Kirito threw out her stored wall to take the brunt of the first diving attack from the dragon, but the sturdy wall had taken all it could. The wall crumbled, barely protecting the group from the swipe of the dragon's tail. After the wall was destroyed, the dragon let out an excruciatingly loud roar which shook the entirety of them to their cores. Everyone covered their ears and they weren't prepared for the burst of fire which erupted from a magic catalyst which appeared in front of the dragon's gaping maw.
The fireball exploded on top of the group. Leaving no time to react, the group were left with most of their hit points chunked off. The pain they experienced even in the virtual environment also stunned them. Asuna was the swiftest to recover, using her healing magic as an undine to recover everyone's hit points. The pain and the stun were too much however and it was up to everyone else to recover themselves as quickly as they could. She used her ALO magic to the fullest extent and put up a magic barrier, leaking a bit of water elemental attacking magic from the barrier whenever the dragon opened its mouth, which distracted it from using further magic. It was a convenient stun that came out of nowhere. She was just attacking whenever she found an opening. The dragon wasn't taking any damage, but the stun was continuing effectiveness long enough for others to get out of their stuns.
Kirito was the first, and she started her own magic. As a spriggan, she had several illusion type spells. The basics confused enemies, but were ineffective against strong enemies. It would take a high level illusion to pull it off.
Lisbeth used her ground aspect magic to raise the ground to meet the dragon, and she tried to bury it with spikes and spires of raised ground. She also attempted to pierce the dragon with the magic but the scales were too tough. The dragon was impossible to hold down, and mere flaps of its wings sent the spires and spikes tumbling and spraying in dirt and boulders. Asuna did what she could to keep them from hitting the group, while Ela added her own barrier to the mix, stronger since she could put more magic into it. As Ela's barrier flickered, Kirito's spell finished casting. The spire of light which erupted around her grew large and then faded in seconds to reveal a monster that had left an impression on her in Aincrad. The chimera she had become was about the same size as the dragon. Sadly lacking wings, she couldn't do aerial battle with the dragon, but her black spriggan wings burst from the back of the chimera to compensate. The giant wings even larger to compensate for the different body made a powerful flap against the ground, sending her a good fifteen feet off of the ground. The burst of wind stopped the magic the rest of the group were using, and she fired three types of magic at the dragon when she knew the rest of the group wouldn't be hit.
The poison, fire and lightning magic created a significant explosion on contact with the dragon's flank. The dragon beat its wings and roared, readying itself to fire another blast at Kirito, but she was faster with her wings pushing out several strong flaps effortlessly. She sunk her lion mouth's teeth into the neck of the dragon, clamping down hard and readying the lion's flame magic while spraying the snake's venom down the dragon's throat from the mouth. It was a horrible, gruesome overpowering attack. The chimerical Kirito was a force the rest of the group was stunned silent by. The silence lasted only a few moments though, a victory tune ringing out through the area.
A small fae with more elf-like features appeared and tapped Kirito's lion forehead to disable the illusion magic. The small elf girl had vibrant red hair with pure white highlights, pale skin and a face that keenly reminded Kirito of Ela.
"Greetings, Kirito-chan. Thank you for your earnest effort in clearing my first created quest. I'm Ela-mama's youngest daughter. It's wonderful to finally meet you. We'll be working together a lot in the future so I hope we get along. My name is Ena."
The rest of the group gathered around and when Ela made herself visible to her daughter, her shoulders became a perch. She stood apart from the group so Ena could face them when she addressed the rest.
"Thank you all for testing my first created quest. I hope you all had fun! Kirito's illusion transformation was really scary but I guess a little broken for my quest. I should have made the dragon stronger or maybe bigger. The results were good overall though."
She gave a nod to solidify that she was happy with the results.
"It was a lot of fun, Ena-chan!"
Asuna reinforced her.
"I would like to keep you for another quest but we should let Kirito do that job she was messaged about partway through. I'm developing a game story for the future, so I hope you'll all cooperate again."
It was a very brief meeting and farewell. Ena and Ela logged out first, leaving the group behind to say their good nights to Kirito. She got another message while everyone was doing their farewells.
"It seems I'm getting some precautionary measures placed on me for the job. I'll be heading out right away then. Have a good night everyone!"
Kirito logged out, blinking and finding herself in her room again. She stared at the message in disbelief. She was being set up at the hospital she had been in when she first woke up from Aincrad. With security to make sure that when she's diving into GGO, in case the murderers went after her she would be fine. She would be safe because nobody would know where she was diving from. Her body couldn't be attacked while she was asleep. It was a good precaution. No matter how much more safe and better overall Ela's AR device was, recovering from diving into VR still generated a guaranteed motion sickness if you moved too quickly after being in VR for any significant amount of time. She would be vulnerable if she were on her own, so professional protection would be the very least Kikuoka could offer.
A knock caught her attention and she stood herself up. She knew it would be Suguha checking in on her.
"Are you heading out then for the job?"
Kazu opened the door and responded with a nod and smile.
"I am. Kikuoka-san is setting me up with some protection just in case the murderer decides to come for me. I'd suggest not diving from here during the investigation...Rika would be a good option for you to visit with while I'm dealing with this job. I'll check in with her and her parents if you want."
"No matter how much you think you should do this on your own, you should at least have one other person in that game helping you."
Kazu giggled and poked Suguha's cheek gently.
"I have someone waiting for me in that game already, so I'll have someone helping me."
Suguha pouted.
"You should have said so sooner. Be careful, oneechan. I'll visit at Shino-nee's home while you're doing the job. It's been a while since I've visited there."
Kazu reached her arms around Suguha's waist in a gentle embrace and held her for a moment. When she let go, she went back into her room to pack essentials she might need for the job. She packed her school bag just in case the job was going to take a few days. As soon as everything was ready, she sent a message to Kikuoka to let him know she was ready to head out.
She was getting a little frustrated at how much she needed to get around of recent, that it would be far more convenient and faster if she had a vehicle she could drive. Perhaps a motorcycle or a good bicycle would be ideal, or maybe Ela-san would have something else crazy she'd be willing to lend Kazu.
She shook her head and made her way out the door, finding a vehicle ready and waiting for her, with the headlights on dim, shining on the ground so that they wouldn't blind her when she first saw them upon exiting the house.
Her AR device adjusted the visual information of her surroundings which aside what was lit up by the headlights were dark. There were street lights which lit up the street, but the close environment was rather dark. It was like having a reality brightness setting turned up with the glare turned down so she wouldn't be blinded by the lights. It made it way easier for her to see.
She could imagine after hearing about just what Ela's situation was, that it made her life at least a little close to the normal she once had. Hearing and learning more about her was extremely significant for her. If Ela could fight through agonizing pain every moment of her life and still be alive, lose her vision and still accomplish so much, lose mobility but still create incredible inventions, then she just needed to work smarter and harder. What she learned about Ela renewed her determination and strengthened it. If she could persevere so much, then Kazu should put at least as much effort forward.
"Good evening, Kazu-san. We have your partner with us. I hope you don't mind he did some scouting in GGO ahead of you."
She opened the back door of the vehicle she was pointed to get into, and when she leaned down to get into the vehicle, she saw Shiro's face.
"Good evening, oneechan."
Kazu sighed and sat down in the seat. She had a feeling as soon as she got the message and it mentioned her having a partner. She hadn't seen Shiro in a few days, he hadn't logged into their server and he hadn't been keeping in touch. Maybe it was his work ethic shining through which made him out of touch.
"How has your time in there been? And I'm guessing I'm more your backup than the lead? Have you found anything?"
Her questions were very stiff and focused on the work. Shiro nodded and began explaining.
"The game is rapid firing its world tournament as a sort of launch event to get its name around. There have been a few dozen suspects I've listed but I might be missing the person we're looking for in them. It's difficult for me to determine since I don't know laughing coffin enough to narrow down the suspects. I hope you'll be able to point out the person since you might recognize how they fight."
She nodded and sighed.
"Aside from the business end of this, I'm glad that Kikuoka-san managed to convince you. I thought for sure you would turn him down for your other work and studying. Let's get this done as quickly as possible so we can return to our other priorities."
A bright smile in return and she opened and closed her mouth a few times, thinking of the words but readying herself before letting them out.
"I hope this is the last of the things that ties me to the bad of Aincrad. I would like to remember the good of it, because admittedly there is plenty. Laughing Coffin ended up being the worst of the entire experience. At least, that's on my end. I'm sure plenty of people want to forget most of that experience."
Shiro grinned.
"I knew you felt that way, which is why I knew it had to be you. Kikuoka-san was ready to ask others for help but I really pushed for you to be brought into it."
She looked out the window at the bright city lights as they approached the hospital. No stars were visible above. She missed being able to see starry skies often in Aincrad. The light of civilization could take away some of the simplest, most basic enjoyments of nature. Something that has always existed.
Kazu had a nervous feeling come over her when she saw the hospital show in her vision. The thought that there might be several mentally unwell people playing GGO who were just as destructive as the Laughing Coffin escapee. It wouldn't surprise her, she thought, if there was just some jealous, sore loser who couldn't think better behind the murders. The game was centered around gun fighting, which had a history in gaming for being incredibly toxic and competitive. The access to the murder weapon in this case however would be rare but if there was someone convicted enough to the thought they needed to be the winner, breaking into a small pharmacy to steal the drugs wouldn't be too out of the question.
Her mind went in circles fast enough to think of several alternative situations which the case might end up being, but the most likely result of the case stayed the same. That the criminal was either the escaped member of Laughing Coffin or someone connected to the escapee.
"Are you okay? You got real quiet and it feels like you're upset."
Kazu nodded.
"I'm fine. Just have a lot on my mind. Hopefully we can find the criminal quick and move on with our lives..."
Shiro nodded, his expression becoming serious.
They were escorted from the vehicle when they parked into the hospital. It was night time, so there wasn't much occupancy in the parking lot and there wasn't much activity within the hospital. It wasn't so unfamiliar being in the hospital when it was so quiet, but it was unnerving, like something out of a horror story might come out.
"Ah! It's Kazu-chan. Welcome back. I'll be overseeing your health during the dive. The game you'll be going into is apparently infamous for players getting erratic heart beat patterns, so we'll be making sure you don't experience something unfortunate due to that type of experience in there. Also, we have a police officer on standby ready to guard us in the unfortunate case someone comes here to try and hurt you."
The receptionist shushed the nurse and she blushed a little.
"Let's go, I'll lead you to the room. We're not going back to the room you were in because that would be a risk in itself, but there are rooms for similar situations. To protect witnesses or people of significant standing just in case there's an outside risk."
As she explained, they were in a corridor which had been down a couple floors after a ride in the elevator. The corridor was eerily silent, not a sound around them but their footsteps echoing off of the walls. Through a heavy steel door, they were faced with a room that had a rather luxurious appearance. There was no window, but there were fancy plants she hadn't seen before, two beds which were likely worth years of work each, and then the medical station was a vanity. It was like a high class hotel room. The monitors were even high grade.
Kazu gulped as she saw it all. She worried that she might have been roped into a scheme to have her in debt and stuck in the country to never learn directly from Ela.
"Why is this the part that has you most on edge? I would think you'd feel relaxed seeing such a comfortable room."
The nurse was surprised, but moved more into the room and motioned to the beds for Kazu and Shiro to get comfortable on. She got everything ready and Kazu mentally fortified herself, that she was there for work and she wouldn't be losing anything other than the time spent on the job to make money. She wouldn't lose anything she wasn't already prepared to give.
It took a few minutes to get them setup, and when they were they were given a minute countdown to link into the game. The timer ticked down until the zero and her and Shiro both said the words calmly.
"Link, start."
