Notice: This is a summary, not a proper translation. Even if I ended up making it more like a full-blown retelling than an actual summary.
-Gsimenas
Table of contents:
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
Chapter 1
At this point, the grace period has already expired and Sinon is aware that she would lose her account if she died, so she chooses to continue playing UR... in search of water in a barren wasteland.
"To think that I, of all people, would be driven into a corner like this......", she says as she recalls her mistakes.
----------
Six hours ago - 4:50 PM on 27 September, 2026. Sinon was logged into GGO and farming machine mobs in a high difficulty dungeon for rare metal drops.
Although Sinon has been spending more time in ALO, she had no intention of giving up her GGO account, feeling that her Hecate II was a part of her. That's why she was soloing a dungeon for mats to customise her rifle for the next BoB that she wants to win.
Just when she only needed one more piece of metal that had a drop rate of 3%, the floor started shaking violently and her vision was dyed in a rainbow light, forcefully transporting her aboveground.
Sinon found herself in the corner of an unfamiliar city with no one around. Instead of concrete, the buildings were made out of stone, while the roads were made out of bricks rather than asphalt. A sharp contrast from the usual GGO cities.
More GGO players started flowing in soon afterwards, but all of them were dumbfounded by what was going on and she didn't see any familiar faces among them. Not liking the prospect of being surrounded by unfamiliar men, Sinon sneaked into a two-storey building nearby.
The players began looking at the menu and some decided to log out and contact the administrators or look up community sites for posts about the issue, but Sinon had a bad feeling about things and refrained from logging out.
And to Sinon's surprise, the ten players that logged out... had their avatars remain on the spot. So, this wasn't a safe "town", but rather a field map... or more like ruins, since no NPCs were around.
Just then, multiple 80 cm long mishmashes of a centipede and an earwig entered the scene. Although they didn't look like a tough monster... all the GGO players were sitting ducks... She reflexively went for her MP7... but stopped at the last moment. Can't risk drawing in even more of them, in case the five she's seeing aren't the only ones around.
Her MP7 did have a suppressor... but she had stored it away into her storage to reduce the weight of her equipment. Meanwhile, the monsters started eating peoples' napes.
Sinon was expecting the players to last awhile, since the monsters were smallfry while the men were equipped with high-class gear... but they started dying out in just ten seconds.
At that point, Sinon instantly opened up her menu to look at her stats. Gulping when she noticed that she was level 1 with only 200 HP. Stats reset. Not to mention MP, TP, SP bars that weren't present in GGO.
Sinon finally took out her MP7 to save the five players still alive. After a detailed description of how she prepared her MP7 for firing, Sinon realised that the Bullet Circle system wasn't functioning.
Since there were apparently monsters that could jam Bullet Circles, Sinon didn't pay much attention to that and fired out two bursts at one of the monsters, easily killing it. Though it didn't burst into fragments like they usually would in GGO.
At that point, the remaining four monsters began targeting Sinon. Trying to stay calm, Sinon took out a second one, while the remaining three started climbing the wall.
Switching to full-auto, Sinon killed the third one, followed by the fourth. But the fifth one reached the window and attacked with its huge jaw and tail pincer. So, Sinon kicked off from the window and fired again, killing the last monster. 【Sinon reached level 2】.
P.S., Sinon had reached level 107 in GGO just three days ago, so level 2 was a bit disappointing.
Sinon then poked the monster with her MP7's muzzle, before tapping on it with her finger when she was sure it was dead. This brought up the property window: 【Akahara Hasami-mukade (Red-bellied pincer-centipede) carcass Material Weight 5.82】.
Sinon returned her MP7 to its holster to take out her knife... but her beloved survival knife was nowhere to be found... so she picked up a kitchen knife she found in the building. Not much use in a fight, but enough to dissect a carcass. Sinon nearly threw away the knife in horror when she began the dissection, but luckily for her, the game finished the dissection for her. 【Dissection Skill Aquired. Proficiency Reached 1】.
For her troubles, Sinon got several 【Low Quality Centipede Shells】 and 2 x 【Low Quality Centipede Pincers】. Sinon didn't what she could do with them, but decided to store them away anyway, before stepping outside.
Since the remaining players hadn't returned yet, Sinon dissected the other centipedes... before noticing blackish bags where the fice players had died. When she touched one of them, she got a notification that she acquired an AK74M and a Tactical Vest.
Feeling that looting the drops wasn't ethical, Sinon was about to return the items back... but then thought that the players would respawn somewhere and come looking for their items... however, items left lying on the ground would disappear after awhile. So, she decided to pick up the other stuff to give it back later.
Sinon was worried about her storage space after storing all that stuff, but her storage was only 20% full. So, she investigated her inventory and found that all she had in it were the ten items she retrieved from the players and the centipede materials. None of her GGO stuff was there.
Just as Sinon thought how she should keep her Hecate II and MP7 safe until a rollback returned her stuff... she realised that all her ammo was gone too. So, she only had 7 Hecate bullets in her sniper's magazine and about forty MP7 bullets in her spare magazine on her belt.
Thinking that it would be best to team up with the five players against any monsters in the area, Sinon waited for the players to log back in. However, when the first one came back three minutes later, shouting that everyone needed to gather at the center of the ruins... and learnt that his buddies were dead, he accused Sinon of being a PKer before she could explain that they were attacked by monsters. Only then did she realise that her "They're dead, too bad." phrase could be taken as the words of some guy doing an assassin roleplay... whoops... doesn't help that she's currently armed with her MP7.
Sinon tries to tell the guy that she saved them from centipedes, but since she already dissected all of the carcasses, the player doesn't believe her. She wanted to take out the mats as proof, but the player mistook that action for hostility and pointed his rifle at her. Just as Sinon was considering her options to avoid losing her Hecate, a second guy came back with news that GGO wasn't the only game affected... when he noticed the hostile situation and was told that Sinon "murdered" five sitting ducks in an underhanded manner, so he took out his revolver.
While Sinon desperately looked for a way out of the situation, the three remaining players came back. Just as Sinon prayed that at least one of them was calm enough to hold a conversation, Sinon noticed that the centipedes had respawned. But the men hadn't noticed them over the first guy's incessant shouting.
Sinon thus tried to warn them to look behind, but the players just took it for a hackneyed trick... until some shouting from the other players finally clued him in to the more than ten centipedes coming at them. When the five men jumped back in surprise, Sinon decided to use this chance to escape, seeing as the men wouldn't take long to handle the smallfry mobs.
Since the first player shouted about gathering at the center of the ruins when he logged back in, Sinon assumed that there should be a safe zone there... but since she was accused of being a PKer... going to a large gathering of players wasn't the best idea, so she considered going outside the city. But first, she had to lose the overreactive players. So, she found a side road where she could get out of sight and hid herself behind some boxes she found there.
Several moments later, the players caught up to her enough that she could hear them talking about wanting to get their hands on her sniper rifle. On the one hand, Sinon didn't want to lose her Hecate to some lowlifes who abbreviate the word "sniper rifle" to "snarai", on the other hand, Sinon didn't want to become an actual PKer. As she prayed that the guys wouldn't come to her alley... they stopped at her alley.
Sinon kept her hand on the Hecate's bolt handle so she could quickly load it if she had to fight back... but just then, one of the guys shot at one of the boxes with a submachine gun, grazing her hair and combat suit. Sinon just barely restrained herself from reflexively jumping out... and that ended up saving her, as the men concluded she wasn't there, since nobody reacted to their shooting.
After barely getting out of the situation alive, Sinon whispered in her mind that the men would come to regret wasting their ammo like that soon enough, before continuing on deeper into the alley.
-----
And so Sinon made her way out of the city. She encountered more centipedes, spiders and scorpions, but to conserve her ammo, she just avoided them by running away. At this point, she cursed that she didn't switch from an MP7 to a photon sword.
After more than twenty minutes, she reached a tall stone wall. It was a rampart that surrounded the town and it was impossible to climb it. So, Sinon used a stone throw to decided which direction to go in next. In less than a minute, she found a large gate. Before crossing the gate, Sinon weighed whether her choice to leave the town was correct, but all she concluded was that she couldn't go near any other GGO players until the PK misunderstanding was resolved.
Sinon's goal now was to find a safe place to log out. Since the city was crawling with monsters, she had no choice but to seek refuge outside of it. Beyond the rampart, Sinon was surprised by the scope of the field that awaited her. Although GGO boasted large maps itself (the wasteland surrounding SBC Glocken needed five hours to cross on foot, for example), but UR's map was also off-the-charts HD. She was surprised by how clear even the dry land in the horizon and the mountains beyond it looked. A world on the scale of Underworld.
Growing even more interested in logging out to find out what was going on, she surveyed the area (that looks like the Sonoran Desert in Mexico) and realised that she could also use her Hecate's scope to zoom in and look for a safe spot. And thus she spotted a cave near the top of a rocky mountain around 700-800 metres away.
So, she began running towards the mountain, avoiding monsters along the way and safely arrived at her destination. There, she planned out her climbing route and began climbing the ~15 m tall mountain. The trick to climbing in VRMMOs was to climb up fast before a state of exhaustion was incurred by the system. At the 5 m point, she got the message: 【Climbing (登攀) Skill Acquired. Profficiency reached 1】... the abruptness of which caused Sinon to lose her hold. Luckily, she grabbed on to a gap before she could fall down entirely. Even a level 1 skill made it easier for her to climb up the rest of the way safely.
Sinon went deeper inside the cave with her MP7's flashlight to ensure there wasn't a monster nest inside. The cave was 1.5 metres high and 3 metres deep. While there were no monsters inside, she did find a wooden box. Sinon approached it, thinking that it was possibly a treasure chest. But it had a keyhole. Sinon's attempts to open it were in vain.
P.S. Treasure chests in GGO are called "Treasure Boxes" (トレジャーボックス) and can have either digital or physical locks. The former can be opened with a Hacking skill, while the latter with a Picking skill. The latter could also be brute forced by shooting the lock, though it rarely succeeded and either ended up making it impossible to open the chest at all, or destroying its contents.
After some hesitation while looking at her MP7, Sinon decided not to take the risk with a brute force option. She did at least want to try picking the lock, but her lockpicking toolset was gone and instead all she had were the men's guns and centipede mats... and that's when she had an idea. She took out one of the Low Quality Centipede Pincers... with sharp tips. She stuffed one of the tips into the keyhole. While not as good as her locking tools, the pincer was sufficient for fiddling with the lock. As she did so, 【Lockpicking (解錠) Skill Acquired. Proficiency reached 1】.
After three minutes of fiddling, Sinon raised her lockpicking proficiency to 2 just as he heard a snap in the lock... and her pincer exhausted its durability. Inside she found: a handful of coins, a worn leather bag, and a blue, rusty key. She picked up the only silver coin in the bunch and investigated it. Didn't seem like GGO's credits or ALO's Yrd. The number 100 was written on one side, and two tree leaves on the back side. When she tapped on it, she saw the property window: 【100 El Silver Coin Coin Weight 0.1】.
Sinon stored the coins into her storage and then picked up the rusty key with a flower engraving on the handle. Sinon tried gaining info from its property window: 【Bronze Key Tool Weight 0.72】, but nothing of use in it. She stashed the key and then investigated the leather bag. Since it was rather heavy, Sinon got her expectations up for some gold coins or a magic item, but what she found was... a pachinko ball-sized, black lead sphere that didn't seem to have any value... and the bag was full of them. When she tapped on one of them: 【Crude Musket Bullet Weapon/Bullet Attack:Piercing 28.42 Weight 3.67】.
Just as she was about to throw away the bullets in disappointment... she suddenly recalled that she had never heard of such a gun category in GGO. And in GGO's setting, NPC could only make optical guns, as they lost the knowledge on creating live ammo guns, so those could only be salvaged from ruins. But even the oldest guns that have been salvaged from city ruins were at least from the 20th century. Not to mention that muskets have to be reloaded for each shot, so they'd be hardly useful even against the weakest monsters.
After deciding to store away the bullets after all, Sinon leaned against the wall. It was now 6:00 PM. She wanted to log out and find out what was going on since there were no monsters in the cave. But first, she decided to rest up. While thinking about what she'd eat when she logged out, Sinon.... fell asleep...
----------
Sinon was awakened by a noise that sounded like countless bells ringing in the distance. After a moment of confusion, she realised that she fell asleep in-game.... and the time was now 9:55 PM... so she had slept for slightly over THREE hours. Since she didn't awake in her own bed, Sinon concluded that the sleep logout function wasn't working here... though she also concluded that she would have slept for an entire eight hours if she had been in her own bed, so she was at least a bit lucky.
When she stepped outside to investigate the sound that awoke her... and found an aurora... and then heard a voice that sounded like it belonged to an innocent girl... and a wise sage at the same time, say the following phrase from v21: [The seeds have sprouted, the branches and leaves have spread, forming a ring gate. Those of you summoned to the land of dying hopes, protect your single life to the end. To the first one to endure the many hardships, survive multiple predicaments, and arrive at the land indicated by the aurora, I/we (?) shall grant thee everything].
Just as Sinon was about to investigate where the aurora was pointing exactly... but she couldn't manage to finish doing so, as the moment the aurora suddenly disappeared, the was assailed by a great weight on her back... and Sinon realised that the weight came from her MP7 that seemed like a kitten in weight a mere second ago... but now felt like a lion was trampling her. But it didn't end there. Even when she removed the MP7, the weight didn't disappear. She realised that her favourite combat suit (officially named 《Sniper's Jacket》 (スナイパーズジャケット)) was exceeding her weight limit as well. After stashing away the jacket, as well as her boots and muffler, finally felt lighter.
So now, Sinon was only in her underwear. Since she couldn't use her gear anymore, she stashed them away into her storage. By then, Sinon that she was feeling thirsty. And her small water flask was missing, just like her survival knife. For a moment, Sinon thought that it was no big deal and she could just rough it out like in any other game, but then she noticed that her TP meter was decreasing (her SP bar was also decreasing, but not as quickly), so Sinon quickly realised what TP stood for. The bar was decreasing at a speed of 1% per minute.
Sinon had to find some water... in a pretty barren wasteland. What's more, all she had on her was her underwear and a belt... as well as the rusty kitchen knife she picked up in the city.... but she did have something else in her storage. She found five entries in her inventory with bag icons: 【Elkamyno's Mementos】, 【Stocks's Mementos】, 【練練 (Renren)'s Mementos】, 【Mishoka's Mementos】, and 【増岡一郎 (Masuoka Ichirou)'s Mementos】.
Sinon was repulsed by the idea of touching items she had picked up just to hold on for the players, but her concerns about that couldn't win against the throat-stabbing sensation of her thirst. So, she went through them looking for stuff even a level 2 could equip. While the five players had looked pretty well-equipped, she hoped that at least one of them was an AGI build player... and she found one. The player named Stocks's bundle included a weapon called 《Belatrix SL2》 (laser gun) and a set of armour called 《Weasel Suit》 (yellowish-brown combat suit), both of which just barely fit under her weight limit. While Sinon did have concerns about how much the Weasel Suit exposed and optical guns weren't to her liking, it was better than running around in her underwear with a kitchen knife. Also, bullet count isn't displayed on the player's UI in UR, so she had to inspect the energy gauge on the gun itself (63% charged).
And so, Sinon set out in search for water.
-------
End of Flashback
Back in the present - past 10 PM that same day. In that one hour, Sinon had no luck finding any water. Her TP bar was below 20% now and it was already hard to bear. And so, Sinon concluded that she had made three great mistakes: 1) taking the items of the centipede victims out of merch; 2) falling asleep in the cave, rather than logging out; 3) deciding to go further away from the ruins instead of returning to them when she left the cave. By the time she realised that there should be a well or something in the ruins where she could stock up on water, her TP bar was already below 50%, so it was impossible to turn back.
Although she had acquired something of a 《Night Vision》 skill, with only the stars giving light, she couldn't make out stuff in the shadows, so she had to take great detours around rocks where monsters could be hiding.
But just when she was only a hundred meters away from the rocky mountain she was aiming for... her eyes and ears caught sight/sound of something and she immediately bent over. She saw a tiny light at the base of the mountain. Something was reflecting the light of the stars... which was likely a water source. While her ears caught a thunder-like roar. The kind of sound that cliched large monsters... or even field boss-class monsters would make.
All she had to use as a weapon was the Belatrix SL2 handgun... but her TP bar was nearly at the 10% mark, so she no longer had the time to find a different water source. So, her options were to either to die from dehydration... or take her chances with what lay beyond the mountain. And she remembered a line she once told Dyne in GGO: "At least in-game, have the guts to die facing a muzzle." So, if she was doomed to die either way, she decided to die fighting, rather than dehydrate to death.
In order to at least see what the monster looked like, Sinon took out her MP7's flashlight and equipped it on her handgun... and she basically used up the remainder of her weight capacity for it. Since the light couldn't reach an entire hundred metres away, Sinon carefully closed in around the rock. When she was only 50 metres away from the rock, she noticed water running down along it... which only made her sensation of thirst worse. Her TP bar was only at 8% by now.
At that point, she found the source of the roar. A large shadow was going counter-clockwise along the base of the rock. As if protecting its turf. She had to do something if she wanted to drink some of that water. Sinon considered opening fire on it to draw the monster away from the water for at least a minute, so she could at least get a bit to drink.
Thinking that she wanted to see Kirito and co's faces when she told them how she managed to solve at least some of her problems here, Sinon resolved to survive and took her handgun into both hands. Meanwhile, a large monster appeared from beyond the rock. Sinon planned to light up her flashlight, find some good place to shoot in three seconds, and fire...
But just before she could hit the switch for the flashlight, she heard a large-caliber live ammo gun firing. The monster now roared in anger. Straining her eyes, Sinon noticed blood-like damage effects on various spots of the monster's body. Then Sinon noticed several orange flashes from a slightly high hill to her right. A moment later, the light effect of the monster's left flank being hit lit it up, allowing Sinon to see what it looked like: a dinosaur.
Apparently, Sinon lives in Bunkyō Ward, Yushima, 4-chome (文京区湯島四丁目) and she goes to a nearby art gallery and museum at times. At the museum, she happened to see a dinosaur exposition, even if she had no real interest in them. The Deinocheirus from that exposition looked just like the monster she faced now. But unlike the dinosaur at the exposition, this one didn't have feathers. Instead, it had armour-like skin. 5 metres tall, 10 metres long.
The dinosaur faced its attackers and rushed off after them, causing tremors each time it kicked off the ground. The attackers were protected by a rather steep cliff, making it hard to run up, but the people on the hill quieted down for some reason, instead of unleashing a third or fourth simultaneous volley. As Sinon looked on bewildered, the dinosaur rammed the cliff with its head, creating radial cracks in it. Then it went back a bit and rammed again. At this point, the third volley finally came, but it seemed its back was well-armoured, so the monster didn't stagger this time.
The dinosaur roared as it kicked off the ground and slammed the cliff again with great force. The cracks reached all the way up to the top of the cliff, causing a lump of it to fall down.
Sinon strained her eyes at the 10 metre high slope, noticing that a guy was falling along with the lump. At that point, Sinon gave up on her plan to sneak up to the spring during the commotion and jumped out of her hideout. While she didn't know who the guys were, she concluded that cooperating with them was her best chance of getting rid of the dinosaur to get some water.
She approached the cliff from the south. The players atop the cliff fired a fourth volley, but they were apparently running low on ammo. The dinosaur paid them no heed as it swung to slash the falling player with its claws. So, Sinon drew its attention with a shout and her flashlight. As the dinosaur was momentarily stunned by the light, she fired at its yellow eyes with her handgun. The yellow laser pierced its right eye, causing it to let out a shrill roar as it crashed into the slope. More of the earth and bolders fell down as a red cursor appeared above the dinosaur's head that looked like something between a crocodile and a bird, but Sinon didn't have the time to read its name.
Having turned off her light, Sinon rushed over to the collapsed player, pushing away a large boulder that had fallen on his left leg with a bodyslam. Just as Sinon extended her hand to the guy... her eyes flew open in surprise. For that "player" wasn't even a human. While it could be considered humanoid, GGO didn't have avatars like that. On the ground there was a 《birdman》 with brown feathers all over its body and a bird of prey head. More birdlike than even ALO's harpy monsters. But it was wearing armour made out of cloth and leather... and held an unrefined rifle in its right hand. Sinon guessed that it was neither a player, nor a monster... but an NPC.
Although Sinon had been about to draw her hand back, she thrust it out again, convinced that a fellow gunman would understand the gesture, even if it was 70% bird. The hawk-like birdman blinked once, before grasping Sinon's hand, who then pulled him up. The birdman was about five centimetres shorter than Sinon. She then tried asking if the birdman could run, but the NPC just responded ℵℵℵℵ in the weird NPC language.
Sinon couldn't understand what it said, but didn't have the time to ask again and began running to the back of the hill, with the birdman following suit. The hill was thirty metres wide and fifteen metres tall, circle-shaped. Sinon was running along it, searching for a way to climb up, when she heard the birdman shouting... and pointing to the cliff with its talons. Sinon couldn't see it all that clearly, but it seemd to be a ladder, so she jumped onto it. The ladder was made on a foundation of stakes, so it wasn't a temporary one, meaning that the birdmen didn't just happen to aim for the dinosaur today, but rather had been attempting attacking it from the hill for awhile now.
Atop the hill, all she saw were small trees, rocks, and sand. Not even a bit of water. And her TP bar was at 4%, assailing her with such a sensation of thirst that she fell to her knees. A moment later, the birdman climbed up as well, so Sinon tried asking it for water out of desperation. But the birdman didn't understand her, nor did it seem to be carrying any flasks... and NPCs didn't have any storage, so all she saw was all it had. So, if Sinon didn't kill the dinosaur in 3 minutes and 10 seconds, she'd die.
Refusing to die, Sinon stood up and ran over to the western side, where she found several more birdmen with their back to her as they aimed their rifles down the cliff, planning a fifth volley. However, Sinon saw that the dinosaur's HP bar was still close to 80%, so a single volley didn't take more than 10% out of it. While the birdmen avoided direct attacks from the dinosaur from the hill, they had to resort to aiming for its armoured back, so they couldn't deal much damage. And looking at their bags, they didn't seem to have much ammo either.
At that moment, Sinon suddenly shouted at the birdmen to wait, startling them. The birdmen suddenly turned around, pointing their guns at her, as they shouted something in their language. Sinon desperately attempted to talk to them that she wanted to help, but it didn't seem any of them were able to understand her. Her TP bar was at 3%.
Just as Sinon was about to give up, the dinosaur slammed the cliff again, causing some of it to crumble again, while the birdmen jumped back. The birdmen shouting brought back Sinon's fighting spirit, as she thought to herself: ""I'll have all the time in the world for despair AFTER I die. For as long as I have even a pixel of TP, I'll continue struggling to live. I will convey my will to the birdmen and defeat the dinosaur with their help. There has to be a way to do that".
At that point, Sinon woudered what would Kirito do. She thought that he wouldn't rely on words at a time like this. He always relied on actions— the brilliance of his sword, filled with his overwhelming willpower, to encourage everyone. Sinon didn't have a sword, but she did have a partner. And she was the only one Sinon could rely on. So, she took out her beloved gun from her storage.
The birdmen were surprised upon seeing her gun. Sinon tried to get them to help her support her gun, but they didn't understand her, tilting their heads in a birdlike manner that almost caused her to laugh. She tried again to get them to help her kill the dinosaur, but the birdmen didn't move. Finally, on her third attempt, the birdman she had rescued jumped in from behind her, placing Hecate's barrel on its right shoulder.
As the birdman supported her rifle, groaning in pain, Sinon hurriedly gripped the gun. Her TP bar is at 2%. While she was exerting herself to move the rifle forward, a red scales icon flashed next to her HP bar, signaling that she was overencumbered. 【Sturdiness (強健) skill acquired. Proficiency raised to 1】. Meanwhile, the birdman also mustered its strength, but it was slowly sinking into the ground due to the weight of the gun and suffering damage.
At that point, the leader-like birdman grabbed the barrel and hoisted it on its left shoulder, making it easier for Sinon to move it and thus the three of them managed to stagger their way to the cliff edge with the rifle. There, the two birdmen squatted down, allowing Sinon to aim down. By that point, the dinosaur had recovered from its ramming and was getting ready to charge again. If it hit the cliff, Sinon would likely fall to the ground with her Hecate. While observing the dinosaur, she also saw that there was a name in katakana listed by its ring-and-pillar shaped HP bar: 《ステロケファロス》 (Sthelocepharos?).
Sinon feared that she wouldn't pierce the shell protecting the dinosaur's head... and that she wouldn't be able to hit it anyway as she could barely move the rifle, so she decided to aim for the body instead. TP bar at 1%, so she didn't have time to aim for the stomach or sides. But before she could put her finger on the trigger, the leader shouted something, which prompted all the other birdmen to lineup with their muskets beside them and fired all at once. Most of them didn't hit the dinosaur... but instead hit the ground next to its legs, forcing it to stand up... and exposing its unarmoured abdomen
Sinon used this opportunity to fire, aiming at where she believed the monster's heart lay. The recoil blew her and the two birdmen assistants backwards, but Sinon was able to witness how her bullet pierced right down the middle of the Sthelocepharos's chest. Just as the trio hit the ground, the dinosaur's HP bar started decreasing at an alarming rate, going from yellow to red, until it eventually stopped at zero.
As the tremor from the monster's collapse reach them, the following window appeared before Sinon: 【Ｓｉｎｏｎ has risen to level 16】. Momentarily astounded by this prompt, Sinon immediately checked on her TP bar, hoping that it had reset due to the level up... but no, it was only 30 seconds away from depleting. With her trembling finger, Sinon returned her rifle to her storage. At that moment, the birdmen all began cheering with their muskets raised.
Sinon didn't have the time to observe them, nor the time to use the ladder, so she rushed over to the cliff and jumped off it, landing atop the relatively soft belly of the dinosaur. Since Kirito taught her that using ukemi decreases fall damage, Sinon had apparently been practicing that in ALO. In the end, she suffered only ~10% HP damage from the fall.
With a blurry vision from the adrenaline, Sinon got started on the two hundred meter dash to the spring... but on the third step, her TP bar ran out.... Assailed by thirst that now felt like a flame was burning her throat, Sinon started having diplopia, so she closed her eyes.
"Is this the end?", preparing for her death, Sinon began talking to her Hecate in her mind. "Even if I lose you as a drop, I'm definitely going to get you back." Falling to the ground, Sinon burst into particles and disappeared... or at least that's what she thought would happen, but all she saw was that HP started decreasing. So, TP falling to zero doesn't kill you right away, but rather just starts chipping away your HP. Eyes wide open, Sinon muttered, "......You could have just told me that from the start."
Since her HP bar was decreasing pretty quickly, Sinon only gained an extra minute or so to resolve her thirst problem. Her vision was still diplopic, so she assumed that this was a special warning effect for imminent death. By the time she rushed over to the spring, 30 seconds had passed and her HP had decreased by half. Swearing that she would turn the admins into swiss cheese if it turned out that the spring was poisonous, Sinon kneeled down beside the spring and scooped up some cold water with her hands and gulped it down in one go. She repeated this process another three times and her TP bar began recovering. However, rejuvenated by the water, Sinon stopped caring about the stats and gave up on scooping the water up, instead deciding to just drink straight from the spring, quenching her thirst like an animal.
As thoughts about never going away from the spring and building a house next to it filled her mind, Sinon continued drinking the water even after her TP bar was utterly full.
Chapter 2
Part 2 switches to Kazuto's perspective in the real world at the SAO Survivors School. The part begins with Kazuto explaining that the school's campus has a very complicated structure due to using a reorganised abandoned school building. As such, there are quite a few hard-to-reach and easy-to-overlook spots there. One such spot is Kazuto and Asuna's secret green zone that was introduced in Cordial Chords. Though, it's apparently no longer as exclusive, since Rika (Lisbeth) didn't take long to catch on to them having a secret spot. Naturally, Keiko (Silica) got notified about the secret spot too. And now, Kazuto brought Argo over there.
"Whoa, this sure is a nice date spoT. You sure you're okay with bringing me along here?"
"Not like I had a choice when you make such a grandiose entrance......"
Took Kazuto a moment to process the date spot comment.
"Wait no, it's not like this is a date spot, so there's no issue with bringing you along here."
"Oh come oN, why so cold when we haven't met in a long while, Kii-boU. Hey, I wouldn't mind a reunion hug, ya knoW?"
Argo's wearing a blackish sailor uniform with a khaki parka and a small daypack. Argo's apparently a bit shorter than Asuna, but ~2 cm taller than Keiko. And Argo's taller than Kazuto remembers her, so despite looking like she was older than him, she was apparently still in her growth spurt in SAO.
Apparently, when Argo came up to Kazuto at the end of v21 tens of minutes ago, she attracted the attention of the male student base with her unusual uniform... in a school where girls are the minority, so Kazuto had to drag her out of the classroom before they got surrounded by the boys, thus having to resort to taking her to the secret spot. But now that they were all alone, he had a different kind of tension to deal with... and so he took his distance away from Argo.
"I...... I'll save it for next time."
"So you're lacking your backbone like always, huH, Kii-bou."
"So what if I am! More importantly...... what're you doing here in the first place?"
As Kazuto observed Argo, he noted that while he wasn't even sure whether she was a guy or a girl at first in SAO, Argo has grown to look more mature in the past 4 years, so now she looked more like a girl and even hesitated to be as casual with her as he had been in SAO.
Argo explained that she transferred to the SAO Survivor School, shocking Kazuto with her statement. Kazuto was surprised that she decided to transfer over now of all times, after two years since SAO was cleared. Especially since she never once contacted him during all that time. He had even had the suspicion that she got herself killed. Smiling, Argo remarked before Kazuto could finish his thought:
"As if I'd ever just kick the bucket like thAT. Not like you tried contacting me yourself, anywayS. With all your connections, Kii-bou, you should been able to easily acquire RL info on me......"
Kazuto thought over that idea. While he didn't know Argo's real name or address, he did know her game handle, so he could have just asked Kikuoka to look up her RL details from a user log. However, Kazuto apparently refrained from looking up anyone he wasn't sure had survived SAO. He was sure that that people who survived the 75th F boss fight had survived, but he wasn't sure if people like Nishida, Kibaou, Nezha, or Mahokl were still alive. And Kazuto was scared of finding out the answer to that... scared of learning that the people he know had not made it back. For the same reason, he had not looked up Argo either.
Just as he was about to give a bow to apologise, Argo nimbly closed the distance between them and stabbed his brow with her index figure, telling him not to apologise, as she herself hadn't contacted him either, despite him going wild in both ALO and GGO without changing his name.
At that point, Kazuto decided to ask:
"That's a fine point there....... why didn't you come to ALO? You're not the type to chicken out on FullDive machines, right?"
"Who do you take me for, huH?", Argo said with a strained smile, before stuffing her hands into her pockets and starting to sway.
"Hmn~~ well, there are a lot of reasons for that, thougH. Can't say I had no interest in it at alL. When I heard that you can restore your old SAO chars in ALO, I do admit I felt a very strong urge to joiN....... though, ya knoW, I just couldn't find the motivation I had back then to start up my infobroker biz anew, ya seE......"
".......Well, can't say I don't understand that sentiment......"
Kazuto then thought over how he understood the sentiment far too well, actually. Although SAO was a death game where there practically was not a single day where you wouldn't feel fear, despair, unease, and grief, that wasn't all there was to it. The joy from levelling up, excitement upon acquiring a rare drop, the joy of beating a boss...... all of these emotions were genuine, differently from the games he had played before SAO. Though he was loath to admit it, while it did feel fun to play his main game, ALO, without any exaggeration, he still couldn't get as into it as he had in SAO.
Shaking off the momentary sentimentality, Kazuto asked:
"......In that case, where and what have you been doing the past two years?"
"That's simple: studying in my home town, obviouslY"
"............Oh......"
And then Kazuto realised that he himself has basically been doing the exact same thing, if you disregard the extra stuff he got himself into.
"So where is your hometown? And what grade are you in?"
"Two questions, that'll be a thousand cor, kaY."
"Oh, yeah......"
Kazuto was about to reflexively take out a thousand cor coin from his uniform's pocket, but as he stopped himself at the last moment, Argo laughed out joyfully.
"Nyahahaha...... I'm just jokinG. My hometown is in the southwest of Kanagawa and I'm my third year at high schooL."
Kazuto opened the map app in his brain to figure out where would that would be... concluding that it wouldn't exactly be close to Tokyo. So, Argo's one grade above Kazuto and is in the same grade as Asuna and Rika.
When Kazuto asked why did Argo transfer over now of all times, considering that she was only half a year away from graduation, Argo pondered whether she should answer the question, before taking out a business card from her daypack and presenting it to Kazuto.
"Hosaka (帆坂)……Tomo (朋)...... Is that your real name?"
"Well sooorry for having a name that doesn't sound reaL."
"O-oh no, that's not what I meant....... I just didn't expect you to tell me your real name that easily......"
"Now that I've transferred over, I ain't exactly gonna be able to hide it for long."
At that point, Kazuto returned to looking at the card, where he saw her email address, smartphone number... and job title. [MMO Today Writer/Researcher].
"Wha, seriously!?
"Well, yeaH."
"An M-TD writer...... so, some of the articles I've read were written by you then......?"
"PossiblY."
"But, wait, doesn't M-TD focus mainly on news related to The Seed? Can you really write articles without playing?"
"I'm not in charge of specific game titles, but rather general The Seed Nexus news, or hardware and stuff, ya seE. Though, well, I do sometimes make a char to dive iN, but I delete it right after I'm done getting my data, ya seE."
Being an unemployed student, Kazuto began feeling some distance between Argo who already had a as a writer for the biggest media service on VRMMOs, so he wondered if he should stop calling Argo "omae" casually and instead go for "Hosaka-san", but Argo stopped him before he could finish that thought, telling him to still refer to her as always.
She then brought up that Kazuto forgot to give his own name to her. After he gave his name, the two exchanged a handshake. During the handshake, Kazuto blurted out,
".......So you survived."
"Thanks to ya, Kii-boU. Actually, I didn't feel like I'd manage to stay alive till the 100th Floor, ya seE. If ya hadn't cleared the game on the 75th Floor, Kii-bou, I'd probably have kicked the bucket somewhere at some poinT."
"I didn't do it on my own......"
Once the sentimentalities were done, Kazuto returned to the main topic, asking how was Tomo's job as a writer related to her switching schools. But just as she was about to answer, she heard footsteps coming from the only entrance to the secret garden. Seconds later, Asuna holding her smartphone in her right hand rushed in from the entrance. Kazuto had apparently sent her a message while he and Argo were en route to the green zone. Asuna first looked at him, then turned her gaze to Tomo,
"......No way......", she muttered. Her wide-open, hazelnut eyes glittering in the sunlight.
Argo blinked once, before raising her right hand,
"Yo, have ya been welL, Aa-cha......"
But she was unable to finish the thought. Because Asuna rushed over at such a great speed that it was like she possessed by her The Flash persona, and gave her a hearty hug. Kazuto was barely able to catch the smartphone that Asuna dropped.
While burying her face into Tomo's shoulders, Asuna let out a whisper.
"I was sure...... I was sure we'd absolutely meet again one day."
"......Sorry for not contacting ya so long, Aa-chan.", responded Tomo, patting her on the back.
When Asuna finally let go, she asked the same question Kazuto had: what was Argo doing here?
-------
Lunch breaks in the SAO Survivor School lasted 50 minutes, which wasn't enough time for both getting lunch at the cafeteria and talking about the old days, so Kazuto had asked Asuna to bring some lunch for three people in his message to her. She bought baguettes: 1 Camembert cheese+ham+roquette(rucola), 1 cream cheese+smoked salmon+tomatoes, and 1 shrimp+avocado+basil, and let Tomo pick first. Apparently, Asuna wants to treat Tomo for helping with The Witch and the Three Treasures quest from The Day Before. Tomo went for the smoked salmon one. Asuna then let Kazuto pick; since he knew that Asuna wanted the one with avocados, he picked the ham and cheese one.
Apparently, Kazuto has a bad habit of forgetting to pay Asuna back for stuff she buys for him, because even after 2 years since SAO... and despite only spending 2 weeks married, he still needs to remind himself that they don't have a shared storage anymore, so he used an app on his smartphone to pay her back before he forgot. He'd usually do it with his Augma, since it's simpler, but forgot to bring it with him.
And just then, Kazuto remembered that they had planned to meet up with Rika and Keiko during the lunch break to discuss what happened to The Seed Nexus the day before. What's more, the meeting was also supposed to be attended by Suguha and Shino, the former from her high school in Oomiya and the latter from her high school in Ueno via the Augma. But being the responsible one in the relationship, Asuna wasn't all that surprised that he forgot about all that and stated that she had already informed everyone that they'd like to postpone the meeting till after school.
At that point, the three got down to eating. After finishing half her baguette, Tomo declared that it was worth transferring schools just for them. As Kazuto commented that the rest of the menu was just as great, he realised that Tomo STILL hadn't answered the question of what she was doing in their school.
Tomo: "Not like the timing is strangE. This school has a first and second term for admissions; today's the day for the second term's enrolmenT."
Kazuto: "Wha, is that how it works?......In that case, they could have organised the school year in semesters, rather than trimesters......"
Tomo: "Then you'd be losing your winter holidays."
Kazuto: "Oh shit, forget what I just said."
Asuna (giggling): "This school only set up a system for transfers this August. So, since they didn't make it in time before the summer holidays, the end of September would be the earliest time she could transfer, it seems. So Argo-san is part of the first batch of transfer students, huh. By the way, even someone who's not a former SAO player can transfer over."
Kazuto: "Heeh... But what kind of student would go out of their way to transfer to this school from a normal one? I do believe it's seen as an isolation facility by society......"
Asuna: "Well you see, being a special vocational school, our school has plenty of practical curriculums, right? And with its credit-based system, you can choose the subjects that you actually have an interest in...... This fact was covered by the media and it seems that the number of people interested in it increased. A transfer student came to my class as well; the girl told me all about that."
Kazuto assumed that Tomo also came to the school for the same reason, but then he remembered that the whole Unital Ring incident began the previous day, while Tomo was a writer about The Seed Nexus, so he began to suspect that her transfer was somehow related to that. When Kazuto attempted to ask Tomo about that, she told him not to rush things, as it would take a long time to explain things and they didn't have enough time during the lunch break for that. So, she asked to join them for the after-school meeting they had planned with the others.
Kazuto then reminisced about Argo in SAO. Apparently, while Argo had been a great contributor to clearing the death game as an info broker, she started devoting herself to behind-the-scenes work starting with the middle floors, so even Kirito suddenly had far fewer chances to meet her. Which meant that while Silica and Lisbeth could have heard of her by name, they weren't likely to have had personal dealings with her. While Suguha and Shino would have had zero contact with her. But since Rika and Keiko only knew Suguha for 1.5 years and Shino for 9 months and yet were like old friends already, he assumed that they'd be able to break the ice with Tomo too. Though, his condition was that she wouldn't tell them anything "strange", leaving what counts as "strange" to her common sense. While Kazuto hoped that Tomo would become good friends with Rika and Keiko, he couldn't shake a bad feeling about the matter.
-----------
After a short homeroom session ended at 3:30 PM, Kazuto rushed out to the second school building, where the Computer Room was located on the northern tip of the 3rd floor. Despite the ostentatious name, there were barely any computers left there, seeing as the room comes from the times when the school was still in use as a regular school and IT lessons were being held there. So, Kazuto and two other boys from his Mechatronics course with whom he had formed a research team had borrowed officially borrowed the room from the school to use as their lab. Each member had a key of their own to their lab, but the other two guys had left for Akihabara to stock up on parts. So, Kazuto decided to use the empty room for their meeting.
Kazuto had hoped to be first, but Rika was already there by the time he arrived. And complained that he was late, even though she herself was just early because their homeroom teacher was on a business trip. Rika had apparently expected that if she'd be just right on time if she took a slow stroll to the room. After casually talking about some ALO stuff... and after Kazuto pondered over the possibility of a The Seed game based in a large school)... Rika prompted Kazuto to unlock the door already by slapping him on the back.
After opening the door, Kazuto put his right hand on his chest and gave a bow:
"After you, Milady Lisbeth."
"No objections there."
Apparently, despite the frequent vacuuming, they still couldn't get rid of the typical old classroom smell in the room. And Rika apparently liked the atmosphere in the room.
"Doesn't this feel like we're in one of those academy anime? Like when a boy and a girl, all alone in an old school building after school...", Rika suddenly pointed at the taken-aback Kazuto with her right index finger, "go into battle with flashy powers."
"What, battles......", Kazuto's shoulders dropped down.
"What did you think we'd do?"
Just when Kazuto remarked that everyone was late, Asuna and Keiko entered the room. Tomo wasn't with them and Kazuto hadn't got Tomo's contact details from her, so he began to worry whether Asuna and him had only seen an apparition back in their secret spot, but just then, "Oissu", came a listless greeting from Tomo as she entered through the open door. As Asuna waved her hand to her with a smile, Rika and Keiko meanwhile stared blankly at her in puzzlement.
Looking at them, Tomo prompted Kazuto,
"Hey, hurry up and introduce uS."
"Oh, right...... Liz, Silica, this here is Argo. She transferred over to our school as of today; like us, she's an SAO Survivor and in Aincrad, she was......"
But at this point, Tomo cut into the introduction,
"In Aincrad, I was Kii-bou's Onee-saN."
Rika: "Kii-bou!?"
Keiko: "Onee-san!?"
Kazuto immediately dashed to Tomo,
Kazuto: "Hey, you, didn't I tell you not to say anything strange!"
Tomo: "What is it now, I'm just sharing the truth here, ya knoW?"
Kazuto: "How is any of that true! We had nothing more than a client-trader relationship!"
Tomo: "Hey, that's a mean way to put iT. I've given you special treatment numerous times, Kii......"
Asuna: "How about you leave it at that and let's get back to the topic at hand?"
Asuna then said they could leave Tomo's introduction for after everyone joined the meeting, seeing as they'd have to repeat it to Suguha and Shino anyway. Kazuto turned to Rika and Keiko and asked them to help set up for the meeting... while fumbling his Japanese grammar.
--------------
So, the group took two tables that could seat three people each and made one big table for everyone, with Asuna + Tomo on one side and Rika + Keiko on the other, while Kazuto sat at the head of the table. Then they all put on their Augmas (Tomo's Augma was painted mustard yellow and had a rat icon on the part that goes on the back of the head). The moment they turned them on, a fairy-sized Yui appeared on the table. She greeted all the regular members and then noticed Tomo. Kazuto told her that they'd explain who she was during the meeting, but Yui just blinked once and smiled, recognising Tomo as Argo and thanking her taking care of her papa and mama, before introducing herself.
Naturally, Tomo's jaw dropped at this. When she asked how Yui figured out that she was Argo, Yui replied that she looked up the biometrics for SAO avatars and Tomo's appearance was a 99% match for Argo. Tomo tried to argue back that she had grown in the past two years, but Yui just casually replied that she had already taken height change predictions into account when running the search.
Tomo finally realised that Yui was an AI and, after three seconds of silence, exchanged a virtual hand... er, fingershake with her. At that point, Kazuto had a thought about how Tomo, having an infobroker kind of job in real life too, must be salivating at the prospect of Yui's information gathering capabilities...... and so he made a mental note to watch out for any suspicious part-time job offers from her.
Finally, Yui connected them to Suguha and Shino using an "AR Meeting System" that Yui had developed. It was their first time using it, so he could only be surprised at how it seemed like Suguha and Shino were right there with them. The two girls were just as surprised in turn, looking over the computer room with wide open eyes.
Since Shino was about to stand up from her seat, Kazuto hurriedly stopped her, warning that the Augma was currently overwriting what their eyes were seeing, so they could easily get themselves hurt if they moved. Shino was apparently participating in the meeting from a language lab classroom, so she worried that if anyone else entered the room, it'd seem like she was talking to air.
Suguha frowned at this statement, seeing as she was connecting from the school infirmary, so she worried that it was only a matter of time till someone came in. Apparently, Suguha came up with an excuse to skip out on club practice.
Kazuto worried that she'd get scolded by the third years for that, but Suguha replied that the third years had retired after the August inter-high competition, while she herself was now the vice-president of the club. Kazuto was surprised by this revelation and asked why didn't she tell him about that earlier, as it called for a celebration. Suguha in turn downplayed the significance of the post, but instead called for a grand celebration when she scored some wins in November.
At that point, Keiko asked whether there was someone stronger than Suguha in her club, seeing as she was only the vice-president. Suguha confirmed that there was, though she has both wins and losses against the president, but she uses a slightly custom style during matches...... while the president uses an orthodox one. Kazuto again worried about Suguha becoming the target of bullying if anyone heard what she was saying, but eased up when he concluded that she wouldn't have become vice-president without having popularity. He also resolved himself to go see her fights in November, seeing as he missed out on the August ones due to still being hospitalised at the time.
Anyway, Kazuto decided start off the meeting by introducing Tomo:
"Alrighty, we don't have time, so let's begin the meeting. First off, allow me to introduce this guy...... I mean, this person."
After Kazuto pointed at Tomo and she rose from her seat for a slight bow:
"This person is Hosaka Tomo-san, who just transferred to the Survivor School as of today...... Her SAO alias was Argo the "Rat", her job - an info broker."
The moment Rika and Keiko heard that, they shouted out "Ah! The one from the guidebook!" in tandem, while Suguha and Shino responded, "Guidebook?". Meanwhile, Argo herself just went with a "Nishishi", as if being bashful, before standing up and exchanging handshakes with the four girls...... but since she couldn't actually shake hands with the remote participants, they just gave another social distancing friendly virtual handshake.
Observing the scene, Kazuto worried about the male-female imbalance of the group. There were plenty of guys in the school who were VRMMO game players, so it was an easy matter to recruit some guys to balance out the gender disparity in their group, but Kazuto couldn't get himself to do that.
The reason for that? The fact that he met his 'lifetime best friend' in Underworld, where he spent two years. Kazuto didn't feel like he could make another friend about his age and of the same gender whom he could open up as much as he had with Eugeo...... nor did he want to. "When he lost his life at the end of a fierce battle, I feel like a part of my heart died with him." Kazuto felt that this scar wouldn't heal for the rest of his life.
Sucking in a deep breath to make the pain in his chest go away, Kazuto got back to the main topic, asking how non-ALO players were doing. He asked whether Shino's GGO account was converted into Unital Ring too, and she confirmed that. Kazuto then asked whether she was aware that the avatars remained in the world even when she logged out, and whether her avatar was safe. Shino replied that it was... probably safe, since it was being protected by birdmen. Everyone had figurative question marks appear over their heads, while Shino just shrugged, implying that she didn't get how did that happen herself.
Chapter 3
Part 3 begins with Asuna sitting in a bus heading for Kichijojiekikitaguchi after the meeting. While she felt a warmness in her chest due to the unexpected reunion with Argo, she also felt a rough feeling in her chest too because of her encounter with the other transfer student, Kamura Shikimi. The transfer student had been assigned to the class next door and she had apparently only came to say hi to Asuna because they had once met at an electronics industry group party when they were young children. A party that Asuna didn't even remember. Shikimi was the daughter of the founder of RECT's rival company, "Kamura" (カムラ), the company that created the Augma.
Shikimi herself had maintained a calm attitude throughout their encounter, so it wasn't her attitude or Shikimi's family that had stirred up her heart. Shikimi's uniform designated her as a former student of the high school division (the school has elementary, middle, and high school grades) of the private Eterna Girls' Academy (エテルナ女子学院) in Minato Ward. The school that Asuna had attended before being imprisoned in SAO. Asuna had only attended the school till its middle school division, but she did not recall ever seeing a student like Shikimi, despite her unusual family name and striking appearance. Which meant that Shikimi had transferred to the academy from another school... and then transferred to the SAO Survivor School just half a year before her graduation.
Apparently, Shikimi planned to continue her studies abroad after finishing high school and had already obtained her International Baccalaureate certificate and SAT score report. And she had transferred to the Survivor School because America's colleges apparently regarded essays as important as the SAT score and so she decided to try out life at the survivor school to have some pizzazz for her her essay... though Asuna couldn't help thinking that it all seemed to erratic.
Shikimi's uniform got Asuna thinking that Shikimi is what Asuna would have looked like about now if she hadn't become trapped in SAO. Since Asuna still had 9 more stops to go and it looked like she'd need to pull another all-nighter, she decided to use the opportunity to get some rest... but she couldn't fall asleep, because she kept thinking about Shikimi. Asuna had no dissatisfactions with her current circumstances: she was able to meet Kazuto and Yui, whom she trusted and loved from the bottom of her heart, as well as best companions: Rika, Keiko, Shino, Suguha, and others. Compared to Shikimi, who was probably taking an elite course in life without any confrontation with any setbacks, Asuna considered herself happy. All these thoughts were the reason for her stirred heart.
Asuna decided to think about other things instead. Apparently, being an SAO survivor, Asuna was feeling more exhilaration than anxiety and fear about Unital Ring; the you don't get a second chance rule wasn't big enough of a problem to frighten her. Meanwhile, Argo had shared that a lot of companies, including ALO's Ymir, were cooperating to get the matter under control, so the incident would be ending eventually. Asuna's goal for now was to protect their house in the forest and her comrades... and if she has time to spare, maybe even solve some mysteries of this new world.
However, Argo stated that she would not be joining them in UR for the time being. Though, her transfer to the survivor school wasn't completely unrelated to UR, apparently. She claimed that she had an omen that something like UR would happen beforehand and had decided to transfer to the Survivor School to dig out the secrets hidden behind-the-scenes.
Like always, Argo wasn't one to share uncertain information, so she didn't tell them much of anything else. She left investigating UR from the inside to Asuna and the others, while she herself investigated from the outside. Although Asuna hadn't minded the long commute times to her school and back, today she wished that her house had been closer to her school.
Chapter 4
Part 4 begins with Kazuto returning home, where he was met by Suguha, jumping around as she complained that he was late. Kazuto's commute is apparently twice as long as Suguha's; Suguha got back in five minutes, while Kazuto needed six minutes at full speed by bike to travel two kilometres from the Honkawagoe station to his home. After wiping his sweat with a towel and drinking half of a bottle of mineral water that Suguha provided him with, the two rushed up the stairs. The moment Kazuto got changed into a T shirt and shorts in his room, Suguha burst into the room, rushing him to dive into the game... and clearly intending to dive from his room.
Apparently, Suguha wanted to synchronise their dive in case they found themselves in danger when they logged in so that they wouldn't be forced to deal with it alone. Despite Kazuto's protest that Unital Ring doesn't have time acceleration, while Lisbeth and Silica had to already be in-game by then, Suguha hurried him anyway and jumped into his bed with enough force to make the floor creak, so Kazuto had no choice but to join her there. On the count of three, the two both dived in... with Kazuto having a late realisation that Suguha's raised counting arm would hit him on the sides when it fell down.
----------
In Unital Ring, Kirito awoke to the sight of a brand new ceiling in place of the large hole that had been there till they repaired the house at 4 AM that morning. As Kirito took a moment to savour the sight, Leafa hit him in the sides as they still had plenty of things that needed to be done. While Kirito was wearing the armour Lisbeth had crafted, Leafa was still in her simple one-piece dress. He looked around the empty living room —— all the furniture had been lost in the forced conversion) —— and couldn't find any other players inside. Asuna was still commuting, but Lisbeth and Silica should have already been there, while Alice and Yui had been taking turns to protect the house while the rest of them were at school.
Just then, Kirito heard a clang outside the window. In panic, Kirito opened the door and rushed outside, where he found two people, one about as tall as him and one as short as a child, dueling with swords. After a moment, he realised that the shorter one who was swing her sword down was his beloved daughter Yui, while the girl with golden hair in braids was the strongest Integrity Knight, Alice.
Just as Kirito was about to come between them reflexively, Leafa stopped him, noting that it just looked like they were having keiko (practicing). Then Kirito noticed that Alice was only fending off Yui's attacks without counterattacking herself. And giving her advice after each attack to boot. Although Kirito nodded to Leafa's comment that it was fine for them to duel, he thought about how he only saw Yui wielding a GM sword once against The Fatal Scythe. But now Yui was treated as a player, so she could hurt herself and lose HP, so he felt anxious seeing her fight.
Yui then entered the basic chuudan (middle) stance and kicked off the ground with a shout. At that point, Kirito noted that most new VRMMO game players tended to swing their swords in two steps: raising their sword and then swinging down. However, Yui's attack combined both steps into one smooth motion, gaining more speed and power for her attack, and thus forcing Alice to take half a step back with her left foot to be able to defend herself. After the attack, Alice praised Yui that it was a rather nice slash. At that point, Kirito began clapping, which drew both of their attention to him, prompting a shy smile from Alice and a frank one from Yui. As Yui began running to him with her sword drawn, Kirito warned her in panic to put her short sword away first. Once she rushed over to him with her sword in its sheath this time, Kirito embraced her and lifted her high into the sky like a child and then sat her down on his left arm.
When Kirito asked Yui why they were practicing, Yui replied that she was preparing for fights and had raised her One-Handed Sword skill's proficiency to 7. Stroking her hair with his left hand, Kirito thought that she had made quite a lot of progress, considering that all his new skills, other than his One-Handed Sword Skill he inherited from ALO at the maximum 1,000 proficiency, were only at 2 or 3 proficiency. He then asked what skills she could use by now; Yui listed ≪Vertical≫, ≪Horizontal≫, and ≪Slant≫ after checking her skill window. In response, Kirito remarked that they were all basic skills and that he'd teach her some coolio skills like Vorpal Strike and Howling Octave when she raised her proficiency more.
However, at that point, Alice rained on his parade by telling him to look at his own skill window. So he opened up his skill overview with the proficiency of each skill displayed next to it. The skill at the very top was of course One-Handed Sword... and Kirito's eyes shot up at seeing that the number for that specific skill was missing a zero - while it was at its max 1,000 value the previous day, it was only at a hundred now. Alice postulated that inherited skill proficiency had also dropped down after the grace period, meaning that high-grade Sword Skills for that weapon were no longer available for use.
When Kirito groaned out a "Seriously......", Leafa checked her own window and shouted out that she was affected as well. As the two siblings were about to hang their heads heartbroken by this revelation, Kirito suddenly recalled that he had been able to use Vorpal Strike in the fight against the PK guys the previous night, despite the grace period having already expired by that point... and Vorpal Strike was quite the high-grade skill.
At that point, Alice urged him to check his Sword Skill list. There, Kirito found: ≪Vertical≫, ≪Horizontal≫, ≪Slant≫, ≪Vertical Arc≫, ≪Horizontal Arc≫, ≪Rage Spike≫, ≪Sonic Leap≫, and ≪Sharp Nail≫ as skills he was currently able to use (the names were bright). Meanwhile the skill afterward, ≪Horizontal Square≫, was grayed out. When he tapped on it, he got a pop-up window saying 【Proficiency required for use: 150】. Setting aside the fact that the number didn't match the one in SAO or ALO, Kirito couldn't find any explanation on why he was able to use the high-grade Vorpal Strike skill. Scrolling down the list, he found Vorpal Strike grayed our far below; the requirement for it was 700. A big difference from his current 100.
When Kirito wondered if he had simply recreated the movements of his skills, rather than activating them, Yui denied this possibility, since his sword did in fact take on a light effect when he had used them, so they had to have been actually triggered as skills. Passing on Yui to Leafa, Kirito went to the centre of the yard, drew out his new iron longsword, and got into position for the skill by lowering his hips, extending his left hand forward and pulling back the sword in his right hand above his shoulder. But despite his repeated attempts, he just couldn't get Vorpal Strike to be triggered.
After the third attempt, Alice remarked that he looked rather lame with his conduct. In response, Kirito responded in a childish slang that he understood that himself, but still made a fourth attempt... and the skill actually triggered this time, causing Kirito to be pulled three metres forward off the ground by his sword, before falling on his chest. As he groaned out like a frog when he crashed into the ground, Alice rushed up to him and offered him a hand.
Once he stood up, Kirito stared at his sword before timidly asking Alice:
Kirito: "Did.... it just trigger? VorSt I mean......"
Alice: "I still can't tolerate the habit you real world youths have of abbreviating everything so randomly."
Kirito: "Srsl soz."
Alice: glare as cold as ice
After the glaring, Alice finally answered that the skill did indeed seem to have been triggered and wondered why. At that point, Yui (in Leafa's embrace) asked her to try it as well. So, Alice drew out a sword that had the same design as Kirito's (which is why Kirito concluded that Lisbeth had crafted it). When Kirito returned to Leafa's side, Alice entered the hasso stance (holding the sword's guard at face level on the right side) with her sword.
Kirito monologued about how Sword Skills from SAO were available in Underworld, where they were called "Secret Moves" (秘奥義, Yen Press's term appears to be "Secret Techniques"), thus it was easy for her to learn a lot of Sword Skills in ALO. However, being of Underworlder upbringing, Alice still preferred single certain-kill slashes over high speed consecutive hit skills, so she chose to activate the high-grade one-hit One-Handed Sword technique ≪Gelid Blade≫ (ジェリッド ブレード).
Alice then stepped forward with her left foot and thrust up her sword behind her to the right. Normally, this is where a bluish purple light effect on the sword would be triggered, but it didn't. Regardless, Alice still swung down her sword fiercely with a sharp shout. While it was an excellent slash, the Sword Skill itself hadn't been triggered. Alice pulled back her sword and repeated the same motion again, and again, and again. Just as Kirito was about to write his Vorpal Strike off as a bug, Alice's seventh or eighth attempt finally triggered the skill, the slash letting out a sound effect that sounded like someone was crushing a glacier and tracing a bluish purple line in the air.
As Leafa shouted in surprise that the skill had been triggered, Kirito nodded and concluded that it was possible to trigger high-grade Sword Skills even if one didn't have enough skill proficiency for it if one tried long enough. Though, Kirito doubted that they could rely on this in an actual battle when it only had a 10-20% chance of succeeding, especially when they didn't even know why it was possible in the first place. Kirito looked at Yui in Leafa's embrace subconsciously, but since she was just a regular player without system access right now, he figured he had to use his own head for once... but just then, Yui suddenly proposed a hypothesis: perhaps the cause of this phenomenon is related to their location, rather than the player or items.
Kirito wondered if she was implying that some open land gave some special bonuses, but Yui reminded him that it wasn't just some mere open land, turning her gaze to the repaired log house. Finally grasping what Yui was implying, Kirito trotted over to the house and taped on one of the walls. A 【イトスギの丸太小屋】(Cypress Log Cabin) window appeared. Displayed below this line was a list of the owners: Kirito and Asuna. Then came the Durability coloured bar, the numerical value of which was 【１２４３３／１２５００】 despite the house being repaired just earlier that morning, meaning that buildings in Unital Ring lost durability over time at a pace of 120 points per day for the log house. At the bottom of the window, there were four buttons; from left to right: 【情報】(Information),【取引】(Trade),【修復】(Repair) and【分解】(Dismantle). Resolved to never ever touch the Trade or Dismantle buttons, Kirito tapped on the Information button. Alice, Leafa and Yui also peeked in from the sides.
The window that appeared for them contained a simple description of the house, floor space, storage capacity, defence values for various attributes, as well as a "Special Effects" section below them. Kirito bore into this field and found only one effect displayed: 【Level 1／Blessing of the Forest: In the area within a radius of thirty metres from the centre of the building, the building's owner, players listed as their friends, and party members have a small chance of being able to use attack skills that they do not meet the unlock requirements for】.
Yui's guess apparently hit the jackpot. When Kirito wondered if this Blessing of the Forest was present in ALO, Yui replied that such a system didn't exist there. At that point, Leafa drew attention to the fact that the window said "level 1", implying that there was a "level 2" or "level 3" special effect as well. Though, they had no idea how to unlock them.
Alice: "Why don't you just foster it. Like us."
Kirito: "Foster...... you mean, the house? How?"
Alice: "Like, making more rooms, or reinforcing the construction. Even when I myself constructed a house in a forest close to Rulid, I first began with a shack composed of solely a simple roof and walls, and then made it bigger over time."
Kirito: "O-oh, is that so."
Kirito's answer became a bit awkward, as Alice had cared for him in that very house for a few months. Although he didn't remember much from those days, he did still have some faint memories of being fed with a spoon and being put to sleep in the bed, so he felt as embarrassed as he felt grateful for the help.
Anyways, that's one mystery resolved for Kirito... and one more thing to get done for Leafa, as she was interested in upgrading the house to see what the level 2 or level 3 effects were like. While Kirito nodded to her idea, he himself was a bit reluctant to modify the log house, seeing as he knew better than just about everyone just how much love Asuna had poured into the house ever since their SAO days. On the other hand, Yui saw through his worries:
Yui: "Don't worry, Papa. Mama isn't the kind of person to fuss over appearances; as long as its essence remains the same, I believe she will not have any issues with changing the appearance of our home!"
Kirito: "What exactly is...... its essence?"
Yui: "A place where Papa, Mama, me, Leafa-san, Alice-san, Liz-san, Silica-san, and Sinon-san can rest at ease with all their heart."
Kirito: "...... I see, you're right."
Kirito: nods and rubs Yui's hair again
However, Kirito believed that expending the house itself would come much later, as they had to take care of protecting their plot of land first. Half of the 15 metre-wide open plot in the forest was taken up by the log house in the east, while the western half was filled with all their crafting stations. While they weren't hard to make as long as they had the materials for them, gathering said materials wouldn't be an easy task, so Kirito wanted to protect the entire plot of land, instead of just the log house. While the plot had been protected by Alice, Yui, and Asuna's new pet during their school hours, Kirito didn't expect them to be able to fend off another bear or enemy team attack all by themselves when the entire party had trouble fending off such attacks just the previous night.
Coming to the same conclusion as Kirito, Alice stated a desire to set up a wall around the perimeter. Preferably made out of stone, rather than wood. In response, Kirito complained that he couldn't even imagine how many stones it would take to cover the entire plot of land. Thus, he expressed a regret that Her Holy Eminence Administrator wasn't there, as she could create a steel wall with just the snap of a finger.
Bringing up the god incarnate's name earned him a glare from Alice.
Alice: "Go ahead and ask the Esteemed Supreme Priest to take on such a menial job; you will be turned into a cricket or something for that."
"Is that so; though, I kinda feel like she'd be more than happy to do it if I offered her two or three expensive-ish cakes for it."
ーーIsn't that right, Eugeo.
Kirito called out to his late friend in his mind.
After shaking his head a little at the callout to Eugeo, Kirito remembered Koujiro Rinko's message that Alice had delivered to him the previous day. Namely, 『Expensive cake establishment, 29th at 15:00』. That encrypted message obviously didn't come from Koujiro herself, but he'd have to visit a certain cafe in Ginza the following day at 3 o'clock to find out what that message was for. However, the 29th was a busy work day and travelling from the school in Nishitokyo City to Ginza by public transport would take 80 minutes, so Kazuto wouldn't be able to make it in time unless he skipped some afternoon lessons.
Putting aside the strange timing for the meeting, Kirito and co still needed to construct a wall and, seeing as they didn't have Quinella's superpowers with them, they'd have to gather the materials and build the wall themselves. Luckily, they didn't have to build the wall manually, as buildings could be constructed via the menu. And he did have ≪Crude Stone Wall≫ (粗雑な石の壁) under his Elementary Level Carpentry Skill (初級大工スキル). Although Kirito disliked the adjective "crude", he'd have to deal with it until he built up his skill proficiency.
So, Kirito decided to head to the river to gather some stones and the others agreed with the idea. Kirito wanted to ask Agah to stand guard - even though he wasn't quite sure if it could handle the job - while they were away... but Asuna's pet was nowhere to be seen. Just as he thought that Asuna would be dejected if her new pet had returned to the wild while she was away, he suddenly heard the characteristic quack from the beast behind him. At the southern road that led to the river, he saw the platysaur in question hopping its way towards them. With Silica and Lisbeth in tow.
Upon noticing Kirito and Leafa, Lisbeth and Silica trotted over to them.
Lisbeth (glaring): "Took you long enough, Kirito! Did you stop on the way to eat or something!?
Silica: "Kirito-san has a long commute, so it does take about this long for him."
Agah: Quack
Pina: Kyuih
Kirito (thinking): Which one of them are you even agreeing with.
When Kirito asked where the girls had been, Lisbeth revealed that Agah apparently needed to bathe every now and then or it would start losing HP, so the two had taken Agah along as they went out to gather some stones.
Kirito: "Oh, good job. Though, it sure has some annoying traits for a lizard."
Yui: "Papa, there are quite a few semi-aquatic lizards even in the real world. Varanus mertensi and Tropidophorus baconi are well known for that."
Kirito: "Well, guess we'll have to dig out a well sooner than I thought. We sure have way too many things to do!"
At that point, Kirito checked on the time: it was 5:50 PM at the moment and they couldn't very well play till dawn again this day, so he planned to call it a day at midnight... make that 2 AM, which left them with 8 hours and a bit to get things done. Kirito went just a little bit nostalgic for the SAO days when he could spend the entire day on gaming.
Just as Kirito was about to head off to the river to gather some stones, Leafa proposed reuniting with Sinon as a bigger priority. From a long-term perspective, they would get more stuff done with more people helping out... and have more (wo)manpower in a fight too.
Nodding faintly at Leafa's words, Kirito recalled what Shino had shared with them during their after-school meeting. Apparently, Shino had shocked them with quite a few revelations. One such revelation was that they were able to keep their guns from GGO. Kirito was apparently concerned with how UR was supposed to maintain its consistency when some people were using swords while others were running around with laser guns.
Either way, Kirito figured that Sinon's beloved Hecate II, which he compared to a 30 word-long high-grade spell in ALO in firepower, would prove to be a great asset to their base's defence. Although Sinon lost her spare ammunition in the conversion, he assumed it was possible to acquire new ones in UR, seeing as it allowed bringing the guns with them.
However, there was one big issue with regrouping with Sinon: the fact that they had no idea where they were supposed to look for the birdmen village where Sinon was currently staying at. Silica added that Sinon had not felt the shock from Aincrad's crash, so the GGO players' starting position had to be even farther away than theirs had been.
Lisbeth then opened up her map, showing where ALO players started off, where Aincrad had crashed down at, where the Basin tribe village was located to the north of the crash site, and the log house to the far north-east from there. Lisbeth also remarked that during their entire trip, they had not encountered any of the monsters that Sinon had told them about.
Silica suddenly realised one point that they hadn't mentioned: when they began their trip from the Basin tribe village, they first had to cross a sandy wasteland, but then they gradually transitioned to a meadow, before eventually ending up in their forest after crossing a large river. Since Sinon's area was basically a desert with barely any water around anywhere, Silica presumed that it was highly likely that Sinon was located in the opposite side of the map (relative to the Basin village, I assume).
While Kirito, Leafa and Alice agreed that she did have a point, Kirito reminded her that just because they knew the direction they had to look in didn't help them determine how far away Sinon was. And they couldn't go out looking for her without knowing the distance, seeing as they needed to stock up on sufficient food and water provisions for long-distance travel when they had to worry about their SP and TP bars.
Just then, Kirito suddenly became aware of his own hunger and thirst. Their SP and TP values apparently didn't change while they were logged out, so his SP bar was only down by 20%, while his TP bar was down by 30%. Although they had a river nearby and some leftover bear meat lying around, Kirito thought it would be best to procure a constant supply.
When Kirito brought up that they should cut down some of the forest to have some land for crops, if they could actually do that, Yui remarked that she'd add it to their to-do list. Kirito thus asked what their to-do list currently was. In no particular order, Yui listed: "wall construction", "log house expansion", "producing weapons and armour for everyone", "level-ups", "getting more tamed monsters", "well digging", "cropfield cultivation", "reuniting with Sinon-san", and "arriving at the land indicated by the aurora".
Putting the very last order of business on that list aside, all the others were quite high on the priority list. Pulling himself together, Kirito proposed starting off with the wall. Lisbeth nodded at that, stating that that's why they brought all those stones along, and she offered to create one for trial purposes.
So, Lisbeth opened up her menu, went to her Elementary Level Carpentry Skill (初級大工スキル) and selected ≪Stone-Stacked Wall≫ (石積みの壁). This produced a light purple hologram ("ghost object") of the wall, which Lisbeth was about to place at the border between the clearing and the forest, but Kirito fine-tuned the placement to be 15 cm closer to them and turned a bit to the right.
This produced a 1.5 metre-high-and-wide and 30 cm-thick gray stone wall. Kirito concluded that the wall would suffice for warding off smaller monsters, but Alice remarked that it wouldn't be able to stop another Thorn-Bearing Cave Bear (トゲバリホラアナグマ) attack, while players could just climb over it.
With the bear, all they could do was pray they didn't get another one. But to deal with players, Kirito asked Lisbeth how many resources a block of wall required. Lisbeth answered that it used up 30 x ≪Gray Crumbled Rocks≫ (these were the most common find at the river) and 5 x ≪Coarse Gray Clay≫. When Kirito asked how much of it they still had left, Lisbeth answered that she still had around 120 stones and 20 pieces of clay to spare, while Silica had another 100 stones and 15 clay.
This meant they could make another 7 blocks of wall with just their haul. So, Kirito asked Lisbeth to try adding another layer of wall on top of the current one. When Lisbeth tried it out, the hologram wall first attached itself to the right of the existing wall, but when Lisbeth moved it further to the left, the hologram jumped atop of the existing wall. So now they had a three metre-high wall. Although it didn't guarantee absolute protection, only very light players wouldn't be afraid of climbing it.
Of course, they still only covered a fraction of their territory with the wall. The clearing was 15 metres in diameter with a circumference of approximately 47 metres. Kirito calculated that they would need 32 blocks of wall to surround the entire plot with a wall, and double that if they did a two-layered wall, adding up to 64 blocks in total.
Just when Kirito thought he didn't even want to count how many stones they'd need for all that... Asuna came out from the log house.
Asuna: "Sorry, everyone! For taking so long!"
Kirito: "Asuna, good timing! What's 64 times 30!?"
Asuna (Puzzled for a moment): "1920....... What's that for?"
Kirito: "That's the number of stones we need for a wall that would cover the clearing."
Leafa: "Onii-chan, you sure that not being able to make that simple calculation yourself isn't a bad sign?"
----------
The entire group spent the next hour all going to the river, stocking up on as many stones and as much clay as they could, then returning to the clearing, where Kirito and Lisbeth used their Elementary Level Carpentry Skill to produce walls. By the time they finally finished encircling the entire clearing in a three metres-high wall, the sun had already set entirely. They set up a wooden gate at both the south and north ends of the wall, so they needed fewer stones than Asuna had calculated. Still, the group was tired out by the job, though they were equally as glad when it was finished. When Kirito compared their struggle to the Greeks, Asuna retorted that the wall was much smaller than the ones Athens and Corinth had, which prompted Kirito to brag that the wall would become bigger and would soon be on the same level as Athens or Centoria. This earned him a smug remark from Alice about how she was expecting much from him now.
Since they could now cross out one thing on their to-do list, they could now move on to the next one. Leafa immediately voiced her desire for a sword and a set of armour of her own. Kirito couldn't very well reject that idea, seeing as he himself was decked out in full iron armour, Lisbeth and Silica had received leather armour and metal weapons from the Basins, while Yui and Alice at least had a sword for defence... which left only Leafa and Asuna with just grass dresses and stone axes.
Since Lisbeth had a Blacksmith skill from ALO, the technical aspect for producing gear wasn't a problem. However, the problem was getting all that iron ore that would be needed for the crafting. They had used up all the iron from the bear's cave and the PK gang's iron equipment for their house repairs. In order to get more, they'd have to venture back into the bear cave, but its owner could have very well respawned by now and their trick with the logs wasn't likely to work a second time.
So, Kirito asked Yui if the Basins hadn't mentioned where they got their own ore from, but Yui responded that she hadn't asked about that. Kirito cheered Yui up that it was his own fault for not considering to ask about iron ore when they had asked about quartz sand and flax, so he said he'd take care of it somehow. Asuna lifted Yui into her arms and told her to leave it to Kirito as well.
When Yui asked Kirito for specifics on how he planned to get iron ore:
Kirito: "Beating the Thorn-Bearing Cave Bear in a straightforward attack, of course...... Wait, hold on.
Kirito: looks at Silica with Pina on her shoulder
Kirito: "Rather than beating it, it'd be very best if we could tame it. That should stop the respawning too, probably."
Silica (taken aback): "WHAA!? THE BEAR!?"
Kirito (grinning): "Asuna was able to make a platysaur into her pet without even having a Taming skill. I'm sure that you, Silica, could easily do a bear with your Taming skill from ALO......"
Silica: "Unfortunately for you, Kirito-san, I inherited by Dagger skill instead."
Kirito (frankly surprised): "Wha, is that so? So, your Dagger skill was higher-leveled then?"
Silica (pouting): "Kirito-san, it takes a crazy amount of effort to raise the Taming skill to 1000. Even in ALO, the Cait Sith Lord Alicia-san is the only one I know to have maxed her skill."
So, Kirito apologised and looked at Asuna, as her Taming skill was higher-leveled at the present moment. After blinking twice, Asuna remarked that it'd be impossible for her to tame the bear. As Kirito considered how to cajole... er, convince Asuna to do it, Silica declared that if the alternative was to force the job on Asuna, she herself would take it on. Kirito wasn't sure if this declaration came from her because she had some equipment from the Basins, or out of her pride as a tamer.
Before Asuna could say anything, Silica stopped her, claiming that although she hadn't seen the bear herself, it was easier to tame animals than insects or demons. So, she'd do her best to level her Taming skill and domesticate the bear.
Kirito (thinking): I think Silica's got quite the wrong impression of what the bear is like.
Asuna, Leafa and Alice seemed to get the same impression as Kirito, but before any of them could say anything, Kirito stepped forward to praise her for being known as the idol tamer in SAO before she could change her mind. This prompted a sigh from Asuna. Kirito then asked Asuna to teach Silica how to get the Taming skill, mentioning that he had seen some fox-ish monsters that they could use for practice when he was on his way back from the river. Meanwhile, he wanted Lisbeth, Alice and Leafa to help him dig out a well before their TP started causing trouble.
At that point, Lisbeth asked whether it was even possible to dig the ground wherever one pleased, causing Kirito to stop in his tracks. Kirito remembered that most VRMMO games didn't allow players to modify the terrain since map designing would lose its purpose and someone would definitely dig out huge holes in the road just to get on someone's nerves. Although Unital Ring wasn't a normal game in many senses, it probably didn't allow modifying the terrain either... and Kirito recalled having the same thought the previous day too.
Just then, Kirito recalled seeing a well listed on the Elementary Level Carpentry Skill, so he opened up his menu and showed it to Lisbeth and the others. There was an entry for ≪Stone-Stacked Small Well≫ (石積みの小型井戸) on it. When Leafa asked whether all they needed to do was place the well from the menu like with the stone furnace and they'd be done with it, Kirito was surprised that it could be all that easy, seeing as the TP bar would lose its meaning if one could just put down a well anywhere as long as one had the materials for it.
Urged to just give it a try, Kirito looked at the materials needed for the construction project: 300 x stone, 20 x sawed logs, 50 x iron nails, and 1 x iron chain. So, they had no where near having enough materials for it. Stones and logs were one thing, but iron was still an issue. So, Alice stated that iron was their biggest priority now. Since Silica's Taiming would take some time to finish up, Alice proposed fighting against the bear one more time.
However, this wasn't any ordinary game where they didn't have to care whether they died in their attempt or not. After all, if they died, there was no coming back, while all the original games had their data overwritten and their administrators weren't successful with their rollback and reinstall attempts, according to Argo. Even Kirito, apparently called the king of the 3 Ms: muri (irrational), mucha (rash/absurd), mubou (reckless), couldn't help but hesitate going up against the bear in these conditions.
In SAO and ALO, players could buy tons of iron at the starting town. And plenty of monsters dropped so many iron items that Kirito had to dump his surplus at times. Now he wished he could get all that dumped iron back. Kirito believed that they could find more iron deposits than the one in the bear cave, but from a game perspective, he concluded that the forest's difficulty level for gathering iron assumed players could easily take down the bear. Kirito also concluded that it was impossible to procure a stable ore supply from elsewhere, so they couldn't reach their true iron age culture until they were able to handle the bear. That's why Kirito proposed going out to find Sinon.
When he voiced his proposal, everyone looked at him. Even Asuna and Silica, who were discussing the Taming skill a slight distance away. When Asuna asked how exactly was he planning to do that, Kirito speculated that the Basin tribe might know about the birdmen that Sinon was currently with. And he did want to ask them about iron ore anyway, so their village was a good place to start their search. Kirito proposed splitting their group into two teams: Asuna, Silica and Alice would remain at the log house to guard it, while he went with Leafa, Lisbeth and Yui to the village. Alice could understand why he picked Asuna and Silica to stay behind due to the Taming skill stuff, but she asked why she was included in the group too. Kirito replied that he felt more at ease with Alice around to guard the house. Alice couldn't argue against that reasoning, but demanded to be included in the next expedition as she walked over to Asuna and Silica. Placing her hand on Alice's back, Asuna made Kirito promise that they'd be back safe and sound in a tone that reminded Kirito of Asuna's KoB vice commander days. Lisbeth declared that they'd definitely find Sinon, while Yui rushed over to Asuna for a hug.
At that point, Kirito materialised his Black Welt longsword that Lisbeth had crafted for him in ALO but was now too high level for him over his menu... and asked Lisbeth to melt it down. Lisbeth acknowledged that Kirito was free to do what he pleased with the sword since it belonged to him, but she warned him that she couldn't guarantee that she would be able to craft a sword on the same level as Black Welt in Unital Ring. Kirito replied that he understood that, but presumed that he would need to reach level 40 or 50 before he was able to actually wield it. If it meant that the sword would just sit in his storage unused until then, he preferred to put it to use in a way that would benefit everyone.
Lisbeth was about to reach out for the sword but then remembered that it would fall down to the ground and become too heavy to lift if she were to touch it. With his storage window still open, Kirito walked over to the west side of the clearing, where the furnace was, opened the furnace's operation window, and dropped his sword into it. He then put some firewood into the combustion chamber and left the rest to Lisbeth. After grieving for a moment, the blacksmith began her work. The sword resisted the flames for nearly two minutes, unlike the seconds it took for ore, before melted metal finally flowed out into a rectangle mold. Kirito had expected about ten ingots from a single one-handed sword, but it seemed that higher rank gear was worth more ingots in Unital Ring. By the time Kirito gave up on counting the ingots, the process finally stopped. Lisbeth announced the materials they had earned: ≪High-Grade Steel Ingot≫ (高級な鋼のインゴット) x 62, ≪High-Quality Silver Ingot≫ (上質な銀のインゴット) x 18, ≪High-Quality Meteoric Iron Ingot≫ (上質な隕鉄のインゴット) x 9, ≪Mithril Ingot≫ (ミスリルのインゴット) x 6, ≪Blackdragon Steel Ingot≫ (黒竜鋼のインゴット) x 2.
Leafa shouted in awe at how those all sounded like rare metals, while Kirito considered for a moment what would happen if he were to melt Excalibur too... but decided to treat it as a last resort option, seeing as they went through a whole lot of trouble to get that legendary class weapon in the first place. Kirito then asked Lisbeth if she could produce gear for Alice, Asuna and Leafa out of the ingots. Lisbeth had some doubts on whether she would be able to work with the overly high-grade ingots when her Blacksmith skill proficiency had dropped down to 100, but she moved the ingots into her storage and placed the High-Grade Steel Ingots onto the anvil from her menu. She then opened up the crafting window and noticed that her skill level was just barely enough to make weapons out of the steel. So, she started off with Alice by asking if she was okay with a bastard sword. When Alice confirmed this, Lisbeth got to work on the silvery-brown ingots with her hammer. Meanwhile, Kirito prayed that Lisbeth would create some tough swords, just like his late Black Welt.
Chapter 5
Sinon was surprised by the birdmen's level of culture. All the buildings were constructed out of neatly-arranged bricks, while border village was surrounded by a near-perfectly circular wall. The roads were tiled, leading to an assembly hall at the central area of the village, with a shopping district around it. Sinon then remembered that the birdmen were using muskets, so it wasn't actually all that surprising that they had advanced culture too. Thus, she considered whether only eating a small part of her steak wouldn't be seen as rude. Just then, a birdmen child came to her and asked her something as she poured some red alcoholic drink into her glass. Sinon tried to tell the child that she couldn't understand the question, but the child didn't understand her either.
Just then, someone suddenly spoke out in an old-man-speech Japanese, telling her that the child was asking if she wasn't going to eat her food. The speaker was old-looking birdman with long, gray feathers on both sides of his beak. Sinon asked if the man could understand her in a hoarse voice, to which the old birdman replied that he had been adventuring with humans around the continent in his youth. He then asked if Sinon didn't like dino meat. Apparently, the birdmen call all the dinosaur-like monsters dinos (in English). Sinon then replied that she was going to partake in some of the meat and worked up the courage to give the meat a try. She took a small piece off the meat and carried it into her mouth. When she bit into it, she was surprised at how elastic the meat felt but was able to bite through with a bit more strength, which resulted in a sweet taste of fat filling her mouth. It tasted like cattle ribs. Although it wasn't dipped in sauce, it did have some spiced added to it, so it wasn't half bad.
At that point, Sinon asked the old birdman how to say "delicious" in the birdmen language. He responded that it was "Hyuforu". Sinon then turned to the child and repeated the word she just learnt, but the child still didn't understand her. Apparently, her pronunciation was off, so the old birdman repeated the word again. But Sinon's pronunciation was still off, so the old birdman repeated it again. After several attempts, the child finally understood what she had said and gave a smile and nodded several times, before taking its leave. At that instant, a window popped up for her: 【Ornit Language Skill Acquired. Proficiency Reached 1】. Blinking in surprise, Sinon then focused on some of the conversations swirling in the hall. While most of them still sounded like gibberish to her, she could now make out some of the words they were saying as Japanese. Such as someone talking about southern farms, or another birdman asking for a win refill.
Sinon then recalled that Yui had mentioned that the NPC languages in UR were just Japanese with several layers of filters added on top, making the languages indecipherable. But by gaining the Ornit Language skill, some of the filters were removed, allowing her to make out some of the words. Sinon surmised that leveling up the skill would eventually remove all the filters. As she took another bite of the steak, Sinon considered how she could level up the language skill and recalled the conversation that had led to her getting the skill. She then turned to the old birdman:
Sinon: "Umm, how do you say 'knife' in Ornitian?"
Old birdman: "Hm? That'd be 'fetu'."
Sinon: "Fetu."
Old birdman: "Wrong, it's 'fetu'."
Sinon: "Fetu."
Old birdman: "I thought I told you that it's 'fetu'"
Sinon: "Fetu is exactly what I'm saying though!"
As Sinon got heated in her responses,【Ornit Language Proficiency Reached 2】. The child from before then ran over with a new knife for her. So now Sinon had confirmed her hypothesis: language skills can be leveled up by repeating the NPC language words in their gibberish form with perfect pronunciation. And so, Sinon continued to ask the old man for new words, starting from "thanks."
----------------
Forty minutes later, Sinon left the party venue and fell into her bed at the inn. Luckily, the Ornits didn't pester her into finishing her meal. Sinon had continued to stuff her virtual stomach with the meat as she continued learning new words from the old birdman, but she had to throw in the towel after finishing half... which was a lot. At this point, Sinon would be taking a break from meat dishes for a while, even in the real world. By this point, she had improved her Ornit Language skill to level 10 and was able to acquire some info from the birdmen with her newfound language mastery. At this point, she opened up her map. East of the town she started in was a wasteland and the mountain area where she defeated the dinosaur. Some distance to the north from there was the Ornit village. By zooming out on the map, she observed that all the distance she traveled wouldn't even amount to a single percent of the entire map, if the max zoom out were an accurate representation of the full map. But her attention was now focused on getting to Kirito and the others.
At the end of the party, Sinon asked around if anyone there knew about the Basins. Sinon was disappointed that her language teacher had never heard of it, despite travelling around the world in his youth, but there was one attendee who had actually heard of it. Using her level 10 language skill, Sinon bombarded the guy with questions. Apparently, the birdman hadn't actually met the Basins himself, but he had heard of them from his grandfather. Though, all she learnt from this Ornit was that the Basin village was located beyond the Gjol Plains located far to the south-east of the village. The log house had crashed close to the area where the Basins lived, thus she might eventually reach them if she were to travel south-east.
Sinon decided to take her chances that the Ornit was referring to the village that Silica and co had visited and head in that direction. Sinon had already informed the Ornits that she would be leaving the village that night. She also learnt that the birdmen had recklessly attempted to hunt the creature because it would occasionally attack their farm to the south of the village and eat their 《pushitako》. Sinon wasn't exactly sure if that was referring to some livestock. The Ornits were disappointed that their hero would be leaving so soon, while Sinon did kind of want to use the village as a base and level up in the area for a while, seeing as she didn't need to pay rent or for her food, but her desire to regroup with her friends was stronger. She had grown an attachment to the log house and she did think that investigating the mysteries of Unital Ring wouldn't be the same without her friends.
Taking her weapons, Sinon left the inn. The assembly hall had already grown dark and there wasn't anyone walking around the streets either. It was only 11 o'clock at that point, but Ornits weren't into nightlife. At that point, Sinon realised that she messed up. She had been planning to use her hundred Els to buy some packed lunches and water for her trip, but the shops were all closed down by now. Unlike ALO or GGO, NPCs didn't man the shops 24/7 in Unital Ring, a fact that Sinon realised too late. Just as Sinon pondered on whether she should stay the night to wait for the stores to open up or find a place to draw some water, so she wouldn't have to go through thirst hell again, someone called out to her.
Sinon turned around, spotting an Ornit youth and a child. At first, Sinon had a hard time telling the difference between the individual Ornits, but she learnt to differentiate them to some extent by the colour and pattern of their feathers, as well as the shape of their eyes and beak. The Ornit that called out to her was the gunner that Sinon had saved during the dinosaur battle. While the child was the girl that had attended to her during the feast. Although Sinon still couldn't make out some of their words, her level 10 language skill was enough to guess what the missing words were from context, allowing her to hold a conversation to some extent. The youth asked if Sinon was really leaving them already, to which she replied that she had to reach the Basin village. The youth accepted her decision, but warned her that she would need to be prepared if she wanted to cross the Gjol Plains. And so, he handed over his musket to her. Sinon didn't want to accept the gift, assuming that it was a precious armament to them, but then the light-brown-feathered girl interjected that the gun had actually belonged to their deceased grandfather. Their father had told them to give it to Sinon, who had done a great service to the village by killing the dinosaur.
The youth assured Sinon that while the gun was old, it was still high-quality. Although Sinon had a powerful gun of her own, it would be a waste to use it against smallfry. And Sinon did only have six bullets left for it anyway, while her other weapon had limited ammo left too. So, Sinon decided to accept their offer. The youth also gave her a leather bag with ammo and explosives. He also explained how to make more ammo, though Sinno didn't understand some of the instructions. The explosives were apparently made from the secretions of "Hajikekogane" (exploding gold) by adding charcoal to it and drying the mixture. When Sinon asked what a Hajikekogane was, the girl who was apparently the youth's little sister explained that they could be found at the roots of some cactus that Sinon couldn't make out. Apparently, they explode if you step on them, so she warned her to be careful. Although Sinon couldn't make out the name of the cactus, she wasn't planning to get near any of them either. Probably because of the exploding part.
Then the girl offered her a fabric bag with water, butter, and hard-baked buns. Made by he girl, her mother, and her grandmother. The bag also had a fur cloak, which the girl advised her to put on if XX were to come. Although she couldn't make out what the XX was, Sinon decided not to question them further about it. After saying her thanks, Sinon asked the girl her name. The girl was named Phikki, while her brother was named Ufelm. Sinon then promised to return to the village someday with some gifts of her own, before taking her leave.
----------------
At 7:30, Sinon left the Ornit village and opened her map and looked for some landmarks to head south-east. Straining her eyes, she found some gate-shaped mountains in the distance and set off. Sinon made it her goal to reach the Basin village over the course of the night. She had already reached level 16 by defeating the dino and was armed with a musket and a Belatrix SL2 laser gun, which would suffice against centipedes and scorpions in the area. Sinon then considered her stats and remembered that while UR didn't have STR, AGI or other stats like that, it did have Abilities. And Sinon had 15 leftover points after leveling up. Sinon felt it wouldn't do to leave those points unused, though Kirito did warn her that she probably wouldn't be able to respec later on, while Unital Ring had far too many options for her.
Sinon: "Ugh, I suck at this kind of thing......"
Sinon considered returning to the village to log out and look up info on the Abilities, but then she realised that the game wasn't running for that long, while info on the Internet would have questionable reliability. She had learnt from XeXeeD a valuable lesson to choose her build on her own. So, she decided to use 10 of her points for the time being as she began inspecting the tier 1 abilities.
Chapter 6
Kirito: "Ugh, I suck at this kind of thing......"
Lisbeth criticised him for being indecisive. Silica, Leafa and her had already distributed their own points by "feeling". Kirito narrates about the Abilities available as choices to him and how those abilities are described. Basically, the Herculean Strength (剛力) tree was specialised for "Attacker" (Damage Dealer) players, the Toughness (頑強) tree was specialised for Tanks, the Intelligence (才知) tree was specialised for Mages, and the Agility (俊敏) tree was specialised for Scouts. A detailed list of all the Abilities and their descriptions up to Tier 4 can be found on my translation of an Ability sheet that came at the end of the volume. Since Kirito primarily uses one-handed swords, which are considered mid-sized close-range weapons, logic would dictate that he should focus on the Herculean Strength tree as an Attacker (Damage Dealer). However, since Unital Ring is a Survival MMO game, Kirito was worried that he'd regret not taking some Abilities from the Toughness tree that offer buffs to HP, SP, and TP when he's starving or dehydrated.
Finding it hard to make up his mind, Kirito decided to ask his companions what Abilities they had ended up with by going by their "feeling"s. Lisbeth had picked Toughness, Leafa went with Herculean Strength, while Yui took up Intelligence.
Kirito: "《Intelligence》....... wait, so you're going for a magic class?"
Yui: "That is correct! I aspire to be a punchy mage just like Mama!"
Kirito: "T... that so. That sure sounds promising."
Kirito internally: The only reason Asuna's battle style that made her infamous as the Berserk Healer works is because of her astounding defence/dodge techniques, but best not spoil a child's dreams. (Strokes Yui's hair) I just have to be sure to protect no matter what comes and whatever build she picks will work out just fine. Uh, should I go with being a tank then?
Kirito: "Ugh, if only I knew what the derivative Abilities are......"
Narration: Players can only read up on Abilities that they have available as choices.
Leafa (exasperated): "Then why don't you just ask?"
Kirito: "Huh...... oh, r-right......"
Since the girls had already taken up the first abilities in three of the trees, Kirito realised he could just ask them what new Abilities they unlocked as choices. Lisbeth stated that Toughness led to Endurance (忍耐) that decreased damage while blocking, and Poison Resistance (耐毒) that literally just offered resistance to poison damage. Then Leafa checked hers: Bone-Breaking (骨砕き) offer bonus penetration damage against blocking, while Protection (堅守) offered resistance to knockbacks while blocking. Finally Yui: Focus (集中) offered increased an MP recovery buff, while Erudition (博学) offered a buff to building up proficiency with language skills.
So, Kirito took up the Herculean Strength Ability, which unlocked Bone-Breaking and Protection. Each Ability has 10 ranks, while Tier 2 Abilities consumed 2 points per level, Tier 3 consumed 3 points per level and so on. Kirito still had 11 points left over, but he hesitated on spending all of them right away. So, he first took up Bone-Breaking and then increased Herculean Strength to Rank 5, leaving him with 5 leftover points. Taking up Bone-Breaking also unlocked Dogfight (乱撃), which buffs consecutive attacks, and Far Attack (遠撃), which buffs the range of AoE attacks, as choices, but Kirito didn't take them up just yet. Taking up the Herculean Strength skill and leveling it to Rank 5 considerably increasing his carrying capacity, so he was pleased with its effects, even though it was pretty basic as skills went.
Kirito: "......Alright, I took up my Abilities."
Lisbeth (nonchalantly): "How many points did you leave unused?"
Kirito: "5, I guess?"
Lisbeth: "See, told ya he'd leave 5 or more points unused. I win this bet!"
Kirito (dumbfounded): "......Hah?"
Leafa: (hands over a fruit to Lisbeth) "Geez, Onii-chan! What point is there to leaving so many points unused, be a man and splurge, will you!"
Yui: (gives Kirito a headpat in consolation)
----------------
After a snack break, Kirito and co set off south-westward again, the stars lighting their way. The party had already left the forest and were now traversing a prairie, facing off against hyenas, bats and other nocturnal monsters along the way. While they weren't exactly breezing through those battles, Lisbeth's gear allowed them to get by just fine nonetheless. Their water supplies consisted of bisque canteens they had filled to the brim at a rive, while their food supplies consisted of several pieces of bear jerky they had for emergencies, so they had to to stock up along the way. Hyena meat wasn't really edible even cooked, but they did come across some walnut-like fruit now and then, which were somewhat tasty even if they were hard to break open. Their journey had already been going on for two hours, while their TP and SP were at 80%. According to Lisbeth, they had only covered 1/3 of the distance to the Basin Village. There was apparently a big tree ahead that would mark the approximate halfway point for their journey. Yui also remembered that the Basins offered a prayer at the tree along their way to the forest.
Kirito felt that offering a prayer to a tree reminded him of something, but couldn't pinpoint what the association actually was. He considered asking Yui about it, but then remembered that she was a player now and pretty happy about it, so he decided not to treat her like just a handy AI. Just then, they felt a chilly and damp breeze coming from the north. Yui was wearing a set of metallic armour atop her one-piece. Lisbeth was equipped with a mace and leather armour she got from the Basins; she only crafted herself a round shield out of Kirito's sword. Meanwhile, Leafa had a set of metallic armour and a bastard sword made for her out of the ingots. But despite being decked out in a set of new armour, Leafa was the first to complain about the cold:
Leafa: "Say, Kirito-kun, can't you make a mantle out of hyena fur or something?"
Kirito: "Don't be unreasonable; I don't even have a Sewing skill anyway."
Leafa: "Then let's run! It'll make our trip quicker!"
Kirito: "Aww...... you might be used to running as part of your club activities, but I was part of the Go Home Club......"
Leafa: "Uh, you know, that doesn't have any bearing in a virtual world!"
Kirito: (awkward cough upon realising that she was right) "B-besides, our TP and SP run out faster while running...... and we can't really see the ground all that well, so it's dangerous."
Yui: "Papa, we do have torches! (takes out some torches from her inventory)"
Kirito: "Were you the one who made these?"
Yui: "Yes, but Liz-san was the one who came up with how we could make some."
Kirito: "Hoh, just what you'd expect from the artisan class."
Lisbeth: "Praise ain't gonna score you any points."
After a few moments of silence.
Lisbeth: "Though, it might be a good idea to be ready to run at any moment. Last night, the Basin people mentioned something. That the....... Gjol Plains, was it? occasionally see ice storms, so you'd better cover yourself in some fur or take refuge in a nearby cave when that happens or you'll die, or so they said."
Kirito: "Haah!? Why didn't you mention that earlier."
Lisbeth: "Well, they did say it only happens once a year or so."
Kirito: "Uh, you know, in games that implies that it happens once every few days......"
Yui (dejected): "I am sorry, Papa, I heard that warning too, but I did not classify it as important."
Kirito: "O... oh no, you're not at fault, Yui. Who'd expect an ice storm in a savanna anyway."
Lisbeth (pouting): "Hey! Don't you think you're playing favourites a bit too much!?"
Just then, they felt a gust of wind so strong that they bent backwards. Much chillier than before too. A bunch of black clouds were flowing to the south at intense speeds. As the group got a bad feeling where this was going, Kirito asked Yui to give him the torches to lit, as he took out some stones to ignite them with some sparks. Kirito regretted not having any fire spells. Once the torches were lit, Kirito looked around his surroundings to plan out their next moves. Just then, Yui: "Papa, something is coming from the north!"
Kirito: "Say whut....."
As Kirito hurriedly pointed his torch windward, he noticed a large figure coming into the light. It wasn't one of the hyenas this time. A slim body covered in black fur, much bigger than a hyena, and with much burlier forelegs. Since it looked feline and had round ears, Kirito assumed it was a leopard/panther. Since it was clearly hostile and it would be impossible to outrun it, Kirito ordered everyone to prepare for battle. As the gang drew its blades, the panther got into position to pounce on Kirito. Just then came an ear-splitting howl... from the wind. Then they were assailed by such strong wind that the one they experienced before looked cute in comparison. Kirito braced himself, while his torch light was blown out. Before Kirito had his chance to crack a pun at the fact that both panther and hail were pronounced "hyou" in Japanese, the panther took a leap. Kirito prepared to counter it with a Vertical... but the panther just jumped over them instead and ran away to the south. The gang speculated that the panther prioritised running away from the ice storm... which meant that the blast of wind was just the opening act for a storm so great that even monsters felt the need to find refuge....... which meant that the panther had an idea as to where it could find shelter. As such, Kirito ordered the gang to chase after it.
They spent two minutes chasing after the monster, Kirito holding Yui by her hand (though he had considered taking her into his arms, but noticed that she was keeping up just fine, since her avatar had a similar level of agility), before arriving at a small hill. The panther leaped towards the hill and suddenly disappeared. When the gang caught up moments later, they found cave opening, about three metres in height. By that point, the hail started assailing them, clanking as it hit their armour. Kirito noticed a debuff icon with ice crystals on it lit up to the right of his HP bar, as his HP began gradually decreasing. It was self-evident what the debuff was implying. Yui urged Kirito to step inside. Kirito let go of her hand and took out his sword just in case as he approached the entrance. The cave was to dark to see anything, so he couldn't tell how far away was the panther. The cave had a slight downward slope, as it extended towards the ground, rather than just the hill.
10 metres in, the slope stopped and Kirito straightened up. The cave was big enough that he could not reach the ceiling with his hands, while there was no sign of the panther. Kirito checked his HP bar, whereupon he noticed that the debuff had disappeared and his HP had stopped decreasing. The only problem was that it was so pitch dark that he couldn't see anyone from his party, so he called out to them. The girls responded in turn that they were nearby, so Kirito decided to return his sword into its sheath and reignite the torch. But just as he was about to do so, Leafa noticed something. Kirito immediately strained his eyes in that direction, though he couldn't actually see anything at first. 【Night Vision skill acquired. Proficiency has reached 1】. Just then, Kirito was able to make out what Leafa had seen: two blue lights deeper in the cave. As Kirito wondered what those were, the lights disappeared for a moment and then lit up again... as if something was blinking.
At that point, Kirito realised that it actually was something blinking... and that something was the panther. Letting out a growl, the panther stood up. Concluding that they were at a disadvantage in the dark, Kirito ordered Yui to lit his torch. But just before she could do so, Kirito heard some noise. Turning around, he noticed gleaming white particles coming into the cave from the outside. The moment the particles reached them, Lisbeth let out a sneeze, followed by Leafa complaining about the cold. Finally, Kirito felt intense shivers himself. "Cold" was an understatement, as the chill debuff lit up again, their HP decreasing at a clearly-visible rate. There was no way to close up the opening to the cave, while the noise outside was so loud that Kirito didn't even want to imagine what the rampage outside was really like.
Leafa warned Kirito that they needed to head deeper into the cave, but the boy argued that the panther was blocking their way. Although the panther wasn't going in for an attack, it did continue growling, so Kirito imagined that it would likely pounce on them if they got any closer. By this point, Kirito's HP bar had decreased by 10%, meaning that they only had three minutes before they froze to death. As Kirito considered whether their only real option was to go into combat against the panther despite their disadvantage to avoid certain death at the cold....... Kirito suddenly came up with one more idea that they could try. He sheathed his sword and stuck his hand into his bag... taking out a piece of dried bear meat. Since food wouldn't matter if they were frozen into popsicles, Kirito decided to try offering the meat to the panther. After Kirito threw the piece of meat to the panther, the big cat turned its eyes to the meat and blinked a couple of times.
As the pair of orbs approached the meat, Kirito heard sniffing. After a few tense seconds, he heard the panther biting into the meat. At that instant, a ring meter appeared in the dark. A meter that looked like a car's speed meter, 30% of it dyed red on the left side and moving. The same meter that Asuna claimed to have seen when taming Agah. Kirito took out another - and his final - piece of meet and threw it to the panther. As the panther ate it, the meter rose by another 10%. Kirito then asked the others to give him their leftovers too as he extended his hand behind his back. Yui immediately complied, allowing Kirito to throw another piece just as the panther finished up on his previous one. The meter increased again, reaching 50% this time. At this rate, they needed five pieces of meat and Kirito calculated that Yui had one more, while Lisbeth and Leafa should have had two pieces each, which was just the amount he needed. Putting faith into his calculations, Kirito continued throwing meat to the panther. As the panther's taming meter increased, the party's HP bars continued decerasing and as the girls were of a lower level than Kirito, their HP bars had already dropped below the halfway point. But Kirito couldn't rush things, as he assumed that timing was key with taming: he had to throw the meat just when the monster finished eating one piece of food and the bar was still increasing; if he threw the next piece too soon or too late, he would fail.
By the time Kirito threw out Yui's and Lisbeth's pieces of meat, the taming meter had reached 80%, with Kirito speculating on why the panther was harder to tame than Asuna's platysaur: whether this was because they were using dried meat instead, or was it because the monster's level was higher than the platysaur's. Finally, it was Leafa's turn to turn in the meat. After Kirito threw out seventh piece (though seems like Kawahara did a math's oopsie and called it the ninth piece), the meter reached 90%, meaning they only needed one more piece of meat to finish up.
Kirito: "Leafa."
Leafa: "No more."
Kirito: ".............Hah?"
(Kirito turns around to face her)
Kirito: "How can you have no more left when Asuna gave us three pieces each!? We all ate one piece each during our break, so that leaves two lefto-......"
Leafa: "I ate two pieces back then."
Kirito: "Haah!?"
Leafa: "Well, what was I supposed to do, I was hungry!"
At this point, Kirito regretted not collecting the hyena meat from their battles before, though he did have a thought that perhaps even the panther wouldn't be interested in meat that stunk like hell. As Kirito turned back to the panther, he noticed that the taming meter was still at 90%, but it would start decreasing if they left it at that, making all their effort go to waste. Just then, Kirito heard Yui remarking that her HP was running low. Kirito let go of his torch and pulled Yui into an embrace. Her body was awfully cold and shivering, while her HP was just a little over 10%. Getting ready for the worst, Kirito began gradually closing in on the panther with Yui in his embrace. As the panther began growling again, the taming meter began decreasing. Although Kirito no longer had any pet food, he had to bet on the possibility of there being more ways than one to boost a taming meter. Trying to reassure the panther that he didn't mean any hard, Kirito continued closing in. When only fifty centimetres separated them, Kirito finally made out the panther's figure... as it was ready to pounce at any moment. The taming meter had decreased to 80% by now. Prepared for the possibility of his hand being eaten, Kirito extended his right hand. As it touched the panther's name, it flinched.
Just at the panther's burly muscles relaxed, the taming meter stopped decreasing and started going up again. At this point, the panther lied down on the ground as Kirito continued stroking it. The taming meter continued increasing to eighty percent, then went over ninety. "Good boy....... good boy......", as Kirito whispered, he extended his left hand behind him. Having seen how Asuna had tamed her platysaur, Leafa immediately passed on a grass rope to him. Just as the taming meter reached a hundred percent, Kirito wrapped the roped around the panther's neck to make a collar. As the panther's body flashed, a cursor appeared over its head. Below the HP bar, the creature's name was displayed as 【Seruri Yami Hyou (Seruri Darkpanther)】. Without the time to entertain the question of what "seruri" was referring to, Kirito ordered the girls to cling to the panther.
As Yui clung to its neck, while the others went for its soft stomach, Kirito let out a sigh of relief that their HP stopped decreasing and the chill debuff went way. Although the cold was still seeping into the cave, it no longer reached them that far into the back. Now having time to think,
Kirito: "......Wonder what seruri is supposed to be? Is it referring to celery (serori)?"
Leafa (stroking the panther's back): "Isn't it referring to the lapis lazuli blue fur on its back?"
Kirito: "Oh...... so seruri is 背瑠璃 (back lapis lazuli)......"
Lisbeth: "So, whatcha gonna name it then?"
Kirito: "Hm? Hmmh.......(two seconds of thinking) 《Kuro》(black)."
Leafa and Lisbeth: "Simple-minded!", Yui: "I do believe that being simple is fine."
Kirito: "It is a nice name, right, Kuro?"
Kuro: "Gau (roar)!"
Chapter 7
Sinon muttered this enveloped tight in a fur cloak, as she took a peek outside of her fur cloak. What was prairie just minutes ago was now entirely covered in chunks of ice. Phikki had tried to warn her about such an event, but Sinon's Ornit Language skill hadn't been high enough for her to make out the word "blizzard" in her warning. Despite taking refuge in a hollow beneath a rock and wrapping herself up in a thick fur cloak, she had still lost nearly half of her HP to the blizzard from hell. After confirming that the debuff icon was gone even when she left the safety of her cloak, Sinon looked around the area. Sinon had been running at full speed for an hour before the blizzard hit, which allowed her to cover a distance of around twenty kilometres before she had to take shelter, though seeing everything covered in ice made her worry about the Ornit village. However, she decided against turning back, as she would be forced to log out in the middle of the Gjol Plains if she failed to reach the Basin village within the night. Sinon didn't have nerve to skip school, even in these circumstances.
Holding back her desire to get back on the move, Sinon sat down in the shade of the rock, put away her cloak, and took out the food Phikki had given her. Although the food was hard to chew and lacked flavour, Sinon didn't have the time to start a fire, so she continued eating it as is to recover her HP and SP. Once her HP had reached 80%, she took out her canteen and began drinking from it. Since she had used up a lot of her water during her running, she was considering the need to look for another water source... when she realised she could make use of the ice for that. At this point, she regretted not having any other containers for the water while she had an easy way to replenish her stocks and realised that the canteen itself was a more valuable resource than the water, which made her question how the Ornits managed to get their culture so advanced. After replenishing her TP bar, Sinon returned to running.
----------------
Out of her 15 Ability points, Sinon had used 10 points to acquire 《Agility》 and its derivative skills 《Long Runner》 and 《Skilled》. Agility boosted long-range and small close-range weapon damage and leaping distance. Long Runner reduced TP and SP usage when running. Skilled increased long-range weapon accuracy and lock picking success rate. Sinon was interested in the tier 3 skills, but decided against picking them up, as they each used up 3 points per level. Sinon didn't want to spend all her Ability points in case she needed them for some skills outside the Agility ability tree... particularly, abilities from the 《Toughness》 tree. Long Runner proved to be a useful skill, since it considerably reduced her TP and SP usage; at just rank 2, she could already see the bar going down slower with her own eyes.
Till now, Sinon had to avoid encounter with monsters and places where they could be hiding in, but now she could run straight south-east, as the monsters had all gone out of sight when the storm came around. Fifteen minutes of running later, the ice started melting, so Sinon stopped to refil her TP bar and then her canteen, as this was her last chance to do so before the ice melted. As she considered this, Sinon looked ahead, where she noticed something thanks to the returning starlight. There was a mountain range, or more like a cliff that partitioned the field like a wall. As she considered that the Basin village could be near the wall, Sinon continued staring at its base, but she couldn't find any artificial source of light coming from it. Nevertheless, Sinon put faith in the possibility that the village would be around there, even if she couldn't see any lights coming from there.
As Sinon got closer to it, she realised that it was far bigger than she had imagined. It was easily over 50 metres high and almost entirely perpendicular, which basically made it impossible to climb over it. And it continued far to the north and south, so it was hard to tell if it was even possible to get around it. Sinon remembered the Centorian walls that she had heard about in Underworld that divided the Human Empire into four empires. While it was basically impossible to cross those walls even for nobility and the emperors, Unital Ring was a game, so it had to have some way to get over the wall. Sinon looked around for a flat rock and climbed atop of it, where she took out her Hecate II. She was still unable to lift it it even at level 16, but she was able to use its scope from a prone position. She could just take the scope off and use it on its own, but putting it back on would require calibration, which in turn required test shots and she couldn't waste ammo right now.
With her Hecate II, Sinon examined the cliff, noticing that it had no bumpiness whatsoever, making it impossible to climb over it. She then turned to the southern side, where she suddenly noticed what basically amounted to stairs, that eventually lead to a hole in the cliffwall. This made her both excited to have found a path through the wall, and uneasy about the need to head into a hole as a sniper. But she had no choice, so she packed up her rifle and stood up. Her HP was full, while TP and SP were about 90%. Sinon also had a full MP bar, but she had no way to use it, as she did not have any magic skills. Thinking about the possibility of becoming a magic gunner, seeing as she already had her GGO Sniper Rifle skill, Sinon began running for the gigantic cliff.
Chapter 8
--------
Now logged out, Kazuto observed his room and his sister's sleepy face as she was diving into the game from his bed, before getting it together and taking his smartphone from his headboard to call Shino. Although she was in-game herself, there is a feature that allows the AmuSphere to inform players when their phone is ringing, if they have that option enabled. Thirty seconds later, Shino answered the call, asking Kazuto to keep it brief. He asked her about the blizzard and found out that she had nearly frozen to death twenty minutes earlier and was now heading south-east. When Kazuto asked if she had seen any landmarks that would help them find her, Shino mentioned that she had just entered a cave in a giant natural wall that crossed the Gjol Plains north-to-south. The place was crawling with monsters, but Shino had looked for as safe a place to log out as she could before answering his call, though she was in a hurry as there was no way to tell when a monster would spawn nearby. Thinking about how dangerous it was for Shino to be all alone, Kazuto informed her that they would be heading for the wall from the other side and wished her luck. After a quick sip of water, Kazuto logged back into the game.
--------
By the time Kirito logged back into UR, the ice from the blizzard had begun to melt and the girls were busy refilling their water supplies with the ice. Meanwhile, having become a very people-panther after being tamed, Kuro greeted Kirito by rubbing its head against him, which reminded the boy that they had run out of their meat supplies while taming their new friend. Kirito informed the girls of what he learnt from Shino, but they couldn't see any natural wall in the distance yet. Nevertheless, they decided to have faith in Shino's words and continue running to the northwest without stopping at the Basin Village. Along the way, they encountered hyena-like monsters twice and a bison-like monster once. The bison proved to be a bit challenging, but Kuro distracted it with its unparalleled agility while the rest of the party used the opening to bombard it with Sword Skills, which resulted in the girls gaining an extra level after they eventually whittled it down. The bonus was that they now had a load of beef to feed their panther, who definitely enjoyed it, to prevent losing its tamed status. Afterwards, the party continued travelling for another thirty minutes without any encounters, until Yui finally noticed the wall in the distance. Kirito was reminded of the Centorian walls due to the size of the cliff wall.
Kirito was worried that it would be hard to find the cave that would lead to Sinon, but Yui decided to cheat by enhancing her analysis of visual data. Although Kirito was against treating Yui as a handy tool at his disposal, it was a bit too late to be concerned with that when they were planning to have Yui be the interpreter for their talks with the Basin, so he only apologised to her but didn't stop her from using her AI powers. After giving Kirito a smile, Yui spent several seconds examining the cliff, until she noticed a set of stairs leading to a cave. Leafa gave her a hug, while Lisbeth stroked her hair, before the group set out for the cave.
--------
At the cliff wall, Kirito was astounded by its size and length, getting the impression that it would feel like some designer skimping corners if this were any other game, but in Unital Ring he could accept it as a miracle of nature. The cliff was clearly impossible to climb, nor were there any resources nearby to spam ladders, so their only way up was using the stairs Yui had found. The steps were thirty metres wide, without any handrails, and rose up to a cave twenty-five metres away from the ground, which all made it look like a dangerous climb, but they didn't have time for safety measures after making Sinon wait an hour for them to arrive. Kirito was concerned if Kuro would be able to climb the stairs, but the panther proved his concerns were unwarranted, while Lisbeth urged him to just start climbing already with an exasperated expression.
While the stairs did seem artificial, the entrance to the cave, on the other hand, looked like it came about through natural means. Either way, Kirito and co began their first dungeon crawl in Unital Ring after climbing up the stairs without incident. For a moment, Kirito entertained the idea of looking through every nook and cranny of the dungeon for materials and treasure chests, but he decided to prioritise finding Sinon. At this point, their SP bar was at 60% and TP bar was below 50%; while they did have a supply of water, their only remaining food was hyena meat, so they decided to only quench their thirst and feed the hyena meat to Kuro, while saving their own dinner for after they regrouped with Sinon.
At that point, Leafa asked about their party's formation for travelling through the dungeon. Kirito decided to take up the forward position with Kuro, having Lisbeth and Yui in the middle, and entrusting guarding their rear side to Leafa, with Kirito and Yui carrying the torches. Lisbeth expressed her displeasure at not being in the lead despite being the tank of the party through her facial gestures, but quickly realised that Kirito was prioritising protecting Yui with such a formation, so she gave a nod without bringing up the issue. Kirito then had a monologue about how organising their formation wasn't technically necessary before a battle, but he didn't like taking chances.
Kirito's party soon discovered that Sinon wasn't exaggerating when she claimed that the dungeon was crawling with monsters, as they encountered one amphibian after another so much so that the party soon got fed up with them. Their lucky break was that Kuro did a good job of sensing the monsters in advance. Ploughing through giant newts, giant caecilians, and giant axolotls, the party proceeded deeper into the dungeon without encountering any of Kirito's desired treasure chests, though they did find quite a bit of iron and copper ore, which they picked up along the way.
Twenty minutes later, as Kirito started being concerned about their SP bars and how newt meat didn't look appetising, Leafa decided to jinx everyone by remarking that there was an odd lack of a certain type of well-known amphibian despite the hordes of news and salamanders that the amphibian dungeon was crawling with... and just then, they heard a gun shot. Yui analysed the echo and determined the direction it was coming from, so the gang began rushing towards the origin of the shot. Suddenly, the party arrived at the top of a giant, wide-open, dome-shaped area. It was close to fifty metres in diameter. Although their torches didn't cover nearly enough to see far into the dome, they could see the other end of it because of some luminescent lichen on the walls. There was a spiral road along the walls leading to the bottom, while the bottom had some wet rocks half-sticking out of bluish black water. And there was a human-like silhouette atop one of the rocks right down the middle. The figure was wearing a skin-tight suit-like outfit and a white muffler, as well as being armed with a gun. Just as Kirito was about to call out to her, he noticed that there were several figures behind her. But they weren't human. With pointy snouts and large round ears, their heads looked like those of rats. With pitchfork-like weapons on hand. There were three of them and they were closing in on Sinon. Warning her about them with a shout, Kirito rushed down the spiral road, with Kuro and the others following suit.
Sinon looked up towards him then behind her, but the ratmen were only five metres away from her and Sinon wouldn't be able to take down all three of them with her gun. Coming to this conclusion, Kirito jumped off the spiral road midway down and into the shallow water. Although Kirito suffered a bit of HP damage in his fall, he didn't pay attention to it and instead headed for the ratman closest to Sinon. However, just then, Sinon shouted out that they weren't the enemy, so Kirito had to call off Kuro from attacking the other ratmen. Meanwhile, the startled ratmen rushed back to the wall, where they hid inside another entrance to the dome area, with shrill shrieks.
Meeting Sinon's eyes, Kirito went into a monologue about Sinon's appearance and began wondering where she managed to find her antiquated musket but realised that there was a more important matter to deal with. Since the ratmen weren't the enemy, Kirito asked whom she was fighting against. At that point, Lisbeth, Yui, and Leafa also arrived at the bottom of the dome. As the three of them ran through the water, Sinon's expression relaxed for a moment, before becoming tense again as she warned them to get out of the water and onto as high a boulder as they could find. Since Sinon seemed dead serious, Kirito decided to save the questions for later and was about to climb up the nearest boulder, when he heard a splash. Something was coming at him in the water at a great speed. Kirito didn't even have time to dodge as he felt something on his right ankle. For a moment he thought that he had been bitten, but instead he noticed that something had coiled around it. Just then, that something pulled on his leg with unbelievable power, making him crash into the water along with his torch. Kirito wanted to cut the rope-like thing around his ankle, but he couldn't reach it. As he continued to be dragged deeper into the pool, Kuro plunged its head into the water, grabbed the rope-like thing in its mouth, and dragged it out of the water. It was no rope though; it was more like a pink tentacle.
At that moment, Leafa unleashed a Sonic Leap and sliced through the tentacle with a perfect slash... or not. It did manage to cut several centimetres into the thing, but the rubbery tentacle flung the sword back with recoil, which blew away both Leafa and Kuro into the water. Their attack wasn't in vain though, as the tentacle released Kirito and retreated into the water. Kirito then helped Leafa up and climbed up a boulder, while Yui and Lisbeth did the same elsewhere. Kuro got up on its own and leaped over to Kirito's side.
Kirito asked Sinon what that thing was, but she told him that it'll be coming out of the water soon and it jumps around a lot, so he should keep his eyes on it. Quite a distance away, a large figure jumped out of the water. It was about twenty metres in size...... and it would be even double that length if it extended its burly hind legs. Meanwhile, its front legs were pretty weak, while its head was fused with its body. After some hectic jumping around, the monster stuck onto a wall and stopped in its tracks.
Kirito and the girls: "It's a frog!!!"
Kirito: (remembering what Leafa was about to say before they entered the dome) "Good for you, we found your frog."
Leafa: "Not like I was asking for one......especially not for one this ginormous......"
Kirito guessed that this was the boss of the cave. The cursor above the giant frog read: 【Goliath Rana】. While all the monsters Kirito and co had encountered so far were in Japanese (in katakana), this monster was named in English (in katakana), so Kirito assumed there was some special meaning to this naming scheme. Though, Kirito wasn't even sure that it was English in the first place.
Kirito: "......'Goliath' means 'giant', right? Then what does Rana mean?"
Yui: "It appears to be the name of a red (brown) frog."
After a blink, the frog began climbing the wall despite being as bulky as a bull. At that point, Kirito asked why Sinon wasn't taking this opportunity to fire at it, but Sinon responded that she already tried doing so before, but her musket rounds can't penetrate the frog's tough skin on its back. Pushing away his thoughts about where Sinon managed to find her antiquated musket again, Kirito wondered if they couldn't use her Hecate if someone provided support for it. But this wasn't an option, as Sinon couldn't aim the gun upwards, while the frog was too fast when it goes down. At that point, Lisbeth interjected that the weak point for frogs used to be their stomach back in Aincrad, so they had to expose its belly somehow. The question was how. As Kirito considered their options, the frog reached the topmost part of the dome, turning its red eyes towards them. Just as Sinon warned them to watch out, the frog leaped off the ceiling with its burly legs and came down at Kirito at an unbelievable speed. Kirito managed to get out of the way in the nick of time with a somersault, but the boulder that he had been standing on just a moment ago was now crushed without a trace of it remaining. Kirito lost 3% of his HP from the fragments that assaulted him, but his armour protected him from any graver damage.
While making sure that Yui was safe, Kirito remembered that he forgot to send Sinon a party invite. Once that was taken care of, Kirito looked back at the frog and noticed that it began moving again after standing in place for three seconds. It jumped into the nearby water and disappeared from sight, so Sinon warned him to climb atop another boulder. Once he did,
Kirito: "That thing's attack patterns only consists of a cycle of tentacle attacks from the water and then a dive from the ceiling, right?"
Sinon: "For the time being, yeah. Also, it's a tongue, not a tentacle."
Kirito: "Oh...... I see."
Kirito (internally): So, it wasn't just trying to make me drown; it was trying to eat me. That's an end that I'd like to avoid at all costs.
After some time, the frog jumped out of the water and started climbing the wall again. While they could avoid major damage by jumping out of the way during the frog's dives, Kirito realised that they would lose a boulder with each dive, so they'd eventually run out of safe places. So, he ordered Lisbeth and Silica to unleash Sword Skills on the frog after avoiding its next dive. Meanwhile, he ordered Sinon and Yui to follow up if the frog's stomach got exposed, while Kuro was ordered to guard Yui. As Kirito considered how he could set a trap for the frog while it climbed up to the ceiling, Sinon suddenly warned him that the frog was about to take a dive earlier than expected and Kirito barely managed to get out of the way in time, though he did suffer some collateral damage from the rock fragments the size of fists.
Annoyed, Kirito went into his Rage Spike stance mid-air and managed to trigger it just as he landed into a shallow puddle and went for the frog's throat while it was stunned. Leafa and Lisbeth followed suit. Kirito believed that with so many attacks they'd certainly managed to overturn it. But the frog suddenly went flat against the ground, hiding its neck and stomach. But it was too late to stop their Sword Skills now, so Kirito ended up hitting the frog's snout, while Leafa and Lisbeth hit its shoulders. It felt like they had just struck a huge mass of rubber, as their weapons sank in without piercing the frog's skin. The rebound flung all three of them away, while the frog prepared its tongue for a follow-up attack. But just then, Sinon fired her musket, piercing the frog's tongue. While the attack dealt about 10% damage, it did expose its throat for Kuro's Yui's Vertical and Kuro's fangs for another 10% damage. Their tag team attack succeeded in making the frog fall on its back. Kirito wanted to use this chance for an attack, but his trio hadn't recovered from their knockback yet, while Sinon was still reloading. Just then, the ratmen that Kirito had forgotten all about jumped in with some shrill cries, stabbing the frog with their pitchforks. Enraged, the frog let out a roar as it recovered with a jump, causing the ratmen to flee again. By now, the frog had lost a total of 40% of its HP, which now turned yellow. The frog jumped to a wall and began climbing again. Having fallen on their butts by now, Kirito, Lisbeth, and Leafa quickly stood back up to prepare for another dive attack.
Kirito began celebrating that the frog suffered a lot of damage from having its weak point hit and assumed that two or even one more attack like that would finish it, so he ordered Sinon to aim for its mouth. Then he gave his orders to Lisbeth:
Kirito: "Liz, you smack its head with your mace after its dive attack! You'll be flung back, but you'll be able to provoke its tongue attack...... I think!"
Lisbeth: "You thiiiink～～? Oh whatevs, C'mere for a good smack!"
Kirito (internally): Glad we have Liz the mood maker for a battle this tense! I couldn't pull this off myself.
With that thought, Kirito ordered Leafa, Yui, and Kuro to use their best Sword Skills once the frog was overturned and watch out for the frog's hind legs. Finally, he asked the ratmen to repeat what they just did, though he had no way of knowing if they understood him. By then, the frog was already 70% of the way to the ceiling. As Kirito resolved to dodge the next dive, the frog's eyes began shining red again. But unlike last time, an unexpected phenomenon took place. Six barnacle-like projections appeared from the frog's back, spitting out red flames. Although the fires got smaller right afterwards, they didn't disappear entirely. The next moment, the frog turned towards the bottom of the dome and opened its mouth. Just as a thought about the frog being too far away for a tongue attack crossed Kirito's mind, a red circle appeared at its mouth. A circle with complicated patterns... a magic circle, that is.
Kirito scooped up Yui into his arms and dived into the water, suffering some HP damage from the heat of the fireball that the frog unleashed. Although the entire party avoided getting hit by the fireball directly, the frog showed no signs of planning to go down anytime soon.
Kirito: "......What gives, isn't fire to a frog the same as salt to a slug......."
Lisbeth: "......You and your half-assed idioms aga-...... wait, I guess you do have a point."
Anyway, their only method of long-range attacks was Sinon's musket, while the frog could fire explosive fireballs from the ceiling, which would make their situation gradually worse. The party didn't actually need to defeat the frog; they just needed to get to the exit by running up the spiral slope, but the frog probably wouldn't let them pass through... and just then, Kirito was struck with an idea. The slope.
Kirito volunteered to run up the slope and use a Sword Skill that involved leaping to bring the frog down for the others to mash up. Leafa expressed concern that Kirito would end up falling down with the frog if he followed through with his plan, but Kirito reassured her that he wouldn't take damage if he fell into a spot where the water is deeper, and it wasn't like they had any other options at hand. The plan wasn't foolproof, since even Kirito didn't have confidence that he would land at the right spot. But just as he was about to put Yui down from his embrace, the girl suddenly interrupted him.
Yui: "Papa, I shall take on that role!"
Kirito: "B-but wait......"
Yui: "Papa, you have the highest damage value in the party, so you should focus on the follow-up attacks rather than the first one!"
Kirito: "But Yui, you don't have Sonic Leap......"
Yui: "If I run up to the cave for an approach run, a Vertical will suffice to reach it!"
Kirito: "But......"
Yui: (staring intently with a serious expression) "Papa, I do not want to always be on the receiving end when it comes to protecting someone."
Kirito: "............" (internally) She sure looks like Asuna right now. Maybe she even takes after me a bit.
Kirito: "......Alright. I'm counting on you."
Just then, the frog began to make its moves to unleash another fireball. Kirito was concerned that Yui would be a sitting duck while she was running up, but Lisbeth interjected that she would draw fire to herself with a provocation skill that she unlocked without Kirito's notice. The Goliath Rana changed its target and so Yui began running. Lisbeth ordered everyone to get out of the way. Kirito shouted back to dodge the attack herself, but Lisbeth told him to have faith in her shield. Kirito had no choice but to trust her. The frog's fireball landed at Lisbeth's shield, dealing 60% damage to Lisbeth in the ensuing blaze. She chose to endure the attack to ensure that the frog didn't go after Yui. Meanwhile, Yui managed to reach the top of the dome and rushed into the cave to have some room for an approach run. The frog then turned its attention to her, but then Sinon fired her musket at it. Right for its right eye. The angered frog turned its attention towards Sinon now. At that moment, Yui rushed out from the cave, her shortsword on her right shoulder shining blue. Triggering a Sword Skill mid-air was no easy feat without practice, but Yui barely managed to keep the skill on standby.
Yui: "Yaaaah!"
Familiar man: "Leave Yuippe to me, man!"
Kirito (internally): I don't know who you are but I'm counting on you!
With that thought, Kirito got ready for the best Sword Skill available to him at that moment: a Sharp Nail. Meanwhile, Leafa got ready for the same skill, Lisbeth swung up her mace after getting back up from that explosion, Sinon readied a small laser gun, while Kuro bore its sharp fangs. The frog fell down onto one of the boulders with its back, bounced away from the impact, and then landed on the ground once more. At that moment, the entire party assailed the frog. Even the ratmen jumped on the bandwagon. Only 10% left. As Kirito fought against the post-motion delay to deal the finishing blow, the frog opened its mouth again from its helpless position, summoning a huge magic circle. But Sinon interrupted it by sticking her laser gun into the magic circle and pulling the trigger. The laser shot caused the spell to backfire and turn into a fire tornado in the frog's mouth as its HP went down to zero.
---------
Monster corpses in Unital Ring didn't just blow up in blue particles like they did in SAO and ALO, so Kirito was still on guard until he made sure it was dead. But just then, a red light appeared where the frog's heart was, gradually floating away from the corpse in the darkness. Urged by Sinon, Kirito jumped towards it and touched the red light, whereupon it disappeared. At that moment, each of his party members were enveloped in a blue ring of light. After a moment, Kirito realised that this was just a level-up, proving that the frog was dead. Kirito ignored the window that announced him reaching level 16 and hurriedly looked up, where he found Yui dangling right below the cave entrance while someone was grasping her arm. The man in turn had a rope tied to his foot, which was held by another, daunting player at the cave entrance. However, the rope was in process of breaking, unable to bear the weight of both Yui and the first man.
Kirito: "Don't push yourselves!"
Daunting man with a deep voice: "We ain't got enough rope to reach the ground, while its durability is only gonna hold for twenty seconds!"
Man holding Yui: "Aw hell naw, barman, not after all this! Pull us up somehow!"
Kirito (internally): Why do both of those voices sound so familiar.
Fighting back his sense of deja-vu, Kirito considered a plan of action. He wouldn't be able to catch both Yui and the first man, so he needed some cushion... and then he realised that there was one bigass cushion just lying around. He dashed towards the frog, summoning the girls for help. The whole gang, even Kuro and the ratmen included, dragged the frog to the spot below Yui. Just as they were about to reach the spot,
Daunting man: "Sorry, Kirito! Do somethin'!"
Man holding Yui (kinda pathetic scream): "Owaaaaa!" (pulls Yui above himself to prevent her from bearing the brunt of the crash despite the pathetic scream)
With the last of his power squeezed out (and a Sturdiness (強健) skill level up to 4), Kirito managed to lift the frog corpse a bit off the ground and throw it into the water below them. One second later, the man and Yui landed on the frog's belly, getting flung back a metre into the air from the rebound, before falling down on the frog again. At that point, Yui leapt into Kirito's embrace.
Kirito: "Good work back there, Yui."
Yui: "......Yeah, I did my best!"
Kirito: (internally monologuing about Yui surpassing the limits of AI and having gained real emotions while stroking Yui's hair)
Man with a bandana, short, brown hair, leather armour and a curved sword lying on the frog's belly: "Man oh man, that's what I call bein' da one percent in a ninety-nine percent death rate......"
Kirito (internally) What a weird idiom... (examines the guy's appearance) so my suspicion proved to be correct.
Kirito: "......Klein, what are you doing here?"
Klein: "Hey, hey now, man, I ain't havin' that, Kiri-no-ji! And here I helter-skeltered over ta ya becuz I though ya were in a jam!"
Lisbeth: "Well sure we appreciate ya. But how didja know we were here? None of us contacted you IRL, did we?"
Agil: "I'll explain that one."
Agil came down from the top of the dome armed with a double-edged axe, and in leather armour like Klein. Agil then explained that he and Klein finally found the time to dive into UR a day late, but the leniency period had already expired while the nearby fields were hunted dry, so the two of them met up with each other and headed over to the log house based on a map that Asuna had sent them.
Kirito: "Oh, so that's how it went......"
Kirito (internally): She wasn't a KoB vice commander for nothing.
Klein: "Kiri-no-ji, I'm sure ya forgot all about us anyway."
Kirito (internally): That's completely true, but I can't just confirm that.
Kirito: "O...... oh, no, I didn't forget about you. It's just that, come on, it's a workday for the both of you...... I was planning to contact you when things settled down....."
Agil: "The bar is closed for the day."
Klein: "And I took the afternoon off."
Kirito: "How was I supposed to know that the Dicey Cafe wasn't open today when it doesn't even have regularly-paced days off; also, how was I supposed to know that Klein took the day off!"
Sinon: "Can we get things rolling already? I've got things to do too."
Agil: "Aye, sorry."
Agil then continued his story: they prepared the minimum of equipment and set off from the ruins starting point and entered the forest, where they were suddenly assaulted by 3 PKers.
Klein: "That's where I and the barman showed off our polished tag-team skills, wham to the right, wham to the left and the PKers......"
Agil: "Hey, didncha just hide behind me."
Klein: "What didja expect when the skill I carried over was......"
Kirito (internally): So, he couldn't use his maxed-out Katana skill for some reason?
So, Agil was able to stand against the PKers as they were an impromptu party, and killed them off with a single AoE Sword Skill, because he forgot about the permadeath thing. The PKers dropped some leather armour + an iron axe and curved sword, so Agil and Klein gratefully made use of them. They then reached the log house, where Asuna sent them after Kirito because she was worried.
Kirito: "But wait, Asuna and the girls wouldn't have known our route here, right? Agil, Klein, how did you reach this cave......?"
Agil: (grinning, points to Klein with his chin)
Klein (scratching his face and seemingly resigning to his fate): "Well, that's becuz of the skill I carried over, y'see......"
Lisbeth: "Hah? Isn't Katana the skill you carried over? What does it have anything to do with this?"
Everyone: (staring at Klein)
Klein: "It ain't the Katana skill."
Everyone: "Haah?"
Klein: "The skill I carried over is 《Tracking》, y'see." Everyone: "HAAAH!?"
Kirito (internally): As I recall, Klein had leveled his Katana skill to 1000, so if he carried over the Tracking skill instaed, it had to be maxed out as well. But it's a hard skill to level up, so barely anyone goes out of their way training it up.
Lisbeth (exasperated): "Why did you even level up that skill, man...... Hey wait, you're not gonna tell me you were after some cute girl with it, are ya!"
Klein: "N-no I wasn't! Well, I needed it, ya see, to clear the catch-me-if-ya-can quest that Skuld-san had given me......"
Everyone: "............Ha?"
Kirito (internally): Now that he mentions it, I remember that Klein got something from Skuld before they parted. Was it some item that started a quest and Klein maxed out his Tracking skill to clear it......did I get that right?
Kirito: "......So, did you manage to clear that quest?"
Klein: "I was so close to finishing it, man...... And then this happens. Wonder if Skuld-san is doin' alright......"
Anyway, at 100 proficiency, the Tracking skill couldn't make any distinction between individual footprints, but since there was only one party's worth of footprints remaining on the Gjol Plains, Klein ran with the assumption that the set of footprints belonged to Kirito's gang.
The gang then thanked Agil and Klein.
Agil: "Though I wish we had made it in time for the battle."
Klein (not joking around): "Nah man, I can't stand slimy mobs like that."
Kirito: "You're on top of the frog's corpse though."
Klein: "Huh? ......Uryowaaaaa!! (makes a vertical jump still in his cross-legged position)"
Even Sinon burst into laughter.
Chapter 9
The Pattels had a legend that there was a large, fertile forest far to the east on the other side of the wall and so some of the younger Pattels wished to migrate to this fabled forest. However, to come out of the cave through the eastern exit, they needed to get through a dome where a giant, ferocious frog lurked. Daring members of their population had challenged the frog numerous times in the past, but they had all lost their lives, which is why the older members of their population, including the elder himself, had all but given up on their dream to cross the wall.
However, Sinon needed to get to the eastern side of the wall in order to regroup with Kirito and the others either way, so she decided to attempt to bring down the frog along with three brave——by Pattel standards——young members of the Pattel population.
The large frog, a.k.a. the Goliath Rana proved to be even stronger than advertised, while her musket proved highly ineffective, thus even Sinon herself was considering the option of retreat. That's when Kirito's team arrived at the scene and the whole gang managed to bring down the frog.
With this, Kirito's team accomplished their biggest and ultimate goal for the night - reuniting with Sinon. As a bonus, if it can be called as such, they also reunited with Klein and Agil. Now all they needed to do was to follow the same road back to their log house, but that's when they encountered an unexpected plot twist: the three Pattels who participated in the battle weren't the only ones who wanted to join them on the journey; the actual number of hopefuls was a whole twenty Pattels.
---------
As Kirito led the march of group that was now too big to be called a party,
Lisbeth: ".....Say, Kirito, is this supposed to be some sort of quest?"
Kirito: "Nah......it might be something else...... I did check the quest tab on my menu, but I didn't find anything written there......"
Lisbeth: "So, you think it's bye-bye time when we reach the forest?"
Kirito: "............Mmn."
Lisbeth: "And before we even get to that, you think all of us can manage to reach the forest safely?"
Kirito: "............Mmn."
Lisbeth: "Is that 'Mmn' a yes or a no?"
Kirito: "Both."
Lisbeth: "Siiiigh. Hey, Leafa, you sure your Onii-san is okay?"
Leafa: "Ahaha......Onii-chan occasionally has episodes of infantile regression, you see......"
Kirito (internally): That's a mean thing to say, but I don't have time for a comeback with all my thinking on how to ensure this all works out.
Kirito was concerned that the Pattels wouldn't be able to live for long in the forest. While there were ample quantities of water and food there, it also had a large population of monsters in turn. He feared that they would all die out after a single encounter with the Thorn-Bearing Bear. Kirito didn't feel like abandoning them to fend for themselves, even if he couldn't dismiss the possibility that they respawn after some time. On the other hand, he doubted they could fit all twenty of them in the log house.
At that point, Kirito looked behind him, where Yui was cheerfully holding Sinon's hand and talking about something. Kirito thought she looked a bit taller now, probably because of her dazzling growth as a swordswoman, even if she herself desired to be a mage. He wondered if Yui wouldn't have been better off picking up the Herculean Strength tree or the Agility tree, especially since they had yet to even find out how magic skills can even be obtained.
At that point, Kirito recalled something and accessed his menu and looked into his inventory, where he found an unfamiliar item when he sorted by newest items: a 《Magicrystallite of Fire》.That name got him all excited, so tapped on the name to open the properties window. Below the item name and the item's durability, he found a short explanation: 【A crystallite spawned from the condensation of fire magical power. Allows the user to obtain the Fire Magic skill. If this skill is already acquired by the user, it will instead slightly increase their proficiency】.
Kirito restrained himself from screaming out in joy so as not to scare the Pattels. They were already a little afraid of Kuro anyways. The crystallite obviously came from the red light that had come out of the Rana's corpse. Kirito concluded that the reason why the frog had that light coming out of it while the bear didn't, despite both breathing fire, was because the Rana's fire came from using magic. Thus, Kirito arrived at the conclusion that magic skills are acquired by defeating monsters that employ the respective element of magic. Though he wasn't sure if it also applied to smallfry monsters, or was it limited to those that were more or less bosses.
Kirito tapped on the still-opened properties window, which opened up a Tips window. 【In order to use this item, one must materialise the item and crunch on it in their mouths.】
Kirito (internally): Well, that's a wild way to use it. Kirito then dismissed the Tips window and materialised the crystallite.
The crystallite was no longer an incorporeal light, but a 1.5 cm diameter, transparent, vivid-crimson jewel with a small flame sealed at its centre. Instead of using it for himself, Kirito turned to Yui and offered it to her.
Kirito: "Here, Yui. For you."
Yui: "......? What? (stares at the magicrystallite she received, before giving a broad grin) Waah, this is so beautiful! Is this for me?"
Kirito: "Yep."
Yui: "Thank you very much, Papa! I shall treasure it!"
Kirito: "Uh, that's not what I had in mind...... why not give it a bite?"
Yui: "............Excuse me?"
Yui, Sinon, Lisbeth, and Leafa: (suspicious expressions)
Kirito (internally): This is probably where I should explain everything from the start, but my desire to surprise her by giving her a magic skill as a present is too strong.
Kirito: "You'll find out what I have in mind when you give it a bit, so why not give it a good 'ol crunch, hm?"
Yui: "............"
Kirito (internally): Yui has the exact same expression as Asuna when she questions my actions.
Yui (having put the jewel into her mouth): "Papa, I don't feel any taste from it."
Kirito: "Yui, you have to crunch down on it, not just lick it."
Yui: "......O-okay."
Just after Yui steeled her resolve and bit into the jewel with her eyes closed, a snap rang out as deep red flames spouted from Yui's mouth.
Yui: "HOWAAAAA!"
Leafa: "Hey, Onii-chan! That went way to far for a prank!"
Kirito: "Y-you got the wrong idea! Yui, didn't you get an acquisition window!?"
Yui: "Howaa.... ah, I did...... 'You have acquired the Fire Magic skill', wait......whuu!? (goes through her menu faster than the eye can see) Waa, it seems I can now use a spell called 《Flame Arrow》!"
The other girls: (dumbfounded)
Kirito then encouraged Yui to give her new spell a try and she was more than happy to comply. According to Yui, spells in Unital Ring are activated with gestures, rather than spellwords like in ALO. First she brought both of her hands in front of her, then balled her left hand into a fist and then brought her right hand with all five of its fingers straightened out on top of it diagonally, which made a faint red aura appear on her hands. This was the basic gesture for selecting fire magic. Then she needed to select the specific spell to use with a second gesture. She opened up her left hand as she thrust it out in front of her, while moving her right hand above her shoulder as if pulling a bowstring. At that point, a line of red light appeared between her hands. Finally, she pointed her left hand at a rock twenty or so metres away and proceeded to the final gesture: clenching both of her open hands at the same time. This created a small magic circle in front of her left hand as the red line turned into an arrow of flame, before being launched away. The arrow flew in a slightly curved trajectory as it hit the rock, causing a mild explosion. According to Yui, the more accurate the gestures themselves and their tempo is, the higher the power and accuracy of the spell will be. Meanwhile, magic skills can be levelled up through either repeated use, or by ingesting magic crystallites. Even Kirito found himself wanting to learn some magic at some point, as it seemed fun.
According to Yui, a single usage of the spell had used up 15 MP out of her 157 total. At Rank 1 《Focus》 ability, Yui's MP recovered at a pace of 1 point per 6.2 seconds. Which meant that she regenerated enough MP to use the Flame Arrow spell in 93 seconds, so it would be impossible to use it repeatedly after using up her MP. Kirito assured Yui that he would do all he could to find a way to get MP potions. He also encouraged her to keep on using the spell as her MP regenerated to level up her skill along the way. Meanwhile, Leafa got pumped up about learning magic herself and called dibs on any wind attribute magic crystallites.
Kirito: "Yeah, yeah. I wonder what comes out of your mouth after eating a wind stone."
Leafa: (jabs at Kirito's unprotected left armpit)
---------
The party's return trip through the Gjol Plains proved to be surprisingly uneventful, although they did encounter some hyenas and bats along the way. At least they didn't have to worry about blizzards, nor did they have any trouble with food and water after stocking up on rana meat and spring water from the cave... though the girls weren't awfully enticed by from meat. They had also stocked up on iron ore and copper ore at the cave, which they could turn into ingots for their needs at home.
A little after 22:30, the group finally finished crossing the Gjol Plains for the second time and arrived at the entrance to their forest, which prompted the twenty Pattels jump around, hug each other, and even cry in joy at the fact that they had reached their promised land. Upon seeing the river, Leafa broke into a run out of joy... but just as Kirito was about to go after her to stop her from running around carelessly, Leafa suddenly came to a stop, pointing to a forest fire in the distance. Double checking his map, Kirito confirmed that the fire was coming from the vicinity of their log house. By straining his ears, he could also hear some metallic sounds among the sound of burning fire. Fearing for Asuna, Silica and Alice's safety, Kirito broke into a run towards the log house, the others following suit.
Once they got close enough to see the fires and hear the sounds of battle clearly, Kirito asked Sinon to have the Pattels hide, as he feared they would easily die in a battle of Sword Skills. But after a mere two seconds of discussion, the Pattels all shook their heads, before responding that they would be joining the battle too. Kirito had no time to argue, so he asked them to at least maintain formation. Meanwhile, he decided they didn't have time to investigate the enemy forces, so they would instead ambush them and adapt on the spot.
Klein: "When it comes to playing by the ear, I'm yer man, dude!"
Kirito (internally): You know, your sole inherited skill is just 《Tracking》......But I won't burst your bubble.
The group returned to running full-speed ahead, until they eventually saw the fire. Though, it wasn't the log house that was burning, but rather the trees outside its walls. The girls were atop the wall, crossing swords with some of the assailants. Over twelve more figures could be spotted trying to climb the wall. At that point, one of the assailants was pushed off the wall with a clang. A girl with long, chestnut-coloured [sic] hair quickly went after another player climbing the wall with her rapier. Meanwhile, Alice and Silica were struggling nearby. All the girls were focusing on pushing the enemy off the wall, rather than killing them. In other words, they were just stalling for time until Kirito and co returned. Based on how much the fire had consumed, Kirito assumed that the battle had begun over half an hour prior and while the assailants could take a break on the ground, Asuna and the girls were probably approaching their limit. So much so that Asuna did't notice someone closing in on her from behind.
Before Kirito could shout out to warn her, a gun shot rang out behind him, toppling the guy trying to sneak up on Asuna. The guy fell to the other side of the wall, where he was promptly disposed of by Asuna's pet platysaur. Due to the noise coming from the blaze, no one else seemed to have noticed Sinon's shot. As Kirito sped up and was now only ten metres away from the enemy, he ordered Kuro to protect Yui, while moving his sword above his shoulder, dying it in a yellowish-greenlight. The next moment, Kirito kicked off the ground at full power with Sonic Leap. One of the assailants noticed him at this point, but before he could warn the others, Kirito's sword sank right into his shoulder. Since the assailaints were all in a raid party, Kirito gained the ability to see all of their HP bars with that one attack. The guy Kirito attacked was armed with leather armour and an iron axe. However, Kirito's single attack ate up over 80% of the guy's HP and flung him to the ground. At that point, Yui launched her Flame Arrow at his chest, finishing him off. 【０００１：０１：４１：２６】 popped up where his HP bar had been.
As the death sequence came to an end, a nearby shield wielder and a spear wielder who looked like the leader noticed the surprise attack and began rallying their forces. Over half of the force had iron weapons, while the remainder had settled for stone weapons. Kirito assumed that the former group had either brought their weapons over during the conversion and they were light enough to still be usable with their UR stats, or they managed to buy/steal them somewhere, since they would have outfitted everyone with iron weapons if they could actually produce it. On the other hand, the players didn't seem like they just happened to come across the log house by accident. Kirito felt like they had discovered about their base beforehand and had come as prepared as they could be for a fight.
At that point, Kirito recalled what Mocri had mentioned about his "sensei"'s teachings during one-on-one the previous day, which meant that the "sensei" was still around in Unital Ring. If this "sensei" was the one pulling the strings behind the second group as well, he must have taught the over twenty players here some PvP as well. Since Kirito assumed that also extended to group PvP, he ordered his party to pull back and prevent the players from cooperating with each other, but Agil replied that the forest fire had already reached ground level, blocking their escape.
At this point, Kirito realised that the forest wasn't set ablaze to provide lighting for those scaling the wall, but rather to prevent any guerrilla tactics against them. As if to prove his theory right, the enemy was approaching them in standard formations: two tanks with large shields up front, a sword and an axe attacker on the side, and a long-handle-weapon-wielding debuffer in the rear.
Kirito's gaze met Asuna's for a moment, from which Kirito made out that Asuna had the conviction to protect their home no matter what, even if she didn't have any plan for turning the tables. The three girls were valiantly flinging away anyone climbing up the wall, putting their faith that Kirito's team would come to their aid, so Kirito felt like he had to respond to the effort they were putting in.
Kirito considered his options, but couldn't come up with anything solid. They couldn't just go full-frontal against the enemy, as they were specifically prepared to counter their mainly damage-dealer force. He noticed that Kuro was growling due to the pressure, while the Pattels were getting anxious. Kirito wasn't willing to sacrifice the Pattels to buy him time to come up with a plan of action, as they had just beaten their life-long arch-enemy and reached their promised land. He knew that they would face dangerous monsters in the forest as well, but he wouldn't be able to sleep well if they got killed off in a player-versus-player battle.
Just then, Kirito remembered that there was one more huge uncertain element in the forest and if they succeeded in drawing it in, the assailants would have their hands full with it just as much as they had been. So, he ordered Klein and Agil to take out all the frog meat they were carrying and throw it into the fire, while starting off with his own frog meat stocks. Several seconds later, the two guys followed suit without asking what his strange order was meant to accomplish.
The enemy players were befuddled by their actions, some even theorising that Kirito was mistaking them for NPCs that could be bribed with food. Meanwhile, the aroma of the roasted meat began wafting in the air. The spear leader guy didn't feel like taking chances, so he ordered his men to clean house with "Plan 2" before Kirito's team started doing any other strange stuff. But just as his teammates responded to him and split into two teams, they heard a loud sound coming from the forest as the ground began shaking. Kirito's plan proved to be successful.
With a thunderous roar, a large, four-legged beast that was two metres tall even when its front paws were on the ground jumped out of the flames. It was a Thorn-Bearing Bear, drooling at the aroma of fried frog. One of the enemy damage dealers panicked at recklessly tried to stab it with his iron sword, but the bear just nimbly leaped out of the way and casually mowed down the damage dealer with its right paw. The guy crashed into the stone wall with a nasty sound, before bouncing back onto the ground three metres or so away. Death sequence ensued.
Considering their victory over the bear a total miracle when it was easily capable of killing a decently-armoured player in one swipe, Kirito slowly withdrew with Klein and Agil. Meanwhile, the spear guy raised up his elaborate fauchard and started giving orders to take up an anti-boss formation in a thunderous shout. The spear guy had blackish red hair and tanned skin, so Kirito presumed he had to have been a Salamander in ALO, but he assumed he wasn't working under Eugene.
Meanwhile, the two squads led by the spearman regrouped and took up a raid formation. Even the three players who had been fighting against Asuna and the girls had jumped back to the ground to join the formation. The bear began charging at them, but four tanks were able to halt its ramming with their shields, despite it being powerful enough to destroy the log house's wall. Now Kirito had to think over what to do next. The enemy's flank was open to them, but they would get targeted by the bear if they closed in on them carelessly.
Just as Kirito began to consider a wait-and-see approach, he heard someone calling him "Kirito-san" from the right. Silica had managed to get off the wall and get behind Agil before he knew it. Silica apparently remembered Kirito asking her to tame the bear sometime in the future and now Silica was unwilling to just abandon her future pet. Although Kirito knew that they'd just tame a different bear of the same species if this one died, but he realised that such logic wouldn't fly with Silica the long-time Beast Tamer from SAO, who wouldn't be able to establish a bond with the bear if they let this one die.
After taking a look at Asuna and Alice and seeing their nods, Kirito decided to order an attack on the enemy players from behind. Just when the bear began another charge, Kirito ordered his team to move out and went after the enemy's leader spearman in the middle of the formation's rear with Agil and Klein. Agil started off with 《Whirlwind》, mowing down the two players guarding the leader.
Their shouting alerted the other players, two of which went after Agil while he was suffering from the post-skill delay. In turn, Klein and Kirito triggered 《Reaver》 and 《Vertical》 respectively, cutting down the two players. Now four of their opponents were suffering from Tumble, while now Kirito and Klein were suffering from the delay as well.
Spearman: "Bad move going after us here, Kiritooh!"
Kirito (internally): How do all these guys even know me.
The spearman's fauchard took on a bluish-green radiance. Kirito deduced that it was 《Whirlpool》, a two-handed long-spear AoE skill, which didn't have all that much power, but it afflicted its targets with Daze. At this point, Kirito noticed the string 【Ｓｃｈｕｌｚ】 (Shurutsu) under the spearman's Hp bar. Just before the 《Whirlpool》 could mow all three of them down, Kirito heard two bursts from behind as two shots, Yui's spell and Sinon's bullet, hit Schulz in the chest and right shoulder. This caused Schulz's skill to fumble as his body bent backwards from the impact. Then Lisbeth and Silica jumped in, bringing him down to the ground with regular attacks.
Now free from his delay, Kirito inclined forward as much as he could as he swung his blade upwards, triggering the 3-hit 《Sharp Nail》. The inclination was needed as his opponent was lying on the ground, where a regular Sharp Nail wouldn't reach him. The irregular posture had the risk of failing to trigger the Sword Skill if he bent forward too much though. Triggering the skill, Kirito kicked off the ground, meeting Schulz's gaze. Kirito seemed to see surprise, chagrin and... misgivings in his gaze. At this point, Kirito felt a desire to question the guy on why they were attacking the log house with such a large force for no apparent reason, but it was too late to cancel his Sword Skill now.
Schulz: "Kirito...... you really are......(death sequence)"
Kirito (internally): "Really am WHAT!"
Kirito (looking around): "Your leader is dead! We won't go after you if you wish to flee!"
However, unlike the Underworld goblins, the players here weren't in the mood to hightail it out of there. The closest one went after him with a short spear, so Kirito hastily went into a block, before counterattacking with a 《Vertical》 to blow him away after holding out the attack. The rest of the battle was a chaotic mess, as their enemy could no longer maintain their unity and coordination. Half of them were fighting the bear, so the gang avoided them as they cut down the other half of their forces, while Sinon and Yui provided support by shooting anyone who tried to bring out a big skill to turn the tables. Some did try going after Sinon and Yui, but Kuro and the Pattels stopped them.
The straw that broke the camel's back was Asuna and Alice jumping down into the battlefield after concluding that no one was going for the log house. With them going wild, perhaps to vent their frustration about being forced to be on defence for a long time, it didn't take even five minutes to dispose of the eight other players in the rear of the formation. Just as Kirito was about to show his appreciation for their hard work, the bear let out a much louder and fiercer roar than usual.
Kirito noticed that the bear was spreading out its arms beyond the eight remaining hostile players. Realising that the bear was going for its thorn attack, he ordered everyone to hit the deck. The next moment, the bear fired out countless thorns, which sank into the eight players. Since the thorns were powerful enough to take down Alice's HP in half despite her wearing her ALO armour the day before, Kirito didn't even try to raise his head to see what happened to the players. All he could do was hope the attack didn't kill his own party off. One of the thorns hit Klein, then Agil, and even Kirito himself got hit. After another thorn stabbed the ground just centimetres away from Kirito's head, the thornstorm finally came to an end.
When Kirito looked at the scene before him, he saw the eight players standing still, the four tanks guarding the four damage dealers with their shields. As Kirito began to admire their prompt thinking and defence... all eight of them underwent the death sequence.
Kirito: "No way......"
Bear: "Grr......"
Now the bear was glaring at them. Since Kirito had suffered damage from the thorn attack, he could now see the bear's cursor. Its HP was still slightly over sixty percent. Kirito didn't have any confidence that they could beat the bear without casualties... when he recalled that they had other plans for the bear. But just before he could finish his thought, Silica herself got up and approached the bear without any weapons.
Kirito was about to stop her, but Silica was dead set on taming it. Meanwhile, the bear was still mad after enduring attacks for so long. But Silica didn't falter, approaching the bear with some large lump in her hands. The roasted frog meat. Realising what she was planning, Kirito ordered Klein and Agil go gather up the pieces of meat lying around in the forest after the forest fire went out, leaving tons of roasted frog meat behind.
The bear stood up on its hind legs, reaching over three metres in height and swinging around its sharp claws. Meanwhile, Silica was the second shortest player in the party, so there was a very great difference in stature between them. Although avatar size didn't actually have any influence on combat potential. Although Kirito couldn't help but imagine Silica being mowed down by the bear's claws just like the players that fought against it, the bear slowly returned to its original quadrupedal stance. It the sniffed the aroma of the piece of frog meat dropped before it, before taking it into its mouth, chewing a couple of times and then swallowing it whole. Silica continued throwing it some meat, until she ran out of the pieces she had on hand and opened her inventory. Seeing this, Kirito hurriedly asked the others to send him the frog meat they had gathered via a trade. Aside from Agil and Klein, Lisbeth, Leafa, Asuna, and Alice also contributed to the meat hoarding. Then Kirito sneaked over closer to Silica to get within distance to send her a trade offer.
As Silica continued feeding the bear, Kirito kept an eye on her stocks via her inventory as the dwindled. By the time Silica used up her supply of meat, the taming metre had been stuck at 99% for a while now. Although Kirito proposed looking for some more meat, Silica concluded that the same type of meat wouldn't be enough to finish up the taming metre, so she decided to try taming the bear as is. Meanwhile, Kirito attempted to find anything the bear would like in his inventory. He did manage to find some hyena meat, salamander tails and bat wings among his clusterfuck of mats, but none of it seemed like stuff the bear would enjoy. Just as he was about to give up, Sinon got right behind him and offered something in his stead: a blue, fist-sized jar.
From this jar, Silica scooped up some whitish semi-solid mass, which meant she couldn't just throw it to the bear. So Silica instead approached the bear, holding the mass in her right hand. However, the bear didn't seem interested. Just as Sinon wondered if the bear didn't take raw materials, a small figure sped past them. It wasn't Yui, as Kirito had at first assumed, but the leader of the Pattels. The leader rushed up to Silica and poured out the contents of a yellow jar onto Silica's right hand. A yellow, sticky liquid covered the white mass. Once this was done, the leader tailed it out of there.
As Kirito and Sinon stared agape, the bear sniffed Silica's hand again and licked up the sticky yellow thing in one fell swoop. That very instant, Silica's left hand went into action, tying the long rope into a collar, completing the taming process. As the bear's cursor turned green, Silica collapsed on the spot. Following a short bellow, the bear licked Silica's cheek with its huge tongue.
Alice (still sceptical): "......Did she... succeed?"
Kirito: "I guess...... she did?"
Alice: "To be honest, I thought that this would be a futile effort. Silica might just have what it takes to tame wild dragons living in the western empire."
Kirito: "Let's take her to Underworld to give it a try one day."
Afterwards, Kirito found out that the jar Sinon had provided was filled with butter. It was the jar given to her by the Ornit girl before she set out on her journey. Then he wondered what had the Pattel put on the butter. The answer came from Yui the translator: it was honey, apparently. The Pattels used to keep bees in the distant past. That jar of honey was a treasured momento the Pattels had been passing on for hundreds of years among their family. Kirito wondered why the Pattels would part with their valuable vintage honey, but Asuna stopped him from doing so by remarking that Kirito himself wouldn't like being asked why he would choose to help those in need. Kirito (internally): Though I'm he one getting helped by everyone all the time though.
Leafa: "Well, now it totally makes sense why the li'l bear got tamed!"
Lisbeth: "How did that suddenly make sense to you?"
Leafa: "It's honey butter, girl. How can anyone possibly resist it!"
Kirito: "That only applies to y- (stomach growling)"
Agil and Klein burst into laughter. The girls follow suit.
---------
In the aftermath, the gang did not manage to find out why Schulz's raid party came after them, but getting attacked twice already implied a trend. So, having set up a bonfire in the front yard, they discussed how to improve their defence. The bear, named Misha by Silica, was now sleeping at the southwestern edge of the walled area, with Kuro and Agah sound asleep on its soft belly and Kirito was thinking of going out to find some food the bear would like. Meanwhile, the twenty Pattels were resting inside the log house's living room. Though they would have to provide them with their own accommodations, since they themselves would some sleeping space where they could log out safely.
Their current topic of discussion was upgrading their wall. When Alice proposed making the wall high enough that anyone falling down from it would suffer fall damage, as well as evening out all the bumps to make it hard to climb, Kirito had to restrain himself from commenting that it sounded to him like her goal was recreating the Central Cathedral walls. Kirito didn't disagree with upgrading their fortifications, but he believed they would eventually reach their limit, while players might acquire methods of long-range attack in the future. Kirito proposed the idea that they kept being attacked because a single house looked like a sitting duck. So his idea was to build an entire town to discourage attacks. Kirito believed that they had set up base in a very good spot, rich with materials for building houses. And now even their troubles with iron would likely be resolved, as he didn't believe a tamed monster would respawn anymore, as this could be abused to make an army of bears. Silica wasn't interested in taming bears again though. Kirito's point was that it wouldn't be that hard for them to make more buildings in their current circumstances. It would be hard to call it a town with just the Pattels, so he intended to scout out some other to migrate to their town in the future. At that point, Yui brought up that Basins would be nice to have around for support. Meanwhile, Kirito was interested in getting Sinon's Ornits to come over with their muskets.
At that point, Agil brought up that they would have to leave the forest one day if he intended to try and clear the game by going to the spot mentioned in the system announcement the previous night. Kirito had forgotten about the whole thing, however, so that question caught him by surprise. Kirito then argued that having a base of operations would make expeditions easier, since they'd have a place to store their ALO equipment that couldn't be used at the moment. But if they stored their valuables into the home storage, they would need to use every means in their disposal to keep them all safe. His argument resonated with the others, so everyone agreed with the idea to build a town. However, Alice brought up that it would take a whole lot of time to get everything done from scratch. By Alice's estimates, it could take over a week, if not a month; however, Kirito was sure they could get things done well enough in four hours till 3 o'clock.
Alice: "Whaa!? Four hours!?"
Asuna: "Sounds like we're not getting enough sleep again."
Chapter 10
Kazuto was fighting his drowsiness on a train. The boy was resisting the urge to make up for his lost sleep, as Hosaka Tomo, a.k.a. Argo, was sitting right next to him. He feared that if he were to fall asleep, leaned onto her shoulder and, heavens forbid, let any drool slip out on her, he'd be the object of ridicule from the girl for years to come. As Kazuto continued his valiant fight against his eyelids,
Tomo: "You sure do look sleepy noW, Kii-bou. Shall I apply some eyedrops for yA?"
Kazuto: "O.. oh, no thanks. Actually, why do you even apply eyedrops for everyone anyway?"
Tomo: "Not like I do this for everyone thougH."
Kazuto: "That so......――Wait, why are you even coming with me in the first place?"
Tomo: "WoW, that sure was mean, dudE. And here I was the one who taught ya the li'l trick to get out of school without playin' hooky, remembeR?"
Kazuto: "Muh......."
Kazuto had been called out to Ginza at 3 PM on a workday, which was a bit problematic for a high school student, as he would have to skip fifth and sixth period to make it there in time. Kazuto had planned to play hooky, even if against his wishes, but then he encountered Tomo and learnt that he could make his absence from school official if he were to just fill out a form for a 《Possible Future Workplace Tour》. Of course, he had to provide digital confirmation that they agreed to give him a tour, so Kazuto had Seijirou fabricate one to avoid being branded a truant, even if he did miss the lessons nonetheless.
At this point, Tomo asked him about the raid on their base the previous night. Kazuto was so surprised that he needed a moment to even ask how she knew about it, but Tomo had apparently picked up on players from the raid tweeting about it in detail on social media. They had been using private accounts, but that was nowhere enough to stop good ol' Argo from snooping around. This shocked Kazuto even more. Not the fact that Argo-sama had amazing intel gathering skills, but the fact that the raid members were tweeting left and right about them. The boy decided to answer Tomo's question by complaining how hard a time they had had with the raid, but they were lucky the raid didn't have mages.
At this point, Kazuto began wondering why exactly did they not have any mages at all, when there was bound to be someone who had brought over a magic skill from ALO. In response, Tomo explained that magic skills brought over from ALO were locked down. They did appear on the skill list, but the players still needed to get magicrystallites to actually unlock the use of those skills. That's why a lot of people at the ALO player starting point were now busy looking for monsters that would drop magicrystallites. Kazuto thought it was unfair for mages that they couldn't use the one skill they had brought over from ALO, but Tomo made the argument that if there hadn't been any restrictions placed on magic skills, the top class mages would have been able to shoot out max level spells and do some power levelling with them during the leniency period. To be fair, MP was actually limited, but this problem would be resolved with some levelling. Though Kazuto did think that maintaining the magicrystallite requirement even after the leniency period expired all the skills were nerfed for everyone was still going too far.
Kazuto then recalled the events of the previous night after they decided to build a town. Despite Kirito's proclamation that they'd get a town done by 3 AM, they had actually taken till 5 AM to wrap up. It took an hour to gather the mats for a well and another hour to find plants for their farm, which resulted in them staying logged in longer than expected. However, they did manage to finish their town――a town by game standards, that is. They had cleared out the trees on the other side of their stone wall (though the bigger trees had mostly already been burnt down by the attackers, which made the job easier), then created another circular wall around this new plot, which they then divided into four districts. The eastern area was dedicated to Pattel accommodations, the western area was planned as a residential district for another group of NPCs, the southern area was planned to be a commercial district, while the northern area was dedicated to pet stables. Though, the western area was still incomplete, as only the stone foundations were set down so far, while the commercial area did not have any shops yet. It took Alice pointing out the obvious for Kirito to realise that their town was basically identical in structure to Centoria, on a much smaller scale. Silica's new pet had proved to be indispensable to getting much more decent town done than Kirito had initially been envisioning. Asuna had used her Sewing and Woodcrafting skill to craft a 《Cargo Bag for Large Beasts》 for Misha, which allowed storing seemingly endless amounts of resources, thus eliminating the need for multiple trips between the resource points and the building site. This did exhaust the bear's SP bar, but Asuna solved that problem by making casting nets, which they could then use to catch quite a bit of fish from the southern river. Though they did need to level up the Casting Net skill before they managed to catch anything at all.
The main concern now was whether their strategy will actually succeed in discouraging attacks, as they would have to wait and see how it all works out. Kazuto was also concerned who the 《sensei》 guy was. The first thought when it came to PK was PoH, but he should have suffered irreversible Fluctlight damage in Underworld. What's more, the advice the 《sensei》 guy gave to Mocri didn't sound like PoH's style. His modus operandi was to coax people with his silvery tongue to drink poison. At this point, Kazuto decided to ask Tomo a question, who turned out to be just about to recline on Kazuto's shoulder. The girl was asked if she had discovered the reason why their base had been attacked, but all that their tweets had said was that a Salamander acquaintance had invited them to the raid, which implied that only Schulz had had actual contact with the 《sensei》 guy.
Kazuto: "Say, Argo."
Tomo: "HEY, I'm just about to start chargin' ya for my info, dudE."
Kazuto: "I'll pay you in expensive cakes at Ginza. So...... do you happen to have any knowledge of a guy nicknamed 《sensei》 in ALO?"
Tomo: "I do, yeS."
Kazuto: "F-for real?"
Tomo: "Yeah. It's a guy named 《Blackie-sensei》 thougH."
Kazuto: "............"
Kazuto then asked if anyone else fit the bill, but Tomo had no other leads. She did mention that ALO players had formed several teams in Unital Ring after being converted to the new game and the culprit could be the leader of one of these groups, but Tomo would need to do some investigating to confirm that. Tomo explained that they were mostly just groups that just shared info with each other and came in names like 《Survival For-Sure Squad》, 《Announcer-chan's Fan Club》, 《Weed Eaters》, 《Virtual Research Society》 and so on. Kazuto asked her to investigate those leaders, though Tomo complained that a single cake wasn't enough to make it worthwhile. Then Kazuto recalled that Tomo hadn't even joined Unital Ring yet, so he found it weird that she was way too knowledgeable on what was going on inside the game, which prompted Argo to explain that all it took was to streamline info posted online to get a general idea of what was happening, a much easier way to go about things than manually investigating things like she was forced to do in SAO. Though, she was now actually considering joining the game herself and so she asked Kazuto to help escort her to their base from the ALO staring point. Kazuto was interested in seeing the ruins that served as the ALO player starting point, so he agreed to her request to do so that very evening.
---------
Just as Kazuto and Tomo arrived at a certain high-class cafe in Ginza, where a certain fishy man wearing a dark brown suit with black glasses and already halfway done eating a sandwich, called out to him as soon as he stepped inside. The man was Kikuoka Seijirou. Just as he was about to hold out his hand to Kazuto, he noticed Tomo and asked them both to sit down, after several moments of blinking.
Seijirou: "Well, she's neither Asuna-kun, nor Suguha-kun, nor Shino-kun...... hm. Kirito-kun, who would his young lady be?"
Tomo: "Ya should already know who this li'l ol' me is, maN. We finally got a chance to meet, huH, Chrysheight-san."
Personal Highlights
Chapter 2:
💠Argo's real name and profession reveal
💠Same question gets asked over three times and we still don't get a proper answer
💠Argo's onee-san entrance
💠Suguha ditching kendo practice despite being the vice-president of the club
💠Eugeo angst
Chapter 3: N/A
Chapter 4:
💠Yui getting swordfighting lessons from Alice... and even getting praise from her.
💠Kirito crashing face-down into the ground after unexpectedly triggering his Vorpal Strike
💠Kirito annoying Alice with his shitty abrevs
💠Kirito being embarrassed by Alice's nursing of him in UW
💠Kawahara working in a cake timeline reference with some Eugeo angst
💠The platysaur taking after its master by being a bath-o-holic
💠Kirito's sucking at mental calculations and Asuna appearing just in time to save him.
💠Kirito trying to cajole everyone into going along with his crazy idea of taming a Thorn-Bearing Cave Bear
💠Kirito, the king of the 3 Ms
💠Kirito having the guts to sacrifice his main sword for the good of the party
Chapter 5:
💠Sinon going into a tantrum while trying to learn Ornit words.
Chapter 6:
💠Kirito and Sinon having the same idea about Ability point allocation.
💠Yui aspiring to be a "punchy mage" like her Mama... and Kirito not having the heart to burst her bubble.
💠The girls betting on just how indecisive Kirito is... and Lisbeth having a better grasp on Kirito than his own cousin.
💠Lisbeth's last minute bombshells.
💠Yui getting special treatment from her Papa.
💠Leafa the Glutton almost costing the party their lives.
💠Kirito having a shitty naming sense.
Chapter 7:
💠Sinon learning the hard way that you should always double check when you don't understand something from an NPCs warning.
Chapter 8:
💠Leafa the Jinxer
💠Yui all grown up and wanting to pull some weight on her own.
💠Everyone in the gang getting their moment of glory in battle for the first time.
💠Surprise Klein and Agil coming to save the day.
💠Kirito of course forgot all about them. Good thing the responsible one in the relationship was present.
💠Klein hiding from PKers behind Agil.
💠Klein apparently being so obsessed with finding Skuld that he maxed out his Tracking skill.
💠Klein apparently struggling with frogs yet not noticing that he was lying on one.
Chapter 9:
💠Leafa's Onii-chan getting episodes of infantile regression.
💠Kirito's stomach disagreeing that Leafa's the only one who cares about honey butter
Chapter 10:
💠Argo's Blackie-sensei joke.
Nice to see another Eugeo's reminder. Don't ever forget him, Kirito...
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteHi, first of all i want to express my gratitude for your work, as someone who is looking forward with desperation for the conclussion of SAO (i admit it is because i want to see kirito and asuna married with children for real jajaja), dying of anxiety for waiting months and years for the volumes to come officialy in english, i will forever be grateful to you. I just want to ask with curiosity if the next part of the summary will be soon upon us, if not it doesnt matter. I just want to know, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm still writing the summary for the next chapter. The summary is not a top priority for me, as I have actual translation projects that need to get done as well. I summarise UR when I find some free time. Follow me on Twitter if you want the latest updates, as I'll only update this blog post when I get an entire chapter done... and some chapters are pretty long.
DeleteHi, thanks. Por traducir.
ReplyDeleteEspero que lo sigas traduciendo
Hi, i want to express again my gratitude for your translations, which i follow here and in yout twitter account. I want to ask you, just to have clarity of the actual situation, if you have stoped the translation of summaries for volume 24. Actually we got ultil kirito and asuna school meeting for her birthday, ¿are we going to see summaries of what remains of the novel?, thank you for your work, i am very patient and i also understand if you are no longer translating these summaries.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do plan to finish my short summary of v24. I just didn't have the time to work on it.
DeleteYou are an unsung hero
ReplyDeleteA few questions because I am out of the loop. Are you done summarizing volume 23? Is volume 24 out yet so you can summarize that too?
ReplyDeleteVolume 24 came out shortly after volume 23. Since I didn't expect it to come out so quickly, I put my detailed summaries on hold and covered the remainder of v23 briefly so that I could get to v24. I plan to get back to my detailed summaries after I finished a brief one of v24, but I was busy with RL stuff and my other translations the past few months.
DeleteThats totally fine dude, we will patiently wait for the remaining summaries lol
DeleteYour followers is growing! Thank you so much for this wonderful translation 😊
ReplyDeleteThis is about to get very popular
ReplyDeletehey, got any idea about when an anime on UR will be released, (more like an assumption :) )
ReplyDeleteNot before the entire UR novel arc is completed. And at Kawahara's current pace, that might take 5 years at the very least...
DeleteOh, well....Guess I had it coming. Man, I think I'm addicted to SAO at this point.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, I forgot to say it at first, so here goes-
You, my friend, are a true lifesaver.
No, really, I mean it.
I'll be waiting for the full summary.
You sir are amazing. I'm so so thankful your putting the time and energy into translating these stories!!! I can't thank you enough and i'm eager to continue to read as you translate more content.
ReplyDeleteHave you done with vol 24 summary? What about vol.25 summary.
ReplyDeleteI have done a short version of the summary for Volume 24 up to the end of chapter 8 (out of 10). I have not yet started on an expanded version of it yet, since I'm currently working on Progressive.
DeleteFor volume 25, I have done a podcast summary of the volume (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taU7FyMpmYo), since I was getting too big of a backlog with SAO getting such frequent releases lately.
Thanks
Delete