“It feels like it’s been ages since we came here.”
Emily and her party arrived at Staria after parting ways with Ian.
Standing before Staria’s walls for the first time in three days, Emily found herself lost in thought.
When she had left, she had sworn she would never return—but now that she was back, it felt as though she had come home.
At that dreadful feeling, she smiled bitterly.
Just then, Mugi came up beside her and asked cautiously,
“Unni, are you okay?”
“With what?”
“That earring was the one you were originally going to keep, wasn’t it?”
As Mugi said, the earring Emily had handed to Ian was something Emily had intended to use herself once this boss fight was over.
But Ian had survived, and the earring was still hanging from her ear.
It had turned out completely different from the original plan.
Even so, there was no sign of displeasure on Emily’s face.
“As long as we cleared it, that’s enough. She promised to help us from now on, too.”
Emily’s goal, first and foremost, was clearing this damn death game.
As long as they could escape this world, she didn’t care who ended up with what item.
Putting that aside, Emily had something she wanted to ask Mugi as well.
“By the way, what got into you? You were the one who said we should invite her to the party.”
The one who had suggested accepting Ian into the party was neither Emily nor Naira, but Mugi.
Unlike the other two, she didn’t have much of a connection with Ian, so even Emily had been a little surprised when she made that suggestion.
“I was only pursuing efficiency. If that person is with us, she’ll lessen the burden on you, Unni.”
“Well, it would be efficient.”
Two in close combat and two at range.
It was certain they would have more options than before.
On top of that, if it was someone as skilled as Ian, she could take the front line to some extent, which meant they would be able to hunt far faster than they could now.
“Still, it’s fine. I can protect the two of you as much as I need to.”
Emily stroked Mugi’s head.
She had made up her mind from the moment she first picked up a shield.
No matter how hard it became, she would return to reality together with those two.
And that resolve still remained unchanged in Emily’s heart.
Naira slipped in between the two of them.
“What are you two talking about so seriously?”
“Nothing much. More importantly, you two had a nice mood going yesterday, didn’t you? I can’t believe you said something like that, Naira. This unni was also…”
“Eugyaaaak! Wh-what are you talking about, Unni!”
Seeing Naira’s face turn bright red as she raised her voice, Emily burst into laughter.
She had already spent ages kicking her blanket last night because of what happened, only barely managing to fall asleep—and now that memory had been dragged back up again.
Only after she had bounced around and made a fuss for quite some time did Naira finally manage to calm down.
Of course, that did not mean thoughts of Ian had disappeared.
“But what do you think she’s doing right now?”
“Who knows…”
Emily thought of Ian, who had left for Area 2 ahead of them, and said,
“Wouldn’t she be hunting or something?”
But contrary to what she imagined, Ian was currently—
“Haaah… haaah… Wh-why is this so high…”
—struggling up a mountain.
***
If Area 1 was a region made up of fields and forests, Area 2 was a region made up of tall, rugged rocky mountains.
In other words, mountain climbing was inevitable.
Even so, Ian had not been greatly shaken when faced with the masses of rock.
This was a world inside a game.
And with the stamina she had built up after being put through the wringer for a month, she had thought that climbing a mountain would be easy enough.
At least, until an hour after entering Area 2.
“H-how long… am I supposed to keep climbing…”
Her legs trembled.
Sweat poured down like rain, and her breath rose all the way to her throat.
It was rough terrain with no proper path and no trees to hold on to.
In the end, Ian had no choice but to sink down before long.
‘Do I have to keep going through places like this for a while?’
Her head spun.
The height still left to climb was so dizzying that she thought it might actually be better to just fight instead.
‘What even appears in a place like this?’
There were no fields or dense trees where beasts could hide their bodies.
It was not an environment where plants could grow well, either.
Just as she had no idea what sort of enemy she would encounter in Area 2—
“What… is that?”
Looking up at the sky, Ian spotted a small dot.
But what she had thought was a dot gradually grew larger and began closing the distance to her.
“A bird?”
It was a huge crow.
A crow the size of an eagle in the real world came hurtling toward Ian.
[Level 9 Valtor Raven]
“Level 9 right from the start?”
Her first enemy in Area 2.
Ian naturally drew the sword at her waist.
‘Shall I try taking it once?’
In order to deal with the enemies she would face from now on, she needed to gauge its strength.
Ian did not avoid the incoming crow and instead braced her sword head-on.
—Kagagak!
‘Heavy!’
A shock ran through her wrist so strong that she nearly dropped her sword.
But it was not enough that she could not withstand it.
Calmly letting the crow’s charge slide past, Ian immediately swung her sword.
‘But it’s incredibly fast.’
The blade only narrowly grazed past the crow.
In terms of speed alone, it was faster than any beast she had encountered so far.
In the meantime, the crow soared high into the sky again.
Then came another plunge.
Ian rolled out of the way of the gliding crow.
‘At times like this, if Naira or Miss Mugi were here…’
They could pour arrows and magic into the oncoming crow, then use the opening when its stamina dropped to deal a fatal wound.
But that was a method Ian, a solo player, could not use.
‘I have to aim for the moment it gets close.’
With no means of ranged suppression, that timing was the only moment she could land an attack.
She had to strike its vital point precisely to kill it in one blow.
But Ian was confident.
Counterattacks were the very specialty that had allowed her to survive in this world until now.
The crow approached rapidly.
It was close enough to reach if she stretched out her hand.
Ian twisted her body at the very last possible moment and brought her sword down toward its neck.
“Slash!”
—Swaak!
The crow’s head and body split apart.
Scattering blood as it rolled down the rocky mountain, it flapped its wings a couple of times, then stopped moving entirely.
“Phew.”
Taking a deep breath, Ian sheathed her sword and was able to roughly guess what sort of enemies would appear in Area 2.
“So this time, it’s flying-type beasts…”
In a place without forests or fields, the only place from which one could target a player’s blind spot was the sky.
Sensing that this area would not be easy either, Ian began walking again.
***
People are called creatures of adaptation.
That is because no matter how barren the land may be, people find a way to live there.
The same was true even for Area 2, which was made up of rocky mountains.
After walking for about two more hours and reaching the summit, Ian was able to see a settlement spread out in a basin.
“So that’s where I’ll be staying for the time being.”
Unlike Staria in Area 1, there were fences to keep out outside intruders, shabby wooden buildings that looked as though they would collapse at any moment if wind and rain swept through, and more.
Rather than a city, it felt more like a tribal village.
It was an environment far inferior even to the village she had stayed in until yesterday.
But it was not as though she could return to Area 1 now.
Ian descended the slope and arrived at the village entrance.
“Lundel, huh… It’s better than it looked from far away.”
The name of Area 2’s great city(?) was Lundel.
From above, it had looked like some kind of shantytown built from planks, but seen from below, it was more organized than she had expected.
Not that she had any desire to settle down here for days on end.
Ian walked into Lundel.
There were more people in Lundel than she had expected.
Perhaps they had not arrived yet, but she could not see any players. Still, there were more NPCs than in the rural village of Area 1.
People clapping their hands as they called out for customers to buy their goods.
Women chatting in the street.
Even children playing house while swinging wooden sticks.
As Ian walked along, gazing at them with curiosity, the NPCs naturally looked at her with intrigued eyes as well.
In a village where neighbors all knew one another, the presence of a stranger stirred both curiosity and wariness.
Was that why?
An old man walking down the street blocked Ian’s path.
“Who are you? An adventurer?”
“I’m Ian. I came from Staria down below.”
“Staria?!”
The old man’s eyes went wide at the name Staria.
Not only that, but even the people around them looked at Ian with startled faces.
Ian was flustered by the sudden change in their gazes.
She couldn’t exactly say Area 1, so she had only given the city’s name, Staria—yet this was their reaction.
Feeling that something was off, Ian took a step back.
But before she could move, the old man approached her with a speed unlike an elderly person’s, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her.
“Is, is that really true?”
“Yes. Is there some kind of problem…?”
Had they perhaps fought a war with the people of Staria in the past?
Was he going to retaliate?
As such thoughts ran through Ian’s mind, the old man suddenly sank to the ground in front of her and began to weep.
“Ah, aah… Finally…”
“E-elder?”
The old man looked up at Ian and raised both hands over his head.
“O savior.”
“What?!”
Ian doubted her own ears.
But at the old man’s following words, she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Please, save us.”