(SAO x Reader) Sword Art Online: Incendiary Chaos

Chapter 3

It had been a month now since the start of the game. No progress had been made since then. The most that the players have done is get through two floors of the dungeon. And according to the beta testers, there are three floors total before the boss room. It was already starting to feel like a long climb.

Since then, Argo, Lisbeth, and I have all leveled up past level 5. The leveling system is purposely limited and slow to control for the pacing of 100 floors. But just because leveling was slow, doesn't mean it was impossible.

Supposedly, all those that are doing dungeon raids are already above level 7. How they got there is beyond me and probably took a lot of dedicated grinding. But having level 7 players fighting for us on the front lines is good.

"Hey Chevalier." Lisbeth said. "Don't you think it's... about time we moved to the front lines?"

I was a bit surprised at first. Lisbeth was the one who wanted to stay back and let the others take care of it, just a month ago. But now she was pushing me to take us here. I put my hand on my chin and thought about it. "Hmm... maybe... I suppose it might be about time to enter the dungeon with everyone else."

Argo spoke next, "Yeah, I agree. All we've really been doing for these past 3 weeks or so is quests and grinding. I think a bit of dungeon exploration will do us good."

"Right... why don't we head over then?" I said. Getting to the dungeon was rather simple. It didn't involve any complicated quest lines or tough enemies. For the first floor, getting to the dungeon just involved a long walk over to the massive tower sprouting out into the sky.

It certainly wasn't hard. But it took a while. By the time we got there, it was already getting late. "Who knew that our walk would take hours?" I said, slightly tired from how long we traveled.

"Ugh... if I knew it would take this long, I would've slept in at the inn for a while." Argo said with a sigh.

"Oh, didn't you guys bring camping supplies?" Lisbeth asked. Both of us turned around to her, a bit in shock.

"O-oh... I saw that in my crafting window... but I thought I'd never need it..." I said. Argo seemed to be in agreement.

"Oh, well I thought it would be handy, considering how far we were traveling. Where did you think we'd stay when night came?" She asked.

"...I guess I didn't anticipate that." I said, rubbing the back of my neck a bit.

Lisbeth seemed to hesitate for a moment, before getting a huge smile on her face. "In that case, I'll help you craft it! I've always wanted to go camping. And I guess this'll be a good substitute."

"Wait, don't you need a crafting table to make those camping supplies?" I asked.

Lisbeth smiled and sarcastically snickered a bit to herself. "Well, I've actually started investing into the Blacksmith skill tree. With this, you'll all soon be bowing down to me! For with these skills, I can craft items on the go!" She said while striking a jokingly confident pose.

"Ooh! Crafting on the go? That sounds pretty useful!" I said with a smile.

"Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about that ability." Argo said as she thought about it for a moment. "In that case, why don't we make sure we have all of the materials we need for it?"

"Oh, I actually have a lot of extra materials. So I should be able to create any other simple camping items we need. Heck, we could even just sleep without any gear in a dungeon safe zone. But doesn't camping sound more fun?" Lizbeth said.

It's true. Camping, despite being somewhat mundane, can actually be a very important part in the game. Resting is something that can be necessary after a long mission. And when you're inside a tent, the aggro that monsters need to target you is actually altered so that you're unlikely to get attacked while you sleep.