Ok, Imma be upfront so we don't waste time, the vote is if Flame should worm his way into Alicization. You have four options. Yes, No, No instead he should (Insert your demand/suggestion, PM me), and lastly Yes but I want(Insert your demand/suggestion, PM me). This is your only planned chance for you guys to influence this story other than small basic things. ONLY. I have plenty of ways to slip this avatar into Wrath. You guys got up until the fair dance arc starts to speak up. The majority of the people that read this say nothing, and I'm cool with that, just don't complain or be upset if something goes a different way than you wanted and you didn't say anything. This is a clear relationship here, I write, you read and if you didn't like something, tell me, I'll fix it and make it a way everyone can like, then we all are happy.
With that babble out of the way-
Flame P.O.V
.
We all walked peacefully over to the destination along a dirt path with some random, but nice sounds of nature playing in the background.
"So, Flame. I never would have taken you'd be the type to go for this kinda thing," Exost commented as she started to pick up the pace due to her shorter legs.
"Well, I mean. Yeah, but it couldn't hurt," I said thoughtfully. "Do all of you want the skill?"
"Hell yeah man! Sometimes I just want to slug some things in the face one or two real good times, and now I know there is a skill that will throw some extra UMPH into it, ya get what I'm saying?" Apollo exclaimed, sounding a bit too excited for my liking.
"Well I for one, just want to be prepared," Achira said passively. "I doubt I'll need it too much but it could never hurt to have a backup."
"I don't want to be caught off guard again. Once during my training with Flame, my dagger shattered mid-attack and I nearly died, I was just lucky to have Flame nearby," Exost explained, the thirst for vengeance clear on her face. "Why do you want the skill Flame?"
I paused for a second. "Well, I'm kinda going for a pure speed ninja-like build, this would be a great fallback if my blade fails me."
"Ninja? Don't ninjas use different swords?" Yua asked me
"Yeah, I meant like avatar build but in terms of gear, I'm kinda going freelance. Whatever works I'll use." I glanced at Yua, who hadn't answered. "Are you going for the skill?"
"Y-yeah"
"Do you mind if I ask why?" I probed lightly. She was kinda like a new pet, you have to be careful, she'll lash out or retreat into the dark corners of her mind.
She glanced at me, her face quickly rising color within seconds before she managed to tear her gaze from my face and mutter, "...reasons..."
"So what is your build anyway?" Exost asked, likely trying to lighten the mood.
"AGI" I stated and they just looked at me like they were waiting. "What?"
"Is...that it?" Achira asked, sounding a bit...worried.
"I mean DEX stat goes hand in hand with it."
"How the hell are you even still alive?"
I scratched the back of my head. "Well just because I focus on speed doesn't mean I'm slacking off in STR. I probably got a higher STR stat than you, Apollo"
"Wouldn't this use your strength stat for damage calculation? Why are you even bothering?" Exost asked, tilting her head to highlight her confusion.
"I mean, it could come in handy." I glanced at the sword resting on my back. "Kris blades aren't exactly 100% reliable when it comes to durability in SAO. IRL they are used more for symbolism but they still function as any wavy bladed sword would."
"That blade Kirito had, is it a Kris blade?" Yua asked.
"Nope that's a one-handed long sword," I said with a small grin. "My sword barely qualifies as well."
"What's the difference?"
"Well, a real Kris sword slash knife would be less shaped like this," I pulled my sword out. It seemed rather standard besides the distinct wave. "A traditional one though is a tad more odd-looking in terms of appearance. Think of how a 'perfect' bit of ice cream on top of a cone or a saw type thing, kinda like that. It's also a bit shorter than this."
"I see," Yua said as she rubbed her chin.
We continued walking, only dealing with a large bull-man every once in a while… But Exost called me an adrenaline junky.
"I'm not"
"Bruh stop the cap! You enjoyed yourself as you destroyed that last one, you nearly laughed as it cried in pain, you rammed your foot into its eye and ripped out a chunk of its data!" Exost exclaimed, wildly throwing her hands around. "I don't even think that's possible!"
I paused. Maybe this game is making me a tad less...sane. But is my life or my sanity more important here?
Almost not soon enough we finally made it to a small house chilling in the woods. Waiting for us is an old man. He looked like the type (with being bald and having the long grey beard, can you blame me for trying to stereotype him?) to give you a quest and the golden '!' over his head just confirmed my initial thought.
"Fu fu fu." The old man laughed (I think?) as soon as we were within range of him. "Do you young ones wish to join my school? If you succeed in clearing my trails, I shall betroth you Martial Arts, and you shall learn the core of this style, which you can develop into your own form."
That's...different. He never mentioned any branches last time I was here.
"Yes Sensei, this is the reason we have sought you out. To learn the way of the fist" I quickly cut in before any of them could say anything. Maybe I like to dabble into role play sometimes. Sue me! Let me have some fun in this death trap.
"Ah, my boy, if you accept, I can assure you. The way of the fist is not what you seek, and I can teach you more than that," The old man said with a knowing smile. A chill went down my spine when I realized it didn't mean us in general, it meant me like it was directly addressing me.
Before I could say any more a window popped up in front of each of us.
[Will you accept the quest: Secret Training?]
[Y/N]
I quickly slammed the Y button as quickly as I could so I could get the window away.
Nodding, the others did the same and the monk started speaking again.
"Very well children." He got up and walked into his house. "This way."
We quickly followed him, and everyone looked at me funny when I took my sword off my back and dagger off my hip.
His house was fairly small and well-kept but that wasn't important. The back is what did. The old man's backyard had a large clearing that was hidden from the front with large trees, and the clearing was filled with rocks larger than full-grown men.
I held out my weapons as the old man towered over us...Was he always that big?
"Each of you shall break one of these boulders. But..." He carefully reached out and took my weapons from my hand and flashed me a small smile, one that an adult normally gives you before they give you candy or pinched your cheek. Anyway, after that he moved much faster than anyone could see, moving behind everyone with weapons and taking them before returning to his spot as if nothing happened.
The only clear sign he had done anything was their weapons were gone and he was holding them. "You must do this trial bare-handed. You may use your fists, your feet, or even your head if you see fit. There shall be no leaving the mountain until your boulder has been split."
"What the fuck?!" Apollo seethed. "Why didn't you warn us?"
"I thought it'd be funny. This is the main reason mobs can't spawn here. I'm going to warn you about one more thing, the ink is permanent," I snickered.
"The fuck-?"
"And thus, you must bear the mark of this trial," The monk said, and then with the same insane speed from earlier, he reached into his robe, pulled out a brush, and rushed at us, besides a brief feeling of something against our checks, nothing hinted to what he did.
"Aw! Exost, you look so cute!" Achira squealed like a schoolgirl.
"Wha-?" Exost and everyone whipped their head to see what was on her face. Orange whiskers...that looked very similar to a certain info broker.
We all had them now. I snickered as I pulled out a crystal used for pictures and snapped one of everyone, myself included making the peace sign like I was photobombing them.
"FLAME!" Apollo yelled
"That sign will not vanish until you complete your training," The monk said before chuckling a little as he spoke once more. "I have faith in your potential, my apprentices. "
With that, the old man simply walked over to the largest boulder and sat on top of it.
"I'm GOING TO KILL YOU!" Apollo yelled as he lunged at me. "YOU BASTARD YOU KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN!"
.
Yua P.O.V
.
Needless to say, I wasn't having a good time, although it was kinda funny to see Apollo with whiskers.
The first thing I realized after the whole painted whiskers thing was that Flame wanted to do this to us. Like a prank but he was also affected.
Taking in my soon-to-be guildmates, as I doubt they would let these stay much longer than needed.
Apollo looked ridiculous. No other words could describe it right now.
Achira looked oddly cute, it was odd seeing a girl normally so serious having something so silly on her face.
Exost was just adorable, and she hated it with a passion. She made me think of an orange cat every time I looked at her and had to reason with myself on why keeping my hand is better than petting her.
Flame... reminded me of some kinda animal that is kinda cute but would never pet. Do you get what I'm saying? Like a little cute raccoon, kind like that.
Me, I guess I was the middle ground between Exost and Achira. Which I didn't mind too much.
Flame flashed us all a grin. "Well, let's get this party started!"
.
Ow! Ow! Ow!
I kept hitting the rock with full force, which admittedly isn't very much in my case. I've centered my stats around DEX and LUK so I don't have much force, okay! But pain shouldn't even be possible here! Ok so maybe it was more of a numb feeling above all but still!
The rock, as Flame promised, was basically an immortal object. Why does he have to be so honest?!
We had been attacking these rocks for a good chunk of time, and not much progress has been made.
"ARGH! DIE!" Apollo grunted as he unleashed a flurry of punches wherever he managed to hit. In terms of our party progress was...varying.
Not surprisingly, Apollo might have been trying to not be a butt-head about it in the beginning, but he has a short fuse. He banged his head against it and caused a fairly large crack to make itself known.
I heard the sounds of sobbing and turned and found Exost, crying on the floor by her rock. I was a bit behind, but her rock doesn't even look like it's been punched. In reality, she has hit hers the most. As you can see our low STR stat is a jerk to us sometimes. She was still level 8 sadly, and her main stats were as AGI and LUK. LUK to increase her crit rate and AGI to just avoid getting hit. So like me, she has even less inside of the hard-hitting department because daggers aren't very strong needing nor giving weapons.
Achira wasn't breaking a sweat, and like the level-headed person she is, she was making sure to hit the weakest spot on the boulder, not only that, repeatedly. She was just behind Apollo, whose rock began to crack.
Flame, on the other hand, was doing the best in the rock breaking. Just as he is, his hits were unpredictable and seemingly random. But he had a good part of the rock cracking.
One second he is landing a simple punch to the center of the cracks, you blink and suddenly he's flying across a small portion of the little area to slam his foot into it.
When night fell, we all pulled some food out that we had bought beforehand and eaten before slipping into sleeping bags before setting down in the night.
I couldn't sleep, and once again found Flame staring at the stars. "Hey Yua," he called dismissively. He didn't seem to care about his volume, which was understandable, sound when sleeping in SAO isn't much of a problem unless it was directly in your ear screaming at you.
"Hey, we gotta stop meeting like this, '' I joked as I walked over to him. He had chosen to sit on the rock Exost was working on.
"I kinda feel bad for her, I've seen paper stronger than her STR stat," he said solemnly
"Come on, she's not that bad-"
"No literally, I once played an RPG and the Slime equivalent was evil paper."
"Wha-"
"Don't ask, I play some weird shit," he cut me off and returned his gaze to the sky.
I looked up, trying to find what he found so captivating, so much so that he spent so much time looking at it.
"I kinda find it funny how this is the second floor out of one hundred, and we can see the sky." He sighed a little, as he casually dropped that bombshell on me.
Why have I never realized that?!
We sat there for a little longer (While my mind was questioning the entire game as I knew it) before he spoke up randomly. "Jaden, Jaden Gushiken."
I glanced at him, wondering what he meant. "What are you-" I cut myself off when I realized what that was. His name! His IRL name! Why is he giving it to me?! It's taboo to even mention your IRL life! What is this some kind of way to show he trusts me?! Or maybe even a sign of...intimacy? No NO NO!
I hardly know him! I don't know how old he is!
I felt my face turn hotter than the core of the sun while Ja- I mean Flame stared at the stars more.
He glanced at me, noticing the steam practically coming out of my ears, and cracked that knee-weakening grin. Wait- what?! His what grin?! Since when have I thought this way?!
"Yua, breathe, no need to hyperventilate. I just felt you should know by now," he told me calmingly.
"I-" Suddenly his message was clear to me. Or at least one of the many possible messages. 'I trust you, so much so that I trust you with who I am' This could even be a precaution so I never doubt him again, but still! This could be layered! With this guy, you never know. He is like an onion, I'm not too sure about the crying part but he has so many freaking layers it's annoying!
"How have your levels been?" He asked, trying to return the peaceful feeling that had settled before he said his name.
"Uh, fairly good" I had managed to snag two more levels since coming up here, the stronger mobs were a certified bonus. But to be frank, the mobs on this level aren't doing me any favors. I might upgrade Requiem to +2 (1D1A). The wasps here are a tad too small for me to get enough hits quickly enough and the bulls are a lot tankier than I'm used to.
"I'll help you and your crew with grinding when we are done with this." He said before hopping off of the rock. "I know a little cheat we can use if Exost can't break this on her own but we need to finish this before her."
He extended a hand to me and I ignored a slight throb in my heart. "Thanks"
"Good night Yua." Much to my shock he leaned over and brought my head closer to his.
Before I could stutter or tell him off, he stopped a centimeter from my face and blew in my face, leaving me out to dry with my face feeling a tad colder than before.
He smirked one more time and walked off to his sleeping bag.
"I told you he would do that." The gruff voice of Apollo cut the silence that had fallen. I whipped my head to find everyone, but me and Flame, giving me a sympathetic look. Even the old monk guy was here!
Achira grumbled about her 'OTP never happening' and opened her menu to pull some Col out of her account, all of them materializing within a brown sack that Apollo showed no shame in taking.
I slacked off to bed muttering. "I can never have some privacy around here."
.
Flame broke his rock the next day. He punched it a few good times and then turned his back to the rock.
Everyone stopped when they saw him. "Flame I get that your AGI and DEX stats are higher than your STR but doing that is a waste of time even if it deals more damage," Achira sighed. She was talking about his kicks. His many kicks. He landed more kicks than all of us punching our boulders combined. Supposedly that was different than the beta, attacks that involved your legs used your AGI stat instead of your STR stat for damage calculation, and Flame was loving that.
He just gave her a thumbs-up, proceeded to do a back-flip standing, and brought his foot down, with his 'weight' full force onto the rock, which broke in half easily.
Jaws dropped as he dusted his avatar clean from the dust that could have had 'gotten on' him.
"Whoa! That was fun!" He said with a nice smile on his face.
"I- you could have finished that yesterday!" I accused him.
"You-" Exost started before she rammed her entire body into the bolder. "I REFUSE TO BE THAT FAR BEHIND!"
Seeing Flame break his lit a fire under us. Hehe, fire.
Apollo wasn't far behind, he finished before when we stopped for lunch.
The next day, Achira finished right after lunch.
By the next day, my boulder looked half done and Exost was starting to get some cracks but not enough to finish anytime soon.
Flame had altered the quest settings so none of us saw the notification, nor was the quest complete until all of us had finished, but the whiskers could be removed.
Oddly enough, Flame had asked for black whiskers after he washed his orange ones off, and the monk gave them to him. Seeing that reinforced my strange thought of Flame being a cuddly raccoon.
So there he sat, eyes watching me like a hawk. Until he abruptly stood up. "I'll be back."
He walked off. For the next thirty minutes, Apollo just grumbled about how we were taking too long and Achira gave us warm words of encouragement.
"Don't worry about it dears-"
"Y'all fucking slow as shit, hurry your weak asses up."
"Don't listen to him-"
"Nah you better fucking listen to me, ya slow pieces of shit. I'd rather watch paint dry than wait much longer for you"
Then a loud crashing noise vibrated throughout the forest. The Monk glanced up, a sly smile rising on his face. "Not only has he used a different style than most, he knows the secret."
"Wha-?" Exost and I asked at the same time when I heard Flame yelling to get out of the way.
Remember when I called him cool, calm, and collected? Wait, I never said that? Fine, he normally is, but now he was the definition of crackhead energy as he freaking rode a Minotaur over here.
He directed it over to the rocks as both unfinished rock breakers dive-bombed away.
The large bull-man rammed its head into one rock, shattering it, and then was slammed into the other, effectively breaking both rocks.
Then Flame being Flame, backflipped up, drop kicked the beast in the head, slamming its head into the ground, and proceded on to stomp on it to death.
"Well there, done!"
.
Flame P.O.V
.
When the window popped up, I finally saw my [Martial Arts] skill. I clicked on it, and the monk gave me a look.
"I take it that you are a speed-based warrior, no?"
"Yes sensei," I said, curious where this was going.
"Then you must take this along with the normal teachings." He pulled a scroll from his robe and passed it to me.
I rolled it open and there was a window.
Due to your current stats and unique way of completing the 'Secret Training' quest you are being offered [Martial Arts: Muay Kwondo]
I raised an eyebrow at the name. Sounded like a crappy way of fusing Muay Thai and Taekwondo. I mean...in a way, it makes sense because Muay Thai has the strongest kicks and Taekwondo is mainly kick-based. "Sensei what does this-"
"It is a form that not many ever reach the level to master, the only way to learn is with this scroll if you pass my first trial with flying colors. A much faster and kick-oriented version of the style I taught you, and it could be even more effective due to it leaning towards your strengths." The monk explained.
I hit the yes button and opened my menu. I currently have 4 skill slots. Which is how you use these things. Start with 2, then every few levels you get one more. First, it's level 6, then 12, then 20, after that every ten levels. Unfortunately, you can't take your skills off for a bit then put them back on and have your progress saved. You'd have to start your proficiency (what determines what you can do with that skill) all over again.
I had [Kris Swords], [Detection], and [Dagger Sub skill]. As my dagger is my secondary weapon, it only makes sense to have it, I'd hate to not have sword skills with a weapon that buffs and debuffs my opponent at the same time without any skills. And I'm more than fast enough to go without the sprinting skill for a bit.
I temporarily wanted to fill that last slot with the [Cooking] skill but chose against it when I realized I could get Martial arts so I held off on it.
I equipped it, ignoring the fact I leveled up...again. I scrolled through the list of new kick skills when I noticed some text that had info about it.
[Sword Skills under this category use {AGI+DEX}/2 for damage calculation]
I pumped my fist in the air, it may be cut in half but it adds my two highest stats! "Hey guys, did you get a special sub-style?"
Exost huffed. "He offered me thief style. Rude!"
"I got Brute style, which I took with glee, it boosts my STR stat by 50% when I use its skills!" Apollo grinned. Clearly excited to bash his skull into more mobs. And people worry for my sanity around here.
"I was offered technician style but declined"
Yua seemed down, "Was I the only one not offered one?"
I looked around, so none of the girls got a style. Exost was, very understandably, offended by the style she was offered, Achira just didn't want it, and Yua wasn't offered one. Almost seems kinda sexist. Then again, this game is geared toward men, because that is the main audience. I mean have you seen Kizmel. God damn, I have never seen a finer(in looks and complexity) elf in my life. She is perfectly geared toward stereotypes but at the same time not, she is without a doubt, a masterpiece in terms of her flawless codding.
"Sensei! Do you mind if I try this out?" I asked as I motioned towards an extra boulder.
"Go ahead young one," he replied with a nod.
I walked over to the boulder and opened my menu, checking the first skill and its activation motion.
I moved my right foot as far back as I could and leaned forward. Yua let out a little gasp when my foot glowed purple.
[Flash Foot]
I used all the DEX and AGI stat in my avatar's body, twisted around, and my foot shot forward nearly as fast as the old man had moved.
My purple foot had completely demolished the large boulder. I won't lie, I cackled when I realized the amount of physical power I had in my hands-uh, feet.
.
So after we left, I wanted to go off on my own (to grind a bit to maybe reach level 20 early to get cooking before I invest in something else), but they insisted on me coming with them to do some little jobs to make up for some of the money they couldn't make, even though they had gotten some Col from the quest.
Eventually, they had paid for and forced me into an inn room for the night when I got a message.
Argo: Hey. You free?
It was odd she wasn't trying to call me by some nickname.
Me: Yea.
Argo: Good, be at the Lucky Horn by 10 PM, I'm pulling up a meeting for something that needs discussion. Other leading clears will be there, but only three per group.
Me: Ight give me 5.
I closed the messages and walked out, intent on finding my friends… Are we friends? I hope we are friends, it would be awkward if we weren't.
I couldn't find anyone besides Yua. "Yua, I got a message from Argo I think you should see."
I quickly showed her the message. "Where is Apollo? He's your 'leader' so he should come"
"He's three rooms down."
I stormed over to his room, opened it because the default setting is to let friends/party members in, made sure his axe wasn't on his person (avatar?), and yelled in his ear, "WAKE UP!"
He jolted awake and tried to punch me with a glowing green fist. In response, I grabbed his wrist and forced it from my face.
"I had Argo message you, we got a meeting."
Not too much later, we were all in the bar.
The Lucky Horn was a pub run by some NPC. Here there was no age restriction to buying alcohol (which I found stupid by the way) and the effects are dimmed down, it's damn near impossible to get drunk here. Or so I've heard, I have yet to fall into a downward spiral of depression to try and drink my cares away yet. Not to mention my wallet and funds for the next couple of days.
The pub fit the overall theme of this floor, the sign even had a golden bullhead over the entrance. Rather basic inside for a pub and counter with alcohol. Nothing new.
Argo was waiting in the corner, standing at the door of a private room. She quickly waved us over.
"Glad ya could make the time to show," Argo says with a small smirk. "Nice to see ya looking hot as ever."
"Please stop...Never again" I said, repressing my shudders. Reminds me of my old discord days, of how I became known (and by nothing else) as Dark Flame, Flame, Flame dude, and among other names because of one person calling me it somewhere else and I never was called anything else. I even had no better ideas for login into SAO for goodness sake!
"Alrigh' alrigh' I'll stop," she said, making the gesture for false surrender.
The private room was simple, with a long table with about 21 seats. Here there was Aincrad Liberation Squad, the Dragons Knights Brigade, and Agil's party present. We quickly took our seats as Argo started to speak after she closed the door. "That seems to be everyone. Let's get this started."
I glanced around the room.
Only 12 people. Kirito and Asuna must be involved. Argo will never be on bad terms with those two no matter how much the two biggest idiots in the room may try to rip them apart.
"I'll be brief cuz there's no point beatin' around the bush," Argo said. "We gotta scam going on. Its main target is the front lines. Before I disclose any more info, are we in agreement that you tell no one, even your party members about what we will be speaking about?"
Eventually, after some time (and my sword to 'slip' out a little) everyone nodded in agreement.
"Good. The deets of this scam are all centered around Nezha the blacksmith."
My eyes widened. He was scamming people? Why was I left out then if the front lines were the targets? Could it be because I wasn't at the first raid?
"Why would he be scamming us? He's gotta be one person drowning in cash cuz he's the only player smith that is well known," Apollo asked
"Chill. One thing at a time to make this easier." Argo replied. "The scamming method is simple, but rather under the radar. Are any of you familiar with the skill mod known as Quick Change?"
I froze. Skill mods are small bonuses we could get for certain skills when their proficiency was high enough. With weapons, every fifty levels that were one mod. I'm currently at 120/1000. Back at fifty, I picked [Shorten Sword Skill Cool-down] and the second I increased the damage output with them with [Sword Skill Strike]. I needed a bit more damage and faster ways to dish it out, so those were fairly reasonable options in my eyes.
"Quick Change? It's not ringin' any bells.." Kibaou commented.
"It is the same for me," Lind said. "I recall seeing within the list of skill mods I could pick but wasn't sure of what it entailed."
I spoke up to enlighten them. "It's pretty much a mod that allows you to set up a backup weapon which you can switch with your equipped one, anytime you want."
"Yeah, what he said," Argo nodded as she spoke. "I'll explain the mechanics of weapon upgrades from the beta. As you all are aware, you provide the weapon with the upgrade materials to a blacksmith. The more you have, the better your chances of succeeding. You gotta ignore the number of fails or successes you get when you think of the fact that you got a set number of times you can try and upgrade it. Do you know what happens when you try to upgrade a weapon that's reached its max attempts?"
Silence fell over everyone before I spoke up. "I tried it back in the beta for kicks, it broke."
Our resident cactus turned and gave me an evil eye. He was telling me that he would yell at me later when the scam was out of the way.
"Yes, the weapon breaks entirely. I didn't put that bit into the guidebook yet cause I haven't confirmed if it was the same. But my sources now tell me, and my own personal research..."
I gulped.
"SAO's blacksmithing system hasn't changed in the slightest," Argo finished with her voice grave.
"Where is this leading to?" Lind asked.
"Are you that dense?" Apollo growled at him. "Ain't it obvious? Nezha has been using Quick Change to steal people's gear and trick them into thinking he's broken them. And that's why the front liners are the main targets, we normally got the best gear. Normally close to maxed out too."
"Yea, even I get that!" Kibaou interrupted. "But this is rare gear we're talkin' about! No one would be dumb enough to try and upgrade something with no attempts left and there is no way he is just takin' all of em' and selling them or whatever, we would know if rare gear was suddenly available on the market. "
"They were close to their max, all of them as Apollo said. Normally there are a few more attempts possible. We even have a victim right in this room," Argo calmly replied.
Everyone turned to see one of the people with Agil, head down to show the amount of shame he felt. I felt for the guy, whatever weapon he had was probably rare, and hard-to-collect upgrade stuff, it must have been tough.
"I don't mean any offense to your intelligence, but are you positive that your weapon wasn't maxed out?" Lind asked
"I'm certain. I still had a full three attempts left when I bought it."
"So what you're saying is, that the weapon broke cuz of that skill? He switched it out with a dup. How did he manage that though?" Kibaou asked.
"He took advantage of the forge. When the materials are thrown in by the blacksmith, the fire flashes. It's pretty damn bright so most look away or shield their eyes. As for his menu he just had to hide his hand opening and sortin' through it," Argo explained
This plan...its fucking genius. Some of us are too stupid to even think something was going on, some would assume the kid was just crap at his job and royally fucked it up. But when I interacted with him, he really didn't seem to be the type nor the type to half-ass things, and I'm fairly good at reading people.
"That bastard! He's worse than those damn beta testers!" Kibaou growled as he slammed his fists into the table. "Let's get that bitch!"
"Hold on, he's was likely forced into this," I cut in but no one heard me
"Cool ya jets," Argo told the flaming cactus. "Nezha knows that his scam has been revealed. As for his motive, he's been giving his profits to a new clearing group. One that just joined the front lines. The Legend Braves."
Eyes went wide. "So that's why their gear is so good, it's not only clearer level, it was originally clearer owned," I mused.
"Correct. He won't be doing the scam anymore, and I kinda feel for the guy," Argo continued. "The main problem is exposing the Legend Braves as a whole for this whole thing and finding a proper way to make them atone."
"Why not just go public? We know how they did it," Kibaou asked.
"We know how but we don't have proof that they pulled it off, two very different things," I said.
"Yeah, it's pure speculation cuz nothing we got is solid enough to force them into a corner," Argo said.
"Screw it! They should pay!"
"I second that! We should make them confess right now!"
"They owe the victims an apology!"
"They should pay for all the gear they stole!"
"And if they refuse, we can threaten to PK them!"
At those words, the 'hairs' on my neck and arms shoot up as an inhuman snarl escaped my lips.
Silence had already fallen among the people here. PK was a term no one dared joke about in SAO.
"Who the hell said that?!" I snarled, my voice dripping with venom as I shot from my seat. Searching. "Which one of you sick fucks thinks it's alright to fucking PK players around here?!"
I heard Yua whisper to Apollo. "What does PK mean?"
"Player kill or killing"
She gasped. "But that's-"
"Murder" I growled as I finished her sentence. "I refuse to be a part of anything that involves PK'ing as it stands. Unless they are actively PK'ing players I won't let them die. Fess up whichever one of you said that so I can peacefully break your legs when we are done with this."
"Ignoring that threat, I agree with Flame's principles," Lind said, clearly shaken by my sudden show of violence. "That is a line no one, especially us, should cross."
Kibaou nodded as well. He eyed his party member that made that suggestion. "I don't care if you were joking or not. We are never going to stoop to using PK'ing as a threat, understand?"
"I'm sorry, I let my emotions get to me. I apologize," The player responded with his head down.
"Don't let it happen again" I threatened. "I hate that any person could ever think that murder of all things okay around here. I won't be as nice next time any member of the clearing force says anything about that. We fight to get people out of here, not raise the death count. Death will be your last problem if I catch wind of anything." I let go of my sword from my metal bending grip, I probably lowered its durability by at least 10%.
"As long the point has been made," Kibaou said with a bit of a shudder, my outburst had likely given him a window to calm himself. "So how do we handle this? We can't just force them to confess and threaten them if they don't."
No one spoke for a few seconds while they collected their thoughts.
I broke the silence once more. "Argo, do they at least care for the blacksmith as a person?"
"Yeah, I'm not sure how much further than that it goes through," she said as she leaned back a little.
"Perfect!" All eyes turned to me.
"What do you mean?" Yua asked for the first time she has spoken(loud enough to be contributing) this entire meeting.
"We don't have any good evidence right?" I asked with a smirk gracing my lips, ignoring the nasty emotions bubbling in my body. "Then let's make them confess themselves."
"How the hell do we do that?" Kibaou asked me.
"Simple, we use what I like to call my people skills."
"The fuck?"
"You see Kibaou, you could say I have a bit of a superiority complex sometimes, but it's rightfully earned. We won't use force, we use mind games and slowly break their resolve by using their little keystone for the operation!"
I laid out my plan, planning to go drink something strong afterward to get rid of the nasty taste in my mouth and rid it of unpleasant memories.
If Kirito can do the shit he does, Flame has every reason and right to pull some shit not just outta his ass but out of thin air as well. Watch, the loner gamer can get a harem and pull the power of friendship out of nowhere to defeat some guy that is still somehow on par with a super account, fine my guy is curing death(Not really but he's curing something *suggestive wink*).