The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

PK Pandemonia Arc: Chapter 52 - Drifter's Interview

15 January 2024

Ant Hill Dungeon, 47th Floor

The light that shone onto my right cheek persisted relentlessly, as I tried to block it loosely with my right hand. My hooded longcoat was coloured in different shades of silver, as the shadow of my hand formed quite the random pattern on its simple design.

Being on a cliff which stretched out from the mountainous hill, the terrain scenery of the northern half of the 47th Floor greeted me, amid only the safe zone settlements catching my eye.

Unlike the other Floors, the 47th Floor wasn't one to boast of much natural structures, such as valleys and mountains. Only the Ant Hill could be considered as such, but the creepy crawlies that endlessly spawn there didn't make the field dungeon seem as natural as it would be.

But because of that, it became the perfect place for players to speed up on their EXP grinding.

Enemy mobs that are fragile to even a single slash of the sword, plus they come in swarms. No middle-leveled player would get into serious trouble there.

I leaned sideways, with my left arm lightly pressed onto a barrier, which traced the edge of the irregularly shaped cliff, bordering off from the drop that was more than enough to kill a player with just fall impact damage alone.

As I turned my head from the scenery, a female player strolled towards me, her right hand swiping through the floating windows in front of her. Her armour was a simple set of chestplate and knee pads, the kind that was pretty common in the lower Floors. Her sword was sheathed at her waist, swinging back and forth with every step she took.

In the distance, a few more players were sitting on regularly sized boulders behind her. A couple more girls were in the group, chatting away with the guys.

In a normal 7-player party, it was relatively common to see no more than 2 female players. Naturally, seeing 3 of them today was a rare occurance.

I wasn't saying that female players couldn't fight as well as male players do, but most of them preferred to stay out of the fighting, and preferred to level up non-combat skills instead.

They are a common sight as blacksmiths or other safe zone jobs, but there are always exceptions that seemed to like the thrill of combat as much as the guys do.

I've known a few of those exceptions that surprise me every now and then, so much so that I could just eliminate the stereotype of feminity altogether.

But then again, the world we players live in is a world where we were given a chance to become what we desired to be with the touch of the amazing phenomenon known as the system menu. Anyone can easily be as powerful as they can be, as long as they simply knew how to use it to its fullest.

"Am I interrupting you?" The female sword user asked, still behind a system window as she stepped over into the cliff area.

"Not at the moment." I replied. "But I'm waiting for the breeze that doesn't seem to ever come..."

I turned to her, while absent-mindedly turning onto my double bladed spear on my back, feeling the sudden bump.

"You feel hot also, right?" I straightened myself up as I asked.

"Yeah, I guess..." The girl looked at the sun in the eastern direction, as if it was sandwiched like an egg between the underside of the 48th Floor above and the surface of the 47th Floor below.

Her system window was still there, seemingly waiting for its owner to do whatever she wanted on it. I was starting to wonder how long she would need to use her system menu for.