Chapter 1292 Resonating Mirror and Howling From the Sky PART 2 Part 1

「So, In other words, the word “motherhood” represents the actual state of the mind…… And it is a state that can only be firmly established when both mother and child are present. Without any one of those components, “motherhood” cannot take place……」

「Umm, yeah, I guess so? That’s actually a pretty common knowledge, isn’t it?」

「It doesn’t really matter if the child is oblivious to the love of its mother or her presence. It doesn’t really matter if the mother imposes her love onto her child against the child’s will. Just as the mother faces the child sincerely with all of her love to give, the child also treats the mother sincerely with all the love it can grant her…… That’s what I mean by “motherhood” here. Yes, that’s right, Tsuchinoko-san!!」

「Hmm? Y-Yeah, sure. I guess so? Whatever you say, man.」

「And judging from the gestures of your body language, I do believe that it is safe to assume that you are somewhat accustomed to moving around with the use of the female avatar, is that correct?」

Dude, how the hell were you even able to deduce such a thing here……?

「I don’t really suppose that you are a cross-dressing gamer, a female pretending to me male, but…… Maybe you have played against cross-dressing opponents in the past, learning how they tend to move and operate so that you would have easier time fighting against them. Such a way of research conducting is truly admirable, if I do say so myself.」

「O-Oh? Y-Yeah, I see…… Something like that……」

Now I have to wonder….. Is there really some sort of sense or purpose in me getting this weird lecture about the basics of motherhood here? Aside from someone trying to parade just how extensive their knowledge really is? Not to mention that this kind of situation only took place because at the current moment every other member of “Library’s Study Kitchen was busy with their own preparations, and that left both myself and Eternal Zero completely unattended and unsupervised…… Or EterZero for short. In the first place, why EterZero is so happy to talk about things like that with a complete stranger who might not even be all that interested in the subject in the first place? ……By the way, I feel like I was told something similar when I was playing through Survival Island once, and then something remotely similar happened in Spell Creation Online as well. No, seriously now…… What is wrong with people and that “cross-dressing/motherhood” subject for them to appear in every single game……? It’s seriously quite weird.

「Well actually, since we are already on the subject, EterZero-san, wouldn’t you say that age also plays a major factor when it comes to the idea of motherhood? For both the mother and child’s sides of this relationship?」

「Well, true, this is an important factor, indeed. But like everything else in this life, it has both its ups and downs. And just like in any other relationship, there is always a superior side and the inferior side. In real life I am a female teacher…… So I have been thinking about that notion quite a lot, especially recently.」

「Ah, so that’s why…… So that’s the reason……」

Now I want to say that I somewhat understand the reasoning behind EterZero’s mini-lecture about motherhood, but don’t you think that it would be a whole lot better if you were to just share those thoughts of yours with the rest of the Study Kitchen, and not bore random people with it to death!? Seriously now! But at the very least that’s one thing that we were able to get clarified here! Now, note to all parents out there! Don’t run from your parental obligations and responsibilities and face them head on like adults you are supposed to be!

…… That’s something I would seriously like to scream at the very top of my lungs right about now, but I am not going to do that. Last thing we want now is to draw too much attention to us. So you should be thankful that I am such a good and compassionate soul, you know!?

「Heeey! Did you guys managed to learn something new or at least interesting!?」

「Ahh, it’s hard to say that for sure, but in general, we might actually be onto something here!!」

Seriously now? Well, that’s actually good, because I was actually starting to wonder about that new monster myself and how we can approach it. As a matter of course, all of the monsters in here are of a type that I have never seen before, but the effects of the Luukan’s wounds seem to have been applied without problems even in this new area as well. And although I had a lot of fun chatting, both EterZero and myself have been forced to do quite a bit of fighting for a past while now.

「We still have forty minutes left on the clock. More than enough time for some much needed consideration and thinking, if I do say so myself.」

「This isn’t something that can be cleared in under five minutes, mind you. This here ninth layer challenges the player to use the entirety of the combined knowledge they might have acquired up until this point in time, as well at the one from the previous challenges and trials. That’s the gist of how it works here.」

「Okay, so? Is there some sort of a special meaning behind that or not?」

「We may encounter some familiar-looking monsters in here, but they are all probably the same ones that were already mentioned in the materials that we managed to obtain before arriving at the ninth layer.」

…… Well, well, well. Ain’t that a really shitty deal, to say the least? Or to be more specific, a huge pile of really specific conditions that just continue to stack on top of one another with seemingly no end in sight? …… And when it comes to the Library, the information is everything. But it certainly does not help that we have a literal information overload in here. So, how do we go about selecting what’s important and what is not in here?

「This is one of the things we managed to find in this place before.」

「…… And what’s that supposed to be?」

「By updating the terminal that will be available for purchase in the third stage of the bouquet puzzle here, you can gain access to information on other levels, but this only applies to the inside of the Behemoth. This is just an assumption on our end, but we speculate that once the entirety of the Behemoth is going to be captured, we will be able to gain access to this terminal from anywhere around the world map as well.」

Bouquet puzzle…… Huh, aaahh!! That thing! I remember now! This thing is basically the Behemoth’s equivalent of the Leviathan’s Amber Jack Pass! Yes, yes, yes. Now I see, now I get it. Unlike the Leviathan, Behemoth was structure almost like a genuine multi-layered dungeon, so I have almost completely forgotten that this item even existed in the first place! If anything, unlike the Leviathan, which was employing the strategy of hanging a banana right in front of the monkey and observing its behavior, this facility was all about testing and testing with little to no variety to it. That is why I did not even have any opportunity to go shopping in here with the currency I managed to obtain. However, the currencies have only as much use as the one who wishes to spend it gives it, so maybe it would be a good idea to go shopping sometime soon.