Sword Art Online: Another Reality

Chapter 18: Stylish Bandit Player.

-8:00 PM. Eastern Urbus-

East Plaza of Urbus.

When the bell rang out at eight o'clock, the tireless clanging of the hammer finally stopped.

It was night. Completely. Dark mist shrouded the area; players had begun returning to their inns or base.

Rushing through the gate of the east plaza of Urbus, making his way across the open space avoiding the lighting radius of the streetlamps.

Sharia reached the line of leafy trees planted at the eastern border and put his back to it.

Immediately he did that. His outside system skill, «Stealth,» had already taken effect.

Some variables that affect how effective «Stealth» is are armour type and colour, surrounding terrain and brightness, and, of course, Sharia's own movement.

However…

The area was pretty dark, and there were little people around; this is, of course, helpful and at the same time has another effect.

While he's covered by the dark, he'd have to be silent in his step. And any misstep would mean failure on his part.

But then.

'I can barely hear my own footsteps.'

Unlike Argo's high-level «Stealth» skill. His own was, albeit different, while it doesn't cloak him with semi-invincibility, it grants him just enough.

Enough to trail a blacksmith, that is.

Naturally. It wasn't his style to sneak around and spy on people, but this was a special circumstance. 

As Sharia waited behind the tree, a player-crafter closed up his shop at the eight o'clock bell. 

It was Nezha, of course, the first blacksmith in Aincrad to sell his wares in the street. 

He extinguished the fire in his portable forge and put away the ingots in his leather sack. His hammer and other smithing tools went into a special box. 

He folded up the sign and set it down on an empty spot on the carpet, then straightened out his display of weapons for sale.

Once every object related to his business had been neatly packed on top of the six-by-six-foot carpet, Nezha tapped the corner to bring up a menu screen and hit the "store" button. 

The carpet rolled up by itself, absorbing the countless items on top of it. In just a few seconds, the only thing left was a thin, round tube.

The short blacksmith picked it up easily and hoisted it over his shoulder.

The magic vendor's carpet was always the same weight, no matter what items were locked within its internal storage. 

Naturally, one would think it's extremely broken, no?

One could take it into a dungeon and loot a lot of things, right? However, such an item only works in towns or villages.

On top of that, the tube can't even be put into a player's inventory.

With the magic carpet on his shoulder, Nezha heaved a sigh of exhaustion and started plodding off, head down, toward the south gate of the square.

Seeing that, Sharia got into motion.

It wasn't Sharia that was trailing him over to his side to confront him or beat up the people behind the scam. No.

However, at the very least. He wanted to know where the root of all this stemmed from.

Since he had never dived into progressive, he naturally wanted to know everything about this world.

While Nehza kept on moving, he didn't notice Sharia trailing, nor did he abruptly turn back to make Sharia come to an abrupt halt.

Even then, the sensation of trailing someone was not as the young swordsman would expect.

[Stealth: Lv 2. 400/1,000]

Still. With his outer system constantly improving with the more he got used to it. Sharia continued trodding behind.

… Nezha plodded his way almost to the town walls at the southeast edge of Urbus before stopping at a faintly glowing sign.

The sign clearly said BAR in the light of the oil lamps.

'... I'm not one to judge. There's nothing wrong with having a few drinks after a day of work.'

Though Sharia thought that. He still felt something was out of place.

He wasn't really rushing into the bar as though hungry for a nice cup of ale.

In fact, he stood still outside the swinging door for over ten seconds, as though hesitating to even go inside.

'That's where they are, huh?'

Sharia noted with a nod of his head. Though he could have stopped here and called it a day...

That didn't sound like the best of plans.

'We see this through then.'

Nezha adjusted the roll of carpet on his shoulder, then set a heavy foot forward. 

He put out his hand and slowly pushed the door open. His small form disappeared into the bar, the door swinging shut behind him. 

It only took two seconds—but even at that distance, he could hear voices.

 "Welcome back, Nezuo!"

Sharia moved closer. Putting his ears on the wall, but even then, he could only hear their faint voices.

By nature, all closed doors in the game were soundproof; the only way to hear through them was the «Eavesdropping» skill. 

Even the swinging door, with its wide-open gaps above and below, was no exception.

"Tch. I curse you, Kayaba!"

Sharia muttered under his breath as he let out a frustrated groan. 

"If I don't dream about killing Kayaba in my dreams, then I better not wake up the next day."

Now, there were two options for Sharia.

Give up. Turn back or burst in and unleash madness upon the bar.

"Hm. Now that I think of it. Wasn't there a certain main character who killed bandits for fun?"

Sharia thought with a tilt of his head.

However, he wasn't that numb that he'd kill people. But causing a little mayhem wouldn't, no….?

"Bet."

Sharia didn't need to think about it anymore.

But he wouldn't just go in unprepared. Sharia donned a jacket, hiding many throwing weapons inside the jacket.

It was a stylish jacket—no, was it a jacket? Sorry. It was more like a trench coat, the long type. The color? Of course black.

Then, came a mask with it. A black one. Fitting all black.

Sharia felt ready enough.

Reaching out to the door, Sharia gently pushed open the door a crack. Five degrees, ten—there was no sound from within. 

But once he got it to fifteen degrees, the man's voice from earlier floated up to his ears.

"Might as well chug it, Nezuo! None of the beer in this place actually gets you drunk, anyway!"

In contrast to his statement, he seemed to be plenty drunk already.

It was true that you could drink gallons of beer in Aincrad and never take in a single molecule of alcohol.

But then, it was fairly common for players to get "drunk" depending on the atmosphere of the situation. 

The excited cheers and yelling that floated through the doorway were no different from what could be heard from groups of college students walking through a nightlife district after a few rounds of drinks in the real world.

Straining his ears. 

Sharia heard a timid "okay." in a quiet voice; chattering died down for a moment, only to be followed by an excited cheer and applause.

Using all his AGI stats, he quickly took a quick glance around the bar, and as he did, he had memorised every detail he saw.

There were six of them sitting at the table in the far right corner.

Nezha had his back to the door. The other five all appeared to be fighters clad in leather and metal armour.

"...So, Nezuo, how was business today?"

"Oh...um, I sold twelve new weapons...and got a few visitors for repairs and upgrades."

"Hey, that's a new record!"

"We'll have to scrape together some more ingots!" 

While they were talking, a certain person that had entered the bar had requested an apple juice.

The rest at the bar were too drunk on the atmosphere to notice.

At the same time, stylish bandit player Sharia had been listening.

'So, that's what's up? I basically understand now.'

It was a simple deduction from here forth, and anybody can deduce what's happening.

"...I don't think we can keep doing it," came the sound of Nezha's frail voice.

But in response. Nezha had just been brushed off, if anything.

"–ust fine, you're doing great."

"That's right, Nezuo. Nobody's talking' about it in the least."

"It's too dangerous to keep up. Besides, we've already made back our cost..."

"Are you kidding? We're just getting started. We've got to rake it in so we can catch up with the top players while we're still on the second floor!"

Sharia was one second from shouting, "Aha!" But held himself back.

For some reason, he was oddly itching. Maybe it was now the inner chuuni resurfacing after many years.

An urge to create a new legend! This was the spot and timing!

"...Huh? Hey, look over at that person…."

Finally, somebody pointed at Sharia as he drew in their gazes.

And maybe it was the work of some unknown being. Sharia's lips curled up as he slammed his mug on the counter.

"Who's that guy? Acting all weird and edgy?"

"By the way, he heard our conversation, didn't he?"

"Shit—! Men, Ooooooh—!"

Before any of them could react. Sharia had already smacked the health bars out of the one who looked like their leader with one of his throwing knives.

"Hmph. Weak."

Certainly, Sharia wasn't planning on attacking them.

Prior to now, if they had told him he'd do such a thing, he'd have denied it. But… now… 

"How did things get to this?"

Sharia whispered to himself more in annoyance, if anything.