After the helmet turned into particles of light and disappeared, it revealed the face of a girl underneath.
This girl had orange-tinged hair, slightly upturned eyebrows, and a sweet, adorable face.
Seeing the girl in front of them, Akimi and Kirito were both a bit surprised—after all, the stark contrast between heavy steel armor and a petite, cute girl was rather... gap moe, perhaps?
The girl opened her mouth and spoke in a crisp voice:
"I understand. I'm willing to trust you. And... I also want the event that Shivata and I have worked so hard to prepare for to go smoothly."
Hearing the girl's words, Shivata's face lit up with a foolishly infatuated expression—it looked like he was deeply moved by what she said.
Looking at the girl named "Liten," Akimi asked,
"Miss Liten... that's correct, right? May I ask, when did you join ALS?"
"December 22nd. Someone from ALS approached me and invited me to join."
Akimi stroked his chin and said,
"The second day after reaching the fourth floor, huh…"
As if something had occurred to him, he furrowed his brow and looked at Kirito.
Kirito also had a strange expression.
The two exchanged a glance and subtly nodded at each other—something was off.
That suspicious point was Liten's steel plate armor—this kind of equipment is very hard to obtain on the lower floors.
NPC shops don't sell it, and monsters don't drop it either, so it could only have been forged at a blacksmith's shop.
In SAO, if you want to get metal materials, you can only mine them in mineral veins or search for them in ruins like Mananarena.
After obtaining ore, it must be taken to a blacksmith shop for smelting.
The ore can be smelted into either metal plates or ingots—a single metal plate requires two pieces of ore, while a single ingot requires four.
To get steel ingots, you have to refine iron ingots again—one steel ingot requires six iron ingots.
And to craft a full set of plate armor, you need at least sixty steel ingots, which means you'd need around 1,440 pieces of iron ore.
The problem is, based on the settings during the beta test, a single vein might only yield about a dozen ores, and there aren't many veins to begin with.
Getting over a thousand ores on the fifth floor is practically impossible.
"This might be a bit forward, but... Miss Liten, may I ask how you got that plate armor?" Kirito asked.
"I had a friend forge it for me," she replied.
"Which means—" Akimi picked up, "Miss Liten, you gathered over a thousand iron ores yourself?"
The atmosphere instantly became awkward.
Shivata looked at Liten with some concern and said,
"Ricchan... Liten, isn't that your secret? Are you sure it's okay to tell them?"
Liten smiled and nodded,
"It's fine. I trust Tomioka-senpai and Kirito-senpai, since you were among the first to join the clearing team."
She then shifted her tone, speaking more seriously:
"But I still hope you both can keep it a secret for me."
"Of course," both Akimi and Kirito replied.
"I left the Starting City about a month ago. This is my first time playing a VRMMO, but since I've played online games before, I didn't want to just sit around in town waiting for others to clear the game—I wanted to be part of it myself."
"Although compared to Shivata, and you two, Tomioka-senpai and Kirito-senpai, I started out much later. Later on, I acquired the skill 'Heavy Metal Armor,' so I put in a lot of effort to gather and complete my gear."
Hearing her words, Akimi was a bit surprised:
"So you planned to be a tank right from the start?"
"That's right," Liten replied.
"In most of the games I've played so far, I've always taken on the role of a tank. At the beginning, I hunted low-level monsters like boars around the Starting City to save up Col."
"It took me a lot of effort just to buy a copper chainmail from the shop. I thought that would finally let me move up to the higher floors, but I could never find a party willing to let me join. They all said they couldn't trust a female tank."
"Maybe out of frustration, I decided to head to the frontlines alone, mining ore to prepare my own armor at the same time."
Kirito spoke with some admiration:
"So you really gathered all the ore for your entire armor set by yourself? That's incredible—mining over a thousand pieces of ore on your own."
Liten fell silent for a moment, and only after a while did she speak again:
"It's true I mined all that ore by myself... but it's not something I'm particularly proud of..."
Everyone was momentarily stunned.
"Back when I was leveling near Marome Village on the second floor, I found a vein of ore embedded in a cliff wall in a small mountain valley. So I started mining it as usual."
"I thought it would yield maybe seven or eight pieces, as usual. But the vein just... wouldn't run out. At first, I thought I had stumbled upon a rare, large vein. But by the time I had mined over a hundred pieces of ore, I began to realize what was going on... it was an infinite spawn bug."
The other three listening were visibly shocked.
Players who exploit bugs are referred to as 'Glitchers', and if discovered by the developers, their accounts are usually subject to rollback or bans.
It was now obvious: the fully armored Miss Liten had taken advantage of that bug.
She gave a bitter smile and said,
"At the time, I just couldn't control myself at all. All I could think was, 'Just a little more…' I ended up mining there for about half an hour, gathered most of the materials I needed, and then... the place collapsed."
"But back then, the second floor was full of rumors about enhancement scams, so I got scared and didn't immediately bring the ore back to town."
"Later, I messaged a blacksmith friend of mine—she's a girl too. She told me this wasn't the time to hesitate, that surviving in this game was more important than anything. I thought she made a good point, so I asked her to help me transport the ore to Marome Village. Thankfully, no one noticed, and we managed to smelt all the ore into ingots."
"Then I commissioned her to forge the gear. She initially said that due to her low forging skill, the success rate might not be great, and suggested I go find an NPC instead."
"But I insisted—I really wanted her to be the one to make it. So in the end, the two of us spent the whole night forging the equipment together."
Liten showed a joyful smile—it seemed her blacksmith friend was truly a great person.
The events that followed were just as the group had guessed:
Liten, now equipped with a rare full set of heavy metal armor, was invited to join ALS.
Later, during the fourth-floor raid, she met Shivata, and through a series of events, the two developed feelings for each other.
As a couple, they planned this countdown event together in hopes of fostering peace between the two guilds.
Unexpectedly, DKB had been surprisingly cooperative, and ALS had also agreed at first.
But now, ALS had backed out of the deal.
After taking a sip of water, Kirito asked:
"So then, Miss Liten, have you discussed the issue on ALS's side in detail with Shivata?"
Shivata quickly followed up,
"Ricchan, what exactly was that problem with ALS you mentioned yesterday?"
A troubled look appeared on Liten's face.
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