Ch.405[Episode 405] Unexpected

“Uncle?”

Sir Dominic tilted his head as he watched Kageyasha quietly rising from his seat.

“That’s right.”

Kageyasha said this while bending one knee before Sir Dominic in a bow.

“Let me introduce myself again, Uncle Dominic! I am Don Kageyasha!”

“Hmm?”

Sir Dominic, completely caught off guard by this unexpected statement, asked Kageyasha again.

“Are you Don Castello’s son?”

“Don Cartello’s side, actually.”

“?”

Sir Dominic was bewildered by these consecutive unpredictable developments.

“There’s nothing strange about it. I’m just deeply immersed in foreign cultures…”

Kageyasha said this as he removed the yaksha mask covering his face.

Behind it was a pure-looking young man with blonde hair and blue eyes.

His appearance was quite gallant, befitting his large build, but his drooping eyes gave him a rather kind impression.

Sir Dominic thought he could vaguely see a resemblance to Don Cartello in his features.

“But thinking about it, I don’t believe I’m close enough to Don Cartello to be called uncle by you.”

Sir Dominic said, tilting his head.

“My father always said this.”

Don Kageyasha began speaking, as if to resolve Sir Dominic’s confusion.

“During the Gacha World incident, if it weren’t for Sir Dominic, he would have just been an ordinary person, diminishing his own value until he disappeared. He said it was all thanks to Sir Dominic that he could maintain his value as the owner of an amusement park as he is now.”

To the point that my ears would bleed from hearing it, Kageyasha muttered.

“So on the day I was born, my father said he went to Sir Dominic, knelt down, and asked him to be my godfather. Sir Dominic gladly accepted the proposal, and since then, you became my uncle.”

“Ah.”

Sir Dominic nodded in understanding at Kageyasha’s explanation.

Just as children are told to call their father’s friends “uncle,” it seemed that was the case with Kageyasha as well.

This was something Sir Dominic was familiar with, as he had once rushed with fellow knights to congratulate when a colleague’s wife gave birth in Feralant.

“I see. So that’s what you meant by uncle.”

Sir Dominic continued nodding, but suddenly another question arose.

“Wait, then why did you request a duel with me?”

“Ah, that’s…”

Kageyasha scratched the back of his head with an awkward expression, as if it was difficult to explain.

But seemingly unable to lie as a warrior, he sighed deeply and said:

“Call it youthful recklessness. Actually, I just wanted to beat Uncle Dominic at least once, so…”

“You wanted to beat me at least once?”

Sir Dominic tilted his head at Kageyasha’s words momentarily, but soon realized what he meant.

The future Kageyasha must have frequently challenged the future Sir Dominic and lost every time.

“It wasn’t just losing. I was utterly defeated.”

Kageyasha said, as if reading Sir Dominic’s thoughts while looking at his face.

“So I thought I might be able to win against the past version of my uncle. Plus, we’re the same tier.”

“The same tier?”

Sir Dominic was so surprised that he forgot the etiquette of knighthood and raised his voice.

This meant that the young man before him, Don Kageyasha, was a 4-star.

“It only took you two years to become a 4-star, Uncle. Having trained under you for 10 years, I’m a bit late, I suppose.”

Kageyasha replied to Sir Dominic’s words.

While 20 years wasn’t particularly short, 10 years in Gacha Land was quite a brief period.

For an ordinary person, it would be the time to challenge or achieve 3-star status.

To reach 4-star in such a short time indicated that the person before him was no ordinary talent.

Of course, it also showed how ridiculously fast Sir Dominic’s tier advancement had been.

“I always boasted that I could win if we were the same tier, but you just smiled as if you knew something. Now I see you remembered this situation.”

Kageyasha realized why the future Sir Dominic would always chuckle at Kageyasha’s boasting.

Even at the same tier, there was a huge gap in skill between Sir Dominic and Kageyasha.

And having already experienced this fact in the past, the future Sir Dominic found Kageyasha’s boasting merely absurd.

“Anyway, a promise is a promise, so I’ll give you this now.”

Kageyasha handed Sir Dominic a platypus doll.

It was slightly squashed from being in his bag, but not enough to be concerned about.

“Please accept this.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Sir Dominic immediately accepted the platypus doll.

Kageyasha then opened the door and stepped outside, as if his business was finished.

Sir Dominic hurriedly called out to him.

“Hey, where are you going now?”

“Actually, I came here for several reasons.”

Kageyasha said as he put the yaksha mask back on his face.

“I need to complete a gift for my mother, and I must fulfill what Uncle… that is, the future Uncle asked me to do.”

“My future self?”

“Yes.”

Sir Dominic became intensely curious about what his future self had asked him to do.

“Could I know what I asked you to do?”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Uncle. I was told to keep it secret even from you.”

I thought it was just wordplay then, but now I understand what it meant, Kageyasha muttered quietly.

“Anyway, please be good to Sir Dominica.”

“?”

“She described this period as truly happy.”

Kageyasha said this as he left through the door.

When Sir Dominic went out to see him off, he had already completely disappeared from the corridor.

“The time when Sir Dominica was happiest.”

Sir Dominic turned to look at Sir Dominica sitting in the child-sized chair.

Sir Dominica, seemingly exhausted from the long fight, was dozing off with drool trickling down.

Sir Dominic smiled at the sight and lifted Sir Dominica from her seat, holding her in his arms.

Then he tucked the platypus doll he had just received into Sir Dominica’s arms and turned to look at the person who had been judging until just now.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“Don’t mention it. It was our job to begin with.”

The judge nodded with a bright smile, slightly lifting his hat.

“Anyway, I’ll record this match as a perfect victory for Sir Dominic.”

The judge took out a notebook and wrote ‘Dominic vs Kageyasha 1:0 PERFEKT’.

“I lived in a place with a strong accent.”

The judge made an excuse for writing ‘perfekt’ instead of ‘perfect’.

“Anyway, congratulations on your perfect victory, Sir Dominic. Such occurrences have been rare since this colosseum was established. I believe it’s an achievement that can be counted on fewer than ten fingers since the beta test.”

The judge extended his hand to Sir Dominic for a handshake.

“I’d like to request the honor of shaking hands with someone who has set such a record.”

“Very well.”

Sir Dominic extended the hand that wasn’t holding Sir Dominica and shook hands with the judge.

“It’s an honorable day. Just to have judged such a match.”

The judge said with an even brighter smile after shaking hands with Sir Dominic.

“I should be going now.”

Sir Dominic said, looking at Sir Dominica stirring in his arms.

“Take care.”

The judge bowed again to Sir Dominic, slightly lifting his hat.

Just as Sir Dominic was about to leave the room.

“Oh, by the way.”

The judge suddenly called out to Sir Dominic, as if remembering something.

“About this event, for some reason, many commanders are complaining about discomfort.”

“?”

“No, just something for you to know.”

Sir Dominic tilted his head at the judge’s words, but soon thought it was just small talk and turned around again.

Since Sir Dominica was sleeping like this, he thought he should look for a nearby café, even if going home was too much trouble.

…

System Industries.

This massive company responsible for maintaining and servicing Gacha Land was currently busy with matters related to the future world event.

And here, the coders who were busiest of all…

“What’s with the optimization for this event?”

“Ah, Executive Director. We can’t help it. To load future data, we first need to download all the data in between, and also-“

“Enough, enough! Do you think I called you here for excuses? Memory usage is spiking, overheating is severe, commanders are in an uproar – I called you to come up with solutions!”

The person called Executive Director took off his coat and threw it at the coder.

The coder didn’t seem to be of a particularly low position either, but overwhelmed by the Executive Director’s intensity, he fidgeted nervously before being hit by the coat.

“Somehow, solve this optimization issue.”

“U-until when, sir?”

“…Tomorrow!”

The Executive Director was about to say “today,” but thinking that would be too harsh on the coders, he decided to give them a day.

Of course, from the coders’ perspective, there wasn’t much difference between a few hours and a day.

“We can’t even fix the memory issues in a day. So-“

“One day. Just one day. If you can’t do it, I’ll have no choice but to resort to folk religion!”

“Folk religion? What do you…”

“If I sacrifice you as offerings, the God of Optimization will be moved and solve this problem. Don’t you think?”

“…I’ll try to resolve it as quickly as possible.”

The person called Executive Director casually declared he would grind the coders to dust, and the coders accepted the one-day timeframe, hoping such a situation wouldn’t come to pass.

Indeed, could the overheating and memory issues caused by optimization problems be resolved?