November 6, 2022 Time: 18:15:42 Location: Eastern Grasslands of Horunka Village Clang!
Shindo caught the charging attack of an elite Frenzy Boar on his sword, shifted aside before its tusks could catch him, and drove his blade deep into its flank.
The monster burst apart into pale-blue crystalline fragments, but Shindo did not stop.
More accurately, he did not have the luxury of stopping.
A massive blue boar was already barreling toward him, its heavily muscled body far larger and more imposing than any of the others.
The ground trembled beneath its charge while torn grass and loose dirt billowed into a cloud behind it.
Above its HP bar was its name.
Frenzy Boar King.
It was effectively a field boss, though that description sounded more impressive than the creature actually was.
Frenzy Boars were essentially the SAO equivalent of slimes in terms of combat strength, so even their elite and higher-tier variants were not particularly dangerous once a player understood how they fought.
After wiping out the ordinary Frenzy Boars around it, Shindo faced the Boar King alone.
Its attack pattern was not fundamentally different from that of its weaker relatives.
As a higher-ranked MOB, it possessed one additional technique beyond its standard charge: an upward tusk attack capable of launching a player into the air.
Even that, however, required the creature to get close enough to connect.
Shindo had no intention of allowing that.
He moved lightly around its approach, then placed his left hand against the flat of his Beginner’s Straight Sword.
As though responding to the gesture, the blade began glowing red.
Once the system had fully recognized the activation stance, Shindo released the One-Handed Straight Sword skill «Slant».
The diagonal strike crashed directly into the Boar King’s forehead.
The monster was knocked flat.
Drawing on the knowledge of beast-type MOB attack patterns he had accumulated during the beta, Shindo dispatched the upper-tier enemy with almost embarrassing ease.
His HP never even dropped into the yellow zone.
When the Frenzy Boar King’s body finally shattered, Shindo’s level rose to Level 4.
That put him several hours ahead of where Kirito had been at the same point in the original timeline.
More importantly, he had also obtained the item required for the hidden quest Geese’s Injury (2): a High-Quality Boar Hide.
Shindo was not entirely sure what the quest considered “high-quality,” but as a general rule, stronger MOBs produced better drops.
A hide taken from the Frenzy Boar King ought to satisfy even the pickiest NPC.
With that settled, Shindo immediately started back toward Horunka Village.
He could collect Dire Wolf fangs and hides for his other hidden quest along the way.
A little over ten minutes later, he crossed back into Horunka’s safe zone.
Night had already fallen.
The small village could only accommodate a few hundred people, and there were not many lights burning after dark, leaving the settlement dotted with isolated pools of warm illumination.
At the edge of the forest, Old Geese was fast asleep inside his wooden cottage.
His rocking chair swayed gently back and forth, causing his shadow to shift across the latticed window in time with the flickering oil lamp mounted on the wall.
A drinking cup had tipped over on the little wooden table beside him.
A plate lay nearby with a knife and a small piece of dried meat resting on it, while spilled liquor dripped slowly over the edge and formed a shallow puddle on the wooden floor.
With every snore, an enormous bubble at Geese’s nose expanded and contracted.
Then someone knocked on the door.
Pop!
The bubble finally burst.
“Mmgh…
coming, coming!
Old Geese was just getting sleepy!” The hunter blinked himself awake.
Apparently he had drunk a little more than usual that evening, because he swayed badly as he climbed out of the rocking chair and limped toward the door on his injured leg.
“Geese, it’s me.” “Oh?
Ohohoho!” Geese brightened the moment he recognized him.
“So it’s you!
Old Geese thought you wouldn’t be back until…
until later…
tomorrow, perhaps!” He shuffled aside to make room in the doorway and waved Shindo in enthusiastically.
“Come in, come in!” Before Shindo could object, Geese had already taken him by the hand and started pulling him inside.
With no graceful way to refuse such enthusiasm, Shindo helped the old man back into his rocking chair, found a wooden stool, and sat beside him.
“Geese, I brought the boar hide you wanted for your shoes.” Shindo opened his inventory and materialized the drop from the Frenzy Boar King.
“Hmm?!” Geese immediately straightened in his chair.
His eyes widened, and he practically snatched the hide out of Shindo’s hands.
“Yes…
yes, there’s no mistaking it!
This is the hide of a Boar King!
A truly exceptional piece of boar leather!” He stared at Shindo with renewed admiration.
“Well, well!
You must be quite the greaaat adventurer!” Geese stretched the word great out with such childish enthusiasm that Shindo could only assume the Boar King’s hide had genuinely exceeded the quest’s normal requirements.
The old hunter examined it once more before asking, this time with genuine uncertainty, “Leather this fine could make a pair of excellent boots or a good piece of armor.
It would sell for several thousand col at the very least.
Are you truly willing to give it to Old Geese?” “I promised I’d bring it to you.
Who else would I give it to?” Shindo answered without hesitation.
“Ohohoho!
Old Geese knew it!
A good young fellow like you would never be tempted by mere money!” Geese instantly became cheerful again, his enormous white mustache lifting along with the corners of his mouth.
Since his leg still made it difficult for him to move around, he pointed Shindo toward a cabinet behind the rocking chair and instructed him to pull out a wooden chest stored beneath it.
The chest did not look particularly large, but it was unexpectedly heavy.
Whatever Geese kept inside had enough weight that even Shindo, now at Level 4, had to put some effort into moving it.
The moment Geese opened the lid, Shindo understood why.
The chest was packed with metal equipment.
Among the contents were numerous accessories and small pieces of gear, including several blue-quality items.
Most looked old and worn on the surface, but their remaining Durability appeared surprisingly high.
What was more startling was the selection.
Some of the equipment inside could normally only be purchased from weapon shops and item stores in Tolbana, the town nearest the First Floor Labyrinth, and most of it carried price tags well above a thousand col.
Geese, however, tossed the items aside as casually as though they were junk.
After digging around for some time, he finally uncovered a smaller iron box hidden at the very bottom.
Shindo could not help feeling a flicker of anticipation.
Then he noticed Geese’s expression.
The mischievous old man who had spent the entire day boasting about himself was gone.
His face had become calm and unreadable, and Shindo instinctively settled down as well.
Geese had something he wanted to say.
“When Old Geese was young, he too was a handsome and dashing adventurer.
I courted elves from the elven kingdoms of Zumfut and Lovell, drank alongside dwarves from the underground kingdom, and fought through more battles than I can count.” His voice softened.
“But through all those years, I never used what was kept inside this box.” He placed a hand on the lid.
“Young adventurer, I want you to use it well.
Let it show the strength and resolve it was always meant to possess.” A faint smile touched the old hunter’s face.
“This was Old Geese’s pride when he was young.” He opened the box.
Inside lay a metal plate—or, more accurately, a small piece of armor designed to protect the heart.
An intricate emblem had been engraved across its surface, Geese’s personal mark from long ago.
Shindo recognized the style of the pattern.
He had seen similar designs on much higher floors during the beta.
Despite its apparent age, the polished metal still reflected the warm yellow glow of the cottage’s lamp.
Shindo’s initial excitement faded.
He was no longer sure he wanted to accept something this valuable.
The item seemed to carry more than numerical stats.
It held the sharp confidence Geese had possessed in his youth and the quiet resilience accumulated through all the years that followed.
Shindo was not certain whether something like that should really belong to him.
“Geese…
this is—” “Ohohohoho!” The old man’s solemn expression vanished in an instant.
“My kind young fellow, don’t tell me you actually believed all of that!” Geese’s round eyes gleamed with mischief as he covered the side of his mouth with one hand and leaned closer.
“Old Geese lies too, you know.
In fact, my lying skills are among the finest in all of Horunka Village!” “…” Shindo’s fist tightened.
Again.
“Take it, take it!
Old Geese is getting sleepy.
If you keep standing there, I might fall asleep before you leave.” Geese forcibly shoved the metal plate into Shindo’s hands.
Then he bent down, haphazardly stuffed the equipment he had scattered everywhere back into the chest, righted his drinking cup, and took several generous swallows of liquor.
Shindo rose to his feet and looked at him for a moment.
Then he bowed deeply.
Only afterward did he slowly make his way out of the cottage.
As the door swung shut, narrowing the warm strip of light spilling from inside, Shindo paused with one hand still resting on it and glanced back.
Geese had already reclined in his rocking chair.
It moved gently back and forth, causing the lamplight to sway with it.
The rhythm reminded Shindo of an old pendulum clock that remained silent until the proper hour arrived and finally chimed.
Tonight, however, the chair looked more like a cradle.
Geese slept peacefully within it, and Shindo wondered whether the haze of alcohol might carry the old hunter into dreams of the adventurer he had once been.
He quietly closed the door.
The final sliver of escaping light disappeared back inside, leaving the little cottage at the forest’s edge glowing warmly against the darkness.
Shindo had originally intended to tell Geese that he was actually a terrible liar.
But the old man was already asleep.
There was no reason to wake him from a good dream.
…
With Geese’s gift, Hunter’s Glory, equipped, Shindo moved considerably faster.
Before leaving Horunka, he made another trip through the village and turned in the Dire Wolf fangs and hides he had collected to the NPC who had issued the other hidden quest.
His reward was a blue-quality accessory called the Wolf Fang Bracelet.
By then, his level had already passed the halfway point toward Level 6, and the hour was growing late.
Even so, Shindo still had something more important to do.
He headed toward the forest west of Horunka Village.
That forest was densely populated by Little Nepents, and one of Horunka’s hidden NPC quests required the player to obtain the rare drop produced by their rarer variant, the Little Nepent’s Ovule.
That was not Shindo’s primary objective tonight, but if he happened to obtain one along the way, he certainly would not complain.
After another ten or fifteen minutes of running, he passed beyond the safe zone and soon found himself facing a dense wall of trees stretching all the way to the horizon.
As far as Shindo knew, the western forest of Horunka covered an enormous area, continuing almost to the western edge of the First Floor.
Finding Kirito and his first party member, Coper, somewhere inside such a vast forest was not going to be simple.
Fortunately, it was already night.
Even if Kirito and Coper had formed a party specifically to hunt for a Little Nepent’s Ovule, they were unlikely to venture particularly deep into an endless forest after dark.
The number of Little Nepents farther inside was uncertain, and deliberately hunting for a rare drop while suffering reduced visibility at night was reckless even by SAO standards.
As Shindo ran, the distant sounds of combat reached him through the wind.
He immediately changed direction and approached, but he did not rush blindly into the fighting.
He already knew what was supposed to be happening.
In the original timeline, Kirito was currently trapped inside a large group of Little Nepents, while Coper—the person responsible for the situation—was hiding nearby using the «Hiding» Skill.
Coper’s concealment would only last another ten or so minutes.
Once «Hiding» expired, his EP would already be depleted.
Without enough energy left to activate Sword Skills, his chances of surviving the surrounding monsters would be virtually nonexistent.
More importantly, Coper had made a far more serious mistake.
Perhaps he had not researched the monsters properly, or perhaps he had spent the beta playing like a tourist rather than seriously learning the game’s mechanics.
Whatever the reason, he apparently did not know that «Hiding» was nearly useless against Little Nepents.
Their eyesight was poor.
Their sense of smell was not.
In the original course of events, Coper had attempted to steal Kirito’s Little Nepent’s Ovule, only to be discovered and surrounded by the monsters himself.
Coper died, while Kirito survived by sheer fortune and eventually completed the hidden quest «Secret Medicine of the Forest».
But Shindo’s presence had already changed events.
He could not be certain that the outcome would remain the same.
Without the «Searching» Skill, Shindo had no reliable way to locate Coper while he remained concealed.
For the moment, the only sensible option was to reduce the pressure on Kirito.
After estimating the number and positions of the Little Nepents surrounding the area, Shindo drew his Beginner’s Straight Sword and identified the thinnest section of their formation.
He lowered his stance.
Red light gathered around the blade.
Then he launched himself forward with «Linear», the Sword Skill’s system-assisted charge carrying him directly through the weakest point in the encirclement.
One Little Nepent after another shattered along his path, carving a narrow escape route through the monsters.
“Yo!
Been a while, Kirito.” Kirito had been fighting desperately after the sudden betrayal of his supposed party member.
His face was twisted with strain, and beneath it Shindo could see the beginnings of an almost hysterical smile, as though the boy were struggling not to lose himself completely.
Then Shindo burst onto the battlefield with all the subtlety of a hero arriving at the perfect moment, several streaks of crimson «Linear» effects flashing through the darkness as he pierced open a safe route.
Kirito simply stared at him.
The abrupt swing from complete despair to unexpected salvation seemed to have short-circuited his brain entirely.
His expression was frozen somewhere between disbelief and stunned confusion.
“Shin…
Shindo?!” “Seriously, Kirito?
Are you planning to stand there until these things decide you’re dinner?!” Without waiting for an answer, Shindo grabbed Kirito by the hand and sprinted back toward the opening he had just created.
The Little Nepents were already beginning to close ranks and rebuild the encirclement, but their movement speed was poor.
The gap remained open just long enough for Shindo and Kirito to force their way through.
Their escape was hardly graceful.
They ran until both of them were nearly gasping themselves sick, finally stopping only when they were far enough away to lean against separate trees and drag fresh air into their lungs.
Shindo glanced sideways at him.
“I have to say, trying to farm an extremely rare Little Nepent’s Ovule in a forest at night is a pretty bold idea.” “Sorry…
I dragged you into this.” Kirito’s voice was subdued.
He said nothing about Coper.
Shindo could guess why.
Kirito had just experienced firsthand how cruel this world could be, and he probably did not want to burden Shindo with what had happened.
As for Coper, dozens of Little Nepents had already surrounded the area, with even more gradually converging on the commotion.
At this point, he would have to save himself.
Shindo looked at his own HP bar.
It had fallen into the yellow zone, and natural recovery would take quite some time.
He was not going to throw his own life away by charging back into that swarm for someone who had deliberately tried to murder Kirito.
“Shindo…
I’ve only got about two thousand col right now.” Kirito opened his status window and gave him an awkward, troubled look.
Shindo stared at him.
“What are you talking about?
Beta-test Shindo isn’t the same guy as present-day Shindo.
I’m not Argo the Rat, you know.” Then he remembered how obsessively he had hoarded col throughout the beta and felt a little embarrassed by his own words.
“Just consider this a favor you owe me.
If I ask you for help later, don’t turn me down.” “Yeah, yeah!” Kirito was still clearly shaken, but he agreed immediately.
At the very least, his expression no longer looked as grim as before.
“Well, that’s settled.” Shindo patted him on the shoulder.
“I’ve still got levels to grind, so I’m heading out.
Send me a message if anything happens.” With that, he turned and started back toward Horunka Village.
Kirito remained where he was, watching Shindo’s retreating figure until it finally disappeared into the darkness between the trees.
Whatever was going through his mind at that moment, Shindo never knew.