Kurosaki Ichigo blinked.
Then he blinked again.
He let his usual scowl come upon his face, and slowly raised his hand up to his waist level and flexed and opened it. He let in a deep breath and let it out quickly.
"Shit."
Something weird just happened... again. And this time, it was on a whole new level from being involved with the Soul Society and the spiritual events. This time ... he had been incorporated into one of his least favorite games.
Elder Tales.
"Fuck~!" he shouted to the sky with all of the strength he had.
It had been only about a year ago. He had been working part-time as an administrative manager for his friend's hospital. The previous administrative manager had fallen ill, and could not come to work. Ishida, the said friend, extended the offer to hire Ichigo, who was then an "unemployed" slacker - he was a substitute shinigami; he didn't need a job. Ichigo, somewhat tired of the montonous form of a substitute shinigami decided to go along with it.
While working there, he came to associate two lower tier managers. They were close friends with each other since middle school, and even came to work in the same hospital because of they valued their friendship that much.
They were also avid gamers.
They roped him in on playing games with them, and he ended up playing Elder Tales, a very popular MMORPG, or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. At first, it was fun and whatnot. He got to hang out with new people and old people, Keigo was very famous, apparently; he was one of the two second-in-command of the one of the major guilds, D.D.D. or something by that name.
However, after maxing out his first character, he grew bored. So he quit.
That was until the same two managers roped him into beta-testing.
Best-testing, as Ichigo learned from them, was a fancy term for a testing server where the game managing and updating company tests their new updates on a separate server to make sure there are no glitches and bugs with their new contents.
At first, Ichigo refused, but after they showed him what the beta server was like, he grew interested. Most of the events that occurred in that server were one-time deals. For example, when his two friends were one, there was a "Dragonling Swarm Invasion" that swept through many cities. Apparently, the company thought such event would be too swift for many players, especially new players, and decided to not introduce it.
Basically, there were new things that would keep Ichigo accompanied.
So he went back to playing Elder Tales, staying exclusively within the beta testing server.
He had been busy with many testings, especially with the Novasphere Expansion testings.
He had to say, much of the stuff involved actually got him to want to go back to regular server once the Novasphere Expansion was completed.
Then it happened.
He decided to go back to regular server the moment Novasphere Expansion was introduced.
And now he was stuck here in a game.
He lamented his decision.
However, despite his own lamenting, there was good news. To the most avid of the beta testers, the company had given them a surprise gift.
Which was now floating in his mailbox.
Ichigo sighed as he pressed the mail button.
A green screen appeared in front of him with the word "Congratulations" in English at the very top of the page.
Congratulations, Beta Server-Testers!
We're sure that with the new expansion many of you have returned to the regular servers.
However, we decided early on during the development of the Novasphere Expansion that we were going to reward the most avid beta server testers multiple gifts that would hallmark them. All of our gifts will be in the Inbox right after you close this message! Of course, not all of you will be receiving a godly reward from us; we can only give out so much Phantasmal-class items. However, we believe in rewarding everyone, so even the least active of the beta server testers will receive ingame currency or Production-class item of your choice.
Now, for the reward items.
The first of these is a weapon and/or armor sets that fits your most played regular server character. We also accessed their fighting style with multiple gamemasters, so that these weapons will not disturb your fighting style. We dubbed these weapons "Akashic Rune Sets." The top fifty players of the beta server would receive all of the weapons and armors. The next hundred will receive either the weapons or the armor set. Don't worry, these armors and weapons will be stronger than any weapons or armor sets at your level, but here is the surprise of these Akashic Rune Sets!
Their stats are not static, meaning you can change their stats! How will you be able to do this? That is for you to find out.
The second of the rewards is a Rune. However, these runes are not regular runes that has been added with the new expansion; these are beta server tester only runes! There are four types of them, and you can only choose one. So make a wise decision, for you cannot change them!
And the last reward is a choice.
This choice you make with the last reward will significantly alter your game style as well as PvP and raids.
Thank you for your patience during the beta testing!
And good luck to you all!
Ichigo made a Obama's "Not Bad" face before his scowl returned. He closed the message box, and his Inbox appeared.
And there.
A mail.
He pressed the mail.
Go to the Banks.
-GameMaster ThankTheLord-
P.S. We forgot to add in the first message about this. It'll be all in your banks in the Guild Hall.
Derp GM's.
He had closed the screen.
However, he now had an issue.
Unlike the other players, he had been hunting monsters right down to the minute when the Novasphere Expansion had been released...
In an International Server, where the primary language was English.
But when he had read the mail, they were all in Japanese, which got him to hypothesize that he was no longer in the "international server" but a "Japanese server." It was a hypothesis that he could not test, for one of the new features of the Novasphere Expansion for international server was automatic translation. Japanese, Chinese (both of them), Korea, English, German, Spanish, Russian, French, and Swedish, the top 10 language users in international server, were all translated if written to listener.
So he could still be in the international server.
Second problem.
He was stuck.
Rather, he had left his griffon flute back in the bank for some odd reason, and had ended up stranded in one of the most dangerous regions.
The Crystalline Underground Network.
Average LvL: 90~94
Before the expansion, the average LvL for this region was 90, because many of the rare -and common- minerals were abundant here in crystalline forms..
Now that he looked around, that was no longer the case.
The monsters had them on their body.
And one of them, a grizzly bear -sized eight legged crystal monster, was staring at him.
He stared right back at it from his seat, a make-shift, chopped off crystal quartz chair.
"Criiiiiii."
Large Crystal Spider (Mini-Boss)
LvL 95
Hostile
"Well, shit," he muttered as he pulled out his personalized weapon -beta testers only- the Zangetsu. (1)
The crystal spider jumped.
Ichigo swung.
Elsewhere, Shiroe was horrified.
He had just met Naotsugu, the guardian class friend from his time in the Debauchery Tea Party, and had been talking with Akatsuki. Naotsugu was a tall man with short spike brown hair that pointed backwards. Like his class suggested, he had armor and shield that made him suitable for in the frontlines.
Then an alert came on from his Friend List, under the mark of "Danger."
He had looked at his friend list, and the moment he saw the name, his face paled.
"Black Swordsman"- Status: Online
Note: Dangerous. Won against the entire Debauchery Tea Party with only three more allies.
"Shit," he muttered.
"What is it, My Lord?" Akatsuki asked, having just changed her appearance with Shiroe's appearance changing potion. Akatsuki was a petite girl with purple hair. Majority of said hair was tied up into a ponytail that stretched down to her ankle. She was a Assassin class weapon wielder with subclass in tracking. She was a very stealthy person, basically.
"...Someone very dangerous is in the game as well."
Naotsugu looked curious as well. "Who?"
"The Black Swordsman, wielder of an unknown Phantasmal - class giant blade."
Naotsugu was behind Akatsuki the moment the name was mentioned with his shield and sword drawn, and this was done as fast as Akatsuki would have readied herself in face of danger.
"Where?!" he shouted, looking around frantically.
Shiroe felt a comical sweatdrop droop down from his forehead. "I said he's just in the game as well, not right here."
Naotsugu stopped and stared at Shiroe for a second before he let out a sigh of relief. He relaxed and just plopped down on a small rock.
Akatsuki blinked. He hadn't expected a pervert like Naotsugu to have such battle reflexes, or to show them at the mere mention of a name. She turned to Shiroe. "Who is this 'Black Swordsman' that scares Naotsugu so much, My Lord?" she asked curiously.
Shiroe rubbed the back of his head with a slight frown on his face. "As a group, I can easily say that 'Debauchery Tea Party', which both Naotsugu and I were part of, was the strongest for its size and composition. I suspect that D.D.D., which was the largest guild before all this, and probably still is, is now the strongest in this area. The Black Swordsman, on the other hand, could be considered the strongest individual. You won't be even able to touch him, Aktasuki."
Akatsuki frowned. "Do you doubt my skills, My Lord?"
He shook his head.
"The Black Swordsman and we of the Debauchery Tea Party actually had a fight, because our leader believed he had stolen a boss kill in a raid dungeon," Shiroe sighed, recalling the event. "He had been with four of his friends."
"What happened?"
"When we engaged into a battle, a single swing from his weapon cut a guardian's health by quarter, and he attacked as fast as a Swashbuckler. It took him and his allies five seconds to run through half of us and less than that for the other half. We all were revived up in the same cathedral that day," he recounted.
She looked at him as if that was impossible. "But that's impossible! The numbers just can't be that high from a single swing!"
"It was his weapon."
"Ah?"
"His class, despite his armor, was a Swashbuckler. On average, he had a 3.0 attack per second, which is actually slightly low for a Swashbuckler. Later, I did some research and found that he was wielder of an Phantasmal-class broadsword with class requirement of a Swashbuckler. Apparently, there are only fifteen similar weapons, not even same weapons."
Akatsuki gawked.
Items all had their own class as well, and went by the following: Normal, Magical-, Production-, Artifact-, and Phantasmal-class. Phantasmal-class weapons and armors were the rarest of them all. Each server, when Elder Tale was a game, had only 100 or so of same items.
'But My Lord is telling me that this weapon that the Black Swordsman carried had no other copy!' Aktasuki quickly realized, and her face must have shown it.
"Yes, you got it quickly. It was a weapon with a unannounced class beyond that of a Phantasmal. These were items that were never dropped, gifted, or made in game."
"Are you suggesting that these weapons are hacked items?" she suggested.
He shook his head. "They are items that were all in the databse of Elder Tales. If you were to make a private server and give yourself the item, it would appear as any other item."
"Then...?"
"It's all I know," Shiroe sighed.
"...Was it scary fighting him?"
Shiroe looked at Aktasuki in the eye. "It was, and still is, the worst situation I had as a strategist; it was something beyond my control."
"I-I see," she replied, not certain of how she should react.
"But that was not the worst part," Shiroe added. "A similar situation occurred a few months later, where one of the Black Swordsman's friend was killed by a PK who called himself a member of the Debauchery Tea Party when he wasn't. He found us the next day, and demanded to hand over who killed his friend and stole his equipments. We told him that the said killer was not one of us, but we knew of him. Or rather, I knew of him. He told us then to prove that this killer was not one of them.
"So I led him to where I knew this PKer hung around, and we found twelve or so of them.
"The Black Swordsman engaged them alone, and took them out all alone, but the scary part about him was not he didn't stop there. He kept on hunting the PKers and anyone who they were associated with until they apologized and returned the equipment they stole."
Akatasuki drew in a breath at the persistency of the man. "How long did he hunt them for?"
Shiroe suppressed a shiver.
"An entire month. The veteran players call it the Month of Massacre. The Black Swordsman and his friends were responsible for over a thousand players killed, most repeatedly right outside the premise of the cities. Many of the veteran players were hired to take them out, but they ended up becoming part of the hunted until they broke the hit contract.
"...To this day, the Black Swordsman holds the highest number of players an individual killed at a thousand four hundred."
Naotsugu shivered. "Ugh, don't remind me of that sadist. At least you didn't get hear him laugh as he slew them all in voice chat."
"I turned it off for a reason."
Ichigo groaned as he slowly made his way towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
He had fought over forty mini boss class Crystal Spiders, all of which were over 2~4 levels above his own, but thanks to the constant fighting, he had leveled up.
Whether he knew it or not, he was the first LvL 91 in Elder Tales.
He limped slowly out of the tunnels and into the light, and grinned when he saw the green forestry that covered the lower valley of the entrance of the Crystalline Underground Network Zone.
"Goddamn it, I finally made it," he hissed out.
"Criiii!"
He whirled around with his sword raised just in time to block the fangs of a Crystal Spider.
And his health just dropped to the last 100 HP.
"Crap."
The Crystal Spider struck again.
"SSSHHHIIITTTT-"
And he was dead.
"-ITTTT!"
Ichigo blinked. He was staring at the blue and white mural of Akihabara cathedral. He facepalmed himself. "Crap, I just died, didn't I?" he muttered.
He let his head droop.
He couldn't believe he had been ambushed kill like that. So easily and like an idiot.
'Ugh, the last time I died was ... ' he growled.
It had been after fighting that Debauchery Tea Party. Their leader, some weird girl who's brain cell number must be same as Orihime's but with the tendency to lash out with her sword at the slightest provocation, started the fight between his group and them. He managed to send them all packing to whatever cathedral they were to be revived at, but as a result, he died, thanks to the poison applied by one of them.
That was a very long time ago. He could not even remember the last time he died like that.
"Ugh," he muttered as he stood up. "I better start stacking up on healing potions." With that, he used a Recall Spell to take him to the gate of the city.
Ping.
"Hmm?"
It was a private voice chat request from ...
"What's up?" Naotsugu asked drearily, still having tears rushing out of his eyes like a steady and thick trickle at the lack of taste the foods had. After having a small talk about the Black Swordsman, the trio had decided to eat.
It tasted like shit.
It was a fact that everyone who had bought food to eat had come to realize; whatever food it was, if it was not ingrediant-class food, then it tasted like soggy crackers... without salt or sugar.
"It's a voice chat from Marielle, the guild master of Crescent Moon Alliance."
"From Marielle?"
"Yes. She's the guildmaster of Crescent Moon Alliance," Shiroe replied to Naotsugu's question as they walked into the Guild Hall Building. "It's a small guild, numbering only 30. I suspect not all of them were on when this happened," he added, gesturing to the world around them.
"Huh," Naotsugu just muttered.
Shiroe walked up to one of the doors and grabbed the handle. Multiple screens showed up, and he opened the door.
And ...
They walked into a room with pink wallpaper and an assortment of stuffed dolls on top of a white ledge of the room's fireplace.
"Cute," Akatsuki said.
"Hmm, didn't expect you to be here..."
Naotsugu and Shiroe froze. Akatsuki already had reached down for her weapon, only for multiple screens to pop up, showing her that the area she was in a no-combat zone.
"I ain't here to fight, girlie. You can relax."
Shiroe slowly turned around.
There, on the opposite side of the room, right by the door, stood a young man with short orange hair. He wore flannel button up shirt and a belted pair of leather pants complete with leather boots. He wore a leather trenchcoat on top.
However, Shiroe's scrutinizing eyes immeidately caught all of the details of the clothes this man wore.
Imperial Guard's Shirt - A high level quest reward. Most veteran players dismissed it, however, because it required the player to have a high standing with the Ezzo Empire, which lacked proper incentive to lure players to its regions. It was a Production-class "armor", so it was a decent piece of equipment. Boosts health to all class.
Black Dragon Lord Hide Pants - A nigh impossible raid reward. A Phantasmal-class equipment. Boosts attack speed if worn by Swashbuckler. Boosts speed if worn by Assassin. Boosts health to all class.
Black Dragon Lord Hide Boots - A nigh impossible raid reward. A Phantasmal-class equipment. Boosts attack speed if worn by Swashbuckler. Boosts speed if worn by Assassin. Boosts health to all class.
Black Dragon Lord Hide Trenchcoat - A nigh impossible raid reward. A Phantasmal-class equipment. Boosts defense if worn by Monk. Boost piercing damage if worn by Assassin or Swashbuckler. Boosts health to all class.
All together, this made the armor set very, very expensive and hard to get equipment. Three of the four were probably equipment that even most veteran players didn't get to see, even if they had spent five years playing Elder Tales.
"Black Swordsman," Shiroe greeted as coolly as he could be.
The man just stared at him with a scowl on his face.
Naotsugu reached for his shield, because it was a defensive equipment, the system didn't prohibit him.
"Relax guys. I'm only here because my friend called me."
"Your friend...?"
"Sh-i-roe!"
The said man's attention immediately shifted from the Black Swordsman to the door, where a busty blonde lady came out of and bodyslammed Shiroe.
"How have you been, Shiroe? Are you alright? Did you eat? Not that the food taste great in here..."
"Uh, hottie," Naotsugu muttered.
"Shut up, pervert," Akatsuki replied immediately. "Be thankful I'm not kneeing your face."
Shiroe struggled under the bear hug of one guild master, while the other two talked.
The said guild master released Shiroe and turned her attention to Akatsuki. "Is she your girlfriend?!"
"No..."
Regardless of Shiroe's response, Marielle glopped Akatsuki as well, though it ended up into a petting session with the said petite assassin on her lap.
Next was Naotsugu, who tried to look tough and cool, but was also bodyslammed into the wall.
Apparently, she was stronger than him in the eyes of those present.
Then she turned to the last person in the room.
"It's been a while, Ichigo-san," she said formally, though she avoided glopping him like she did with the rest.
Shiroe recognized her reluctance and realized a vital information.
'She's aware of exactly who this is aside from his title,' he concluded, but did not speak outloud.
"Say hi to Kurosaki Ichigo -san, whom you all know as the Black Swordsman," she told the other three in the room just as Henrietta came into the same room.
"Ah, Kurosaki-san. Welcome to the Crescent Moon Alliance guild hall. It's been a while since we saw you," she greeted the swordsman. He nodded to her.
"Well, Marielle called me here. I'm assuming she also called the others," he replied. "I hope this wasn't for another contract."
"No, no. Just an exchange of information," Marielle replied with a sad smile.
Shiroe glanced at the two of them. 'A contract?'
"Well, let's all have a seat," she added, though she did not notice Henrietta's drooling face with sparkles in her eyes when the said latter lady laid her eyes on Akatsuki.
Ichigo held his hand up when Henrietta brought a chair. "I'm fine with standing," he replied, so the chair went to Shiroe.
"So how have you all been?" Marielle asked in earnest. "I hope the changes haven't been too harsh on you all."
Akatsuki coughed, and Ichigo groaned.
"Some of the zones changed," Ichigo spat out frustratingly, drawing the attention of everyone. "When I came to after the my computer screen went black, I found myself spawned in the Crystalline Underground Network."
Shiroe flinched. The zone that Ichigo mentioned was one of the more hostile and dangerous zones for any player to visit. Unfortunately, the monster spawn rate, their level, their damage, and hostility dissuaded many from going there, even if it was filled to the brim with wonderful raw minerals. Should players form a raid party to harvest the materials, the system upped the spawn rate to give the monsters a significant advantage.
Being spawned there the first thing must have been a very bad luck.
"All of the monsters in there were over LvL 90."
Shiroe shot up at hearing that. "It was the work of Novasphere Expansion, wasn't it?" he asked Ichigo, forgetting momentarily that he feared the man.
Ichigo nodded. "The Crystalline Underground Network was a high profile location, and the expansion was supposed to become even stronger so that once players maxed out their LvL, they would not be able to storm the zone for minerals.
"However, it proved to be a decent training ground for me," he told them as he gestured for them to look at his LvL.
Naotsugu's jaw dropped. "LvL 91?!"
"Unfortunately, I died right at the entrance of the zone-to-zone border."
The very atmosphere of the room seemed to fall to a ruin from one that fostered conversational exchange.
It was downright grim.
"Y-You died?" Marielle vocalized the thoughts of everyone.
Ichigo nodded. "You respawn at the cathedral like you do in a game."
"That's ... one of the bigger news then," Shiroe added.
Ichigo turned to him. "How so? Shouldn't everyone know this already?"
The glass eyed enchanter shook his head. "Most Adventurers don't know of this yet. That's why it's a big news; it's basically telling people that death no longer holds them down like it did in the real world. Aside from you, I have yet to hear about anyone dying. However, I do not have a single doubt that it'll happen soon, whether it occurs with this city or the other three."
Ichigo 'ah'ed at the logic. "I see. This is indeed a big news," he conceded. "Huh, didn't think it would be." He looked thoughtful for a second. "Then Playing Killing is going to be a big problem then."
Shiroe nodded, having already thought that much. "Agreed, so I actually wanted to ask you something."
Ichigo turned to Shiroe fully. "Yes?"
"I was hoping I could make a contract between us for undefined amount of time, one that either party could break," Shiroe suggested. "I want to hire you to guard the lower level areas around the city."
"Explain your intention, glasses," Ichigo said with a scowl.
"I want you to be a Counter-PK. Where PK is about to occur, you appear and stop the PK, or PK the PKers," Shiroe said. "Once the facts about revival comes out, there will be numerous PK attempts, and unlike the other three cities, we probably currently hold the largest amount of players below LvL 50," he added. "Most players below that LvL will probably realize that they will need to LvL up fast. I want to give them a guardian, so to speak."
Marielle smiled. "I didn't know you were such a generous guy, Shiroe-kun!" she grinned.
Shiroe blushed, embarrassed about the praise. "A-Ah. I'm just doing what needs to be done..."
Ichigo scoffed. "Alright, then how much are you going to pay me? I can give you a discount, considering why you are contracting me, but the world runs on money," he said.
In a way, this was Ichigo's test for Shiroe. He wanted to see whether or not the "glasses" -as he affectionately dubbed the enchanter- was willing to pay more than what was necessary to keep the weak safe.
"Fifty gold per weak player you save."
"Too cheap. A hundred."
"My money is going to run out after 50 player then."
"Then seventy-five."
"Ichigo-san, can't you just do this for free-?" Henrietta began, but she immediately shut up after he sent her a glare. She shrinked a bit under his gaze.
"I don't think I ever taught you to be so carefree with money, Henrietta-san. What did you spend all those years in the university for?"
She grumbled.
Ichigo turned his attention back to Shiroe. "Seventy five, and that's the minimum."
Shiroe grumbled. "Fine."
Shiroe quickly drafted a contract right there and then ...
... And the moment Ichigo got it, he ripped it off.
"...Eh?" Shiroe muttered. "What are you-?!"
"Contract has been signed, but a random crow happened to rip up the document. That's all," Ichigo said as he stood up. "So I' guess I'll be doing this free of charge."
With that he left the room, knowing of the smiles that both Naotsugu and Marielle had on their faces.
After he left, Naotsugu turned to Shiroe. "He's a decent guy, I guess. A tad violent and temperous, but decent nonetheless."
Shiroe, on the other hand, was a bit miffed about the man's attitude. "If he was gonna do it for free, why waste my time drafting a contract?" he grumbled with a raised vein on his forehead.
Marielle laughed. "Well, I guess we won't have to worry about the lower level players as much as we probably had to before, but we have other problems like ..."
After Ichigo left the Crescent Moon Alliance, he went straight to the bank placed within the guild hall.
He walked up to the bank teller, a NPC.
In Elder Tales, NPCs are called People of the Land, because unlike players, the Adventurers, they lived as one with the land for their survival.
This NPC's name was Ririn. Despite the name, Ririn is a man.
"Yo Ririn!" he called out to her.
"Hi, Ichigo-sama!" Ririn grinned. "How can I help you today?"
"Yeah, let me just pull up my Bank Screen ..." Ichigo said as he a screen with a list of items appeared in front of him. And there. At the very bottom of the list were ten flashing new items.
The first nine all had the "Akashic Rune" in the very front of their name. He quickly pulled up their stat screen, and his eyes widened.
He was staring at the weapons he received. Apparently, the weapon's stat -which was slightly lower than his current weapon's stat- went up as he LvLed up, meaning that if he LvLed up, the sword would LvL up as well up, and he got to choose which part of its stat to improve just like his character.
"Damn," he muttered.
It didn't help his awe when he saw the weapon's LvL was ...
1.
And considering that weapon LvL's now went up to LvL 100, that was a lot of improving that he could do.
But another fact about the weapon that surprised him was this.
It was a tradeable.
Most beta server tester-only weapons were not tradeable weapons, like his current weapon Zangetsu. It was to prevent wealthy players to amass weapons and upset the balance of the guilds.
Now, though, since these weapons were tradeable, it led to many possibilities. But he had to ask himself...
How many of the beta server testers were in in the game when it launched the Novasphere Expansion? He didn't believe that all top one hundred of the testers were all on at the same time, since he knew many of them, and knew from talking with them that many of them had work when the Novasphere Expansion was launched.
He also didn't see many of them on his Friend List right now.
Regardless of their current activities, he had a "contract" to fulfill.
"Can you give me the Boots of Hermes?" he asked Ririn.
The said man grinned as he went to the back, and brought out a pair of winged black boots.
Boots of Hermes was a very rare drop from the Sky God's Temple raid instance, where the drop rate of the Boots of Hermes was 1/10000. A Phantasmal-class item that allows Adventurers to cover half a kilometer within five seconds in a single jump that goes as high as 100 meters from the ground. Unfortunately, it required a 1000 MP per jump, making it a item only good for support classes who have large amount of MP.
Ichigo was not a support class, so using these boots required that he either wait for MP to charge up after a few jumps or use expensive high grade potions to continue jumping without interruption.
He quickly exchanged his current boot with the Boots of Hermes, and stashed his current boots into the bank. "Can I also retrieve five A+ grade mana potions?"
Ririn went to the back again and brought out a five mana potions. They were small little things, smaller than a thumb each, but the blue liquid inside held such intensity that showed through the glass.
"Man, that's one bright stuff," Ririn muttered as he handed Ichigo the mana potions.
It was here that Ichigo noticed something.
Before the Novasphere Expansion, the People of the Land didn't say much. They said hi. And they just said bye.
They didn't greet him by his name, nor did they make comments.
"So, how's your day?" Ichigo decided to test out the difference. To see if it was only the commenting and naming that was added to their conversation.
However, to Ichigo's surprise, Ririn looked surprised by his question. "Well, you're the first one to ask me that, so I guess thank you for caring at least to ask," Ririn said with a grin, but the said grin fell off. "But it's kinda bad. Ever since you Adventurers rushed in here, many of you were hysterical to the point of bipolar attitude. I barely saw calm Adventurer the past day. I don't know what is happening, but it was pretty hectic here. Many of you asked for whatever a GM was, and whatnot. Scared us all pretty good."
Ichigo realized another fact.
This was no computer response. This was a response of another human to human.
Ichigo looked a little apologetic. "Sorry about them. Something huge happened that kind of flipped our world upside down," he said.
Ririn just waved it off. "It's alright, man. As long as you get over it and start going back to normal."
Ichigo laughed a little. "I doubt it'll ever go back to normal from this point," he said offhandedly before he waved goodbye. He left the guild building, and took a slow walk towards the south gate of Akiba.
However, he might have as well use his mana to jump over the city because the entire mood was just downright depressing. Most of the players looked like they had just failed their final with a big fat F. It was pissing him off. There were at least four to five players in a small group moping about their situation, and he came across these groups every twenty or so steps. All of whom were within his vision.
Did he mention they were pissing him off?
He let out a growl.
Maybe killing a few PKers would settle his mind.
He made a grin that would have made his Inner Hollow happy.
He made a very, very bloodthirsty grin.
So he started running towards the gate with thoughts of ambushing the PKers there.
While Ichigo was thinking about ambushing, there were already news of someone dying and then being revived.
Because of this, there were already PKers who were going after people.
One of this group was a group of six: a samurai, guardian, swashbuckler, enchanter, and two cleric. All of them were adults from what their appearance showed, but their victims were two teenagers, a boy and a girl, a novice assassin and a novice cleric, LvL 28 and LvL 32.
They were scared to their bones, trying to shrink away from the danger that the PKers posed to them, but they had been cornered by the PKers and were being toyed with.
"Come on, squeal like the weaklings that you are!" one of the PKers cackled as he stabbed the assassin's leg, dropping the boy's health by half.
The boy didn't cry out. Instead, he glared at the assaulter with rage in his eyes.
The girl was just trying her best to heal the boy, but the heal rate was too slow.
"Gah, you're no fun," the stabber said as he drew his sword out. "I guess this is a goodbye then-!"
He swung down, and the boy shut his eyes.
But nothing hit the boy.
The stabber looked at his hand, finding his weapon was missing.
"The hell?" he slowly turned around. "Alright, which of you is-" he paused.
Before him were all of his teammates, dispersing like they usually did when they died.
But where was the attacker?
"Come out, you fucking dipshit cunt!" he shouted. "I'm going to quarter you for killing my -"
"That's some vulgar mouth you have there," a voice hissed from behind him, but before he could react, the owner of the voice grabbed his head and twisted it 180 degrees ... vertically.
He fell and dispersed.
The killer who killed the player killer, in this case a PKK, turned to greet the two youngsters.
She was a young woman, probably with a F-cup, dressed in loose flannel button-up t-shirt and pair of chainmailed leather pants. She had a white trenchcoat hanging loosely on her shoulders.
"You know, it was about 12:00 a.m. when the Novasphere Expansion came out. You guys shouldn't have been here in the first place," she told the two of them. "I'm sure your mom wouldn't have let you. Isn't that right, Mochi-chan and Shun-kun?"
"Uh ... Hi, aunt Karin."
Kurosaki Moichi and Kurosaki Shudate, affectionately called by the elders as "Mochi-chan" and "Shun-kun" more often than not. Moichi, not Mochi, was a young blonde girl who inherited her looks from her mother, though she definitely got that raven hair from her father, and Shudate looked more like younger version of his father, Ishida Uryu, now Kurosaki Uryu -as per condition for marriage set forth by Kurosaki Isshin.
"Now, I also know that you two, being a responsible fifteen year old twins, also had to take a final exam for the semester next week." Karin's grin threatened to split her face into two.
The second generation Kurosaki twins began to sweat. "Uh ... uh ... uh..."
"Not only that, one of them was doing something so stupid as to leave the damn city, and had to bring his sister along for the ride!"
"Uh...Sorry?"
Karin cocked her fist back. "Well, it ain't gonna cut it."
" !# "
BOOOM
BOOOM
Ichigo turned his head slightly to his left at hearing the nearby explosion.
"Well, I guess my kill is already here, and it's even calling out to me," he muttered as he unsheathed his blade, Zangetsu. "Wonder how strong these guys will be."
With that he activated the Boots of Hermes, and jumped.
The experience of personally using the Boots of Hermes could be said like traveling at the speed of a train where winds rushed against your entire body while you felt gravity trying to snare you down with all its might like a leviathan of old. It could be said that the experience was exhilarating; unlike the shinigami body he had, which had the durability of a mountain, this body felt more stress doing a simple thing like jumping across a hundred meters in a second.
It was a unique experience, and one he had been thinking about as he made his way to the source of the noise.
He landed on a clearing with his Zangetsu drawn, ready to decapitate any PKs that came at him, landing both feet at once on the ground, causing a small tremor to be felt around the immediate vicinity.
Instead, he got someone laughing at his face.
"Wahahahahaha! You're trying too hard to look cool! WAHAHAHA!"
He sighed and sheathed his Zangetsu unto his back. he knew this voice. It was his little sister, Kurosaki Karin.
Wait, she played Elder Tales as well?
He relaxed and looked around, and just as he did so, he saw Karin and two teenagers appear out from behind a tree.
His scowl deepened. "Kurosaki Moichi and Kurosaki Shudate. Don't you have test next week?"
"Ugh," Shu muttered painfully. "Stop reminding us."
Ichigo raised an eyebrow. "Head back to the city then. I spotted at least four more possible PKs heading this way because of whatever one of you did create that loud explosion."
"Ah, that was Auntie Karin threatening Shu-kun," Moichi added as she quickly ran over to her Big Uncle and glopped him in a hug. "But I know I'm safe now!"
Karin felt a vein pop up on her forehead. "Oi, oi, then I'm a safe person to be around?"
Moichi stuck her tongue out at her.
Ichigo, however, was not paying attention to his three family and relatives. Rather, he was focusing on the loud crunches and shutters of leaves as other players made their way towards them.
He unsheathed Zangetsu as did Karin drew her fists up. He noted that she was using gloveless metal gauntlets that had a rectangular box built unto the gauntlet and two spikes barely poking out of the hole on the box, one each towards her hand and one each towards her elbow. A unique weapon if he saw one, but not one he didn't see other varieties of before.
"By the way, Karin, I didn't know you played Elder Tales," he remarked as the first of the PKers arrived. "And that's a nice Production-class item, I believe?"
"Well, I didn't know you played it too." Two more. "It's a Artifact-class, Ichi-nii."
"Since when?" Five more appeared.
Karin shrugged. "Oh, I think since the expansion where they allowed players to be LvL 60," she replied as two more appeared and no more came.
A total of ten PKers, all of whom were surrounding them.
"This kind of reminds of me my earlier days as Substitute Shinigami," Ichigo chuckled lightly. "That fool Ishida had baited more than a thousand hollows to Karakura Town."
"Don't call dad a fool!" Shu growled where he held his own two daggers. He formed the loose third wall with Karin and Ichigo with Moichi right in the center of the three.
"I call that idiot a fool whenever I want, boy," Ichigo replied as he lightly drew his blade into the air, but before it could even reach its highest point of suspension, he grabbed the bandage further down and quickly pulled it down. Then he began to spin it, creating a small whirlwind to form around him. "This is gonna be fun."
Karin looked at Ichigo with a raised eyebrow. "I didn't take you to be a bloodthirsty type, Ichi-nii."
"Well, they say game changes people," Ichigo replied as he shot off towards a rather fat player. "And these guys are about hurt my family!"
Karin grinned. She clenched her fists, and the spikes shot out of the gauntlets, extending the sharp protrusions by a feet. "Time for war, then!" she disappeared before appearing behind a player, her spike already through the player's head.
Shu decided to just stick to his sister and let the adults deal with the bad guys, though the looks on their faces made his aunt and uncle more villainous than the supposed-PKers.
Ichigo threw his blade, something no one present had thought of, and saw it buzzsaw through a player like a pudding. Then he sharply pulled at the bandage, causing it to roll back him, blade pointing, but instead of catching it, he continued to use the bandage as a rope of sort to swing the giant blade around.
One of the PKers decided to go after the low LvLed teenagers instead of risking death by the two older Kurosaki's, but as soon as he was half way there with his blade drawn, a spike came flying out of nowhere and sticked him through the head by the temples. He tumbled forward and dispersed.
Shu and Moichi looked towards her aunt, and saw a smoking hole on the gauntlet.
Ichigo swung his tethered blade again, and this time, he caught three players at once. "This is too easy," he grumbled as he pulled the bandage sharply again, but this time, he caught it. He looked about, and saw that one of the PKers were trying to sneak up to him. He just whirled around with his blade held close to his body, and just as he made half of the 180 degree turn, he let the blade go, though he still held unto the bandage. The blade host out from the acceleration, and came for the player's neck.
THUNK
The blade struck the tree on the other side of the player's neck, and cut it half way in.
The PKer felt his head fall off before he dispersed.
Ichigo pulled his bandage again, and Zangetsu easily came off the tree trunk. He caught the blade, and looked back to Karin. He saw that she had finished off the last three.
He looked at the three of them at once. "Head back to the city and wait by the guild building."
"Hai, hai," Karin said mockingly as she walked over to the two teenagers, and proceeded to drag them away, but not without picking up a useful looking weapon from the pile of weapon she had already created.
But once Karin made it into the city, she frowned. "I forgot to ask him what class he was."
"What class are you, auntie?" Moichi asked when she heard Karin talk about classes.
Classes.
In Elder Tale, there are multiple classes that fill in different niche in combat.
Tank classes are the following: Samurai, Monk, and Guardian. Our dear friend Naotsugu fell in the class of Guardian.
Weapon-based classes are the following: Assassins, Swashbucklers, and Bards. Marielle fell in Bard class, and Shudate fell in Assassin class.
There were the mage classes: Enchanters, Sorcerers, and Summoners. Shiroe was of the Enchanter.
Then there were the support classes: Cleric, Druids, and Kannagi. Moichi was a Cleric.
Karin grinned. "I'm a Monk!"
The younger Kurosakis looked at her with disbelief. "B-But you're not muscular-" Shu decided to joke about it, and he got a fist to his head as a reward.
Karin dusted her hands while Moichi just sighed at her brother's stupidity. "Never ever joke about muscles around Karin obaa-san." It was a rule that their mother had taught them, one that Shudate ignored on multiple occasions.
Karin put herself into a stance and then pointed to herself with her thumb. "I'm a LvL 90 Monk of the D.D.D. guild, Chief Commander of the Offensive Tank Class Division. My subclass is a Boxer, which gives anyone with the said subclass attack speed boost," she said with pride.
Some of the others who were on the street with the trio Kurosaki as well as the younger Kurosakis gawked.
Karin was a fucking important person here!
"Wait, then how much is your health?" Moichi asked. "I heard that the Monk's average health is around 14 thousand..."
"Pfft, weaklings. My health is a tough 17 thousand!"
"Ugh, if all Monks are like you, I should start thinking about escape strategies in case I meet some Monk-class PKers out there," Shu grumbled. "That's just insane health."
Karin snickered as she took the lead for the trio towards the guild hall. "Actually, it's not much. You should've seen your uncle's health back there."
Shu raised an eyebrow. "What was it?"
"22 thousand."
Shu tripped as did few others in the street around them who were eavesdropping.
Ichigo sat on top of a very muscular man, whose HP was down to the last few hundreds.
"H-How the hell ... Can y-you even ... pump out ... that much ... damange?" the Guardian underneath Ichigo asked with heavy breathing and gasps.
Ichigo silently tapped his sword, which was standing rigid like a rod with the ground as support, with his knuckle. "All of my items are about attack speed and health," Ichigo replied, deciding to humor the man's question. "And this," he said as he reached into his button-up shirt, and showed the Guardian a necklace with the blackest obsidian embedded in a circular metal disc with ancient runes on them. "Converts 80% of my mana into health."
The Guardian's eyes widened. "T-Then all of your ...attacks weren't just ...you ... t-trying to be sneaky, but ...they were all ...simple... autoattacks?!" he gasped/shouted. He then had a coughing fit. "But even if ... those ... are autoattacks ... how the hell do you attack so fast with that giant blade ...?"
Ichigo hid the necklace again, and stood up. He stretched his arms a bit before he walked over to his blade.
"What class ... are ... you even?"
Ichigo stood up and pulled out Zangetsu from the ground. He turned back to the Guradian-class PKer, and stood over him. Then he raised it up above the man.
"Swashbuckler."
THUNK