“Not only did you invite us here today, but you were also the one who discovered how to make a horse stronger. For that, I am very grateful.”
“Oh right, that happened.”
“Yes. And it’s not only me. All knights are thankful for your efforts. If you ever find yourself in any predicament whatsoever, do not hesitate to ask us for help. We will hasten to your aid.”
Rais smiled, but could I believe him? His smile looked super suspicious. That could just be part of his role-playing, but maybe he was actually plotting something behind the scenes.
“Yuto, I know he’s a little odd, but he’s not a bad guy. I hope you can get along,” Siegfried said.
“Huh? Oh, right. I understand.”
“Yes, I very much look forward to working with you, Silver-Haired.”
Rais matched Siegfried’s upbeat energy, but it came across as shady coming from him. But Siegfried had vouched for him...
“S-Same here,” I said.
“Hee hee hee.”
I knew it! I can’t trust him!
Once we were done with greetings and introductions, it was time to get moving. However, in order to get to the raid boss, we first had to get to the Beast Hybrid Village. And since we couldn’t teleport there, we had no choice but to walk.
With Akari and I taking the lead, the entire group marched towards our destination, moving as a pack through the Great Wilderness. Kokuten and the others easily handled the monsters that we encountered on the way. Everyone was just that good. Maybe too good.
“We’ve got company,” Siegfried observed.
“Looks like it,” Sakkyun said. The two of them frowned as they looked behind our group. A large crowd of players was following us. They must have suspected that a group of famous players gathered together meant that something was going down.
Personally, I knew it was inevitable that someone at some point would notice me going in and out of the hidden village. It wasn’t as if I could stop people from looking.
As for Kokuten, he wanted to keep this information confidential for a little while longer. Since it was too difficult to beat the boss in the first try, we would probably be working on fighting it for a few days. We might even be here for a while. Ideally, he wanted us to be the only ones who knew about the village until we beat the boss. I could understand his feelings. If we kept failing and other players started challenging it too, that would put a lot of pressure on us.
Just then, Sawyer pulled out an item that looked like a glowing orb.
“Let’s use this,” he said.
Kokuten must have known what it was. He looked happy to see it. “Well done, Sawyer. So you finally got your hands on the recipe?”
“All in a day’s work.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a new item that makes you disappear from view,” Sawyer explained.
Amazingly enough, his item could turn a group of players invisible for a time, hiding them from view from other players. However, the invisible players could only talk to one another, and they wouldn’t be able to see other players around them, which limited the situations in which the item could be used in considerably. While the item was active, players would completely pass you by without being able to touch or make contact with you. That made it a useful item for hiding information.
“I have enough for all of us, so we should make use of them.”
“Thanks, Sawyer.”
“Yuto, I think you should buy the recipe for this. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of use out of it.”
Sawyer told me that the Quick-Eared Cats were currently selling the recipe, but it was super expensive. Also, since only high-leveled alchemists could make it, the recipe wasn’t selling very well and hadn’t been made known to the general public yet. Most players must have come to the conclusion that it was easier to buy the item from an alchemist, like Sawyer, instead of obtaining the recipe and attempting to make it themselves.
I figured I might just wait until the recipe was made public instead of buying it. If it helped me avoid monsters, I might have been more interested, but it would just hide me from other players. I didn’t really have much information I wanted to hide in the first place.
“I think I’ll wait a bit.”
“R-Really? I’m impressed.”
“Huh? Well, anyway, how should we split up our group?”
The concealment orb could be used on two parties at once. We had five parties, so we would have to split into two groups of two and one lone party. However, it would make leading everyone to the village difficult if our groups couldn’t see one another. We decided to split Akari, Sukegawa, and me into separate teams, since we knew the location of the village.
My monsters and I made up an entire team, so I figured we could just be the solo team, but...
“I’m going with Bear Bear!”
“Oh, I wanna go with the penguin!”
I ended up forming a team at the strong request of some players—that is, Ashihana’s and Filma’s. Well, these teams didn’t really mean anything, so I didn’t mind. In fact, their enthusiasm made the decision easier.
For some reason, KTK, Rais, and Rikyu joined my team too. Kurumi decided to join Kokuten’s team so the tanks could discuss a game plan, leaving Rikyu and Filma with me. She must have decided it best for Rikyu not to join Kokuten’s team, since he found it difficult to be around her. As for KTK and Rais, they just happened to join our group before I even knew it.
I hadn’t had a chance to talk much with either of them, so hopefully we could get to know one another better on the way to the village. Although I wasn’t sure how to connect with KTK. She was a top solo player and she was hard to read, so I needed to work up the nerve to talk to her. Rais, on the other hand, was always smiling, and he had a gentle way about him. Though I also couldn’t help but think he was scheming something or other, so he was also hard to talk to. Still, he was more approachable than KTK.
With that thought, I took a step towards him, when the unthinkable happened.
“Silver-Haired.”
“Hwha?!”
KTK started talking to me first! Wait, but I heard she rarely talked to people outside of her small circle of real-world friends?
“Thank you.”
And now she’s thanking me! But for what? For inviting her to the raid?
“U-Um, Kokuten was the one who invited you, so you should be thanking him.”
“That’s not what I’m thanking you for.”
Then what was she thanking me for? I was pretty sure we hadn’t interacted much at all...
“Thank you for discovering how to get a Japanese-style house.”
“Huh?”
“Thanks to you, I am now surrounded with cats that I can play with every day.”
I had found out how to get a Japanese home a long time ago. I guess it counted as recent news if we were going by real-world time, but why thank me at this point?
“If I had just been invited by Kokuten, I would’ve said no. But I thought this would be a good chance to repay you the favor. I won’t fail you.”
“O-Oh, yeah. We’re in this together.”
“You can count on me.”
Good thing I discovered Japanese homes! But KTK was a top frontline player. She still found time to play with her cats every day...? I guess that was what she did during breaks from fighting on the front lines. In any case, now I knew why KTK had decided to join. Just goes to show, you never know what brings people together.
“Well, bye.”
“O-Oh, okay. Bye.”
Satisfied with getting the chance to thank me, KTK ambled away. As someone who lived with a lot of cats, she seemed to take after them. She did her own thing. And she was just the opposite of someone like Akari, whose friendly demeanor was more like a dog’s.
“KTK is a bit like a cat, don’t you think?” someone suddenly said from behind me.
“Whoa?!” I yelped in surprise. I turned around and saw Rais standing behind me. “R-Rais?”
“Hee hee hee.”
Can Rais read minds? No, that had to be a coincidence...right?
“Rais the knight, at your service.”
“R-Right.”
“And this is my steed, Redbud.”
Redbud whinnied. Of course a dark knight would have a jet-black horse. Even the horse’s gear was black.
“I originally wanted to be a typical knight, but I pulled Redbud here as my horse, so I decided I would aim to become a dark knight. Though it was difficult to abandon my plan to be a paladin who seemed like he could betray you at any moment.”
So he decided to be a dark knight because of his horse! But his job class was still a Knight. He wasn’t actually a Dark Knight or Black Knight yet. When I asked him about that, Rais nodded in acknowledgment.
“Indeed! You see, a Dark Knight or similar job class has yet to be discovered. In fact, no other job classes that align clearly with the ‘dark side’ have been discovered outside of a Dark Tamer.”
“Oh, really?” I asked. As I remembered, Tamers could become a Dark Tamer if they treated their monsters badly. “I wonder, would knights have to...abuse their horses? But who could do that to their poor horse?!”
Although, I could see someone who was so avid about being a dark knight like Rais doing that. What if my careless comment led to Redbud being mistreated? How would I sleep at night?!
“I love my horse, so I would rather not use that method.”
Maybe he is a good guy!
Rais continued. “In other games, a dark knight job can be unlocked by killing a certain number of other players or betraying one’s comrades. If that were possible in LJO, I would certainly do that and more.”
Nope, I was wrong! I need to watch out for him!
“Oh, but I thought I heard there were other ways to become a Dark Tamer?” I asked.
“Yes, other methods have been brought to light recently. Apparently, a Tamer can become a Dark Tamer if they only tame zombies and ghosts.”
“Then there’s probably a similar method for knights to unlock the Dark Knight option.”
“Perhaps it has something to do with what skills one has? Such as having Dark Magic?”
“Hmm, maybe.”
Lilith could use Dark Magic, but it wasn’t known yet how it was acquired. Currently, it was only possible to obtain it at random from a skill scroll.