Pilocchio

"In this state of inflation, what would Tawaraya do?"

- Pilocchio

Pilocchio (ピロキオ) is a merchant in The World R:2 and a former member of TaN.

Appearance
Pilocchio is a very tall, lanky beast character. He wears a brightly colored vest and hat in the style of a classical Italian merchant. As he is rarely seen fighting, his class is unknown.

Personality
An excellent merchant, Pilocchio knows how to put the minds of his customers at ease and convince them to buy the various objects he sells. However, despite his easygoing persona, he is actually a very shrewd businessman. As a former member of TaN he still has many contacts with the seedy underworld of "The World" and sells information as well as items in his shop. He is very loyal to both his partner Ita and his role model Tawaraya/Tohta.

Basic Info
In the real world Pilocchio is a 21-year-old college student named Takeshi Nomura.

.hack//Roots
Pilocchio used to be a member of TaN, but after it collapsed he decided to continue working as a merchant. He opened up a shop in Mac Anu with his partner Ita and started selling various items and weapons to other players in the game. Unfortunately, a guild of Real Money Traders led by the player Ochi moved in, and due to their influence Pilocchio was forced to raise prices in his shop to match theirs.

Later Tohta appeared at Pilocchio's shop. Though Pilocchio saw him as a newbie at first, he soon realized that he was talking to a new character of Tawaraya, the former merchant leader of TaN. At his suggestion Pilo began lowering his prices to those that TaN had originally sold at. The lower prices attracted Cashmere and Wool who soon began regulars at the shop.

The RMT players soon noticed Pilo's success, and after putting two and two together decided they had to drive them out. They began spreading rumors that they were selling old cheat items that had been created by TaN. Though the rumors were untrue, business began to go down, and Pilo found himself in danger of losing his shop. Luckily Tohta came up with a plan. Pilocchio and Ita met with the RMTers in a secluded dungeon, there they managed to get them to confess the true nature of their business on public chat. With chat logs now available as evidence, Yata was able to ban the RMTers accounts, an act that would hopefully bring some balance back to the markets of The World R:2.

Following this event, Tohta continued helping Pilocchio and Ita with their shop. With his help Pilocchio was able to become a respected information broker. By the time Tohta left the game again, Pilocchio had become a shrewd merchant and information broker fully capable of continuing TaN's legacy.

.hack//G.U. Returner
Pilocchio is briefly seen at Δ Hidden Forbidden Festival.

Trivia

 * Pilocchio's name is frequently shortened to just "Pilo", and most of his friends refer to him using this name.