51 51: A Chat

"So, don't you, like, need to use the bathroom at all? You've been in there for a good few hours now."

'Oh my god does this guy never shut up?!' Mimi lamented as Mishima asked her another inane question from outside the barrier.

She'd half hoped that he would just give up and leave after realising that he couldn't touch her. What else was he supposed to do? Surely he wouldn't be so determined to brainwash her that he would hang around hoping that she would get desperate and let him inside, right?

Wrong. Instead of leaving, he awoke the unconscious Pakura and asked her to get him some firewood, and then he set up a whole camp right outside the Dungeon barrier!

So now Mimi was looking through her System menus for some way to alter the barrier at all. To at least make it opaque, or to make it shut out all sound or something like that. Nothing.

Sighing when she got tired of that, she checked back in with the Group Chat, continuing conversations that had started several hours ago.

[-Global Chat 2.0-]

[-Reincarnator #6: "Are you still there, #11?"-]

[-Reincarnator #11: "Yes. So is Mishima."-]

[-Reincarnator #6: "I really am sorry that I cannot help. The war has kicked off again with some major battlefields very close to our hideout. Due to my own situation I cannot risk going anywhere with a high chance of Sensor-nin being present. We are sending someone who can help you, I promise... But he needs to conserve his energy, so he has to run much slower than his top speed. We predict that he will arrive within two days."-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "I can't fucking believe that I'm missing out on this! Why'd that asshole have to be on the other end of the continent from me?! Fuck! I really wanted to kill his ass..."-]

[-Reincarnator #4: "...His ass?"-]

[-Reincarnator #7: "You know what I mean!"-]

[-Reincarnator #2: "Hey, I just got word from Kei. Ichiro Uchiha- uh, that's Number #63 from B1 in case you didn't know, says he's really close by to that area! He was sent with a scouting corps to the north-eastern edge of the Land of Fire, so he should be able to break away from there and find you!"-]

[-Reincarnator #2: "Oh, but he wanted me to ask you if there were any large bodies of water nearby? Like, within sight? I don't know why, but he said he wouldn't go if there was too much water."-]

Mimi blinked at the text for a moment before responding.

[-Reincarnator #11: "Um... No? We're in a clearing in the middle of the forest... There's no water anywhere. I have some water bottles in my bag, is that too much?"-]

[-Reincarnator #2: "Nah he says that's fine. 'Anything as large as a particularly deep pond' was his exact wording, so I'm sure you won't have any issues there. Again, sorry I can't help either. My team's on the front lines dealing with the Hidden Stone forces. I think I saw Minato Namikaze at some point, but I might be mistaken... Ah wait, you don't know who that is... Welp, gotta go!"-]

"Hey, what are you doing staring off into space?"

Mimi jolted and looked up from her Screen.

"Oooohhh... I bet you were talking to your extra buddies, huh? I'm surprised you even have friends honestly, you seem like the timid and shy type who never speaks to anyone." He taunted her with that same stupid smirk on his face.

He brought out the collar again and spun it around his finger.

"You know... if you join me, you'll never have to worry about silly things like that. You won't need 'friends', because all you need is me! And my other girls of course-"

"Go away." Mimi interjected. She was getting so tired of his nonsense.

"Ooooo, feisty! You really are such a tsundere, you know that, kitten? It's very cat-like of you, I'll give you that! You're really leaning into the aesthetic."

'I'm kind of tempted to let this guy in just so that there's a chance for the Dungeon to kill him.'

"[Do not.]"

'I know, Nekomata.'

Mimi found it almost impressive how quickly Mishima had managed to wear down even her passive and unassertive attitude in the span of just a few hours. He truly was adept at pissing people off.

Mishima looked up at the sky as he sat down next to his campfire and pulled a freshly cooked meal out of his Inventory, still as hot as the moment it was served to him.

"Hm. You know, kitten, it's getting pretty dark. Doesn't look like you've got a pillow in there to sleep with. Why don't you let us in to help you? I promise you, Pakura's thighs make excellent pillows." He commented as he ate.

Just a few moments after he said that, the barrier around Mimi suddenly changed colour from a bright blue to a dark indigo and became fully opaque, completely blocking all vision from the outside.

"Wh- Hey! Kitten! What are you doing?" He shouted.

But she, blissfully, couldn't hear him.

- - -

Mimi looked at the now-solid wall in front of her with surprise.

[-The Dungeon prep room has entered night mode. All vision and sound through the barrier has been blocked. The temperature inside the barrier has been made more comfortable. The light from the Portal has been dimmed. Have a nice sleep.-]

'Huh. So it does have other modes. They're just automatic instead of manual. Neat.'

The temperature inside the barrier increased and she was comfortable enough to take off her cloak. Since the floor was just grass with seemingly little dirt, she unpacked a few of her other spare clothes and made a thin, makeshift mattress out of them for her to sleep on.

It was surprisingly comfy as far as rough, unprepared camping trips went.

As she sat down on her temporary bed and indulged in another one of her meat skewers - still kept hot inside her Inventory - she suddenly received a message from a previously unknown Group Chat that she had just been invited to.

[-Private Group Chat for Reincarnator #11-]

[-Reincarnator #1: "Good evening, Mimi. Would you mind answering some questions for me?"-]

She froze mid-bite.

Several trains of thought suddenly derailed and collided at the same time.

Her social anxiety even started to rear its head again, despite her situation.

Reincarnator Number #1 was practically a celebrity among the other Reincarnators. Their mysteriousness had garnered the attention of everyone, only having posted three messages in their entire life. And now they had chosen her, of all people, to suddenly have a full-on conversation with?!

Then, as her brain caught up to her racing heart, she felt a chill run down her spine.

She hadn't told anyone her name. So how the hell did Number #1 know it?!

[-Reincarnator #11: "H-How do you know my name?!"-]

[-Reincarnator #1: "Oh, have you not told anyone else? I'm sorry! Can you keep a secret?"-]

The sudden tone shift caught Mimi off guard. She tentatively responded.

[-Reincarnator #11: "...S-Sure?"-]

[-Reincarnator: #1: "I'm working as a shinobi in the Land of Rain. A village in the east of the country contacted my company and requested that we search for a 'bakeneko' that had escaped from them after supposedly killing a woman. I'll spare you the details, but after a little research and questioning around the place, I figured out that you must be the catgirl they were describing, and that catgirl must also be the Reincarnator trapped by Mishima. It seems I was correct."-]

[-Reincarnator #1: "I would rather keep my position a secret from the others, just for safety. So please do me a favour and don't tell them about me."-]

Mimi's breath hitched in her throat.

[-Reincarnator #11: "Y-You know about that?! I didn't do it! My mom just f-fell sick one day and... and..."-]

[-Reincarnator #1: "Calm down, it's alright! My subordinate and I snooped around town and pieced together the story for ourselves. We deduced that you can't have poisoned your mother. You're innocent. We're not going to try and take you back there."-]

Mimi felt her hands slowly stop shaking as her breathing calmed.

[-Reincarnator #11: "Th-Thank you... I... Yeah... I'll keep any information about you a secret, I promise."-]

[-Reincarnator #1: "Thank you. I'm currently resting at an inn here at your hometown... sorry, former hometown. Tomorrow, I'm going to come over to where you and Mishima are. You don't mind if I hide for a while once I reach the location, do you? For reasons which I shant disclose, I would like to wait for several other Reincarnators to show up before dealing with Mishima."-]

Mimi wasn't sure what to think about that. Was Reincarnator #1 scared of Mishima's power? She had heard that he possessed a dangerous ability called 'Scorch Release' that could apparently boil all the blood in a person's body in an instant...

She would definitely hide too, if it was her in Number #1's situation.

[-Reincarnator #11: "That's okay! I know Mishima's dangerous, so it'll probably take multiple of you to deal with him safely, right? I'm really sorry that I don't understand just how dangerous he is, I only read the first few volumes of the manga before I died, so I'm working with very little information about this world..."-]

[-Reincarnator #1: "That's fine. Tell you what though, you can help the rest of us out by asking Mishima what his abilities are. If you can get him to slip up and talk about himself, it'll help the rest of us to know what he can do.

We know he has Scorch Release and his overpowered Danger Sense that he got from a Wish, but we don't know what else he can do. Renji had prepared himself specifically to fight Mishima, but he still lost when they fought each other. That means that there's a good chance that Mishima is hiding some other skills that nobody else knows about yet. Knowing that could help us greatly, so you can do that if you would like to assist us in defeating him."-]

[-Reincarnator #11: "Ah... Sorry, I can't talk to him right now. The barrier around the Dungeon has entered night mode and I can't see or hear him through it now. I'll have to wait until morning to talk to him..."-]

[-Reincarnator #1: " Not an issue! We've got three days to deal with him before the Dungeon pulls you in, right? Plenty of time. Now, I think both of us probably need to sleep, so I'll leave you with this last message and with any luck, you'll see me tomorrow. Good night."-]

[-Reincarnator #11: "U-Um, good night!"-]

With that message the Group Chat closed and deleted itself.

Mimi was happy though! Finally, a genuine confirmation that someone was close by and ready to help her! 

With a slightly lighter weight on her shoulders, she curled up on her pile of clothes and fell asleep.

- - -

Satisfied with how the conversation had gone, Seija solidified her plan for the following day.

Her plan to hide from Mishima until the other Reincarnators wasn't for the reasons that Mimi suspected. Seija was aware that at only Level 2, Great Firewall was unable to affect enemy wishes yet. That was a problem, since with only a few years having passed since even the oldest Reincarnators awoke their Systems, they'd had very little time to build up power from their actual Systems.

They likely only had a few Skills, or Stats, or whatever their specific Systems gave them, unlocked at this current time. And those that they did have likely wouldn't be trained to a very high level of mastery yet. Therefore, the most dangerous thing that the other Reincarnators would have was their Wishes, which they'd had from the very start.

So, her plan was to hide from sight and passively affect their abilities from a distance, slowly building up Experience until Great Firewall hit Level 3. At that level, she hoped that her System Breaker would have grown strong enough to affect the others' Wishes.

Come to think of it...

'Hey, Firewall. What's the max level that a System can even reach anyways?' Seija asked, as she realised that she had never actually known what the limit was.

"[It depends on the effort put into increasing the Levels. Each level requires approximately ten times more experience than the previous one, and each level gained raises the minimum amount of effort required to earn experience by a significant margin. For other Reincarnators, that means more difficult Quests will need to be completed to gain more Experience for their Systems.]"

"[The Great System predicted - based on the general personalities of all one-hundred Reincarnators - that Level 5 would be the practical maximum. Some may reach Level 6 within a normal human lifetime if they focussed entirely on gaining Levels, and some may get stuck at Level 4, or even Level 3 forever if they don't put much effort into raising their level.]"

"[For us, when we reach Level 3, it is likely that we will stop gaining Experience from affecting opponents with Level 1 Systems. We would need to target foes with Level 2 or higher Systems to gain any more Experience once we get to that point. And when we reach Level 4, we would need to target at least Level 3 Systems, and so on as our level continues to rise.]"

'I see. What level do you think Mishima's System is?'

"[It is difficult to say, as we do not know the exact type of System that he possesses. It is unlikely that his System is only Level 1, however, as he defeated another Reincarnator who was prepared specifically to fight him.]"

'Why does the type of System matter? Don't they all get the same kinds of Quests to complete?'

"[No. Each System has Quests tailored to their type. Merchant-type Systems require their users to buy and sell increasingly more valuable products, as well as enter successful trade deals with other companies. Harem-type Systems require their users to seduce targets, get into relationships, and eventually... 'sleep' with their harem members in a number of different positions-]"

'Ew.'

"[Indeed. Then there are Oracle-type Systems who need to gather information. Learning other Reincarnators' identities, encountering and speaking to Named Characters, and mapping out vast swathes of terrain... I am sure you get the point by now. So without knowing what type of System Mishima has, we have no way of knowing how many Quests he has completed, and thus, we do not know what Level he could be.]"

'Alright, thanks for the info, Firewall.'

"[It is what I am here for.]"

With the conversation over, Seija settled into bed in much the same way as Mimi did.

The next day would be the day that she properly interacted with Reincarnators again since Kaowru way back in the day.

She felt a little bad that she would be leaving Kyusuke behind in Ishigaki Town, but having him near the Reincarnators would complicate matters too much.

For now, she closed her eyes, and let herself be dragged off to dreamland.