| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 3376 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 1915 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
[Sis, I just finished off all the ceremonies. Where are you right now?]
We were already outside of London city and moving towards where the raid dungeon was when I received a whisper message from Esther.
[We’re on the way to the dungeon right now. It would be best for you to head towards Edinburgh first if you’re going to join us. That place is closer to the dungeon than where we are.][Ah! I’ll be there soon so please wait there for me.]
[Alright. Take your time. We were going to go together with you anyways, so why would we leave you behind?]
[Hehe, I guess so.]
Katalina and I were walking while wearing a concealment robe. We were taking this precaution since we didn’t like being bothered by other people, and it was definitely effective in making sure that no one could recognize who we were.
Honestly, in the past I enjoyed the popularity I gained back when I was playing in Korea, but now that everyone is fanatically interested in me constantly, it was hard to deal with it all the time. The people that tired me out the most were obviously the reporters coming from the various broadcasting channel companies that usually handle news relating to what’s happening on Blue Sky. After the war was over, they showed a near-fanatical level of paparazzi in that they were practically willing to throw their own lives away just to get a scoop.
In truth, the reason why I never hand-picked any guild members myself was because there was a risk that one of these people could disguise themselves and sneak into our guild that way. If you belong in the same guild as someone else, it’s easy to figure out their location even if they are wearing a Robe of Concealment on themselves, which could lead to your downfall.
But in any case, Esther told us to wait here but I didn’t figure out where she meant for us to wait. It seems like this is one of the disadvantages of playing in Real mode.
“And where are we now?”
“We’re in some forest about 15 minutes walk from the north exit of Edinburgh.”
But since Katalina and Esther were Real mode users as well, it was impossible for us to figure out the exact coordinates of where we were. The only thing we were sure about is that red-colored light pillar in the distance that indicated the location of the newly discovered dungeon.
“Let’s walk towards the dungeon entrance for now.”
“Okay.”
Instead of trying to find each other and getting even more lost we decided to just meet at the destination instead.
[Let’s just meet at the dungeon entrance instead. It would a headache if we end up getting even more lost after trying to find each other.][Hmm. Then how about we just disable the ‘Real mode’ for a moment?]
[We’re currently using Robe of Concealment on ourselves so we can’t. Aren’t you also wearing one as well?]
[Oh yeah! I forgot about the Robe of Concealment.]
When you are equipped with the Robe of Concealment, it’s impossible to transition over to Virtual mode from the Real mode. This was the same in the opposite case, and was one of the few disadvantages in using the Robe of Concealment.
But since it was obvious there would be users or the press waiting at the dungeon entrance. To arrive at the entrance without using a Robe of Concealment in that situation would only attract trouble. And to push away all those press and users away from the dungeon entrance would only make them angry at our guild, so the best thing for us to do was wear the Robe of Concealment.
[I guess there’s no helping it then. Let’s meet up at the dungeon entrance.][Alright.]
Since Esther agreed as well we started making our way to the dungeon.
- Rooar!
Probably because we were using a more deserted path of the forest, an Ogre which is quite rare but occasionally appears in the woods came out to greet us.
Even in a standard forest like this one which isn’t a hunting field, you could find random monsters popping out like this, and Ogres were often the case for those situations. But even then getting an Ogre was a bit more special than other random encounters you could have as they are not classified as a ‘boss level’ monster but a ‘master level’ monster, which boasted a strength equivalent to a semi boss monster.
In particular, if you were hit directly by an Ogre’s full swing, the average ranged user would find it hard to survive just that one hit, and even if you did survive you’d find yourself stunned for 5 seconds1. Since ‘5 seconds’ was definitely not a short amount of time, it meant that if a ranged attack user was hit by a full swing, it was practically guaranteeing their death.
“Hmm? Did it come here to give us its heart or something?”
Staring up at the gigantic Ogre that appeared, she spoke in a soft tone rather than sounding scared at all. It was understandable since users often call Ogres the ‘Jackpot monster’.
It’s because of all the ingredients you can gain from this particular monster, and particularly their blood and tendon are often used in things that boost the strength stat. Just those ingredients alone sold for quite a good price on the market. On top of that, you can possibly acquire an Orge’s heart, which was the jackpot.
There’s nothing more efficient in raising your stats relating to strength than incorporating Ogre’s heart as its ingredient, which leads to its extremely high price. You’d also understand just how valuable it is when you realize that the recently sold Ogre’s heart went on to be sold for over 10mil gold.
Of course, I was already used to seeing golds in amounts of billions by now, but to the average user the ’10 million gold’ would seem like 10 billion to them, so it was definitely like hitting a jackpot if you were to get one.
“As if it would give us its heart. I bet it will give just some tendons and blood.”
However, I didn’t particularly expect that to happen. The probability of acquiring the heart was extremely low, being at around just 1%. I’ve also invested quite a lot of time in hunting down Ogres in particular, but I’ve only killed 50 to 60 Ogres over 5 years of focusing on the monster, and I didn’t get its heart even once.
The number of times I thought I would finally get it but only end up wasting gold in potions for the hunt was so much that I couldn’t help but get pessimistic like that.
“Nevertheless, we’ve met eyes with it so the correct etiquette would be to hunt it.”
“That’s right.”
– Roooarr!
I wasn’t sure whether it was disapproving of the two of us talking between ourselves or just deciding that it will attack now, but it roared loudly as it charged towards us.
I gave a quick gesture towards Katalina telling her to stand back, and since we’ve hunted together as a duo for so long, she followed my order without any hesitation.
I then ran directly towards the front of the Ogre. Soon I found myself staring at a gigantic trunk of a tree being swung directly towards me.
As expected of the gigantic Ogre close to 5 meters in height, it was swinging the trunk of the tree that was reaching 3 meters with ease. However, compensating for its power, it was slow in its attacks which made it easy for me to dodge.
Slam!
The tree trunk slammed down on the empty ground where I was just a moment ago, but I’ve already moved well out of its attack range beforehand.
- Grrrr!
It looked angry at having missed the attack, it roared even more ferociously as it tried to lift up the tree trunk again and attack me.
“Too slow.”
However, its attempt wasn’t quite good. I had already closed in right in front of the Ogre and was attempting to drive my Excalibur right into its neck.
Hurriedly it let go of the tree trunk it was holding, and tried to swat me away from reaching its neck with its heavy hands.
[Hold]I would have dodged it even if it was left alone, but apparently, Katalina didn’t want to just stand around not doing anything as she sealed off its movement with the ‘Hold’ magic.
Slash!
With the sound of thick meat being sliced, the Excalibur found itself embedded deep within the Ogre’s neck. Though the Ogre’s neck was thick, the Excalibur had a long blade and about two-thirds went through, making it a fatal wound on the Ogre.
- Kkkgghhh…
As the sound of the Ogre drowning in its own blood rang out, its body started to become limp. Pulling out my Excalibur slowly from the crumbling Ogre’s body, I landed back down onto the ground without any problem.
“Whoa… to kill an Ogre in a single blow. Looks like you didn’t need my help at all.”
“It’s nothing, I was able to kill it with ease thanks to you.”
I replied in a humble manner towards Katalina’s compliment. It wasn’t just an empty compliment as knowing when exactly to cast the ‘Hold’ magic to maximize its efficiency was something that only high-level mages would know.
It was a level you could only achieve by having an overwhelmingly high intelligence stat, precise knowledge of your casting speed, as well as experience in real battles.
“Now now, let’s leave it at that and check the spoils.”
“Okay.”
I followed behind Katalina as she went towards the Ogre to check for spoils. As opposed to Katalina who was excited about the treasure, I was slightly anxious.
“Let’s see now. Tendon, blood, tendon, blood, tendon, tendon, blood, tendon…”
Just as I expected, it was filled with nothing but tendons and blood. Since those ingredients still catch quite a high price on the market, Katalina was diligent in putting all of them inside the inventory. I’ve also heard that not only is there a craze surrounding underwear equipment nowadays, but also much more demand in Ogre tendons and blood, meaning that they don’t have enough supply of it nowadays. She looked happy since there was particular underwear she wanted to make.
Speaking of which, I realized that my underwear durability had fallen quite low at this point. It definitely needed to be changed soon. But since Katalina was the one collecting up all the ingredients now, I didn’t feel any need to gather any myself because I knew that if I did need some ingredients in the future, I could simply ask her to give me a bit.
“… tendon, blood, blood, heart, blood, tendon. That’s all!”
If my ears weren’t playing tricks on me just then, I think she just said ‘heart’.
“Lina?”
“Hm?”
“Did you just say heart?”
“Ah, did I? Oh! There it is!”
My god, is the heart that I’ve never been able to acquire when I was trying so hard back then suddenly appear now in my first hunt of an Ogre as Artoria?
“Oooh, you are really lucky, Ellie!”
Seeing Katalina overjoyed, I couldn’t help but feel a little bittersweet inside.
“It sure seems so.”
