Here we are with yet another chapter, I've found quite a semi-consistent uploading schedule for this haven't I?
Unfortunately, I still haven't crawled my way out of my latest writer's block, so I haven't made much decent progress in a while. I do really hope this blows over soon cause I'm starting to get a little worried with how close we're getting to where I'm at with the story so far.
But that's for me to worry about, you guys just enjoy the chapter for what it is.
EDIT: I've updated this chapter because it was previously unedited. By that, I mean I had forgotten to go through and separate some of the paragraphs so it was very wall-of-texty. Now you may enjoy properly!
Asuna had only just recently gotten back to their Urbus house after helping Klein decide what armor best suited him and getting Sinon, Lisbeth and Silica ready to tack a nearby northern dungeon when she saw Kirito barge in through the front door.
After going days without even talking to him, save for the short breakfast in the real world that one morning, she thought the least he could do was give her a bit of attention. At least, that's what she wished would happen, but typical Kirito and his uncanny ability to ignore people would always shine through. So she was kind of surprised when he did start a conversation, albeit a short one.
"Afternoon," he said with his trademark half-assed greeting. "Where's everyone else?" he asked after taking a gazing around the room.
"Klein is in the Town of Beginnings looking for new armor," she started "Agil logged out to talk to his wife and open his café for the day, Sinon is joining Lisbeth and Silica on a dungeon quest and Leafa's out grinding in the nearby fields for items," She took a breath as she checked off everyone in their group before realizing she forgot one person. "Oh, and I actually have no idea where Toran is. In fact, I haven't seen him since yesterday,"
"I see," he said in reply to her answers. "It's good that Sinon and Sugu are trying their best to level up as quickly as possible. They'll need to be able to protect themselves in the boss fights, should they take part in them." He practically collapsed on to the couch face first as he spoke, giving Asuna the impression that whatever this unknown thing he was doing this past couple of days was at least a bit tiring for him.
"Hey by the way, what was it that made you jump out of your seat in the café and run back to the hospital room so quickly the other morning?" She asked since the thought had come into her mind.
She silently took a wild guess as to why before he could answer.
"I ran into Argo a few days back and I helped her get the martial arts extra skill by doing the boulder quest, but she said she would only do it if I stayed for the entire duration so that's pretty much why," He replied honestly. Asuna assumed he was too tired or lazy to lie or exaggerate the truth but still appreciated the honesty nonetheless.
"I'm sure you were busy but would it kill you to at least tell me where you are if you're going to be gone for a couple of days? I'll have you know that we haven't done anything together with just the two of us since we first dived into this new SAO," she made it out as a complaint but if she was honest, she was just trying to get him to take her on a date.
"Well, to be honest, I was planning doing the Elf War campaign with you again, except this time, we could follow the forest elf path rather than the dark elf path like last time," He admitted much to Asuna's surprise. Sure it wasn't all that romantic, but she quite liked the sound of that.
"It's a date then," She said happily as Yui—who had been listening in on the conversation from atop Asuna's head—got too confused and voiced her thoughts.
"What's this Elf War quest you speak of?" She asked after failing to grasp the context of their explanation regarding it.
"It happened a while before we met you," She started as if beginning to read a bedtime story to a child "After me and Kirito unlocked the 3rd floor, we discovered two elves fighting in the forest. Basically what we had to do was choose a side—the forest elf path or the dark elf path—and then help the side we choose to win the war over the other via many quests throughout floors three to nine,"
"Sounds like it would've taken a while," Yui said as she thought logically about the many challenges that would arise from basically siding with one faction over the other in a middle of a war, while simultaneously trying to survive a death game.
She herself obviously couldn't understand the concept of being a real-life human going through such vast technological indecencies, nor the idea of fighting a virtual war with simple A.I.'s like her. In fact, the entire concept behind Sword Art Online was all irrational to her, being the artificial intelligence that she was. But at the very least, she could fathom the emotion of sympathy as their words alone, the ones that she could understand, sounded exhausting enough.
"We'll obviously have to unlock the next floor to start it but that was my idea," He said as he raised himself from a lying down position to a sitting position, prompting Yui to hover over to his head instead. "Until then, there's something I needed to do in the real world so I'll probably log off for now," Asuna (and Yui) pouted at his words but let it happen anyway as her real-life boyfriend and in-game husband never did anything if it wasn't important. Asuna waved him off as he disappeared in a flash of blue light, leaving her alone in the house once more, save for her pint-sized daughter.
"I wanna do something but I can't think of anything to do on this floor," Asuna complained aloud following a heavy sigh.
"So in other words, you're bored?" Yui asked from the opposite couch that Kirito had just previously been lying on.
"I wouldn't say bored. But to be honest, having all my stats and items kind of makes these beginning floors a bit too easy," She explained as she leaned back and slouched a bit. God forbid Kirito ever see her like this. "Part of me kind of wishes I was like Sinon or Leafa, then at least I would need to be doing constant quests and grinding to make sure I wasn't under-leveled," Not even one second had passed since those words left her mouth when the door swung open and revealed a girl with long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. Almost as if she had heard Asuna say her name, Leafa walked into the house looking both exhausted and annoyed.
"Welcome back!" Asuna greeted as she fixed her unsightly posture as quickly as possible.
"Hey you two," she said as she sat down, an almost angry look appeared on her face as she heaved a sigh while sitting down on the couch next to Yui.
"Did your grinding go well, Leafa?" Yui asked as she flew on to the former Sylph's shoulder.
"Kind of," She started as she recalled the last couple of hours "I didn't run into any rare monsters unfortunately but I did get a couple of lucky drops. I actually would still be out there but my sword's durability ran out so it broke, and there's no way I'm fighting those monsters with a dagger," Asuna listened carefully to her story and gave some thought towards her next move.
Of course, the easiest thing would be to buy a new one from the Town of Beginnings or get an exclusive sword that can only be found in Urbus, but she quickly had an interesting idea that could not only help Leafa get a new weapon but also cure her boredom.
"I've got an idea," She exclaimed, "You use long swords, right?"
"I don't necessarily have a set preference," Leafa replied as she gave it a moment of thought "As long as I can wield it both one handed and two handed then I'm game, why?"
"Well, there's this quest back on the first floor in a town called Horunka where, upon successful completion, you get rewarded with a special sword called the Anneal Blade," She explained "It was actually a sword that Kirito used for a while so you can bet that it's more than useful, especially when enhanced," Asuna didn't say anything but she noticed that Leafa's attention grew a little when she mentioned Kirito. She silently chuckled at the realization that Leafa still hadn't fully gotten over her cousin.
"What's the name of the quest we have to do?" Leafa asked curiously with a newfound interest.
"It's called the Secret Medicine of the Forest, I'll take you to it and we can both do it together. Though I'll just act as a support so you can mostly experience it yourself," She further explained. If she actually tried to help, they would probably destroy the enemies they would encounter. Though, she didn't say this then but, there was one thing that might happen that would cause her to have to jump into the fray and actually help.
"Let's do it then!" Leafa said as she started to like the idea of showing off what she'd learned so far to the veteran in front of her.
"Alright! Mommy and Leafa are going on a quest!" Yui exclaimed from Leafa's shoulder. After they made their way to the teleport gate in Urbus and teleported to the Town of Beginnings, Asuna lead Leafa to the small northwestern village of Horunka. To say it was small wasn't a lie, the entire village consisted of ten buildings, which included an Inn, a weapons shop, a tool shop, and seven private NPC homes. One of which was owned by a noble family with a terminally ill daughter. This was the house that Asuna lead Leafa to.
"When you walk into the house, be sure to accept a cup of water from the lady. That allows you to be able to offer your help," Asuna told her. If Leafa was honest, she was a bit confused as to how this would play out considering the lack of information that Asuna had given. However, she did appreciate the fact that Asuna was trying her best to avoid spoiling the quest or giving her any preconceived information that would help her too much.
Upon arriving at the two-story house, Asuna told Leafa that she would wait outside while she talked to the woman and accepted the quest.
Leafa inhaled and exhaled momentarily before knocking on the wooden door of the cobblestone house. After roughly ten seconds, the door was opened by a middle-aged woman with short brown hair and ragged leather clothes, the sight of which did not remind Leafa of a noblewoman.
"Oh, adventurer! Please come in, have a seat," The woman welcomed her into the house and took off into the kitchen for a brief moment while Leafa made herself comfortable on a wooden chair near a fireplace. The woman returned from the kitchen with two cups of water. "My apologies for the lack of something to eat, we don't actually have any food right now," the woman said as she offered Leafa the water.
Leafa graciously accepted it but couldn't help but notice a pot in the kitchen that seemed to be cooking a hot stew so she considered confronting the woman about her hypocrisy before ultimately letting the scene play out. However, as soon as she went to take a sip of the chilled tap water, she heard what seemed to be coughing coming from the upper floor of the house.
"What's that coughing noise?" She asked as nicely as she could.
"Oh, that's my daughter Agatha. Unfortunately, she's been stricken with a terrible illness that can't be cured by normal medicine," She revealed, much to Leafa's surprise. "All the doctor's in the Town of Beginnings say that the only thing that can cure her is to drink medicine procured from the ovule of a monster called a Little Nepenthes. I'm much too weak to go and fight those things myself so I can't do anything to help her," The woman got a bit teary-eyed as she spoke. At this point, Leafa had realized what she had to do.
"Let me help you then, I'll go and find this flower with my friend and bring it back to you," She promised as she held the woman's hands to calm her down.
"Are you sure? I don't want to trouble you with my family's issues," The woman asked as she wiped her eyes.
"It would be my pleasure to help save your daughter miss, please let me help you," As Leafa sincerely reassured the woman, an icon popped up in her field of view that said she was now following a quest.
"You are too kind young adventurer," the woman said as she collected herself so she could give Leafa the details. "Once you get deep enough into the forest, you'll start to see a bunch of monsters called Little Nepenthes appearing everywhere. Occasionally, one of them will spawn with a red flower atop its head, this rare ovule is what we need to cure my daughter. Once you kill it, please bring the flower here and I will be able to craft it into medicine," The woman now had tears of happiness rather than sadness as she thanked Leafa for her help. As the woman bolted upstairs to update her daughter on the news, Leafa returned to Asuna who was still leaning on the outside wall of the cobblestone house.
"What's the plan?" Asuna asked as she readied herself for the quest.
"We need to find a monster called a Little Nepenthes that has a red flower on its head," Leafa explained as they quickly bought her a simple iron sword from the weapons shop to replace her dagger. "That flower is the only thing that can save the woman's daughter, Agatha,"
"No different from last time then," Asuna said as they started their trek into the forest ."I gotta warn you though, aside from the normal and flower Nepenthes, there's also a third version of it that spawns with red fruit on its head. If the fruit is damaged, it'll emit an odor that will attract countless other Nepenthes to our position. Arguably, this is actually the best way to tackle this quest. However, the amount of monsters that come as a result of the odor is dangerously high. So much so that the person who Kirito did this with last time died," Leafa trembled a bit at Asuna's words, the thought that her beloved cousin came that close to dying, disregarding the poor guy with him that did die, made her a bit scared. "Don't you worry though. Like I said before, I won't get involved too much, but if the odor is released then I'll go all out with you," Asuna's relieving words succeeded in calming her, but her worries still didn't completely disappear. Nevertheless, after a few more minutes of walking, they encountered their first normal Nepenthes, and as a result, the fight had officially begun. Upon seeing the Little Nepenthes in front of her, Leafa had much more than one complaint.
"These things are anything but little! They're huge!" She shouted in irritation.
The almost three-meter tall 'plant' with a bunch of tiny little tentacle-like roots for movement and an enormous human-like mouth with red lips that oozed disgusting looking liquids was far from what she imagined these things looking like.
Asuna giggled at this as she too had a similar reaction when she first encountered them around four years ago. Luckily for Leafa though, she had no shortage of experience in fighting them and as such, relayed her advice.
"Keep calm. Remember that one by itself is barely a challenge as long as you avoid it's vines," Asuna advised, briefly confusing her comrade.
"What vines?" She asked before the Nepenthes seemingly vibrated for a moment before two very long arm-like vines with pointed leaves sprout from either side of the monster. "Nevermind," she spat in annoyance.
After briefly calming her nerves and clearing her head, Leafa charged in for the first attack. To her surprise, the Nepenthes didn't move. In fact, it stayed perfectly still until she was less than a meter away from it. Right as she went in for a downward diagonal slash, the Nepenthes made an odd loud noise—Leafa assumed it was a battle-cry of some kind—and jumped just a few meters backward right before her blade struck. Without a single second of delay, it closed its mouth and its cheeks started to expand.
"It's going to spit poison at you!" Asuna warned from a few yeards away. Fortunately for Leafa, there was an enemy similar to this one, in attack pattern, not looks, back in ALO that she had fought numerous times for her Sylph faction. It wouldn't be as easy to dodge without wings but if she dodged out of the way at the right time, she could still easily avoid getting hit. As long as she could dodge this first one, she would engrave the memory of its attack in her head and wouldn't have to worry.
As the cheeks of the Nepenthes grew larger and it prepared it to launch it towards her, Leafa took a moment to consider her options of dodging. To her right was a small bunch of bushes that could possibly hinder her movement for a dangerous moment, and to her immediate left was a big tree, so if she decided on that, she would have to either angle herself behind it or in front of it.
Backward was a no-go as splash damage would surely hit her so just before the monster launched its projectile, she made up her mind and sprang into action. The Nepenthes spat it's poisonous liquid as hard as it could towards where Leafa was, but she was already one step ahead. Right as she sensed that the Nepenthes was starting its attack, she dove forward towards the monster and kept herself just low enough to the ground to avoid it. She heard the liquid make contact with the ground behind her as she got her footing and readied her attack as quickly as possible.
She bent her knees to store some thrust and lunged forward in a stabbing motion. The tip of her blade pierced the Nepenthes and kept going until half of her sword had entered its slimy body. The Nepenthes cried out in pain but the unphased Leafa merely pulled her sword back out almost as soon as it had gone in and slashed at the middle of its body with another diagonal downwards slice which caused blood to spurt out from the wound.
The knockback of her attack caused the monster to topple over and as it struggled it get back on its roots, Leafa stabbed her sword into its throat and after a few seconds of writhing. It vanished in an explosion of fantastical crystals. Leafa paid no mind to the XP and cor she received as she turned around to see Asuna applauding her work.
"Nice job Leafa," she said merrily. "Smart decision to get close before it could use its vines,"
"Thanks, but we're not done yet," Leafa pointed out as she focused on another two normal Nepenthes that had spawned a few yards away. "Quick question though, how rare are the flower Nepenthes?" After tilting her head in thought for a moment, Asuna voiced her answer.
"I don't know the exact spawn rate, but Kirito claims that it's probably around one percent" She replied, causing Leafa to gawk in surprise.
"ONE PERCENT!?" Leafa shouted in annoyance. "We're going to be here forever!,"
And so, part one of my first non-Kirito arc is done.
It took me some time to decide who this would be about. I heavily considered having Lisbeth and/or Silica be involved, but it made more sense to me to have one of the newbies tackle this familiar quest, and I didn't want to use Sinon because she had a small arc with Toran already. So I decided on Leafa.
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and stay tuned for part two because I'm very proud of it and worked quite hard on it.
'till then, thanks to all who have followed/favorited/reviews my story so far! You are appreciated :)
pls excuse all grammar mistakes, proof-reading ain't my strong suit.