Sword Art Online: Enhanced - Chapter 3.1 (Patreon)

You looked around at the vast array of people around you. some crying, some raging, some screaming, some just outright fallen to their knees in disbelief or despair.

You took your eyes off of them and turned back to Agil, "C'mon!" you said. You grabbed his shoulder and dragged him along with you, making your way towards the north.

"What? Where are we going?" Agil asked as you let go and followed along behind you in pace with Cu.

"We're heading to where I completed the quest for this sword," you answered, and began picking up your pace until you were running, forcing Agil to go alongside you, though you had to lower your max speed to let him keep up, "My original plan was to go find the Labyrinth to grind in, but i promised I'd help you out, besides, having another high level player in my party with me will help me a ton as well..that is if you're up for it."

That, and you wanted to get to Tolbana and complete the Cow Counterattack quest. If it gave a bonus for the first to complete it as well, you needed it now more than ever.

"..I'm up for it," Agil nodded, "It's just...what about everyone else? there's kids amongst this crowd, hundreds, even thousands of them. Heck, your a kid Groot!"

You bit your lip. You knew that. you saw one girl as young as nine as you were pushing through the crowd. "There's too many for me to be able to do anything right now for them," you answered, "As long as they stick to the town, they'll be fine, it's a registered safe zone, and the boars outside the town in the plains are easy to deal with even for a level one."

You saw Agil clench his fists tightly, "I don't like this man," he growled, but the powerfully built man shook his head, "You're right though as much as I hate to admit it, there's nothing I can do for these kids right now."

"Besides, most will be too scared to do anything right now besides hole up at the inns or walk about town," you added, "Now, tell me, what build are you going for? What skills you got?"

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It took you a bit longer to reach Hotonka than your first trip there. Mostly because, Agil was going for a Tank-Bruiser build and as such his agility was one.

Still, his slower pace made it easier for you to lure the Dire Wolves that had respawned since you killed them the first time along the way towards Hotonka. Especially with both Agil and Cu having the Howl skill to draw aggro.

So pulling in all ten wolves was easily done. You took care of the first nine along the way, easily able to one shot them now even without critical blows. You used the time to demonstrate the attack patterns of the wolves and observe them for any changes yourself.

You didn't really notice any changes to be honest. But then, you didn't remember much from them from the beta. So, you noted down their attack patterns solo and in a group and their tendency to try pincer movements when they outnumbered you to pass along to the newbies. You couldn't do much for them, but you could at least do this.

Then, on the tenth, you had Agil take it himself. But considering he'd hit level four by them because of the experience share system through parties. Still, it gave him a taste for combat outside the

On your final kill, the ninth wolf, you actually scored another Essence of Dire Wolf Meat. you were tempted to munch it yourself, but, you gave it to Agil. Mostly because, you wanted him to gain the agility of a Dire Wolf to up your travel speed. Once you were done with getting Agil the Anneal Blade, you were wanting to get a move on to take on that Cow Counterattack quest.

Still, by time you made it to Hotonka village, Agil had just reached level four. That, plus an essence meant he had some pretty great stats already.

As Agil entered the house of the mother and sick daughter to begin the quest. You stood outside, leaning against the house and pulled up your menu. The only person on your friend list right now, was Agil.

'Send Friend Invitation'

You found the button and clicked on it. Inputting the name 'Argo', before hitting send. Hopefully Argo, known as Argo the Rat kept her name from the Beta Test. She was someone who dealt with information exclusively in games, and heavily favored dagger art combat and speed main.

If anyone was compiling information, it would be her.

That done. You tilted your head up and looked towards the sky, "Wit tae dae?" you wondered idly. You wouldn't be able to attack the Little Nepents, at most you'd be able to take hits from them. Which would be good for levelling up your light armour skill, you weren't going to lie.

But, you could just give Agil the extra Ovule you had and complete the quest right off the bat. Would lose you some money, but it meant you could get a move on right away.

Decisions, decisions.

Ten minutes later, you found yourself walking through the forest towards the back of Hotonka Village, Agil by your side as you both followed Cu as he tracked some Little Nepents.

"So there's three types of them then?" Agil asked.

"Yeah," you nodded, "The normal ones, the ones with the Ovule that looks like a big red flower on its head and the third one are fruit bearers. If they spawn, make sure not to hit the fruit on their head, it looks like a big shiny red cherry. If you do, we'll get swarmed by hundreds of force spawned Little Nepents in the span of a minute and if we don't teleport, we'll likely die."

"Right, fruit, looks like a big cherry, got ya." the muscular dark skinned man nodded.

Agil was so easy to get along with man. He took your words at face value and didn't treat you like some idiot just because you were a teenage. A good guy, likeable to.

A whine from Cu drew your attention a moment later and you saw him pointing to the left after stopping a few feet up ahead. You walked up and followed his paw and saw a clearing, which had four Little Nepents in the middle.

You grimaced, there were four. Three normal ones, and one fruit bearer.

"Damn, they are some ugly things aren't they?" Agil wrinkled his nose at them when he saw them.

You nodded in agreement, "Right, I'll draw their aggro since I can't attack them," you said, "When I do, you circle around and get the fruit bearer from behind, take it out quick and then move on to the others.

Agil hefted his axe, "Alright, hope you know what you're doing, these things look kinda tough."

"They hit fast and decently this early, but they'll do tiny damage to either of us right now. A level 1 player could beat one of these one on one without too much issue. They're only a big threat if they spawn in mass amounts, then you're fucked." you explained.

"Well, I better not fuck up the, huh?" Agil chuckled as you began making your way into the clearing to draw the aggro. Though, you made sure to make Cu stay put.

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It took all of a few minutes before the clearing was entirely cleaned out. As soon as you stepped in, all four swarmed you, lashing out with their massively long tentacle whip arms.

They did very little damage overall in the first mass of hits that slammed into you. And your strength was such, that the blows only hit you back a few steps instead of sending you flying like they would have earlier.

Agil burst in from the back seconds later, using the Cleave skill with his massive green glowing battle axe. Two swings of those to the back, and the fruit bearer was forced to burst into polygons.

You took a few more hits, but while the other three were focused on you, Agil made quick work of them, hacking away at them with his axe. And in no time at all, all four were down.

"You alright?" Agil asked you, sheathing his axe as soon as he finished the last one and looking at you worriedly.

You waved your hand, "I'm fine, they only did 38 damage. That'll be healed in less than ten seconds from now," you replied, "Get anything good?" you asked.

Agil blinked before before checking his loot menu, "Not bad, 80 col and 80 experience."

"On to the next then, gotta find that Ovule." you said, then whisted to call for Cu. Your Dire Wolf came bounding out of the tree line obediently a few moments later. When he did, you fed him a loaf of bread for being a good boy. And to keep his hunger down. You'd need to find better food for him though soon, bread wouldn't last him long and you only had three left. And you were already starting to feel pangs of hunger in your stomach, you hadn't eaten since breakfast and that was a good five or so hours ago now.

You weren't really worried for your body. Your family carer/butler that looked after you and made sure you took care of yourself properly while your parents were busy with the company and shit travelling all over would make sure you got the best medical attention money could buy after consulting your parents.

But, the hunger pains would be annoying regardless even in game.

Oh well, at least your Light Armour skill had risen up to two at this point.

From there, you spent a few minutes letting Agil recover his stamina so he could spam his Cleave skill as needed again, since it like your Cascade skill took up fifty stamina points to use.

But, within a minute or two you were ready to move on. And thanks to Cu, it didn't take you very long to find another clearing with Little Nepents. This time, you found a clearing with eight within it.

And to both you and Agil's happiness, there was one with an Ovule within the group. Though, there was also two fruit bearers within the groop.

Just like in the first clearing, you repeat the plan of you drawing aggro to train up a skill while Agil hacked them up from the back while they were focused on you.

This time, you focused on parrying. It was a lot easier than you thought it would be with your levelled up skills and knowing the attack patterns of the Little Nepents. And by time Agil hacked his way through them all and made it all the way through to you a few minutes later, you had only taken two hits.

Which was surprising to you. Considering there were sixteen tentacles lashing out like massive whips tearing through the air towards you constantly. Though the number quickly dwindled.

Either way, you weren't complaining about taking any hits anyway. The two hits you did take levelled your Light Armour skill up to three. And your Parry skill shot all the way up to three with all the hits you parried in the process.

"Are you sure you don't want any of this col?" Agil asked you looking guilty that he was the one reaping all the rewards at this point.

You shrugged, "It's fine," you replied, "You can repay me later, you'll need the col you've gotten to upgrade your new weapon when you get it, plus you can probably get some iron gauntlets and greaves at the weapon shop in the village and they aren't really that cheap for this early in the game."

Agil grimaced, "That's for sure, I had to sell all my drops from the boars earlier and my starter gear just to afford this iron battleaxe and chestplate earlier."

"Exactly." you nodded.

"Well alright." the older man shrugged. He pulled open the loot menu and then his eyes widened, "Holy crap! I got two of those essence things!"

Your own eyes widened, "Damn, that's fuckin' insane considering how low the odds are on these things!"

That luck right there might be more absurd than yours so far!

Agil nodded dumbly for a moment. Before he pulled up his menu after depositing the loot into his inventory. You raised an eyebrow when a moment later, a trade request screen popped up in front of you.

You hit accept, and a moment later, there was a trade screen with Agil offering one of the Essence of Little Nepent to you. "Will you at least accept this?" he asked, scratching his chin. The big man looked a bit embarrassed, "It's not cool having to have you carry me constantly without giving you anything as payment. I know you said I can pay you back later, but I'd feel better if you took at least this one."

You sighed and smiled bemusedly, "Awrite mate, I'll take it." you said, accepting the trade.

"Let's go cash in the Ovule for your quest reward as well now then." you said after the trade ended, and Agil happily agreed.