After Akimi and the other two guys finished preparing the materials for the bleach agent, Kio somehow brought out a furnace from who-knows-where.
She then poured all the juice from the Narsos fruits and the Uruz stones into a silver basin, lit the fire beneath the furnace, and placed the basin over the flame to start heating it.
"Now we just need to boil it for three hours. Kio will handle the monitoring," Nirrnir said casually while sipping red wine—apparently, she wasn't fond of tea.
Not long after taking a sip of it earlier, she had gone to the wine cabinet nearby and fetched a bottle of red wine.
After chatting idly for a while, Nirrnir suddenly seemed to recall something.
Narrowing her eyes with a smile, she turned to Argo and the other two girls and said, "How about trying out the casino's grand bath?"
As soon as Asuna heard the words "grand bath," her eyes lit up, and she started nodding rapidly like a pecking chick.
Argo and Kizmel had no objections either.
So, the girls decided to head to the casino's large bath together.
As for the three guys… well, the casino only had one grand bath.
There's no way they could go in with the girls, right? (Anyone who says otherwise—drag them out and interrogate them thoroughly.)
After some discussion, Akimi and Kirito decided to explore the casino area, while Yu Wenjun seemed to have other tasks and left on his own.
As soon as they entered the casino, Akimi and Kirito spotted a familiar figure—tall, with medium-length golden hair tied into a small ponytail… it was Hafner, the DKB vice-leader who had fought alongside them against the fifth-floor boss.
Right now, Hafner was intently focused on the dice cup being shaken by the dealer NPC at the table, muttering under his breath, "Big, big, big…"
Akimi and Kirito exchanged glances and grinned mischievously.
The two silently crept up behind Hafner, then simultaneously clapped both of his shoulders with just enough force and shouted, "What are you up to, Hafner?!"
Hafner, who had been completely absorbed in the dice cup, was startled.
He stiffly turned his head, and when he saw it was Akimi and Kirito, he let out a sigh of relief, only to grit his teeth and complain, "What are you two doing—geez!"
"So, Hafner, why are you at the casino alone?" Akimi glanced around curiously.
Hafner spread his arms and said, "The rest of the guild is out doing quests."
Hearing that, Akimi teased, "Looks like your teammates ditched you, so now you're all alone playing around in the casino, huh?"
"Don't talk nonsense!" Hafner rolled his eyes at him and added, "I'm very well-liked, okay? I'm at the casino because I have other work to do."
Akimi pointed at the pile of chips in front of Hafner on the table. "You mean this is the work you're doing right now?"
Hafner scratched his head and stiffly said, "It's not about gambling! There's this rumor that before the Monster Arena starts, if you place small bets around here, that guy who sells secret manuals will show up… Alright, alright, stop asking already, there's nothing more to say."
But Akimi and the others weren't going to be brushed off that easily—having just caught wind of key intel, how could they possibly give up now?
"The secret manual seller you mentioned… is it that NPC old man, Lexucio? Where did this rumor come from?" Kirito asked.
Apparently surprised that they even knew about that, Hafner looked shocked and said, "Hey, hey… how do you guys know about that?"
"Don't worry about that right now. Just tell us what's going on."
Under the pressure from Akimi and Kirito, Hafner visibly grimaced and reluctantly said, "We don't really know where the rumor came from. Someone just said they heard about it—so it might be fake, okay?"
Then he extended a finger and pointed to the other side.
"Look over there—the ALS guys are here too."
Following Hafner's finger, Akimi and Kirito saw Salmon Roe, the trident-wielder from ALS, at another gaming table.
"So… DKB and ALS are both gambling in the Monster Arena today?" Akimi asked, a bit stunned.
Hafner rubbed his nose and pointed to the showcase in the center of the casino, where a dazzling golden longsword was on display.
He said solemnly:
"It's not that we haven't learned our lesson… You've all seen the stats on that sword, right? That kind of game-breaking effect… it's not just one-handed sword users—any player using any weapon would be tempted. Even if we reach the tenth floor, that sword's absurd stats would probably still make it stand out among all the weapons."
Indeed, Kirito had been eyeing the Sword of Volupta for a long time; and Akimi would definitely be tempted too—if he didn't already have the Nichirin Blade.
Kirito shrugged and said, "By the way, didn't you guys follow that so-called Sure-win Manual book to the letter yesterday, and end up losing all your chips in the final round?"
Hafner: "?"
Hafner: "!"
"How do you know that in such detail?!"
Hafner wasn't surprised that they knew DKB had lost—but how did they know the specifics so clearly?!
(Shivata: Don't look at me, I only told Liten about it.)
After patting his own face a couple of times, Hafner seemed a bit defeated.
He waved his hand dismissively, not wanting to talk anymore, and swatted at Akimi and Kirito a few times.
"Alright, enough! Just leave it alone… I still have to lure that secret manual seller out, so I don't have time to chat with you two."
Akimi and Kirito exchanged a look and didn't press further—they simply left the casino.
Even though they already suspected that the one selling the manuals was most likely someone from the Korloy family, there wasn't much point in telling Hafner and the others about it.
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