With my reading of volume 16 put on hold, I"m able to finish work on another part yet again. Also, if you still weren"t aware, I"ve put up a discord server where people can discuss about Netoge and ask me some questions about the other volumes if you so wish.

The link to the discord server is right here:

It"s still a sorry sight to be honest, but I"m still looking forward to talking with other English speakers about this great work.

All that said, I"m still on course to finishing volume 3 before the end of the month so there should be no worries there. Also, the next volume is also quite shorter than the previous ones but the author really laid the ネトゲ用語 heavy on it in exchange. It was also the volume where I binged on reading the next few volumes because of a single segment that was really nostalgic, but I"ll save that for when I"m finished with volume 3. There"s still part 5 and the epilogue after this one, so look forward to that as well.

As always, please let me know if you find any errors in the translation (you can now contact me via Discord, as I check that more often than my email).

All that aside, please enjoy reading the climax of this volume.

Translation: Yamaking

A few days after, we, the Modern Electronics Communication Game Club, a.s.sembled at our clubroom.

"It"s almost time. Is everyone ready?"

"No problems here."

"I"m all okay over here—… Not that I actually have to do anything."

"I"m also fine but, uhm…"

Ako still has no idea as to what we"ve scheming.
I tapped that shoulder of hers whilst showing an energetic smile on my face— hoping that she would feel rea.s.sured upon seeing that.

"Well, just watch. Today is the day of vengeance. We"ll show that guy that we"re not just going to let him toy around with us like that."

"…okay…"

The hands on the clock show that the time now is 3 in the afternoon.

Now is the appointed time.

"We"re starting."

"Operation, start!"

"Operation start, roger—!"

"R, roger—?"

I logged in to the low-leveled beginner character that I created beforehand.

Taking after Rusian"s naming scheme, I named the character Piroshki-kun.

TL note: Rusian – Russian. Piroshki is a Russian pastry.

I controlled Piroshki-kun"s movement, making him go into one of the capital"s back alley where not much people pa.s.sed by.

Waiting in the middle of that alleyway was a character, who was in beginner gear, that looked like someone we had met recently. That character then walked towards mine.

Its name was lon. d.a.m.n it, making it so painfully obviously like this is just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with us!

TL note: The name lon here is LON in all lower case.

"Alright, Target confirmed. No doubt about it."

"The operation is proceeding phase two. Plan N, start!"

"Phase two, roger. Plan N starting."

"U, uhm… What were you all doing since earlier?"

Don"t sweat it and just watch for now. This is the important part.

And then, the character with the beginner gear stopped in front of me.

A trade request window popped up in the middle of my screen.

I slowly moved my cursor and accepted the trade request.

"What"s the status of Plan N?"

"We"re still waiting for a response, 30 seconds left."

"Nishimura, do you think you can wait it out?"

"I"ve no other choice but to do that right?!"

The trade started without any exchange of words.

The other side added a huge amount of gold to the trade window and accepted the trade.

Even though there were no exchange of words between us, I could feel an absurd amount of pressure from across the screen that was telling me to push the OK b.u.t.ton already.

"Master, is it still not done?"

"15 seconds."

"Kuh, that"s tough."

"…Uhm, I"m feeling pretty lonely being the only one left out you know…"

I can"t just let the trade end like this.

I was right here patiently waiting but— d.a.m.n it! That guy cancelled it from his side!

"Phase two has failed. We"re moving on to phase three!"

"5 seconds left. If phase 3 succeeds, then we have a prospect for success."

Alright, I"m counting on you.

After the trade earlier got cancelled, I sent out a trade request of my own before the other party could leave.

"I wanted to make the deal but I got caught up with something that took a bit to finish" is the appeal I"m going for here.

I made the trade request with the full intent that "I"m going to properly do it this time".

As expected, the trade window opened again for the second time around.

A huge amount of gold was again added to the trade window.

"Hey, is Plan N not done yet? I"m at my limit here!"

"Wait, just a little, a little bit longer—— alright, here they are!"

At the same time Master said that, my whole screen turned white.

After a moment of loading, my screen displayed us being in something that looked like the center of the arena.

GM01 Nyack: Good day.

Enshrined in that area was a game master, as if it were completely normal.

GM01 Nyack: Do you have an idea as to why I have teleported the both of you here?

lon: …Huh?

"Oh yeeeaaaaaaah!"

"Baited!"

"Fish On!"

"U, uhm, err, eeh?"

TL note: Fish On! Ozenji is a game fishing theme park in Kawasaki.

Ako was trembling in panic as we shouted cheered for joy.

We"ll explain it later so just celebrate with us for now!

GM01 Nyack: The management team has received word just now that the two of you are engaging in RMT activities.

lon: The heck are you saying? I didn"t even do such a thing?

That scamming b.a.s.t.a.r.d said that, dumbfounded.

As if. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I"m continuing on with this conversation.

Piroshki: Yes, we were trying to do RMT.

lon: Haaa!?

Lon was astonished.

That"s right. This situation is indeed, me trying to perform Real Money Trade with this guy.

Through the use of that good-for-nothing message board, you could look for people engaging in RMT and strike a deal with a complete stranger online. That"s what the live GM report function is for.

But of course, that was actually all a complete lie. A huge farce. I had no plan of paying up even one cent. This was all done to thoroughly fool that guy.

Well, I can only imagine his surprise. Since it was a failed attempt at the RMT, he probably thought he could still weasel his way out of this one, but I bet he didn"t expect someone to go ahead and confess to the crime.

Piroshki: I got his contact through an RMT site. We were just in the middle of said RMT as well.

lon: What the heck is that? Isn"t that kinda weird— d.a.m.n it! You used that board to set me up!

Piroshki: You"re the one who set me up first.

It looks as if he finally realized it after I said that, since Lon seemed to click his tongue as he said,

lon: So you"re the guy from that time? lol Heh, Aren"t you quite the moron? lololol

Lon said that, looking all important as he laughed himself silly.

lon: What does an attempted RMT where no money changed hands prove anyway? lololol For all your efforts, you"ll get me temp banned for 3 days. Congratulations lolol Good job, good job lololol

Sorry to interrupt you while you"re in the middle of your victory speech, but that"s just not how it"s going to fly you know?

As I was about to type that, Nyack-san beat me to the punch as he said,

GM01 Nyack: No, someone has also filed a report of you account hacking using the character name "Lon". We have also carefully examined your past violations because of what has occured today. Since we already have sufficient proof, we are also considering filing charges based on the act of "Prohibition of Unauthorized Access".

Uwah, he"s really mad. It looks like Nyack-san has also already had his fill of this guy.

Well of course right? That guy went and ruined that collab event, so there"s no way he wouldn"t be mad right?

lon: Haa!? I didn"t even do anything!

Piroshki: But you did, didn"t you? The evidence matches after all.

lon: Evidence?

Nyack-san calmly replied to Lon, who was in such a panic.

GM01 Nyack: In the beginning, we could not confirm that the reported illegal access violation and you were the same person.

GM01 Nyack: However, using the IP logs sent to us by the RMT board, we were able to determine that the person who posted there and the one using the character "Lon" is the same person.

GM01 Nyack: And we were also able to confirm that the IP of you, the person who showed up for the deal, and the one who performed the illegal access violation is one and the same.

GM01 Nyack: Thus, we have concluded that the person who performed the illegal access violation and the one engaging in RMT is the same person.

"…Uhm, what does that mean?"

It seems Ako is at her wit"s end.

Err, let"s see, to explain it properly…

"An IP address is something like an a.s.signed number for each person connected to the internet. If you do something bad, it can be used to identify you and catch you."

"Yup, I knew that."

That"s great. This makes explaining it easy then.

"So then, with regards to what the admins do, whenever someone breaks any of the rules, they use their IP to confirm the culprit. They then look up everything that is related to the IP of the culprit."

"Yes, I"ve heard of that often."

That"s why if anyone did anything fishy using the PCs in our clubroom, we would all be in trouble.

"So based on that, we reported the one selling my items since he"s probably the one who hacked me, but since their IPs are different, they said it was impossible."

"…Why were they different?"

"When I looked into the IP addresses I"ve collected, I found out that he normally plays from home, but when he does go do some shady stuff, he goes off to a net cafe."

All the information we needed was already in our hands.

"We can figure out the culprit using circ.u.mstantial evidence, but since their IPs are different, they can"t be caught. The admins couldn"t just ban him either. That"s where my idea of gathering evidence to prove that they"re the same person came about."

To do that, I made use of a trading board that specializes in RMT.

"I figured, that guy would probably post at the RMT board from home, and then go to a net cafe to do the deal. Once he does that, I could get the interrelation between those two IPs— that, no matter how anyone would look at it, they would look like the same person to anyone."

"And so that"s how this all came to be?"

By this, she"s referring to the questioning of the GM of the scammer.

When I looked at my screen, Lon was still in the middle of fruitlessly attempting to resist.

lon: Board you say? I haven"t posted anything in any board to make my IP appear in there.

GM01 Nyack: We have already confirmed it with the written logs.

lon: I told you I didn"t post anything!

No, no, of course you did.

Piroshki: You posted it remember? On an RMT board that only shady people would definitely use.

lon: No I didn"t. Even if I did post anything, there"s no way a site like that would give out other people"s IPs to the admins. Just how many years do you think I"ve been doing this s.h.i.t?

Piroshki: I know right? That"s what you would think right?

lon: Huh?

With that simple reaction, I could feel the intense panic Lon was going through right now.

Aren"t you feeling it now? The same bad feeling I got when you hacked my account.

Well then, that intuition of yours is spot on!

Piroshki: Nevermind that site betraying you or anything, that"s my site that I made three days ago.

lon: Huh? The heck are you saying? That site has posts going back for years…

Piroshki: Man, it sure was a lot of work, fabricating several years worth of authentic-sounding posts.

lon: Huh? Wa, you don"t mean…

Yes, that"s exactly what I mean.

lon: You faked an entire site just to set me up!?

Hahahaha, fooled you, didn"t I!

You fell for the link to the fake excellent RMT site which could only be found in my fake scam blog!

That"s right! I made it so that you would access the "fake excellent RMT site" whose link could only be found in the "fake scam blog" that could only be seen by you!

"It"s these kinds of people that have needlessly strong sense of curiosity after all."

"Since it"s a pretty authentic looking site, he wouldn"t be satisfied without taking a look around as well, right?"

And then, once he checks the link to that site, even though the rates are suspiciously high, he won"t be able to stop himself from not suspecting that rarely visited site.

I"ve made it to look like it was pretty hidden to match with his preferences. I definitely believed that he would fall for it.

He"ll be completely convinced that there"s no way the board would rat him out, so I knew he would just simply make a post from his own home. After that, complying with the rules written on the site that you shouldn"t conduct trades from home, he went to a net cafe to seal the deal.

Then, if I just send a mail to the admins as the site admin of both the blog and the board, and then take into consideration the report about the person selling the items and his scam blog, then they can surely find evidence that the one doing the RMT and that account hacker is one and the same person.

It went really well this time, but it"s not as if I needed him to get caught in that as well.

In any case, I just tried collecting as much information as I can. This incident aside, I"m now rea.s.sured that as long as you can get enough clear evidence, that would be enough to get the admins to make a move.

Piroshki: Man, it was a really bad move to get the hotel involved in this. It"s because the collaboration suffered in this mess that the admins just had to act right away.

lon: What are you, an idiot? Going through all that s.h.i.t just to fool a single person…

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

So, how does it feel for the almighty scammer to finally experience what getting scammed is like?

"There"s no way I"m going to let you get away with making my wife cry!"

"Rusian…"

GM01 Nyack: Regarding this incident, the two parties that were involved, namely, Hotel Flores" management staff and Legendary Age"s management team, would like to hear from you. In line with this, we would like to know your phone"s contact number, email address, or the like.

lon: Ah how stupid, I"m not gonna bother with that. I don"t really care anymore so just do whatever you want.

GM01 Nyack: In that case, we will be filing a request for a disclosure of information from your provider.

lon: Ah, shut up. I"m never going to play a s.h.i.tty game like this again anyway so I don"t really care.

Without really listening to what Nyack-san said, Lon just spouted sharp parting remarks before disappearing.

That was unbelievably repulsive, but man, I feel really refreshed.

GM01 Nyack: We will further investigate this incident regarding lon-san.

Lon wasn"t here anymore, so Nyack-san directed his message to me.

GM01 Nyack: I can a.s.sure you that the matter of a permaban is already settled, but any concerns beyond that remain uncertain.

Having the cops sent after him— I guess is something that won"t happen. Well, of course right?

I guess having the admins act on evidence gathered by an amateur is already the most satisfactory outcome here.

"For now, not having that guy appear in front of our faces ever again is good enough. "

"It"s an epic win right!"

"…A win? I wouldn"t call it that."

"…?"

GM01 Nyack: Also connected with this incident is Piroshki-san"s violation of the rules.

It"s finally come to this.

It"s time for Rusian"s greatest moment of failure.

"Rusian"s… violation of the rules?"

"Of course. I attempted RMT and even made a board for RMT."

This could easily be construed as a violation of the rules.

I won"t be surprised no matter what punishment they decide for me at this point.

GM01 Nyack: While it"s true that a GM cannot intervene unless there is clear evidence that something has occurred, that does not mean that it would be alright for me to overlook this infraction of the rules. I will recognize that Piroshki-san has violated the rules.

Piroshki: Yes.

GM01 Nyack: In regards to that, Piroshki-san"s account will be temporarily banned for 1 week.

Piroshki: Yes.

GM01 Nyack: That is all.

"……Yes?"

Eh? That"s all?

Is there nothing else? Any sort of punishment?

GM01 Nyack: Also, regarding the character that was deleted due to the illegal access violation, considering that this is a special case scenario, we have restored only the said character"s state to how it was before the incident.

"Eh? Eh?"

"What does that mean?"

"Doesn"t it simply mean that Rusian is getting only his character back?"

GM01 Nyack: A portion of your quests, your guild membership, and your marriage status and the like may have disappeared, so please be aware of that. That sums up my report on the details regarding this matter, but do you have any more inquiries?

Piroshki: Err… What about the punishment for Rusian"s account?

It"s plain as day that we"re the same person, since that"s my main account after all. At the very least, I was expecting my account to get banned— is what I thought as I nervously asked that question.

GM01 Nyack: From the management team"s point of view

Nyack-san cut off his line at that point, and continued with,

GM01 Nyack: the aforementioned character was not found guilty of performing any sort of violation.

He then smiled as he wrapped it all up.

"Nyack-tan is seriously dreamy isn"t he?"

"I think GM is a pretty cool guy."

Amazing. This person really is a pretty cool guy.

GM01 Nyack: Well then, I hope you keep enjoying Legendary Age from here on out.

The screen"s display suddenly shifted again.

After a bit of loading, Piroshki-kun was sent back to the back alley where he formerly was.

Thank you, Piroshki-kun. Your role in all of this is now over.

Thank you, GM Nyack-san. I will never forget you.

"Uhm, Rusian, he said that they already restored your character right?"

Ako timidly raised her hand.

Oh yeah, since he said "restored" then it"s probably there by now right?

"Let"s have a look see."

I logged in to the account that I usually use, Rusian"s. I entered my pa.s.sword and was then sent to the character selection screen.

Waiting right there was the main character that I always use, albeit, he has no shield, no armor, and was in a pretty pitiful state.

"Ru, Rusian! It"s Rusian everyone!"

"Yeah, it looks like it."

Ah, what a relief. Now I won"t have to level him back again from the ground up.

"My Rusian came baaaaaaaaaaaack!"

"Yeah, yeah, welcome back and all that—. Though I was right here the whole time you know—"

"Rusian—!"

I couldn"t help but just force out a laugh at Ako, who was dancing wildly.

What? Did you plan on being depressed the whole time if Rusian didn"t come back?

"What a relief—. I really couldn"t stand having to help Nishimura level back up if this didn"t happen."

How about actually celebrating for a better reason? Though, as I had my gaze set on her, it seems she already got the message.

"…I"m really glad."

"Thanks."

Segawa also looked a bit happy as she said that.

"Now that that"s been all settled and we feel like celebrating— How does going on a little trip sound to everyone?"

Master said that as she flashed us some kind of ticket.

"Actually, there"s an event going on right now in a place called Hotel Flores that"s named "Legendary Age Collaboration Event" you see."

"It"s no wonder that would come up now but you don"t mean…"

"Yes, that"s exactly what I mean."

On the ticket Master was holding, you could see the words "Free Complimentary Ticket" written on it.

""In grat.i.tude to your swift response regarding the incident that helped us resolved the problem right away, and as a token of our apology for having caused you inconvenience", is what it says here. I think that as fellow net game enthusiasts, it would common courtesy to accept this… but what do you say?"

"……"

"……"

Having mixed feelings about the question, we looked at each other"s faces.

Honestly, the fact is that we don"t really have a fond memory of that place but…

"…Alright, shall we go then?"

"Are you okay with that, Rusian?"

"Aren"t you traumatized by that hotel?"

Don"t go deciding by yourself that I was traumatized by that.

"It was pretty fun about halfway into it but we just ran into a bit of bad luck right near the end. I wouldn"t want to end our long-awaited camp with that kind of memory now, would I?"

"Right?", I said that as I looked at Ako. She then began to laugh and nod.

"I guess so. It was really fun after all!"

"Then it"s decided."

"Well, if it"s okay with you then that"s fine by me too."

After Segawa, who still doesn"t seem convinced by all this, I spoke out the last thought I really had in my mind.

"What"s more, the collab items from that event we"re really strong., but those items were all deleted from my account."

"Ah… Now I"m convinced."

So that"s what satisfied you? Well, it"s fine.

Summer camp round two.

This time, we"ll surely end it with a smile.