"Kirito-kun, are you alright?"

Kirito looked up, and the blonde girl in front of him was bending over and looking at him worriedly. The back of his right hand is placed under his nose, as if to feel if he is still breathing.

This is the game world, where the characters are just models, and there are no breaths, heartbeats, or pulses. Therefore, the opponent's actions are purely useless.

But since the other party is well-intentioned, Kirito will not point out this small problem in confusion. He sat up quietly and moved some distance to the side,

"It's fine, it's just a little bit out of strength."

The blond girl Saber's character HP is maintained at about 50%, while Kirito's HP is only less than 20%, and the two of them have just killed more than 20 crazy man-eating grasses. Even if Li wanted to make full use of Wang's A-level intuition, he still couldn't dodge all the attacks. Lost a lot of health.

Kirito's state is even more dangerous, if you don't pay attention to it when attacking, the novice sword in your hand may run out of durability and be destroyed, and losing your weapon under the siege of a large number of monsters means that you will definitely die.

But they survived.

"Alas~ That guy who killed a thousand knives actually hurt us, I must tie him up and play him a hundred times when I find an opportunity!"

Kirito, who was drinking the recovery medicine, almost squirted out in one gulp.

"Well, I'd love to ask him for an explanation, but we'll probably never see this guy again."

Li Xiang was surprised: "Why? ”

Kirito, who had regained some strength during the chat break, stood up from the ground and motioned for Lee to follow him.

After a distance in the direction of the player's retreat, a few more pieces of dropped equipment appeared on the ground.

"Here, it should be the tomb of the player just now."

"If I'm not wrong about the numbers, we should have killed twenty-three maneats, twelve for me and eleven for you. And this player should have killed four or five monsters or so. ”

Kirito's voice was low, but there was no anger or unwillingness in his words. There was only a faint sense of sadness.

Even though the player had just designed to trap them, with the player's death, Kirito felt that the hatred in his heart no longer mattered.

The broken one-handed sword and armor in front of him belonged to a Sword Art Online victim whose name he didn't know.

Perhaps one day in the near future, his equipment will also fall to the ground like this, and the line with the name "Kirito" written on the stone tablet of the Black Iron Palace in the starting town will be simply drawn in a straight line, and the cause of his death will be noted in a short statement next to it.

"Player name Kirito died in a fall on XX YEAR X MONTH X day"

- That's probably how it feels.

"This player's second skill grid should be filled with the skill "Concealment", he was supposed to use the concealment skill to retreat after attacking the man-eating fruit and attracting a large number of man-eating grasses to attack us, waiting for us to die and pick up the props.

However, he should have used "Concealment" for the first time, so he didn't think that concealment was just visual concealment, and the monsters of the man-eating grass mainly relied on touch and vibration to locate enemies, and "Concealment" was useless in the face of man-eating grass. In the end, he was killed by the man-eating grass that he attracted to. ”

Kirito explained to Li Xiang what he had speculated as the cause of the player's death.

"Self-inflicted, not worthy of my sympathy."

The blonde girl snorted and turned back to the village.

"Gone, Kirito-kun. Your task is ready to be delivered, and you've been busy for most of the night for this task. If I don't leave, I may not be able to complete my mission before dawn. We've got a level 5 mission tonight! ”

The girl's energetic voice forcibly pulled Kirito out of his dull mood.

"This guy is really heartless."

The items of the new sword and armor left behind by the player should be able to be sold at a low price to the equipment merchant in the village in exchange for some Kele.

Kirito thought, but not knowing if it was out of sympathy or some kind of reserve, he didn't pick up the equipment and turned straight away.

Returning to the village of Horuka, Kirito and Li Xiang find the middle-aged woman they had received the task.

The ovules of the cannibal flower are a rare medicinal material, and the aunt's daughter is seriously ill and needs a medicinal soup made from the ovules of the cannibal flower to be cured.

"It's really a classic Western-style fantasy world quest. All kinds of NPCs encountered on the way ask the protagonist for this and that. Can't you do this by yourself? ”

Li Xiang couldn't help but complain.

"Aren't all RPGs on the market generally in this style? Don't complain. ”

Kirito shook his head and handed the task item to the middle-aged woman with a shiny yellow question mark cursor on her head.

"Thank you, traveling swordsmen, with this secret medicine of the forest, my daughter Agatha is finally saved."

The aunt quietly put the ovules she had received into the pot, then walked to the large long cabinet on the south side of the room and opened the door. She silently took out a long sword with a red scabbard from inside, and although the sword looked old, it exuded a sense of presence that the initial equipment was completely incomparable. Then she walked back to them, thanked them again, and handed the sword to Kirito with both hands.

"Thank you, I'll use this sword well."

Kirito also took the sword in his aunt's hand with both hands, and the feel of the sword of tenacity was heavy and familiar.

See you again, buddy.

Once again, Kirito was a little excited to get the Sword of Fortitude, which had helped him a lot during the closed beta period.

After delivering the task items, the aunt said another line:

"Although this sword is handed down from our ancestors, no one in our generation knows how to use a sword. I believe that it will be very happy to be able to re-unsheath. ”

"Kirito-kun, let's go, we're level 3 now, and we have to hunt a lot of monsters for me to upgrade the task."

Li Xiang urged.

"Got it, let's go."

The two of them dispose of the materials dropped from the monsters they killed in the village. Kirito used the coins he obtained to repair the armor on his body. And Li Xiang used his own money to buy a complete set of leather armor, including breastplates, arm guards, shoulder armor, and leg armor.

After repairing the equipment and purchasing the recovery items, Kirito took Li Xiang to the blacksmith shop in the village.

When the two arrived at the door of the blacksmith's shop, an old blacksmith with a white beard was pounding on a piece of metal on the cutting board. The console's powerful computing system even recreates the sparks that fly under each hammer strike. When the pieces of metal were beaten to a dark red, the old blacksmith put the pieces of metal from the cutting board back into the nearby furnace.

The Blacksmith NPC's head shows his name, George, and a shiny exclamation mark, indicating that the person has a quest for the player to pick up.

"Mr. George, is there anything I can do to help you?"

In SAO, NPC characters are equipped with simple AI programs, so if you want to take on a mission, you can talk to them normally.

If the player wants to better play the role of a "brave", of course, they can politely ask the other party about their troubles. And if you directly indicate to them that you want to take the task, you can also trigger the NPC to release the task program normally.

As a good young man in the new era, Li Xiang consciously maintains a minimum of politeness towards NPCs.

"Oh, it's a swordsman who traveled through this place. I do have some troubles that I need your help with. ”

George, the old blacksmith, then explained to Li Xiang why he wanted help.

To sum it up simply, George Sr.'s wife died of illness a few years ago. One of the village's widows, Mary, lost her husband unexpectedly a few years ago. Because the distance between the two families is not too far, they can usually get in touch occasionally, and the two have known each other since they came and went.

Over time, George Sr. fell in love with Mary and wanted to reunite his family with her. But at the moment, he didn't know the other party's attitude. He wanted to give the other party a piece of jewelry, a tactful gesture of his heart. In the grasslands north of the village live a group of steppe wolves, their white and shiny wolf teeth are very beautiful, and they will look good if they are used to make jewelry. George wanted Lee to help him collect 50 steppenwolf fangs to make a necklace to give to Mary.

If Li Xiang was willing to help him with this, Old George was willing to give Li Xiang a two-handed sword that he had made with his heart.

"Okay, just now I was saving lives and helping the wounded, and now I'm a matchmaker."

At the entrance of the village, Li Xiang, who had just taken over the task of "Beautiful Sunset", said.

Kirito waved the Sword of Fortitude in his hand left and right, familiar with the heavier feel of the Sword of Refining than the novice sword he had used before, and explained:

"Our current position is only the initial area of the first layer of the game, and the difficulty of these tasks is not high, it is for us to practice, and the game designers are also more casual in the design of the mission content. Wait until you get to the strategy maze area (the area that connects the upper and lower floors, and it is the area with the highest monster level and the highest danger level in each floor. ), there will be more interesting quests. ”

"By the way, what is the boss of this layer? Didn't you already reach the ninth layer during the closed beta? Tell me about it. ”

"Of course, the boss of the first layer I encountered during the closed beta was the kobold lord Ilfang......"

The voices of the two grew apart.