considering his current circumstances. Kaito is aware that his original world, Highschool DxD was a very dangerous world to live in, and his current strength is not even enough to protect himself and to achieve his goal to repay his debt to Ravel. Because of that, Kaito is desperate to increase his own strength, and getting a lot of points is one of the easiest shortcuts for that to happen. The fact this group task reward is going to give him a lot of points is pretty suspicious itself, but so far the task turn out not to be so dangerous.
While the world setting itself is dangerous thanks to their inability to use real ability and changed their life system to game system, Kaito would even argue that this task actually benefit the group members a lot. Aside from getting a lot of points, They were forced to learn swordmanship in this world, getting known better to other chat group members thanks to the main task require them to do so.
The mutated boss that initially scare Kaito also turned out to be not a problem, heck now even become the part of his core plan to complete their main task in this world. Kaito wasn't sure whether the system actually wanted to help or rip them off, and everytime he asked the system... it just refused to answer.
That's why despite all the benefit they have gotten, he still can't trust the system at all.
...
Well, he decide to continue think about this later as the party is about to start, and he need to give a speech to public as the main character of the party.
