Sword Art Online
Worldwide
Chapter 7 – The Rings Of Trust
After we had cleared the first floor boss, it almost seemed like a spark of motivation had run through the population of players in Aincrad. Not only did we manage to quickly rise from floor 2 to floor 10 within a few short months, but several groups of people from The Town Of Beginnings had somehow trained themselves to follow shortly after us, which in turn would mean more players for the frontlines.
It no longer looked like a completely impossible task that was set upon us.
When we had settled down in the first town of floor 5, Celine and I decided to part for a while. She wanted to be more of a help to the frontlines, so she decided to become an assistant in one of the local smithing stores, which she had created with a friend we had met along the way.
As for Kirito, Klein and Asuna, they all decided to press on, and follow along the leading group to the front lines, to help out clearing dungeons and floors. I understood that, since they were all very powerful. They would become a big help for the frontline players.
As for me, I decided to stick around on floor 7. It had a cute little mountain village south-west of the map, and I decided to settle in there and take a break for a while. I had become extremely exhausted lately, and a week's vacation or so was just what I needed to get back on my feet. I had honestly had enough of monster grinding, and boss battling.
One morning, I woke up from a relatively peaceful slumber, and rubbed my eyes silently as I yawned. I had mostly hung around town, using whatever spare coin I had at cheap restaurants and cafés, and mostly just relaxing in the edge of the forest just outside town. Living the virtual life, as I should say.
The plan was pretty much the same for today. Go into the inn, get breakfast, go to the plains outside the forest and relax all day, and maybe help the occasional farmer complete a quest now and then, and then go home when I decided the sun was hanging low enough in the sky.
Though today would have a much faster tempo going, not because I wished for it, but more because I was pretty much forced into the situation by a certain someone.
That morning I had just gotten a delicious breakfast, and was about to head out to get to village gate, before I was roughly patted on the shoulder. I quickly spun around to face the person patting me.
"Oh hey Eva! It's been a while!" I said with a smile.
"It sure has! What have you been up to?"
Before I even knew it, she had taken a seat beside my own, and pulled me back into my seat. After reacquiring my composure, I smiled at her and ordered another round of bacon and eggs from a passing waitress.
"Not much lately, actually. I've been taking a break from dungeon clearing as of late"
"Really? What a lazy bum you are" She said with a giggle, and eyed me with a smirk.
I raised an eyebrow at her and jabbed her rip a bit.
"If I'm so lazy, what are you doing on floor 7?" I asked with a snicker "The frontlines have already made it past floor 10 you know?"
"That may be true, but my true calling is here!" She made a goofy pose and smirked as she looked back at me "I've been wanting to train my thief skills for a while, and I finally managed to find an NPC who trains players in that branch of the skill tree"
"So you have to stay in town to get stronger?" I asked with a smile "That's your excuse for goofing off?"
"Pretty much, yeah" She admitted with a laugh, clapping her hands in delight "So what's your excuse? Why are you goofing around on the seventh floor?"
"I have none" I admitted with a chuckle, leaning against the table "No other reason to stay here than to relax and let go of your troubles for a while"
"Yeah, that is important sometimes too" She said with a smirk "Though if I relax too much, I might just end up slowing down"
"Oh god, what a tragedy" I said with a laugh "The day you decide to slow down, is the day hell freezes over"
We both laughed loudly, before she turned to me with a snicker.
"That's right. Actually, I need your help with something"
"Are you lost again?" I asked teasingly.
"No, for once, I'm not" She said with a laugh "I need your help for a fetch quest"
"Oh god, really?" I asked, mumbling silently "You do know you're asking of the near impossible, right?"
"How so?" She asked with a giggle. "A fetch quest is fairly easy."
"Well, you're asking me to get off my butt and actually do physical work"
"Well, I may have asked, but you really don't have a choice. Come with me!"
She yanked me out of the chair before pulling me outside by the shirt collar, creating much of a commotion on the way out, and leaving a baffled and irritating waiter behind, who was just about to serve us our food.
When we finally got outside I managed to yank myself out of her grip and look at her with a pout.
"You could at least tell me where we're going" I said irritated "What do you need me for?"
She smirked quietly and pointed in the direction of the nearby forest.
"There's gonna be a special event in the forest clearing today, at about 3" She said with a smile "The event requires for you to have a partner, so I'm taking you with me"
"A partner? What kind of event is that?"
"Just come on, you'll see when we get there" She said, giggling as she leaded me along.
I sighed silently and rolled my eyes as she leaded us through the village gate. She had way too much energy in her, that much was a certainty. I kind of played with the idea whether she was a robot powered by an atomic battery or something, but that of course was silly under the circumstances that we were currently in.
What I wanted most right now was to slack off and relax on the plains, like I had always done. But knowing Eva, she wouldn't give me one moment or opportunity to escape, even with her back turned.
"So what exactly is it that we're fetching again?" I asked as we began to be able to see the trees of the forest in the distance "You did say it was a fetch quest, right?"
"Well, it's not really a fetch quest, to be exact" She said with her usual grin "But you'll see when we get there, first I need to find the damn place. It's pretty well hidden in the forest"
"Are we gonna battle anything on the way there? I would prefer even that over just fetching some item or something"
"Well, not anything special, besides the occasional fairy or forest thief, so we should be okay"
"I had no idea there was humanoid monsters in the game" I mumbled in admittance "But to be honest, it's not that much of a surprise. Humanoids are pretty common in MMO games"
"Are you gonna stand there and ramble about monsters all day, or are we gonna conquer a forest?!" Eva said with an impatient laugh "You want to get back to your snooze, don't you?"
"Meh, it's not more important than to help a good friend" I said with a smirk "Besides, getting a bit of EXP and loot might be of value to me"
"Good thinking, let's get going before anyone finds out about the quest"
We began to walk through the thick and lively forest, bugs and smaller animals dispersing from us with every step we took. This might be one of the most curious forests I had ever been in virtual or not. As soon as you would step between first couple of trees in the forest edge, something almost like a shadow would drop over the surrounding area, giving it quite the mysterious and mystical feel to an already magical place.
All kinds of weird plants and mushrooms would glow a faint light blue, illuminating the surrounding vines and leaves of the dark undergrowth. Dots that had a slighter brighter blue aura to them was flying all around us, giving the place a feeling of being full of magic, but when you would look closer, it would turn out that it was a special kind of fireflies, attracted by the warm glow of the surrounding plant life.
As we were making our way through the thick undergrowth, I suddenly heard a whistling sound cutting through the air, and just managed to duck my head, and escape having an arrow plunge through my skull, and jumped backwards to escape another surprise attack from behind a nearby tree.
I growled quietly as Eva and I pulled back, to watch three or four cloaked figures walk out from behind a couple of trees, and their tree branches. I frowned and quickly drew my sword from my hip.
"Damn, almost got me there" I mumbled silently "I can't believe we let ourselves ambush"
"What, you saying you didn't notice them?" Eva said with a smirk "I already noticed them when we first entered the forest!"
"What!? You could have told me something!"
"Hey, I know you have good reflexes" She said with a smirk "And besides, I wanted to see how good your detection skill really is. Mine is better apparently"
"That's a sneak thief, for you" I mumbled with a pout "Whatever, let's just get rid of these little bastards so we can proceed!"
"Roger, leave this to me!"
As we charged into battle, I noticed how Eva almost completely changed her approach to things. She got this steely expression, one of intense seriousness, and she seemed to get quicker the further into battle she got. Eventually, the two thieves she was fighting with couldn't keep up, and got overwhelmed with the practical storm of attacks from Eva's dagger, before disintegrating into nothing.
I had a bit more trouble with my two thieves, but they weren't that tough to deal with. They had put everything into the element of surprise, and once you would manage to land an attack, they couldn't take much damage in correlation to defense and so forth. A few quick slashed with my stab sword would quickly dispose of them.
"Little bastards were all bark but no bite" I mumbled with a huff as I sheathed my sword "You're awfully scary in battle though, Eva. You're more skilled than I thought"
"Hey, I might be a goof, but when it comes to battle, I usually get serious" She said as she stuck out her tongue at me childishly "Even I can be serious, you know?"
"I honestly find that hard to believe" I said with a raised eyebrow.
"Whatever, Mr. Smartass, let's just get going"
The following half an hour went by fairly fast, being a mix of battling and pushing through the undergrowth of the thick forest. The closer we got to the clearing in the forest, the thicker the forest would get, almost as if the whole forest was alive and trying to keep us from reaching our goal. Typical, even our surroundings was against us.
When we finally began to be able to see light break through the overhead branches, we were approaching a big open field, sunlight pouring down from above us. Further ahead seemed to be a dirt hill, with a stone gate in the front, and older looking man in a bright yellow robe standing and smiling at us as we approached.
"Oh, it's you, Eva" He said with a soft smile "Back again, I see?"
I see. So she must have been here by herself at first, then found out that you need to have someone with you in order to do the second half of the quest.
"I am, gramps" She said with a smirk as she introduced me "This is Rintar, one of my friends. I was hoping he would suffice"
"I am sure he will, dear" The old man said with a hoarse voice "Have you told him about the rules?"
A menu suddenly popped up in front of me. I guess I was being invitied to participate in the second half of the quest. It read:
"The rich family who once owned the entire mountain village to the south-east, once had a son, who died tragically because of his hunting partner's cowardice. As a memory of him, the family had this special tomb erected for him. As it is hundreds of years since the son was buried here, many treasures of the now extinct rich family have been stored.
Each player will pull a lever, and judging from how deeply the two players trust each other, the two will get a corresponding powerful artifact or weapon. Cause only with the trust that the rich son lacked in his time of need, will you ever be able to progress forward towards the challenges that are yet to come.
Do you want to continue?
Y/N"
"Interesting that we even get a bit of backstory" I mumbled silently as I looked up at the older man "Who even are you, old timer?"
He chuckled quietly and smiled.
"I was once a servant of the fifth generation of the rich family in the mountain village" he said with a smile "But then a terrible illness struck the family, and I was the only survivor"
"And now you're giving away their treasures? Is that really okay with you?" I asked silently.
He just sighed silently nodded as he stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"I thoroughly believe that the weapons and other stuff in the tomb will do much better help in the hands of brave adventures, than in the bottom of the crypt. Besides, they might just rot away in there, which would be an enormous waste"
"I guess I can see the sense in that" I mumble silently "So the better trust bond between me and Eva, the better the items?"
"Exactly" He said with a smile "It is both a form of settlement for the son that lost his live in the hunt, plus a test of a newborn friendship here in the land of Aincrad"
"I like the way these people think" Eva said with a laugh "Well anyway, hurry up and accept! I can't wait to see what I'll get!"
I chuckled and quickly accepted the quest part, before going to the left of the gate, while Eva went to the right.
"Alright, you ready? 3, 2, 1, NOW!"
We pulled the two levers at the same time, and the heavy stone doors began to pull apart with heavy thuds and shakes of the immediate surrounding ground. The shaking slowly began to settle down, revealing a big treasure chest in the middle of the room inside. Her hunger for powerful items made Eva quickly hurry inside and look down into the chest.
"Huh?! Hey Sebastian, look at this!"
I smiled and quickly headed inside beside her, seeing a couple of golden rings lying on the bottom of the big heavy chest. I smiled a bit brighter as it seemed that they were radiating a certain kind of warm glow, and as I picked them up between my fingers, I could feel them buzz with warmth.
An item window popped up in front of me, and I quickly read the description:
"The Rings Of Trust
A set of rings empowered by the trust of the two people originally discovering them. When two people both wear a ring each, their SPD, ATK, and DEF will all increase with 5 stat points"
"This is actually a pretty powerful accessory" I say with an excited smile "Want to keep one of these?" I asked as I offered her a ring.
"Actually, you can keep the rings, buddy" she said with a smirk "I had honestly hoped for a piece of armor, or maybe a weapon. You can give one of the rings to someone special, okay?"
I blushed quietly. The fact that she would assume that such a person would exist in my life, would mean that she thought that I liked someone. But when, and why had she made that assumption?
"How do you know I have such a special person?" I asked with an embarrassed blush as I hid away the rings in my inventory.
"Hehe, that's a secret" She said with a teasing chuckle "Anyway, this was fun. I realize this was the first quest we've ever done together, Sebastian"
"Yeah, this was definitely a fun time" I say with a smile "I should join parties more often"
"Why don't you?" She asked with a cock of her head "You're a cool guy, I doubt anyone would resent you"
"Well, I don't always have an easy time approaching people" I said with a shy smile "I can talk to you just fine, but that's because you made the initial approach, not me"
"Hmm, I guess that's true" She said with a gentle smile "Well, I'm here to talk when you want to"
"That's very sweet of you, thanks Eva" I said with a smile "For now, let's head back to town and get that breakfast meal I had ordered you, alright?"
"Sounds like a plan. Thank you for your help, old ma…. Hey, where did he go!?"
It took us this long to turn around and realize that he old man guarding the tomb had mysteriously vanished, and I looked at Eva with a surprised expression.
"Mysterious…"