Death shrouded in Ayn Grant, lost its former vitality, and when we returned to the grassland infested with blue mountain boars, the sky had darkened.

"Same as I thought." Long He said solemnly: "I'll sit in the village tonight, and you can kill the wild boars here." ”

He's really not kind.

Looking around, there are no other players, and those cowards are still trembling under the control of fear. There's no way to blame them, the announcement of Akihiko Hayba's death came so suddenly, and for those who aren't strong-willed, it's all too cruel. It's a pity that they don't understand that death is not terrible, what is really terrible is waiting for death, and most of the time what we are afraid of is often just fear itself. In the end, it's better to give it a go than to wait for death in fear, this is a very simple truth, and there are many players who understand this truth, but unfortunately there are very few who really have the courage to face it, even those so-called closed beta candidates.

"Judging from the situation in the afternoon, the blue boar can only withstand a maximum of two skill attacks, and there is a cooldown time of about 3 seconds after the skill is used, and you can just avoid it if you cooperate with me, so that compared to a lone ranger or a multi-person team, the attack mode of two people will be more efficient." Long He gave me orders like a real commander, and there was no room for doubt in his tone, and I even had some suspicions that the child who covered his face with his hands in pain in the afternoon was not him, but me.

"You are not skilled enough, in order to avoid accidents, I will carry out the first wave of attacks, and you will follow, and we will try to slaughter this grassland before nine o'clock."

Just like human players, those blue boars under the control of the AI are not static, as the number of kills increases, the AI that controls the blue boar will also adjust itself: increase the level of the blue boar, increase the chance of dodging skills, reduce the equipment that falls to the ground after the boar dies, etc., in short, it will increase the difficulty of the players who come later. To be clear, this is not my conclusion, everything is thanks to the dragon, and the fact that monsters will also level up is one of the lessons he gained during the closed beta. Of course, this is now the official version of Sword Art Online, borrowing the words of Akihiko Aoba, it is the original version, and compared to the closed beta period, it is impossible to say how many changes were made to this setting, and I don't bother to explore the current situation, whether the adjustment or not will not have much impact on our plans.

"Drink it quickly, don't waste my precious time." The dragon pretended to be careless and threw me a bottle of red potion.

"Can't you be gentle?" I complained.

In a hurry to catch the red potion that suddenly came out of mid-air, I tripped over my right foot and fell to the ground after taking a few steps backwards, but fortunately the potion was caught steadily.

"Cut, stupid!"

The look of concern was fleeting, and the dragon tilted his head to the side with a rather disdainful look.

He's a very gentle man, I thought to myself. At the same time, he put the recovery crystal that was already tightly held in the palm of his left hand back into his pocket.

It was too slow to regenerate HP without relying on one's own settings without the help of external forces, and even though a lot of time had passed, the HP lost in the afternoon during the battle with the boar still did not recover. Originally, it didn't matter, but now that it's been established that dying in the game will also cause physical death in real life, it can't be ignored anymore (I'm not stupid enough to risk my own life to verify the authenticity of the announcement).

After gratefully opening the cap, I drank greedily, it tasted a bit like lemon juice with a bitter taste, and all in all it was not bad. I stood up from the ground when I saw the HP in the upper left corner of my eyes filled with all the bars again, and the empty bottle in my hand quickly disappeared into thin air after emitting a faint glow.

"Let's get started."

Pulling out the horizontal knife behind me, the cold touch gradually spread from my fingertips all over my body, and I felt every pore on my body constrict, from now on this is the only thing I can use to protect myself.

Some people may ask, are you really not afraid of death? I want to say, scared, scared, very scared. I'm sure everybody is afraid of death or has ever been afraid of death, but do you know what it turns into when fear reaches its extreme—excitement and fearlessness?

This is the state of me at the moment, and every inch of my body trembles with excitement because of the unwavering belief that I must live and the determination that I can definitely live. For a moment I felt like a true brave man - I was up to me to save the cowards who had cowered in a safe town out of fear.

"Up!"

"Ahh

The flickering red and blue glows of the night echoed back and forth towards the boars, who were greeted by a one-sided slaughter. The dragon and I were like robbers rushing into the unarmed crowd and slashing and slashing. From the very jerky to the proficient and finally to the point where you can confidently turn back, countless blue boars turned into data and disappeared into the air in the wail. Eventually, when we had to stop and rest because we were almost exhausted, exactly two hours had passed.

The grassland, which had been completely covered in darkness, regained its calm, as if the killing had not happened at all. The search function is triggered when it gets dark and the night vision mode is automatically activated, and the bottom of the second layer, which is still visible during the day, has been replaced by the starry sky.

Exhausted, we lay on the soft grass and gasped, the air was filled with the smell of grass and earth, and the evening breeze across the vast grassland brought a slight coolness to our bodies, and this feeling of complete relaxation had an indescribable comfort. If a player were to pass by at this time, I would have rushed up to him without hesitation and sadly told him that he had missed the best fireworks display in Ayn Grant.

It's already level six, and when my strength has recovered a little, I sit up and look at the alphanumeric combination - LV.6 flashing below the blue bar in the upper left corner. It's a bit disappointing, we only need to kill one boar from LV.1 to LV.2, and now we've only increased four levels after we have completed the feat of slaughtering the grassland.

"Something is wrong?" Long He suddenly spoke, "This place seems to be different from just now. ”

"Something is wrong? But the search function doesn't warn you."

"Don't rely too much on machines, learn to trust your instincts."

The dragon stood up and watched his surroundings warily, and I got up from the ground.

Empty and eerie, that's how I feel at the moment, from animal instincts telling me that danger is coming. Then I finally figured out what the problem was, the most obvious problem that we had overlooked because we were too relaxed.

"What about those blue boars, why haven't those blue boars replied yet?" I said in a trembling voice.

"Run, Dragon, Run!"

Without the slightest hesitation, I ran wildly under the reminder of Long Ji, and did not stop until I entered the village that was judged to be a safe area. The appearance of the brave man running away must have been very ugly, but fortunately no one saw our embarrassment.

We looked at each other breathlessly with our backs against the walls of the small houses on the outskirts of the village, and we barely smiled at each other, only to recover how little strength we had now, and it was not easy to squeeze out this smile.

The blue boar of the lowest-level monster is impossible to kill in terms of setting, and it is so careless that he doesn't even notice that the herd of boars that should have been restored long ago disappeared silently. For those of us who have neglected our situation because we have been too relaxed, tonight's experience is destined to be a lesson to remember – never let your guard down at any time.

Immediately after that, our vision began to blur, which was a punishment for depleting our stamina, and we would be in a state of fainting for a while. It's great to be able to escape into the safe zone, I muttered to myself, vaguely as if I could see the grassland full of green gems.