“Toodles! I’ll be back to take Sally down!”
“Bye-bye!”
They’d chatted for a while; then Frederica took her leave. Maple waved good-bye and wondered what to do next.
She’d planned on grinding a bit, but maybe she should try exploring a different stratum some more.
It was clear there were plenty of undiscovered secrets on previous maps, too.
As Maple dithered, a message arrived—which made up her mind. She left the Guild Home, heading to the meeting place where she found the sender waiting.
“Mii!”
“……That was fast. No other plans?” Mii asked, one eye on their surroundings.
Maple hadn’t really made up her mind what she wanted to do, so she assured Mii her schedule was open and asked for details.
“You wanted me to help out with something? Oh, the poison boss?”
“Nothing like that, no. I’m not really worried about any bosses at the moment. I just found something I think you should see, Maple.”
“Oh? What could that be?”
That alone did not help Maple narrow things down. Mii only said it was somewhere in the first-stratum area, but she hadn’t seen anything that fit the bill following the questline.
“Heh-heh, just you wait and see.”
“All right, then!”
“It’s not too far. Ignis will get us there in no time.”
Mii called her pet phoenix out and Giganticized it, and they flew off.
“So fast!”
“A match for the rental dragons. I leveled it well.”
If they trained their pet monsters properly, they became pretty hard to take down. Rarer monsters had especially good stat gains.
Ignis’s AGI had shot up with every level, and Mii wasn’t wrong—it carried them swiftly across the field, and they were coming in for a landing before Maple knew it.
A dense forest was in front of them. Towering trees, massive trunks—even the vines were thicker than their torsos. In places, those vines wound together, forming paths through the jungle.
“Can’t fly past this point, so we’ll have to walk along the vines.”
“Should I put Martyr’s Devotion up?”
“Yeah, might come in handy.”
“All righty, then!”
This was a field, and if monsters spawned on it, Maple’s defenses would help.
“Flame Empress!” When monsters approached, Mii summoned fireballs, incinerating them. “These monsters are weak to fire, so I was grinding here and stumbled across our destination.”
The mobs there were made of wood and flowers—their elemental weakness was no surprise. Mii’s fireballs were one-shotting most of them.
Maple didn’t need to back her up with gunfire, so she matched her pace, keeping her safe.
Since they were walking on vines, the footing was not very even—she had to be careful not to fall. One eye on the ground, Maple watched Mii go to town. From vine to branch, from tree to tree, across dangling vine bridges, climbing higher and higher.
“This goes way up!”
“If you fall…well, you’ll probably just fly back up.”
“I’ve got Machine God!”
“True. Oh, getting close…there!”
Mii pointed. There was a path made of green leaf-shaped lights leading into the air, and white furballs were bounding about. Mii stepped right up onto the path, walking across the leaves.
“Come on, Maple! This way!”
Mii reached out a hand for her. Maple took a brief run and jumped off the vines.
✦ ✦ ✦
And didn’t go nearly far enough, slipping right through Mii’s grasp.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Maple?!”
“C-Cover Move!”
The skill yanked her out of free fall, and she landed right next to Mii.
“Th-that was close!”
“You scared me half to death. Maybe you’d better follow me that way.”
“Yeah…”
“Let’s try it out. If we take too long, these lights vanish.”
“Got it!”
Mii jumped, and Maple used Cover Move. On they climbed.
Eventually they reached the very top of a tree, and the leaf-light platforms ahead of them formed a descent. Hidden by the leaves of other trees was an old, withered tree, the trunk long since hollow.
“Not much further.”
“Wow…this is wild.”
The platforms took them in a spiral around the trunk to the ground below. The hopping white furballs that had led them this far began bounding even higher—and made a green magic circle on the ground.
As they watched, the circle generated a door to another world. Wreathed in light, the furballs were transported away.
“Let’s step on together, Maple.”
“A secret area?”
“You could say that… You’ll see once we get there.”
Mii was playing coy, and Maple was getting very curious. Hand in hand, they hopped onto the circle. Green light surrounded them, dazzling their eyes…and when that faded, the sights around had transformed.
A forest filled with dappled light. A gentle breeze rustling the leaves. Several paths were before them, and Maple turned to Mii to see which way to go. Then—
“Mrow!”
A cry sounded at their feet. Maple looked down and found a long-haired white cat looking up at them.
Their eyes met, and it bounded toward Maple, landing on her shoulder, then perching on her head.
“Whoa… It’s not gonna fall off, is it?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine…and there’s more coming.”
“Huh?”
“Meow!”
The cat on Maple’s head let out a cry…and the bushes around rustled. More cats came rushing out.
“Wow!”
“Isn’t it great?”
“I’ll say! They’re so cute! Mii, your cat sensor is alive and well!”
“C-cat sensor? Well, I certainly got lucky with this find. Not that hard to get here, either.”
One cat climbed up Mii, and she picked up another. More were milling around her feet.
“……So what sort of secret area is this?”
“……Not sure. A forest cat café?”
“Hmm…”
Mii admitted she’d been here several times but had obtained nothing but spiritual healing.
With the cats following along, she led the way into the woods. Everywhere they went, more cats came out of the brush, following them along.
“Since it’s hidden behind a teleport, there might be some specific requirement to trigger any further events. But I haven’t found a clue as to what that might be.”
“And it’s easy to get to.”
“Right. Anyone could find it if you follow that path. Still…”
Mii considered it for a moment, then smiled happily.
“Even if there’s nothing else here, I’m stoked.”
“Ah-ha-ha, true. You’ve never looked happier.”
They walked on to the music of the cats’ meows. In time, they saw—
“It’s huuuge!”
“Wow!”
A white cat, sleepily stretching in the shade. But this wasn’t like the cat riding Maple’s head.
The scale was totally different.
It was bigger than a house. Bigger than Syrup’s giant form.
Each hair on it was longer than the girls were tall.
“Seems like it should lead to something, right?”
“Totally…”
“But I had nothing better to do, so I’m just here to get buried in its fur.”
With that, Mii walked over to the giant cat and sank into its side with a blissful smile.
“Me too!”
Maple dove in next to her, into the fur’s embrace.
“When this cat wakes up, we’re sent back to the original jungle. Until then, we can relax.”
They chatted awhile, stroking the smaller cats.
“I’m in the eighth-stratum area.”
“Oh yeah? Surprised to hear that.”
The eighth-stratum area was a sunken city. Not the most compatible with Mii’s fire-focused build.
“Everyone’s super focused on exploring, so I figured, best to clear my weakest area while there’s tons of helping hands.”
“Makes sense.”
“But I hear you’ll be out of the game for a while? I’ll miss you.”
“Frederica suggested I could at least come back for time-accelerated events.”
“True…hmm. Then I guess our rivalry will live on!”
“Huh? Is that what you want?”
“Naturally, I’d prefer to play with you. But we don’t plan to keep losing.”
“Then I’ll just do what I can!”
“Yeah. How’s the tenth stratum treating Maple Tree?”
“We’re all working hard to tackle this demon lord! We’ve got one Demon Lord’s Mana.”
“Nice. If you need any help, just say the word. It’d be a shame if you don’t make it in time, and I wanna see which of you is the real demon lord.”
“How so?”
“I mean, the world doesn’t need two.”
“……Am I one?”
“People call you that sometimes. A few of those skills you have are pretty diabolical.”
Maple’s skills and how she used them had earned her that reputation, but it had really taken off lately—largely because of what she’d done in the last event.
“The way you sacked that castle… Wish I’d been there.”
Sacrificing players to summon monsters and demolish the castle. That sounded exactly like the sort of thing a game’s last boss would do.