Chapter 183: Group Quest × 2
The sudden notification window made Ryū blink.
Since the two new members had joined, it had been well over a week — closer to two — without a single pop-up. The last one had been the Invitation Quest that brought Eriri in.
He focused on the window.
His expression shifted to something between surprise and interest.
He read it through once, then muttered, "A group quest. Last time was helping Ying Zheng's Qin's Moon world deal with that JoJo fan-world situation."
How long ago had that been? He was fuzzy on the exact count. Over a month, probably. Maybe longer.
[Group Quest 1: Eliminate all Undead Legion forces that have descended upon the Himouto! Umaru-chan world!
Participants: 4 Time limit: 30 days Reward: 5,000 Points each for all participating members, including the member native to the quest world.]
[Group Quest 2: Locate and neutralise the source of the Undead Legion's descent into the Himouto! Umaru-chan world!
Participants: 4 Time limit: 30 days Reward: 6,000 Points each for all participating members, including the member native to the quest world.]
Two quests this time, not three like before. And the rewards were smaller — nowhere close to half of what the previous round had paid out.
Quest 1 at 5,000. Quest 2 at 6,000. Combined: 11,000 Points.
Still, compared to his current balance of 1,070 — 1,000 of which was his untouchable emergency reserve, with today's sign-in making up the rest — eleven thousand was an enormous sum. Anything that cleared five digits was automatically significant.
And anything with a five-digit reward was not going to be a soft difficulty.
What even is an "Undead Legion"? Not a Reincarnator, not a Reviver, not a transmigrator. And the Himouto world is a pure slice-of-life setting — no combat whatsoever, no supernatural elements. Nothing.
This isn't like Saiki Kusuo's world where the everyday surface is hiding absurd hidden power levels. The Himouto world is genuinely, completely ordinary.
So what is this thing, and what is it doing there?
He tapped the small [LINK] in the notification window. The detailed briefing expanded in front of him.
[The dimensional barrier of the Himouto! Umaru-chan plane has suffered a destabilisation event, inadvertently forming a connection to a separate world. Within that separate world, a powerful undead sorcerer deployed a large-scale forbidden technique — "Undead Calamity." Due to the simultaneous barrier anomaly, the Undead Calamity did not manifest in its intended target world and instead emerged within the Himouto! Umaru-chan world.
Warning: Among the descended Undead Legion, certain individual entities are exceptionally powerful. Both quests are considered complete only when all undead have been eliminated AND the undead formation array has been neutralised. All members are urged to exercise caution.]
Ryū sat with it for a full minute before he had a clear picture of what had happened.
Some necromancer in a fantasy world had been in the middle of a battle — or conducting an experiment — and unleashed a massive forbidden technique. The undead army he'd summoned had been meant to descend on his world.
Instead, due to the barrier glitch between dimensions, the entire deployment missed its destination and landed in Umaru's world.
The necromancer himself was presumably standing somewhere in his own dimension right now, staring at the completely empty space where his army was supposed to have appeared, with absolutely no idea what had gone wrong.
If he'd been in the middle of an active fight when he cast it — Ryū poured a brief mental moment of silence in his direction.
That might be the most confusing and ignominious death in the history of necromancy.
"Still, this guy caused a lot of trouble. If Umaru hadn't joined the Chat Group and her world got hit with something like this — she'd have no warning, no options. The whole country could take serious damage."
He took several screenshots of the quest windows and posted them to the group.
RawrSoFierce: [Image] [Image] [Image] — Another group quest. Looks like a difficult one, but the reward is solid. Quest 1 is 5,000 Points per person, Quest 2 is 6,000.
RawrSoFierce: All members — high-combat-capability members can sign up. Slot limit is four.
My True Form Is Cola: Huh? WAIT WAIT WAIT!! The Himouto! Umaru-chan world — that's MY world! Something happened to my world?!
My True Form Is Cola: An Undead Legion — what does that even mean?! This is insane!!
Kaguya-sama: Two quests! Though from the look of it, the difficulty is fairly high. My combat ability probably won't contribute much.
Ying Zheng The Sovereign: Likewise — insufficient to be of use. Must strive to grow stronger.
Eternally Seventeen: This time I should be strong enough to qualify for a slot, shouldn't I~?
Edward Newgate: Gurararara — are we doing dice rolls again?
Terrible Tornado: Surfacing briefly. Passing through.
Admiral Kizaru: 11,000 Points total — that's quite something~ The Points from the Qin's Moon world last time gave me a considerable power jump. This old man feels like he could take on two Four Emperors simultaneously right about now~
Edward Newgate: Hm???
Admiral Kizaru: …Naturally, when I say Four Emperors, Whitebeard is excluded~
Little Sakura of the Tohsaka: Passing through.
"…"
The 11,000 Point total reward had captured everyone's attention without exception. Every member of the Dimensional Chat Group — veteran or newcomer — understood how much Points actually mattered. Eleven thousand, properly spent, was enough to take an ordinary person to roughly the level Zoro had demonstrated when the Straw Hats first arrived at Judicial Island — on par with or exceeding a Marine Headquarters Vice Admiral.
Points were never taken lightly. Not by Ryū, not by anyone.
The one member with complicated feelings right now was Umaru.
Because it was her world.
In the Himouto! world, Umaru snapped out of hamster mode without a second thought — straight from chibi form back to her full composed teenage self. She walked to the window, pulled back the curtains, and looked up.
The sky was wrong.
Heavy, dark clouds had rolled in from nowhere, covering the entire visible skyline. The light had taken on an oppressive quality. Something about it made her skin prickle.
"The quest said an Undead Legion would descend. Nothing seems to have happened yet — but the Chat Group wouldn't joke about something like this. Which means… something really is coming?"
It was summer break. Umaru hadn't planned to leave the apartment. A devoted homebody in her natural habitat.
And now that homebody appeared to be at the epicentre of a potential nation-scale disaster.
The emotional complexity of this was significant.
If I hadn't joined the Chat Group, I probably wouldn't have any warning at all. I'd just be sitting here waiting to die.
She shook herself.
"Right — Onii-san is at work. I need to call him, tell him to find somewhere to hide. And Ebina-chan, the others — they won't believe me, but I have to try anyway."
She was already searching for her phone when the window she'd pushed the curtains back from lit up.
A pale green glow. Intense enough to flood into the room.
Umaru's expression froze. She turned back to the window and looked up.
In the grey sky not far away —
Suspended hundreds of metres in the air —
An enormous magic formation, the kind that only existed in anime. Hanging there silently, covering nearly a fifth of the city's visible area. The eerie green light it cast wasn't blinding, didn't seem to have any immediate physical effect on anything below — but the sensation it produced was something else entirely.
Every hair on her body stood up.
"No — seriously — wasn't this a little fast?!"
Umaru swallowed hard. Her eyes were wide.
She'd been in the Arena. She'd seen things. She'd thought she had some frame of reference.
This still hit differently.
The formation pulsed with a cold, creeping dread that had nothing to do with temperature.
My True Form Is Cola: [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] — Um, everyone, quick question — this isn't the Undead Legion the quest was talking about, is it?!
My True Form Is Cola: I was just about to call my family and friends to warn them and this thing just appeared out of nowhere, it looks like a magic formation straight out of an anime.
My True Form Is Cola: Actually it basically IS a magic formation. There's no other word for it.
"…"
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