"Hey, why do you have such a strange aura about you?"
After finding the hidden drop, Frostfang's Claw followed the three girls back to the Blood Rat Gang's hideout. "Razor" Dorothy was whittling an apple with her eagle-claw knives, snacking as she practiced her handiwork. She immediately sensed the orb of calculation hanging from her wrist vibrate.
That meant the first person to obtain a special token called "Echo of the Rat King" was approaching her.
Remembering Lord Murphy's specific instructions, Dorothy pursed her lips, stood up, and tossed a thin slice of apple into her mouth. Then she put her hands on her hips and addressed the person before her—her warrior, and one of her only two apprentices at the moment.
"Did you run into something 'unclean' while you were wandering around down there?"
"Whoa, a special dialogue trigger!"
Little Ashina, who was eager to find out what the hidden drop was, immediately widened her eyes.
She gave the wooden-stiff Frostfang's Claw a shove from behind. He reluctantly stepped forward and briefly explained how he'd obtained the special token.
"Oh, so the Gathering Stone is that special psionic item Lady Triss placed there? I've heard that some lucky people are blessed by the Goddess of Fortune during a memory's replay and manage to find unusual remnants.
"They say it's a gift from the mysteries of psionics. I don't really understand it, anyway.
"I'm just an ignorant thief."
Ms. Dorothy shrugged and repeated what Lord Murphy had taught her to say.
It was an extremely perfunctory response.
She felt as if she were playing make-believe with children. Yet the more expressionless her NPC act was, the more the players around her realized that this AI seemed kind of dumb.
Well, not as smart as the other NPCs.
Had the development