The ice-blue dragon roared, emitting a deafening cry. Its overwhelming majesty seemed to declare to all the monsters on this land:
[This is My Territory!]
Yusei, holding Shiro, watched the dragon circle in the air once before flying back down, and murmured,
"That should be it."
"The direction pointed by the source necklace is also that way. It should be correct."
Shiro held the necklace, comparing the direction it indicated.
"Then let's go."
"Let us siblings experience the feeling of... dragon slayers."
...
On the first floor of Aincrad, in the wild forest.
In the dense forest, there were monsters appearing from time to time. Compared to the commonly known leveling areas, this place was more dangerous but also offered greater rewards.
Leveling areas usually spawned fixed monsters, with roughly the same experience and drops, suitable for average players to party or solo.
The wild forest, however, spawned both ordinary monsters and mini-bosses, and the spawn locations were not fixed.
Generally, this was a place for players in guilds or coordinated teams to enter. Entering alone was simply too dangerous.
With danger came reward. The resources dropped here were obviously more plentiful than those from monsters in ordinary leveling areas.
At this moment, in the quiet, uninhabited forest, a black-haired girl walked on the soft soil.
Her feet, clad in beast leather boots, stepped on fallen branches, emitting crisp 'snap' sounds.
The girl wore ordinary beast leather armor common among players. Her stunningly beautiful face still carried a look of resentment, and her crimson eyes were full of stubbornness.
"I can do it alone. Who needs you to look after me?"
"Boastful talk. There is nothing that Shinomiya Kaguya cannot master."
The girl muttered to herself as she walked. Suddenly, she stopped and looked towards a rustling spot in the bushes nearby.
"Is this... a monster?" The girl's eyes narrowed. She quickly drew her katana, remaining vigilant.
Despite her 'I can solo SAO' demeanor, she was actually quite cautious about the game's monsters.
Although she wasn't terribly afraid of death and was very strong-willed, why die if you can live?
And she hadn't fulfilled her greatest wish yet. She hadn't even surpassed Yusei. How could she be willing to throw her life away for nothing?
The bushes parted, and a bear over two meters tall emerged, looking fiercely at Kaguya.
A look of excitement appeared on Kaguya's face. Blue light glowed on the katana in her hand.
This was one of SAO's basic sword skills: Thrust.
Without a doubt, this giant bear was a field mini-boss in SAO, representing a large amount of experience and rare item drops.
In a flash of blue light, Kaguya moved swiftly. The katana in her hand directly pierced the giant brown bear's body.
Immediately after, without giving the bear a chance to react, Kaguya unleashed a series of sword skills, quickly killing the bear.
The bear dissolved into data fragments and vanished. A considerable amount of experience and Col flowed into Kaguya's account.
Kaguya's level rose directly by one, reaching level 21.
"Piece of cake. I thought these monsters were supposed to be tough? I can handle them easily by myself, can't I?"
A smile appeared on Kaguya's face as she prepared to go see what items the bear had dropped.
But just then, the bushes nearby rustled repeatedly. One after another, large gray heads emerged.
The smile froze on Kaguya's face. She looked back and saw that she was also surrounded by several large heads from behind.
She... had stumbled into a bear monster den and was surrounded!
To be precise, there were at least twenty bear monsters, each one a mini-boss, comparable to the first floor boss's guards.
The difficulty of this encounter was no lower than tackling the first floor's main boss!
The giant bears roared, seemingly seeking revenge for their fallen comrade, and charged forward all at once, aiming to tear the girl in the center to pieces.
Kaguya resisted with all her might, but it was hard to fight against so many.
Gradually, her stamina was depleted by more than half, and she had only managed to take down two or three bears.
Watching the bears closing in, a trace of dazedness flashed in Kaguya's eyes.
'Was this... the end?'
Whoosh!
The sound of a monster shattering into data rang out, jolting the dazed Kaguya back to awareness. She quickly looked in that direction.
A figure clad in a dark red cloak was dispatching the bear monsters with sharp movements.
The red-cloaked figure moved nimbly. The rapier in their hand was like a flowing light, almost too fast to see.
Those bear monsters that had seemed invincible to Kaguya were quickly being defeated under the attacks of the red-cloaked figure!