Sword Art Online: Enhanced - Chapter 3.2 (Patreon)

On the way out of the forest, both you and Agil added the essence of little nepent into your strength stats. You figured that would be the best bet for you both right now.

When you got back to town, the quest reward of one hundred experience alongside the Anneal Blade got him to level five, the same as you. Which meant he was officially ready to have your back.

From there, when he came out with the black battleaxe version of the Anneal Blade on his back, you made your way over to the weapon shop. Where Agil had to drop a total of three hundred col. One hundred for ten iron ingots to upgrade his weapon, another fifty for the npc to upgrade it and seventy five each for iron gauntlets and greaves.

It was a hefty amount to drop in the first day and Agil was practically crying, but, the amount of amount he bonuses they all gave were totally worth it.

"So what now?" Agil asked, once you were done and you both took a seat within the inn to discuss your next plans, "While I'd prefer to explore and find out myself in games usually on launch days, you're expertise is much more needed here, so i'm willing to defer to your judgement."

You leaned over the table you were sitting at, propping your face up on your palm and looked at the older man. Cu sat beside the table, chowing on a piece of bread. You'd stocked up on fifty loafs, since they were the only food available here right now, and they only cost 1 col each. "I want to head to Tolbana, there's a quest there we can do," you explained, "It's also pretty much the biggest place on floor 1, so even if the labyrinth has moved, it should still be in that general area, and the field boss should be around as well, I want to try and get a look at it to see what we're dealing with."

Agil nodded, "Reasonable, but what about a base of operations? Can we even buy houses at this point in the game? Or are we stuck to the inns?" he asked.

You shrugged, "We can't officially make guilds until floor 3, and houses can be bought on floor 2. But, I do know a place where we can rent out to use as a base," you explained, "I came across it during the beta, much better than the general inn rooms we can get, and it even has a bath and multiple rooms."

"Sounds like a plan then," Agil crossed his arms and hummed with a nod of agreement, "Should we head out there now, or you wanna do something first?" he asked, before opening his menu and pulling out a loaf of bread of his own. He'd followed your lead and bought fifty loafs of bread.

"I think we should head to Tolbana first and take care of the quest I'm thinking of," you mused after a few moments of thought, "In the beta, you only had to kill two dire wolves, but not many people knew of the quest since it was kinda out of the way. It's a real low-tier quest, but this early it will give some decent rewards."

"Sounds like a plan then." Agil nodded.

You stood up and stretched your arms out, "Only thing is, it's night now, so all monsters will be more dangerous and at higher levels," you said, "Dire Wolves usually rose to level 4, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem for the pair of us if we run into some."

"Alright then, noted little buddy," the muscularly built man nodded and stood up, "We heading now then?"

You ignored the 'little' part. He's only a few inches taller than you and nodded, "Yeah, may as well head out now." you said.

Agil agreed, and both of you, alongside Cu left the inn behind and headed outside. As you noted, it was already getting dark out in game.

"Hey look, another player." Agil pointed out just as you reached the gates of the small village.

Your eyes followed where he was pointing and he was right. A slim, black haired boy an inch or so shorter than you and much slimmer was walking towards the village from the opening path.

"Hey!" Agil greeted him with a wave as he got near, "Looks like you made it over here alright."

The boy blinked and smiled awkwardly, returning the wave with a small one of his own, "..Yeah, I had no problems on the way..there wasn't even any Dire Wolves out and about.." he trailed off as he looked down at your side and saw Cu, "Wow, you got the Beast Tamer skill already?"

"Aye mate," you nodded, "Got it through a ton of luck earlier when I first logged in and rushed this way to get the Anneal Blade quest done."

"..Oh, you're that guy from the square, Groot something?" he noted, "You were a beta tester?"

He knew what you were talking about already on the Anneal Blade quest it seemed, "That's me," you nodded, "And yeah, I'm a Beta Tester." he was one too by the looks of it.

"Oh..then you might want to watch out, some people were kinda pointing fingers and trying to flush the beta testers out when I was leaving the Town of Beginnings to head here." he replied, and honestly, he looked a little out of it.

Poor guy must have been shitting it

"No worries, I know how to look after myself," you replied, though made some mental promises to yourself to try and get battle regeneration as quick as possible just in case some idiots tried to jump you, "You wanna party up with us? Looks like you're here for the Anneal Blade as well, we could help you out and finish the quest quick then you could head to Tolbana with us." another beta tester would be a great help in your party, plus the guy looked freaked out, he'd probably feel safer in a group, especially with another beta tester.

The boy blinked and his eyes widened for a moment before a small smile spread across his face, "..Thanks for the offer, but I wanna stick to solo right now." he replied, and apologetic look in his eyes.

"Fair enough mate," you shrugged, "My username is Tavish Finnegan Degroot, you want to exchange contacts?" if nothing else, you could at least exchange information with him.

The black haired boy was silent for a moment before he shrugged, "..Sure, that's fine, I guess." he opened up his menu and a moment later you got a friend request from the player named [Kirito].

You accepted it, and then Agil got in on it as well and exchanged contacts with the boy.

"Well, good luck with the Little Nepents." you said, bidding the boy goodbye. He gave you a little casual wave as goodbye on his own and a nod, and then both you and Agil left the village behind.

"Right, what way we going then?" Agil asked as soon as Kirito disappeared into the village.

There were two ways you could go to reach Tolbana. It was directly east or so from Hotonka, but there was no path there from the small village, so it could take a while to find despite being a quicker journey distance wise. It also came with the risk of running into the field boss who prowled the vast plains around Tolbana.

On the other hand, you could head back towards the Town of Beginnings, and then take the path from there towards Tolbana.

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While the Town of Beginnings route would be safer. You were more interested in getting some encounters.

So, you decided to head through the plains directly east. Along the way, you had both Agil and Cu spamming their Howl skills to lure in any surrounding monsters.

It took about ten minutes into your run through the plains, at which point you were spamming Sprint and Acrobatics over and over as much as you could, before some monsters finally attacked your party.

It was just a group of six Dire wolves that immediately bega prowling around you in a circle, leaving no avenue for escape.

That was new.

"So two each then?" Agil asked with a grin, hefting his axe.

"Wait," you held up your hand and narrowed your eyes at the wolves. Their level indicators read [Level 6]. "They're two levels higher than they were in the beta test." you noted.

"Ah..should we be worried then?" Agil fretted a bit, hands tightening around his Anneal Battleaxe.

"Nah, they're still just Dire Wolves," you shrugged, "For us, they won't be trouble, but for beginners at level one, they'll get mauled real quick."

"Draw their aggro!" you shouted to Agil and then lunged forward using the sprint skill, forward towards the Dire Wolf in front of you, unsheathing the sword form your back.

"Alright then!" the dark skinned man nodded and let loose a massive bellow instantly.

The wolf was about to lunge towards you, but instead, it glowed red and its eyes and attention switched to Agil. It turned to face him, and was unprepared for your attack, "Cascade!" your glowing orange blade caught it right in the next, one of its vital points and scored a critical blow and took its head right off.

You dug your feet into the ground as you landed and lunged back and turned towards Agil. You saw Cu, glowing red with his skill activated with his fangs buried in the neck of another Dire Wolf, while Agil had another pinned beneath his axe.

Three more circled and lunged towards him with a trio of howls from all sides. But the big man ripped his axe out with a roar and spun in a circle.

Two of them dodged fine, jumping back, but the third he hit and sent it soaring towards you with the strength of his blow.

"Cascade!" you jumped with acrobatics and cleaved through it, finishing it off. As you landed, the wolf pinned by Cu burst into polygons and Agil finished his spin by coming down and burying his now glowing green Anneal Waraxe into the wolf he had pinned with it previously before it could get up, finishing it off.

As you landed, you burst forward with sprint one more time for a split second and lunged towards a one of the two wolves that dodged back from Agil while he turned to the last which was between him and Cu.

"Cleave!" you heard Agil shout, at the same time Cu let out a savage snarl. But you ignored it and stabbed into the hind quarters of Dire Wolf you were targeting while its aggro was still focused on Agil.

It yelped and went to turn towards you with a snarl, but lashing out, you kicked one of its hind legs from under it, forcing it to fall forward onto its face with another yelp. Without the martial arts skill, your physical attacks without a weapon wouldn't do shit, but you could still off balance them like that.

With it down, you ripped your blade up above your head and forced it to glow bright orange again, "Cascade!" you brought your blade down in a powerful overhead slash, at the same time you heard polygons bursting apart coming from your side where Agil and Cu were.

The wolf below you didn't even have time to snarl once more before you cleaved it down the middle.

"Woah..I see what you mean," Agil groaned, and you turned towards him to see him rubbing his shoulder, "Those were way faster than the ones earlier. If it was the me before I met you earlier at level 2, they would have definitely killed me."

"Yeah, they're a bit much for noobs." you agreed. You'll need to get that information spread out somehow.