Chapter 8
The air surrounding the path through the forest was warm. It was almost as if the dark feeling that had been present here last night was just an illusion. The morning sun shined through the branches, making golden pillars of light which butterflies fluttered through. Sadly, these were only visual effects, so you couldn't catch one even if you chased it down.
As she crunched through the soft undergrowth, Asuna said teasingly.
“You are always wearing the same thing.”
Ah.
I looked down at my body: a slack black leather jacket, a pair of pants, and a shirt of the same color. I had virtually no metal armor equipped.
“Well, so what? If you have enough money to spend on clothes, it's better to buy something to eat...”
“Is there a practical reason that you're wearing all black? Or is it just character expression?”
“W-Well, what about you? You're always wearing that white and red thing...”
As I spoke, I started scanning the area by force of habit without even thinking about it. There weren't any monsters around. But—
“I can't help it. This is the guild unifo... huh? Why?”
“Wait a bit...”
I raised my right hand slightly and cut Asuna off. There was a player at the edge of my scan area. As I focused on the area behind me, numerous green cursors started flashing, showing that there were a lot of players there.
There was no chance that they were a group of bandits. Bandits always hunted for players that were weaker than them, so they were rarely seen around the front lines, where all the strongest players were. More importantly, whenever a player committed a crime, their cursor would turn orange and wouldn't turn back to green for a long time. What I was worried about was their numbers.
I called the map from the main menu and put it on show mode so that Asuna could see it. The map of the area was enhanced by my scan and showed the green cursors. There were twelve of them.
“That's a lot...”
I nodded at what Asuna said. Usually when there were too many members in a party, it became harder to fight as a group, so five or six was the typical number.
“Look at that size.”
The crowd of lights that were fast approaching in this direction marched in neat lines of two. Maybe this would happen in a dangerous dungeon, but it was rare to see such a large uniform group on the field.
If we could see the level of the members, we might have been able to guess what they were doing, but players couldn't even see the names of other players that they'd met for the first time. It was a default system that was put in place to prevent players from PKing —player killing— too freely, but it also left us with no choice but to simply guess at their level by appraising their equipment.
I closed the map and glanced at Asuna.
“We'll have to take a look at them. Let's hide behind the trees until they pass by.”
“Yeah, you're right.”
Asuna nodded with a tense expression. We climbed up a small mount and crouched behind a shrub that came up to about our heights. It was a good position to observe the group as they passed by.
“Ah...”
Asuna suddenly looked at her clothes. The red and white uniform was pretty noticeable against the green plants.
