Sachi wasn’t worried over nothing. In this forest, most monsters were around level 15-17; some of them were even at level 20.
Even Players at level 20 would have a hard time in this forest unless their instinct and technique were good enough.
Under normal circumstances, Keita and his party would never enter this forest. But since Rozen and Kirito were with them, they were fearless.
But even with that being said, the one who dealt with the monster was still Keita and his party. At least compared to Kirito, who simply used Searching to check the surrounding, Rozen did help them.
Just like now…
“Don’t be afraid, use your shield and ram it with all your might.”
Seeing the big horned deer lunging toward him, Tetsuo was startled. He subconsciously lifted his shield to protect himself, but after hearing Rozen’s instruction, he screamed his lungs out and charged toward the horned deer with eyes closed.
“Aaaaaaa…!”
“Bang!”
Before the horned deer landed, Tetsuo’s shield sent it flying as it jumped, and Sachi, Sasamaru, and Keita happened to be near the horned deer’s landing location.
“Use Sword Skill.”
Rozen’s succint instruction allowed these three to immediately respond and use Sword Skill simultaneously.
Under normal circumstances, the simultaneous use of Sword Skill must be avoided to prevent Players from hindering each other’s attack.
However, Rozen seemed to have taken into account the speed and type of Sword Skills they had, so their Sword Skills didn’t hinder each other.
“Psshhhhh!”
Not long after their Sword Skill landed perfectly, the horned deer turned into blue polygon shards and disappeared.
At the same time, Keita and his party received a lot of Exp, and they leveled up.
“Yay!”
“Level up!”
“Awesome!”
Ducker, Tetsuo, and Sasamaru cheered excitedly, even Sachi, who always seemed gloomy smile. Only Keita, who approached Rozen right after.
“Thank you very much. It’s all thanks to your command. As expected of a Player who belongs to the same guild as The Magician.”
Keita sincerely expressed his gratitude.
But…
“These monsters should be easy for Rozen to deal with. Wouldn’t it be faster if you just deal with it yourself?”
Keita looked confused.
Rozen remained silent. It was Kirito who answered Keita’s question instead.
“The clearers are not allowed to kill the monsters in the lower floor.”
For high-leveled Players, killing low-level monsters on the lower Floor was not only considered rude but also an act of hindering other players.
Because the total amount of a monster in each area was fixed. This was one of the reasons why the beta testers were blamed for monopolizing the resources.
If Rozen wanted, he could’ve killed the monsters around there in no more than 5 minutes.
But once a monster was killed, it’ll take some time before it respawned. Therefore, high-leveled Players who killed monsters on the lower Floor could hinder lower-level Players from leveling or doing their quest because they killed the monster too fast, and the lower-level Players had no choice but to wait until the monster respawned.
In order to prevent such a thing from happening, the clearers set a rule that forbade them from killing a monster that resided on ten floors or more from the Floor they were currently at without any valid reason. If anyone violated this rule, all the clearers would be responsible to punish them!
The penalties could be fines, which will be used to compensate lower-level Players who were affected by this selfish act. There’s also a chance that one of the offender’s equipment would be confiscated. In serious cases, they might be expelled or kicked from the clearers or even their guild.
Kirito himself was in this Floor solely to collect the weapon materials, once he did, he’ll leave immediately. Even Rozen deliberately left the fighting to Keita and others because he didn’t want to break this rule.
After all……
“This rule is created by the leader of the clearers and the leader of our guild himself, The Magician.”
Kirito said while grinning.
Moonlit Black Cats’ members were in awe upon hearing Rozen’s words.
“As expected of the clearers’ leader.”
“Those rumors about beta testers being selfish are not entirely true; The Magician is the proof.”
“That’s right.”
Ducker, Tetsuo, and Sasamaru said in succession
Keita even said out of admiration.
“I also heard that Red Wings have been providing the latest information to lower-level Players, encouraging the collective progress of Players. Is this also the instruction of Red Wings’ leader?”
Keita’s question was immediately answered by Kirito.
“Yes.” Kirito said enthusiastically: “I’ve told him times and times again that there was no point to it, people would still do it sometimes if no one’s looking anyway. But our guild leader is adamant about this. Our guild members just said that it was just his pride…”
Kirito was silent all of a sudden, unable to finish his sentence. Because there was a sharp object that almost touched his back.
That was not a weapon, but a projectile, and a high-level projectile no less!
Rozen was standing behind Kirito and pressed a projectile behind Kirito’s back and said.
“I’m sure you know that the projectile I’m holding is a high-level one. Even if your armor is pretty good, i believe there’s no problem in piercing your defense from this range, and by then, the level 4 toxin i smeared on this projectile should do the trick, right?”
Kirito was sweating as he felt something cold behind his back.
“C… calm down, this is outside Safe Zone, I’m sure you know that you’ll become an orange player if that projectile hits me, right? What’s with that level 4 toxin? you sure come prepared, huh?!”
Once a Player was poisoned, their hp will reduce over time at regular intervals until the poisoned status was dispelled, or the duration was up. And the level 4 toxin that Rozen used will definitely cause a lot of hp loss as the duration was quite long, and normal Antidote couldn’t dispel the toxin. To dispel it, Players must use Antidote Crystal. Players below level 30 who were affected by this level 4 toxin would have their hp reduced to the red zone with the toxin alone.
Rozen actually went through all the trouble to coat his projectiles with level 4 toxins.
“Getting this toxin cost me a lot of Cor, be careful not to accidentally bump into it, okay?”
Seeing Rozen smiling with a projectile coated with toxin pressed against his back, Kirito was obedient and quiet all of a sudden.
“Here were! Over there!”
As Ducker shouted, everyone looked excited and immediately ran toward the place that Ducker pointed.
