The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

Elf War Arc: Chapter 12 - Royal Mission

25 December 2022, 11am

Usco Village, 4th Floor

I stepped into one of the very few inns found in Usco discreetly. The price for a night's stay in here was at a measly 50 col, but that wasn't the reason I arrived in this unknown place of hospitality.

Walking straight to the corridor of inn rooms, which only numbered about 10, I picked a certain door before gently opening it. There sat my elf companion, sitting on the bed while holding her longsword. The quest exclamation mark was floating above her head again.

Legolia looked up at me and said in a surprised tone, " Zenalyth! What a pleasure meeting you here. I have been trying to find you. It must be fate for me to encounter you here in this place."

"Uh, no, it's not fate." I said bluntly. I wouldn't want to tell Legolia that I used the quest navigation system to find and track her exact location just because she's a quest NPC for the Elf War campaign quest.

I closed the inn door behind me. Normally, inn rooms can't be accessed by other players except for the player who rented it. But since this inn room was rented by a quest NPC, and I'm the player associated with the quest NPC in question, the system must have made an exception for that.

Legolia sheathed her longsword right after the inn door clicked shut. She had a serious look on her face now.

Sensing that she's going to explain details of the campaign quest on the 4th Floor, I started on a conversation.

" So, since we.......coincidentally......met in a place that we unlikely would have met in, what kind of mission are you doing in the 4th Floor now?"

" You are right that I am currently doing a new mission. The reason I am in human territory right now is because I am investigating the recent rumors of enemies in places near forest elf territory."

" You mean the forest elf castle near this village?"

" Right. To my people, it is called the Castle of Kales'Oh."

To the map system in my menu, however, the place was simply titled 'Forest Elf Castle'. But it was true that the castle was quite a short distance from Usco. Getting there wasn't easy though, due to the geography of the place. (I've never been there before, so this was what I'd intelligently assumed from the map system)

A quest description window popped out in front of me, along with instructions to head to the Forest Elf Castle. I did what any player would do at this point: touching the 'Accept' button without hesitation.

An hour later, the 2 of us were standing in front of the giant doors of the Castle of Kales'Oh( It seemed pretty plain to call the place 'Forest Elf Castle'). If I didn't have the boat I crafted in one of the quests found in the main city of Rovia a couple of days ago, I wouldn't have gotten to the lake-surrounded castle, let alone trying to travel out of Rovia.

I went on to, as Legolia had phrased, 'seek an audience' from the forest elf superiors in the throne room of the castle. I wasn't sure if they were the royal family of the kingdom of Kales'Oh, but since Legolia had addressed the elf sitting on a high throne at the far end for the throne room as 'Your Majesty', I couldn't bear to not follow her way of speech.

The elf sitting on the high throne explained Legolia's current mission after I got introduced, and added another piece of news that just surfaced today. Apparently the elf watchers of the castle had spotted something suspicious near the edge of the lake surrounding the castle, and they wanted my assistance in the investigation.

Knowing that the investigation was the main objective of this quest, I politely agreed to the request, all while trying not to fidget about in a half-kneeling position beside Legolia. Trying to show respect in front of superiors suddenly seemed a lot more difficult than what I had seen on TV in the real world ( It didn't feel like I was living in the medival times, though).