Footsteps Chapter 45

Our pace slowly dropped from a sprint as we moved into the boundry of «Horunka». Being an even shorter run than from «Tolbana» to «Starting City», it hadn't even taken five minutes. However, it felt even shorter because I had spent the entire period with Keiko's words still ringing in my ears.

After I had said what was on my mind, how I'd realized how much I'd changed, her answer had come after a few moments. "Not just you, I've changed too." After she had said those words, I'd started thinking about it. While before she had just been happy-go-lucky,(emphasis on the lucky part) now she could become dead serious when necessary. She was just as good as me in a fight, and wouldn't hesitate to lead the charge. Though, some things had stayed the same, despite everything. While she could be serious, thankfully, she was still her ever-smiling self most of the time.

"Onii-chan!" her shout suddenly pulled my attention from my thoughts.

"A,ah? What?" I stammered, cringing backward at the angry look on her face.

"I've been trying to talk to you!" she growled.

"Ah, sorry, sorry..." I said placatingly. She glared at me momentarily, before I followed with, "So, what were you saying?"

Suddenly, her expression completely turned around as a large smile spread across her face and she started talking. "I was asking what we should do now. We came to investigate, but how do we do that exactly?"

"I see your point..." I said slowly, I hadn't actually put a lot of thought into the how. "Then, for now, let's retrace our steps from the time of the last battle." The town was small, so it wasn't hard to find the intersection where we'd had the final fight, especially since there was still a giant slash into the corner of one building from the Boss's powerful downward slash. From there, we retraced our steps, up to the roofs, back down to the street, around town to the various places we had went in the aftermath... We walked through the moderately populated streets, weaving through groups of players as we retraced everywhere we had gone, checking each location and looking around for anything suspicious.

Eventually, we reached the end of our memory, having found nothing whatsoever. The last thing was us heading out of town, heading East. We moved down the road slowly, looking all around as we did. The only other clue we had was that we had interfered with players who were trying to do the quest for the «Anneal Blade». However, we didn't know where the quest started, so when we reached the apparently normal street that occupied our last memory, we asked the closest player where we could find the quest. He chuckled and pointed at the house right next to us. Keiko and I looked at each other meaningfully, which actually seems kind of weird, since we couldn't see each others' expressions with our hoods on.

However, our link told us that we were both thinking the same thing. While we had heard that we were there, Argo hadn't given any time. In all of the three days, we could have gone there at any point. This player had told us that the quest start was right at the end of the road where our memory vanished. The immediate thought in both of our minds was: does that mean we went in right after? And does that mean that's the cause of our missing memory? After a quick thanks, we started heading off when he called out to us again.

"You might be disappointed though, there are a lot of other players doing the same quest, so it can take a whole week to complete," he informed us. We bowed quickly to show our thanks, though we had no real intention of completing the quest. We already had strong swords, and upgrading our equipment wasn't our goal on this trip. We wanted to fix our problem so we could move on.

We pushed through the door and I immediately noticed how warm it was inside. At least, it was a lot warmer than outside. Almost without me noticing, the temperature had been dropping ever since we started playing a month ago. It made me think that Aincrad's seasons were designed to follow the seasons in the real world. It already mirrored the day/night schedule, since every day was a full twenty-four hours. Argo had mentioned that in most games, a game day was just a few hours of real time, so players who could only play for a little while each day would get to see the game at different times. Of course, now that we were here, it was blatantly obvious why Kayaba had opted for a full day instead. Just one more thing on the ever-growing list of things that totally gave away his true intentions from far before the full service started. Too bad no one noticed until now.

My eyes swept across the room, four players inside at the moment. One looked rather new, while the other three wore heavier metal armor which spoke of them being higher level. The most noticeable was the one with a large helmet with three horns coming from the top. There was one woman inside, stirring a pot of some sort of soup or stew on the stove. As we stopped a little ways into the room, the young man with the three-horned helm stepped up to the woman, an NPC according to her cursor, and handed her a small green pearl.

She quickly said her thanks, then walked over to a small chest on the floor and reached inside. When I peered past the players to look into the chest, it was strangely shaded so that within inches, all light vanished and the inside of the chest was completely covered in darkness. From inside, she retrieved a sword, immediately recognizable as the «Anneal Blade». She handed it over to the player, while saying more words of thanks. At the same time, the two other high level players moved squeezed past us in the narrow room, heading for the door. Once she finished, the young man shot up into the air, shouting, "Yes! Finally!"

"Ryufior, let's get going." I turned to see that the other two high level players had stopped in the doorway. It was a party of three, apparently. "My friend sent me a message earlier. It seems that they're finally doing the Boss Raid today. We have to get back to «Starting City» so we can use the teleport gate to get to the second floor as soon as it opens. I've heard there are a few good farming spots if we can get there early enough-"

"Wait, what? They're doing the Boss Raid today? Why didn't we hear about this earlier?" The man, Ryufior, shot back in surprise.

"Apparently they only found it yesterday, but Argo managed to dig up the beta test info, so they're going today instead of doing scouting battles. It was posted in the paper this morning, but there's no info NPC in this town that sells it." That immediately sent off warning bells in my head. The paper wasn't published in this town? So there were people who didn't know about the boss raid?

Wait. Anyone who came here at least plans on trying to clear the game, so they're not the ones who are thinking of killing themselves. So, it's not an issue if they don't hear about it immediately. All the ones worth worrying about are back in «Starting City», where the paper was definitely published and read by everyone. I let out a relieved sigh.

Ryufior was speaking again, and brought my attention back to their conversation. "Oh man, that's just my luck. We just went through all that work to get my new sword, but we're too late to get into the Boss Raid, which was the whole reason I wanted a stronger sword in the first place." He bent forward in defeat while moving out of the small house while his friends tried cheering him up by saying they'd get it reinforced so he could use it for the next raid.

The door swung shut, leaving just us, the one new looking player, and the NPC woman. We continued to wait while the player with just a few pieces of light leather armor, and original «Small Sword» spoke to the NPC to start the quest. According to her story, her daughter had come down with an illness untreatable by regular medicine. She needed an ovule from a 『Little Nepent』. The whole time, the dry coughs of a little girl repeatedly came from somewhere in the house. So, it was a rare drop type of quest. Maybe we would do it after all... I had to shake my head to clear that thought. We weren't here for that.

The thing was, those were our favorite quests, because they were always quests to hunt a certain type of monster until it dropped a very rare quest item. Since the quest was designed with the thought that it would take hundreds of kills, the rewards for such a quest were on a whole different level from any other quest types. If it was that type of quest, it explained why the reward was the strongest sword available on this floor.

The reason why it was our favorite quest type was, of course, because we only ever needed to kill one monster to find the quest item. So we could complete the most aggravating grinding quests in no time at all, getting their amazing rewards with nearly no effort. Although, up to this point, all of those quests were for other things, like strong potions, axes, maces, and other types of weapons. While they were usually really strong, we couldn't use them, and wound up just selling them off.

The player finished receiving the quest and left, finally leaving us alone with the NPC. According to the somewhat sketchy story which had brought us back here, we had been seen leaving this house with the quest NPC. However, that NPC was supposedly named Agatha. This young woman was only marked 『NPC』, so it couldn't be her. So, either the info was wrong, or the NPC we were looking for wasn't the quest giver, but the daughter she was talking about. Except, I didn't see the daughter anywhere. Another fit of coughs rang out as if to remind me that she was in the house, just not this room.

My eyes followed the source of the sound to a door on the far wall. I walked over slowly, the NPC woman taking no notice, and tried turning the doorknob.

Locked. Probably not an area players could go. There might not even be anything there at all, which would mean the info was wrong.

We both sank down against the wall. "So, what now?" Keiko asked.

While I was thinking, a new voice called out. "Good morning, travelers. You two look tired, I do wish to offer you some food, but I do not have any at the moment. All I can give, is a single cup of water or so." We both blinked at her in surprise for a few moments, before Keiko found her voice.

"Y,yes..." she managed, though she couldn't really follow up with anything else. The NPC woman poured some water into a cup, then handed it to Keiko. Huh, she really did have just one cup. Keiko and I slowly passed the cup back and forth, taking small sips for a while. I had no idea what to do next, and I could feel that Keiko was in the same place. We had come no closer to fixing our pain problem, and hadn't discovered anything about our amnesia either. It was frustrating, we just didn't seem to have any way to move forward from here.

Suddenly, the big golden question mark appeared above the woman's head. Only now, I noticed that it hadn't been there all along. With a long sigh, I figured we may as well pick up some «Anneal Blades», since we weren't sure what to do from here. So, we picked up the quest, listening through the woman's speech again. Though I couldn't be sure, it seemed like a word here and there had changed.

When that was done, we trotted out into the woods, past a stream players with elated looks. It was pretty crowded when we arrived, with players eagerly throwing themselves into battle against plant monsters. I'm not sure how to describe them, they seemed to walk with the mass of roots that wriggled around beneath it, with large bulbous lower bodies and long vine-like whips for arms. Its body was long and sinuous, almost like a sort of oddly shaped pitcher, which curved in in the middle. They didn't seem to have any sort of head, since there was just a big gaping hole in the top, with sharp teeth ringing the entire inside. Even with 'little' in their name, they were just about as tall as me. Add on that they had no eyes to speak of, and I could describe them with one word. CREEPY. Just looking at them made my skin crawl. They also had these giant flowers with big petals, kind of drooping forward over their toothy maws.

We moved through the forest, trying to find some monsters not already taken. We would just need to kill two, since each of us would need to get the item. Then we were getting the hell out of here. These things seriously gave me the chills. Finally, with no other players within twenty feet or so, a 『Little Nepent』 POPed nearby. We both rushed forward, slashing into it with simultaneous «Horizontals», jumping away when it would inevitably counter. We didn't know about its attacks or anything, but that should be no problem with our level advantage. Just those two attacks had cut away half of its hp. After it had lashed out with numerous vines, we stepped in again, each using a «Horizontal Arc» to cut straight into the center of its body. The monster shattered and we both cringed momentarily, shaking from the thought of it.

Animal type mobs I could manage. Claws and fangs and large bodies were just indicators of what it was capable of. Plant monsters on the other hand, they were just... ugh...

"Yeah, I know really..." Keiko responded to my thoughts, shaking herself at the same time. After a little more wandering, we found and immediately killed another 『Little Nepent』, immediately heading back to the town as fast as we could without attracting attention. However, when we arrived back at town, a huge line of players ran through the town. We moved to see what the line was for, finding that it actually headed into the quest NPCs house.

We took our spot at the back of the line, which thankfully moved rather quickly, since finishing the quest didn't actually take very long. Strangely, they had apparently all finished the quest shortly before us. Everyone was talking about how suddenly, every mob that spawned had a flower. Keiko and I looked at each other. "Hehe, I guess we help people wherever we go..." she said in a low voice. Our conclusion, that only the 『Little Nepents』 with flowers dropped the quest item, and that since she took the quest, they all spawned with flowers, was quickly confirmed when no one took a place in line behind us. Apparently, her luck of all monsters spawning with the item only extended until she had gotten it, not until she finished the quest, unfortunately.

Still, there were so many people in line that it took a full half hour to finally reach the door. By now, it was almost 8:00 am. We handed over the two «Little Nepent Ovules» and received our swords. Then, we sat back down against the wall, in the same place as before. That was pretty good, we managed to help a few hundred people get an extremely rare sword. Hopefully they would all help more on the next floor when we got there.

That made me wonder, how was the raid group doing? Since we got up so early, they probably hadn't even gathered yet. Probably, some were going on an early morning hunt in preparation, others sleeping in until the meeting time, thinking they would at least like to get a nice rest, since today might be their last. It made me feel a bit guilty. We were so high level, it felt like we were shirking our duty to help them. If we were there, we would surely make a large impact on the battle. But, I still couldn't make myself fight in such a dangerous situation. I wouldn't go in, knowing we were ill prepared. Making stupid decisions like that would only lead us to a quick death.

Probably out of habit, I pulled up my status menu and let my eyes run over my stats. Then, I blinked a few times. "Keiko, we... leveled up." I said slowly. I couldn't remember leveling up. When did that happen? I quickly recalled everything we had killed while Keiko flashed through her menu to look at the same screen. The just those nepents... and the boar! "Oohhh..." I stretched out the word as I realized. That boar was a field boss, so naturally, it was worth a whole lot of exp. After our dungeon rampage, we had earned a massive amount of experience. While not enough to level up, given our current level, it put us within range for taking out a boss to push us up again. Thinking about that, wouldn't it have been much more efficient for us to go and kill those instead of the『Snarlys』 this last month?

Actually, even if it only spawned once in a while, we ran so fast we could travel back and forth between the cities daily, killing both the boar and 『Snarlys』... I, as well as Keiko, who had surely been on the same train of thought, sighed loudly. If we had done that instead, we would surely have reached a much higher level by now, maybe even twenty or twenty-five. Too late for that now though. After thinking for a few seconds, we put a point into STR and two into AGI. That left us at 12 and 39 points. I glanced up into the corner of my vision, checking my new max hp. I had just passed three thousand points.

3018 hp. Surely, that would be enough to survive anything thrown at me on this floor. Even having the 『Great Boar Lord』 trample over me had only done slightly more than six hundred damage. It would take that kind of thing five full times to kill me. Of course, the Floor Boss would be much stronger, so it would be dangerous to fight, even at my level...

Footsteps drew my attention back to the world around me. I looked up to see the NPC woman leave her position at the stove for the first time, without a player doing something to cause it. She walked over to the locked door on the far wall, opening the door. She stepped through, and I shot to my feet before it closed behind her. I caught the door and kept it open as both Keiko and I moved inside.

The NPC woman was already speaking, though not to us. "Agatha. Here, many traveling swordsmen got medicine for you from the forest. If you drink this, you'll get better for sure." Sadly, I knew it was no good. Because the quest was repeatable, there would surely be no change in the little NPC girl's condition. As I crossed into the room to get a look inside, I saw that there was a bed against the right hand wall, a window appearing on the wall just above the headboard. Under the large blanket, a small girl, propped up by her mother's hand as she drank from the small wooden bowl offered to her.

As she drank the medicine down, I could see faint color already coming back to the little NPC girl's cheeks. After she finished, the little girl, Agatha, according to her cursor, looked over at us. Then, she said something that caught us completely off guard.

"Sorry, Onee-chans, I got sick again."

Author's Note: Sorry for the slow release, I've been playing LoL almost nonstop for the last few days.