Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~ - Chapter 126 – So wonderful

The secret-rank event quest prize that Mika brought as a souvenir was very delicious. It was on a level that even Lulu, who specializes on sweets, can’t make yet.

Maybe I should get her to eat one of those secret-rank sweets soon. I’m sure she’ll put her all into researching a way of reproducing such wonderful taste if she eats it once.

And she has made lots of delicious sweets already, so I’m sure she’ll succeed if she tries hard enough!

Though it would take some time for Lulu to get to that point.

Therefore, let’s start actively participating in the event, which I hadn’t really worked on so far.

Of course, I can’t fight, so I’ll participate by taking the delivery quests.

After all, I’m already selling the high-rank materials at the store in order to get a good profit from the event, so I just need to reduce my sales a bit and start dedicating some extra time into processing those materials for myself.

I know that the secret-rank quest appears after finishing the highest rank quest enough times, as this is information that Mika directly delivered to me.

Therefore, all I have to do is deliver a bunch of materials to get lots of sweets!

******

“So wonderful…” Lolita muttered.

“I didn’t think there were this many types…” I muttered next.

“Maybe this one… Or that one…” Lulu was having a hard time choosing which sweet to taste next.

“I can’t have enough of this berry pie!” Lolita exclaimed.

“I’ll try this custard pie!” Mika exclaimed.

“Extract it from that fruit…” Lulu seemed to be analyzing the sweet she was tasting.

“So, let’s get this next!” Lolita exclaimed.

I reached the secret rank, just as planned, so I was able to get quite a few sweets.

I can make materials of pretty high ranks, after all, so a delivery quest is easy to me.

As I tried it though, I found out that there are many variations of sweets available.

Of course, I did know there were plenty of sweets from the get-go by reading about it on the forums, but I wasn’t aware of how many there were until I saw it for myself.

Moreover, the secret-rank sweet rewards are incredibly tasty. Even if its variety was smaller, it would still be very worth its while.

However, the secret-rank actually has a pretty large variety too! So we are now holding a tasting party at my workshop’s living room.

There were many sweets that we could enjoy just by looking at them at first, but most of them are gone by now.

It’s fine though, as everyone has blissful smiles on their faces after eating so many wonderful sweets.

Of course, I too am very happy that I was able to eat this many delicious sweets.

The only person who was eating while maintaining a serious face was Lulu, who was studying each sweet she ate.

It’s good to study the ingredients of Frontiers to reproduce real life sweets, but making sweets that are unique to the game can also be quite stimulating, it seems.

I’d love it if she could study them plenty, so that I could keep on eating those even after the event ends.

I’m rooting for you, Lulu!

On another note, as Frontiers is a game, eating a lot gives us no problems in real life.

Sure, there are gauges for hunger and thirst, but we can keep on eating even after we move our hunger to 0.

As in, we don’t get full in-game.

That said, the sweet-eating momentum of Lolita is quite astounding. This is way beyond the level of stress-eating…

What is making her eat this much?

Well, I guess I can understand the wish of keeping on eating delicious food when we don’t have to worry about weight or health.

That said, even if we can’t get full from eating in Frontiers, an excessive amount of sweets can give you a bit of a heartburn feeling.

So, differently from Lolita, I was satisfied just from eating twice as much as usual. And since I did a lot of quests, there were still plenty of sweets left even after I ate that much.

But well, most of the sweets that had large quantities of them remaining ended up being eaten by Lolita.

I’m not the only one who brought sweets to this meeting, but I brought about 70% of them.

And yet, more than half of them were eaten just by Lolita.

She actually apologized a lot once she finally finished eating, but I’m more worried about what got her so absorbed into eating, that she ended up totally forgetting her manners.

Does she have a binge-eating problem perchance? Or could it be stress-eating? I’m worried…

Let’s ask her, “Lolita, if you have anything troubling you, I wouldn’t mind lending you an ear, alright?” I told her.

“Eh? Troubling? Uhn… I guess my boss is being really annoying these days?

“I want to go home early and play Frontiers…” Lolita replied.

“Ah, is that so?” I said.

“Are you under too much pressure?” Mika asked.

“Courtship?” Hime asked.

“Eeh? They’re not really my type.” Lolita replied.

“Then what is your type?” Mika asked next.

“I’m curious…” Hime muttered.

“Eeh? Let’s see… Maybe that person that I happened to see while I was commuting to work?” Lolita replied.

Seems like this isn’t being caused by a broken heart or anything like it.

We hold girls-only-gatherings regularly, but we don’t have much in terms of love stories to share.

That said, Mika and Hime can get quite interested when a chance for love talk appears.

I’ve basically given up on this kind of thing, but that’s not to say I’m not interested on the topic at all.

On the other hand, Lulu didn’t seem to be interested on the conversation in the slightest.

Though it seems like it’s because she got too immersed on her sweets research.

I’m looking forward to taking some samples home once she makes them.

But for now, it’s time for Lolita’s love talk!

******

The current Halloween event can hardly be compared to its original form. It’s much more exciting now that we can get those delicious sweets as rewards.

Of course, there are not only people who want them because they’re tasty, but there are also those who want them because of the meal bonuses.

And since this is an event-item, it will be really hard to get them again in the future, so those strong bonuses are very appealing right now.

Of course, which bonus each sweet gets is still random… Or rather, even the sweet you get as a reward is chosen randomly.

Not to mention that food will rotten after a certain period of time.

It does last longer if you put it on a warehouse, but it still can’t be kept for a long time.

In particular, those event-limited sweets have an unusually short expiration date.

As in, if you put it in a warehouse, it will only last about one week of in-game time, which is roughly ten times shorter than other long-lasting foods.

Of course, expiration date varies depending on the type of food you’re eating. Meals that can’t be taken out are the ones with the shortest expiration date for one.

That said, you can still eat food even after it expires.

Its temperature won’t be the right one anymore, the taste will be blander, the meal bonuses will be removed… But well, they’ll still be eatable.

However, the event sweets are attractive specifically because of how delicious they are and because they have great meal bonuses, so very few people will leave them be until the moment they expire.

I guess a collector might want to keep them, but that’s certainly not my case. I don’t wanna have rotten food near me.

It’s a pretty exciting event alright, though we shouldn’t forget that clearing the quests gives more than just sweets.

Because clearing quests tilts the event balance depending on the method used to clear them.

Currently, the balance is tilted slightly towards the delivery side… That’s probably because I sold processed materials at the store while also clearing plenty of quests myself.

I mean, a lot of people are participating on the event, so my contribution in itself shouldn’t be enough to tilt the balance.

… Except that the secret-rank quests apparently have a much larger influence on the balance than the other ranks, so my actions might have actually had a real impact.

I know of that because a bunch of people, led by Hime, did a variety of tests to check out how the balance tilting work, then they published the results of their inspections on the forums.

That said, it’s not like I cared much about messing up with the balance. I was just a bit obsessed with the sweets.

The event started on the middle of October, so we only have a few days left on it.

Until now the balance tilting had no effect on the event at all, so most people on the forums are assuming that something will happen only at the end of the event.

It will probably be a raid boss, won’t it?

That area around the pumpkin head is pretty suspicious, I bet it will appear there.

Could it be a vampire boss?

Well, considering what happened on the previous event, there is a possibility that crafters might be involved in the end of this event too.

Right now there are a lot of event NPCs wearing costumes all over the city, so I think there are some pretty high chances that the event will happen on the city itself. This is also the most popular opinion on the forums.

It’s gonna be troublesome to have battles happen inside the city though, like… If it’s anything like the defensive battles to fend off the Demon Tree invasions, then we might even have some buildings being destroyed.

I certainly wouldn’t feel well about the battle if it ended up causing damage to my workshop or my store…

But yeah, if the city ends up becoming a battlefield, then it’s certain that NPCs won’t be the only victims.

But well, it’s an event, so I’m sure we’ll be teleported to a special dedicated area just for the final battle.

I mean… It would be way too troublesome if the city was the battleground, after all.

Well, that is that. No use worrying about it before the actual end of the event.

On another note, my exclusivity on the high-difficulty special gear from Liber has finally been broken.

That was quite fast, wasn’t it?

However, not all of the recipes became available to other crafters yet. Only the relatively easier portion of the difficult recipes started appearing on other stores.

As in, I no longer have the monopoly on the recipes that are a bit easier than steel.

However, because they’re harder to make than silver, those items are being crafted without any Options in them.

Nonetheless, I can definitely see that the level of the other craft-focused player Pioneers is gradually increasing.

They might actually catch up to me at this rhythm.

Well, I have no intentions of giving up my top spot though, so I’ll keep doing my best to improve.

And right now, nobody else has started making steel gear… Is it really that hard?

In any case, to get the Liber recipes that aren’t normally sold on Liber, one apparently needs to clear some NPC quests.

I already got a lot of recipes from Raksha’s quest, so that’s not very relevant to me.

Nonetheless, slowly getting the recipes from NPC quests seems to be the only avenue available to other player Pioneers that want them.

I guess this is also a way of giving a benefit to those who are at the top. The development team probably wants to let the top players pave the way for everyone else.

I mean, because I got the recipes first and sold a variety of equipment at my store, many different fighting styles ended up emerging.

Thanks to that, the demand for those items has increased, so the people that acquired these new recipes are able to make plenty of items in order to meet the demand.

And as those recipes still have a fairly high difficulty level, the people who are able to craft them are now getting a pretty steady growth on their skill levels.

I can’t imagine this development being anything but intentional.

In any case, let’s keep on working hard to maintain my top spot!

Though before that, let’s eat delicious sweets to nourish my spirit.