69novels Page 209
Page 209
"Oh, I've become stronger."
Asagiri explained it casually.
"I can now summon two personas at the same time. As I become more proficient, the number of personas I can summon simultaneously will also increase. That's about it."
"That's about it?"
Ashikaga Miwa was completely dumbfounded. Could this really be possible?
Is it possible for Asagiri's unique talent ability to receive such a huge boost simply by engaging in battle, without needing to clear dungeons and obtain system rewards?
Could it be that……
Is the Persona a power that originally belonged to him?
"Anyway, let her read that experimental data as well."
Asagiri pointed at Kind Mita, and seeing that although the other person pretended to be calm, the slightly downturned corners of her mouth betrayed her dissatisfaction, she added with a smile.
"After you finish reading this, I'll take you out for cake tonight."
Kind-hearted Mita smiled instantly upon hearing this, but still tried to appear mature and rational.
"That's okay too."
……
Later that evening, at Asuna Yuuki's home in Tokyo's Ginza shopping district.
"Mr. Yuki, Ms. Yuki."
Shozo Yuuki and Kyoko Yuuki, who were sitting on the sofa waiting, quickly stood up when they heard the door open. When they saw Asuna Yuuki and Asagiri enter together, Kyoko Yuuki looked anxious and immediately asked with concern.
"I heard there was an accident at a Kyoto train station, and anti-terrorism drills are being conducted in Tokyo. What exactly happened? Mr. Kayaba Akihiko, what is going on...?"
Just as Kyoko Yuuki was speaking, her gaze fell on the splint on Asuna Yuuki's left arm and the gauze on her daughter's neck. She paused for a moment, then quickly stepped forward.
"Asuna, what happened to you? How did you get such a serious injury?"
Asuna Yuuki pursed her lips, forcing a reassuring smile, and spoke in a gentle tone.
"It's okay, Mom. It's just a fracture in my left arm and some minor cuts..."
"That's all? Such a serious injury, can you call it 'that's all'?!"
Kyoko Yuuki was very emotional. Looking at her daughter's injuries, her eyes showed heartache. Then she looked at Asagiri standing next to Asuna, her tone softening slightly, but still very serious.
"Utsunomiya-san, what happened? Why is Asuna so badly injured?"
Asuna Yuuki reached out and tugged at Asagiri's sleeve, a cautious and slightly timid expression appearing on her beautiful face.
"Morning mist..."
Instead of answering Kyoko Yuuki's question directly, Asagiri turned to look at Asuna Yuuki and spoke in a rare gentle tone.
"The choice is yours; it's time to make a decision."
Upon hearing Asagiri's words, Asuna Yuuki took a deep breath to calm herself down. With a determined look in her eyes, she nodded to Asagiri, took her hand, and then looked at Kyoko Yuuki in front of her, speaking slowly.
"actually, I……"
"You...you're actually pregnant!?"
To Asuna Yuuki's complete surprise, before she could even finish speaking, Kyoko Yuuki, just by looking at her expression, assumed that her own guess was true. She frowned slightly and sighed heavily.
“You… I know you’re all young, and it’s unavoidable to act impulsively, but… but why didn’t you take proper precautions…”
Seeing that her mother had completely misunderstood her meaning, Asuna Yuuki blushed and shyly interrupted.
"Mom, what are you thinking?! I'm not pregnant. What I wanted to say is that Asagiri and I are both gamers!"
"Oh, player..."
When Kyoko Yuuki heard Asuna Yuuki say that she wasn't pregnant, she first breathed a sigh of relief, then looked puzzled.
"Huh? Player? What player? A video game player?"
Asuna Yuuki glanced at her father sitting on the sofa and noticed that Shozo Yuuki, like Kyoko Yuuki, looked somewhat puzzled, clearly having never heard of anything related to the game or players.
"Is such that……"
Having made her decision, Asuna Yuuki no longer hesitated. After sitting down on the sofa, she told her parents everything about starting the game and becoming a player. She was very nervous during the process, but whenever she felt the warmth from Asagiri's palm and turned her head to see the other person's eyes, a firm courage would emerge in her heart.
After listening, Shozo Yuuki and Kyoko Yuuki exchanged a glance. The middle-aged couple looked somewhat surprised and skeptical of their daughter's explanation.
"Asuna, you..."
Before her mother could even voice her questions, a rapier appeared in Yuuki Asuna's right hand. In an instant, several flashes of cold light appeared. Less than a second later, Yuuki Asuna raised her hand, smoothed her long flaxen hair, pointed to the table, and said calmly.
"this."
Kyoko Yuuki and Shozo Yuuki looked in the direction she was pointing and saw that an apple that had been sitting perfectly on the table had now been cut into eight neat, even pieces.
"This...you, how did you do that?"
"It's simple, I just used four swords."
"Huh? In such a short time..."
Seeing the stunned expressions on Kyoko Yuuki and Shozo Yuuki's faces, Asagiri chuckled and spoke.
"So you two can be sure now? Asuna and I are both players with extraordinary powers."
After a silence that lasted for more than ten seconds, Kyoko Yuuki looked at her daughter with a complex expression in her eyes and pursed her lips.
"Asuna, according to what you just said, this game carries the risk of death at any time... So... is there any way to quit? Is it possible to transfer your player status to someone else?"
"There's no such way, and..."
Yuuki Asuna's bright eyes revealed a resolute determination. She gently placed her right hand on the back of her mother's hand, looked directly into her mother's face, and said firmly, word by word.
"Even if such a method existed, I wouldn't give up my player identity. Doing so would just be burying my head in the sand, a futile attempt to cover up the truth. A person without power can't protect anything. I want to use my power to protect my family and friends with my own hands. Besides..."
At this point, Asuna Yuuki blushed slightly, but she managed to suppress her shyness and mustered her courage to continue.
"Asagiri needs me, and I want to stay by his side forever. No matter what happens or what dangers we face, I will no longer be afraid."
When Asuna Yuuki said those words, Asagiri suddenly felt something deep inside him being touched, and then a spinning phantom tarot card slowly floated down and landed in his outstretched palm.
"Tarot card 'Love'...Upright."
75
Chapter 75: The Metropolitan Police Department's Countermeasures.
In Tarot, "love" represents not only romantic love, but also "choice" and "harmony".
Having just mustered the courage to make a "choice" and tell her parents about the game and her identity as a player, Yuuki Asuna, just like Iwanaga Kotoko who had obtained the "Magician" title, finally completed her rebirth.
Asagiri, who has a strong bond with Asuna Yuuki and helped her complete this important process, unlocked a new Persona slot through the power of this bond.
"Magician" Kotoko Iwanaga, "Pope" Miwa Ashikaga, "Love" Asuna Yuuki.
Currently, Asagiri has a total of six Persona slots, four of which are for Shura, Alice, Mita, Hoddle, and Franklin, and two are empty.
"The Tarot cards of love..."
Seeing the illusory image of the tarot card disappear into Asagiri's palm, Asuna Yuuki was stunned for a moment, then her face lit up with joy, and she smiled.
"I've finally... grown up a bit and become a help to you..."
Asuna Yuuki was actually struggling with something.
Whether it was entering the game, becoming teammates, or teaming up to enter dungeons, she was always the one who arrived first...
But why? Why did Asagiri receive the "Magician" card, representing Iwanaga Kotoko, first, and the "His Highness" card, representing Ashikaga Miwa, second?
What about her? What about Asuna Yuuki?
She was the first to arrive, and she spent the most time with Asagiri, yet she never managed to provide Asagiri with a new Persona slot.
Although Asuna Yuuki appears to be poised and generous, she is, after all, a young girl, and given that it concerns Asagiri, her thoughts naturally become delicate and sensitive.
She was even worried that it might be because she was simply not qualified to be Asagiri's teammate, and was unable to build a bond with her, which was why she hadn't been able to unlock new Persona slots for her.
Now, Asuna Yuuki can finally rest easy.
“Utsunomiya-kun…”
Kyoko Yuuki looked at Asagiri Utsunomiya with a complicated expression and slowly spoke.
"What exactly are you thinking?"
What did I think?
Asagiri looked like he was seriously thinking, as if he was using his extraordinary wisdom. After a while, he smiled and answered.
"If we follow the design principles of most games, there will eventually be some kind of world-ending disaster, right? Only by becoming stronger can we save the world, that's probably how it is."
Upon hearing this, Kyoko Yuuki looked worried and hesitated.
"Saving the world, but... but you're still just high school students..."
"It takes high school students to save the world."
Asagiri first replied with a smile, then looked at Kyoko Yuuki and Shozo Yuuki and added casually.
"By the way, Asuna just forgot to mention something: we're not just players, but also..."
"We are the strongest players."
……
That evening, in the conference room of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department building.
"Please report the casualty figures."
Upon hearing the Superintendent of Police's words, a middle-aged man sitting at the table took a deep breath, looked at his colleagues, and said with a heavy expression.
"Then let me give a brief report. Otherworldly players have appeared in Saitama, Kanagawa, Chiba, and Yamanashi. As soon as we received the news, we mobilized mobile units in each location to try to capture them. The final result... was heavy casualties."
"The specific casualties of the mobile force are as follows: 257 slightly wounded, 224 seriously wounded, 158 killed, 2 targets killed, and 0 targets captured alive."
Upon hearing the middle-aged man's report, the high-ranking officers of the Metropolitan Police Department present couldn't help but show expressions of disbelief.
The casualty ratio is ridiculously high. 158 elite mobile police officers were killed, but the final result was only the successful killing of two targets.
Noticing the shock of the high-ranking Metropolitan Police Department officials present, the middle-aged man sighed heavily and explained.
"That's right, that's the reality in front of us. Even the two targets we successfully killed were only eliminated because they were already in poor condition. The mobile unit used firepower to suppress them and slowly wear them down. At this stage, the 'players' have exceeded human limits in all aspects of their physical abilities. Their movement speed and reflexes are too powerful. Our mobile unit members are just ordinary people, and even if they are armed, it is difficult for them to have a chance to aim and lock on."
"Moreover, the 'players' possess strange powers beyond our imagination, such as the ability to manipulate elemental magic like fire, ice, and lightning. These are manageable, but the problem is that some players seem to possess an aggressive spirit or the ability to manipulate spirits. Even when our mobile unit members are wearing heavy combat suits, they cannot defend against this type of attack."
Upon hearing this, a high-ranking official from the Metropolitan Police Department looked puzzled and asked.
"So how do we respond?"
The middle-aged man looked grave, and then said something that left the high-ranking officers of the Metropolitan Police Department in disbelief.
“We can’t handle it. As the ‘game’ progresses, the power gap between ordinary people and players will only become more and more disparate. Only ‘players’ can fight against ‘players’. This has already been proven. Our mobile force only eliminated two players from another world. The other thirty-two targets died suddenly. By the time our people arrived at the scene, their phones had already been taken. This must have been the work of ‘players’ from our world.”
"Hmm...I see..."
While everyone remained silent, the Superintendent General of Police, seated at the head of the table, spoke thoughtfully.
"Saitama, Kanagawa, Chiba, Yamanashi... This group of otherworldly players seems to be targeting Tokyo. By the way, what's the casualty situation in Tokyo?"
“No casualties.”
"Oh, that's how it is."
The Superintendent General nodded noncommittally, then said in a deep voice.
"The early clearing of Tokyo train stations and that so-called anti-terrorism drill were all arranged in advance by Ms. Ashikaga Miwa. It seems that she has very powerful players on her side. They were able to wipe out all the otherworldly players in Tokyo without us providing any assistance, and without causing any impact on the citizens. This is truly astonishing."
"Should we send someone to inquire about it?"
Use your brain, don't ask such stupid questions.
Upon hearing the probing question from the high-ranking officer of the Metropolitan Police Department, the Superintendent General frowned slightly and resolutely refused.
"Didn't you understand? Ashikaga Miwa could have chosen not to contact us beforehand, so no one could link this incident to her, but she did it anyway. This shows that she and the players on her side don't want the battle to affect innocent people in Tokyo. What's the point of sending people to inquire? Do you want Ashikaga Miwa's players to work for our Metropolitan Police Department? Don't be so naive. Doing so will only cause conflict. Didn't you listen carefully? Even the mobile units can't handle the current players, especially since Ashikaga Miwa's players are definitely much stronger than those otherworldly players. What should we do if we anger them? Are we supposed to use missiles in a densely populated city? Or deploy mechanized heavy firepower units into the city? That's absolutely impossible."
After saying this, the Superintendent General of Police paused for a moment before slowly speaking.
"On the contrary, if Ashikaga Miwa makes the same request to us again, such as evacuating people from a certain area, we must comply immediately. At the same time, we should not try to interfere with any of her actions. Her players also live in this world, and there is no benefit in openly confronting official institutions, so it is best to maintain the status quo. As for our internal players... well, that's not something we have the right to decide."