I like traveling the most

Kobayashi decided to use this information.

After all, it would be a waste if not used, and it would also betray Xiaochun's good intentions.

However, he did not take his companions away from the starting town to the next town, but came to the Black Iron Palace.

According to Koharu, a closed beta player, a huge metal monument that was not available during the closed beta was installed in the Kurogane Palace that was originally the room for the resurrected person. Whether it was Kayaba Akihiko’s good intentions or bad intentions, it looked like a tombstone. generally.

It has the names of all the players engraved on its surface. It also thoughtfully draws easy-to-understand horizontal lines on the names of the dead players. The time and cause of death are also recorded in detail next to it.

Xiao Lin saw his name and the names of ten of them on it.

This is a good thing.

If you think about it carefully, the total number of players entering the game is only 10,000. Anyone would find it strange that ten unknown players suddenly appeared.

Rather than being secretly stumbled by Kayaba Akihiko, he was more worried about being kicked out of the game.

Now it seems that the game has officially started and they have not been kicked out of the game or tripped up, which shows that Kayaba Akihiko regards them as players.

Excluding the 213 players who died before the game officially started, the person who got the honor of being the first to be eliminated appeared three hours after the game started.

Cause of death, suicide.

He put forward the argument that "based on the structure of NERvGear, as long as the connection with the game system can be cut off, consciousness should be automatically restored." Then he crossed the southern end of the starting town and jumped from the high fence of the outermost observation deck. Jumped down.

——These are what Rinzi saw with her own eyes.

Probably because he didn't understand why the man did this, and he didn't get an answer from Xiaochun, so he couldn't bear the confusion in his heart and came to Xiaolin in the hope of getting answers.

Xiao Lin didn't see it.

Of course, if you see it, you won't stop it.

No one can stop the growing thoughts. Once he has such thoughts, he will try no matter how to stop them.

That is to say, good words cannot persuade a person to die, and great mercy cannot save a person from death.

All in all, within two minutes, the man's name was simply and mercilessly drawn with a horizontal line, and the cause of death was marked as falling from a height.

"I said, Darkness, please don't jump like that guy, do you understand?"

"Don't underestimate me, Kazuma. I still know this kind of thing."

"……Really?"

"Ah, besides, if you want to jump, you should jump from the 100th floor, right?"

"Is it a matter of height?!"

I have to say, it’s very Darkness-like.

If a book about One Hundred Ways to Die in Sword Art Online was published, the author would definitely write about these guys around him.

"Speaking of which..."

Xiao Lin looked at the stupid goddess who was tinkering with the metal tombstone and didn't know what she was doing.

"Aqua, can you resurrect the dead players?"

"Haha? How is that possible! Xiaolin, you are an idiot, you are an idiot! This is a game, in a game! How on earth can I resurrect them in a world without entities and bodies? That kind of thing can't be done at all Come on!"

Aqua scoffed.

He had expected this situation, but the look of the stupid goddess was really irritating.

"Really? It can't be done. So that means this is all you can do? Okay, it's decided. Since you're so useless, I'll leave you alone now."

"Hey————! No! I was wrong, Xiaolin! Please don't leave me! I will find a way, please!"

Aqua cried and hugged Kobayashi's trouser legs.

...I still like your unruly look just now, please recover.

He did not place his hopes on the stupid goddess. He only said this to let her understand that he was useless now. Otherwise, what would be the difference between continuing to get carried away and being with Axel?

"Okay, it's time for us to head off to the next town."

Xiao Lin clapped his hands.

Some conscious players have already spawned monsters near the starting town, and the closed beta players have also gone to the next town early. It can be said that Xiaolin and the others are one step behind now.

But no problem, he trusted his companions.

I don’t know if it’s a big release, but the intelligence given by Koharu contains a lot of useful information, including elements of fighting in this world.

Fighting in SAO does require some sense and proficiency. It can be said that the secret to fighting is not to move around casually, but to rely on system assistance.

Let’s take the simple upper cut with a one-handed sword as an example. After learning the one-handed straight sword skill, those who click on the upper cut in the sword skill list can just make the initial movement while thinking about this skill in their hearts. , and then the system will automatically help the player make a slash.

However, for those without skills, even if they try to imitate slashing movements, their swing movements will be slow or their attack power will be low, making it impossible to use them in battle.

This is a bit like the feeling of inputting commands to perform special moves in a fighting game.

People who are not used to this kind of fighting will just swing the sword casually. Even if they are facing a wild boar or wild wolf that can win with only the initial state and basic single-shot skills, they will still end up in a hurry. result.

But for them, who have long been accustomed to fighting monsters and the Demon King's army, these are not problems.

Thanks to SAO, it is not a game that designers teach you to play. They can move their bodies freely and get used to it after simple activities and feelings.

——Here, I criticize a certain game by name.

On the way to the next town, everyone tried their hand at it.

Needless to say, Xiaolin is proficient in physical arts, swordsmanship, and magic, so he is naturally a piece of cake. Darkness, Sato Kazuma, and Kureia also easily defeated the wild boar with their initial swordsmanship skills - even though the wild boar is the weakest character in the game and is almost the same as a slime from another world.

As he expected, Aqua, Rein, and Megumin knew nothing about close combat methods such as swordsmanship and physical skills.

On the contrary, Youyou gave him a big surprise.

"Yuyou, I didn't know that your fighting skills are so good?"

"Megumin, you're the one! There must be a taijutsu class in the school. Why do you still don't understand it after so long?"

"I, what can I do? Because every time I go to class, either the seal on my eyes needs to be lifted or the magic power starts to riot randomly. There are always some strange combinations of circumstances that prevent me from studying. So these are all the fault of the world!"

"That's why you're always lazy!"

The two people from the Crimson Demon Clan began to get closer to each other as if no one else was watching.

Xiaolin asked the blond girl who had killed a wild boar: "Alice, how do you feel?"

"...It's strange. I was stiff for a moment, and the posture of the move was a bit awkward. It was different from what my brother taught me." Alice swung her sword.

"This is also explained in the intelligence."

Xiao Lin touched the girl's smooth blond hair.

——Skills outside the system.

This is something that almost every closed beta player knows. Instead of completely relying on the movement assistance provided by the system, you can greatly increase the speed and power of sword skills by using your own athletic ability.

After trying it for a few times, I found that the speed and power had indeed increased a lot, and they were more suitable for this type of battle.

After adapting to the battle along the way and being noisy, when the group arrived at the next town, there were already many players there.

The specific number is unclear, but the minimum number will not be less than 100 people.

This is already very good. With thousands of players snatching meager resources in the starting town, there will undoubtedly be better development in this town.

They didn't meet Rinzi and Koharu, and they didn't know if they were not in this town or were practicing hard in the wild.

Say something else.

The first floor of Aincrad is very large, and the starting town occupies about the second floor. There are two towns in its southeast, northwest, and south, so it is quite difficult to meet 'acquaintances'.

After that it’s boring leveling.

Xiaochun's information contained many tasks about this town, including daily tasks, ordinary tasks, even hidden tasks, the locations of various treasure chests, etc. Unfortunately, the hidden tasks and treasure chests were all picked up or opened by others.

First come, first served is the nature of all games.

They spent a lot of time on the way here, and other closed beta players must have taken away the tasks and treasure chests first.

A little bit of a pity.

Other daily tasks and ordinary tasks are almost the same as what I remember from online games. They are all about defeating some surrounding monsters and gaining experience and gold coins, or certain props, etc., and they can be picked up casually in the town.

The difference is that ordinary online games can be completed with just a click of the mouse, and some online games even have one-click task functions, but in SAO you have to complete the tasks yourself.

This undoubtedly increases the time cost and is also accompanied by the risk of death.

In fact, these are quite common for Xiaolin and others. They did the same thing when Axel was there, and it was almost a seamless connection.

...Huh?

Have I really traveled through time?

The idea came to someone else's mind at the same time.

Ah, there are still some differences.

At night, due to limited funds, they could only stay in ordinary hotels in the town. This was thanks to Kayaba Akihiko's not killing but sending a certain amount of initial funds, otherwise they could only sleep on the streets now.

At this point, Kureya was still very dissatisfied, saying how could Her Royal Highness the Princess stay in a small hotel, it was a loss of status, and so on.

However, after Alice's invitation to live with her, she suddenly no longer disliked the shabby accommodation.

What a fooling guard.

"Okay, it's almost time. Let's go to the area with higher monster levels today."

Kobayashi made this declaration.

Darkness was a little worried: "Are you going now? Is it too early?"

"Ah, that's strange. I thought you would be impatient to go to a more dangerous place. Why, now you have changed your taste and don't want to be hurt?"

"Hmm~~~"

The bitten female knight groaned.

"I, I, I'm not that kind of person! I'm just concerned about the safety of Her Highness Alice!"

Her defense was somewhat self-evident.

Of course, Xiaolin knew what Darkness was thinking. Even though he said he was willing to accompany Alice on adventures in this game world, he still wanted to reduce the danger as much as possible, which is understandable.

But who makes Kureya keep shouting in her ears, saying that the quality of Alice's life has dropped too much? Besides, it's almost at the same stage now. There are still as many as ten of them. Why don't they go to more dangerous areas to fight higher-level monsters? Chasing levels?

"Go and see more powerful monsters!"

In the end, under the gaze of Alice's big shining eyes, the others could only accept this result.

Xiao Lin pinched his chin.

He found that since she came to this world, Alice seemed to occupy the center of the team, even though she had always spoken for herself before. Don't get me wrong, it's not because of jealousy or anything like that. After all, Alice listened to him, but it was just a little more troublesome than before.

Could this be...

Holding the emperor hostage to order the princes?

After confirming, the group set off.

Now, they came to a mountain road. This is the road leading from the town to the south. The continuous mountains occupy almost half of the map.

"Be careful, it's a steep road here."

Xiao Lin supported Alice while walking.

Her Royal Highness looked like a primary school student going out for an outing. She was so excited that she didn't pay attention to her steps. She almost fell off the cliff just now, shocking everyone else into a cold sweat.

"According to the information given by Xiaochun, there will be an advanced species of small man-catcher grass in this area."

"Catcher plant?"

"They are pitcher plants. Because they have grown in size and can move, and the targets they capture have changed from bugs to humans, they are called pitcher plants. I said, Aqua, it is written in the application form that Senior Kobayashi gave you. Right. And I remember saying that before I came here.”

Sato Kazuma stared at the idiot goddess who was laughing. It didn't take much thinking to know that she was definitely not listening at that time.

"But don't worry, we are at a higher level now, so we don't need to be afraid of it."

He spread his hands.

No need to ask, it was the courage given to him by his high rank.

"But you still have to be careful of the danger." Darkness interjected: "It's not that individuals with round fruits appear occasionally. If the fruits are damaged, they will emit smoke calling their companions, and then many monsters will surround them. Come here... it’s great!”

The perverted female knight held her shoulders with her hands and kept twisting her body.

"Okay, let's go back."

Sato Kazuma turned around and walked back.

He could already predict that they would be surrounded by a group of monsters after a while, and there would be no way to escape.

"I said it, Mr. Kazuma."

"Yes, I am Kazuma."

"Are you scared? You were very talkative when you came here, but now you are so cowardly that you want to run away... Puff, puff, it's so funny."

This guy...!

Sato Kazuma gritted his teeth and stared at the idiot goddess who was mocking him, but he had no excuse to say anything.

"It's okay, Your Highness Alice, I will protect you!"

"Me, me too!"

"Kureya, Rein, thank you."

The two guards on the side were showing their loyalty to Alice.

In fact, there is nothing to be afraid of. There are ten of them. Even if they are surrounded by monsters, they can easily break out.

Just then——

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

Sharp screams came from the direction of the top of the mountain and poured into the ears of the group.