Sky World Vol 1 Chapter 2.09

VOLUME 1

Chapter 2: The Quest
Part 9

The day after Jun joined up with Kasumi Yukasaki and Eri Inui.

Jun, on his way down the stairs, smelled an extra savory breakfast.

Kasumi had borrowed the kitchen and was cooking.

“Hey Kasumi, do you remember exactly what you did during the Birthday?”

Eri grinned widely at him.

“Hmm&h.e.l.lip; I think I was learning how to cook in a world without even gas ranges. &h.e.l.lip; Everybody was sighing, stumped about how to go about making delicious and healthy food.”

“&h.e.l.lip; Such a saint&h.e.l.lip;”

“How pa.s.sionate!”

Jun and Eri exchanged glances and smiled. They saw how much fun Kasumi was having. She was humming.

Kasumi’s cooking was incredibly delicious.

The dressing, gently slathered onto the salad, was made from her own original recipe. She baked bread, churned milk into b.u.t.ter to be used as a spread, and used some Altaria Berries to craft a sweet jam. Jun took a deep breath, enamored with Kasumi’s wonderful cooking.

“You’ve surely been cooking for a long time.”

“I guess. &h.e.l.lip; Anybody want seconds?”

Jun’s group had reserved the barroom.

Since Kasumi and Eri had some muscle pain in the morning, they ended up using the inn as a cla.s.sroom.

In any case, no other guests were in the barroom . They sat in a circle.

“Before we start, I’d like to take a look at your status window. Can you show me your tablet?”

“Humph, so you can know our dirty secrets?”

“Eri. We’re trying to make the most of our time. Enough with that.”

“I’m just kidding! Please take a look at my status window.”

When he received Eri’s tablet, Jun examined her items. Earlier, she hadn’t been carrying anything of much value. Compared to that of people on other islands, her defense power was awfully low.

“It’s kind of shabby, right?”

“That’s just cause you’re a white magician fighting alone. Support personnel have to stay with their groups. &h.e.l.lip; Hmm. Hold on a sec.”

Jun tapped his tablet and his infinite capacity bag appeared. Items stored inside would not drop even on death. Items could be withdrawn from and deposited into it.

However, it could only be used in safe places such as inside an inn. Consequently, players adventuring outside of those areas had to acknowledge the risks and limit themselves to necessary items.

“&h.e.l.lip; How’s this?”

Jun opened his bag and took out a few items. Some were quest rewards. Others were monster drops. Some were even items that he just happened to be lucky enough to find lying randomly on the ground. Even though they were much better suited for other cla.s.ses, for some reason, Jun had kept them all this time.

“Hmm&h.e.l.lip; that should be good. Hey, uh, Jun&h.e.l.lip; this item’s rarity is 7.”

“There aren’t any rare items until the 5th island ring. If you take a few items from this island and use them in conjunction with each other, you should be able to double your defense. If you’re lucky enough to get an item with enmity reduction, it’ll make healing much easier.”

“Thanks so much&h.e.l.lip; but&h.e.l.lip; this is making me feel like a beggar.”

“If you really feel indebted to me, why don’t you return the favor and do my bidding?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m your servant. Master, do you have any orders?”

“Anyways, Kasumi-san. Here’s some equipment that can help increase monsters’ enmity for you.”

“You’re ignoring me! I offered to do your dirty work!”

“You should never run away or allow the back lines to be targeted. From now on, you should start getting used to being very careful.”

“OK! I’ll try my best!”

Kasumi then handed over her tablet and Jun a.s.sessed her stats.

“Humph&h.e.l.lip; You’re using a weird skin.”

When battling in MMORPGs, one had to manage many little pieces of information and act accordingly. For that reason, if a player found the game interface at all uncomfortable or confusing, it was common for that player to use a different skin to help present the information more clearly or in a more manageable way. Jun used his own customized skin.

“Uh, Sakuya-chan said that I should use this one&h.e.l.lip;”

“Your friend, huh. I get it. It could make the information much more organized. Lemmie take a look at the source code&h.e.l.lip;”

After a cursory look-through, Jun dropped his jaw.

“Yep. It does make information more organized and easier to understand.”

“Huh?”

“Eri doesn’t even have this skin. Eri only uses a default skin. The icons on her screen are too big, and the damage window isn’t very well organized. You probably haven’t noticed this, but this skin is far superior in many ways. This makes me wonder about the kind of person that close friend of yours is&h.e.l.lip;”

“Oh, I get it. &h.e.l.lip; uh, how does one transfer a skin?”

“Just have your tablets facing each other and use infrared data transfer. The file’s not too big&h.e.l.lip; Hey, is it fine if I play around with it a bit?”

Knowing how defenseless Kasumi was, Eri hastily shouted, “Hey! Wait! Don’t ever tell your pa.s.sword to anybody else!”, and s.n.a.t.c.hed Kasumi’s tablet away from Jun.

“Jun, I’m disappointed in you! How could you want to know this young lady’s secret information!?”

“What? Wait! I was just going to return her tablet so she could type in her pa.s.sword herself.”

“Okay. I understand&h.e.l.lip; Kasumiiiiii~”

Kasumi didn’t really understand what was happening, and looked on in confusion.

“Uh&h.e.l.lip; did I do something I shouldn’t have?”

“You did!”

Eri thrust her index finger at Kasumi and said, “Just listen to me.” Kasumi had been tilting her head sideways, confused.

Kasumi kneeled down, and Eri, her arms on her hips, explained the basic principles of keeping personal information private.

“&h.e.l.lip; For starters, don’t tell anybody else your pa.s.sword. If your pa.s.sword includes your real name or your birthday, change it immediately. In this world, if somebody who knows your pa.s.sword manages to get his hands on your tablet, your life could be threatened!”

“Right. I understand. &h.e.l.lip;But Eri-chan and Jun-chan, you would never do anything like that.”

“You never know. Boys can be ferocious and bloodthirsty.”

“I think it’s quite likely that Eri would be the one to mess around with it.”

“Maybe to other people I would. If I knew your pa.s.sword, I’d certainly do it. &h.e.l.lip; I’d never do it to Kasumi though. She’s too much of a saint to even think about it.”

“You little&h.e.l.lip;”

“I don’t think you should be saying things like that.”

“&h.e.l.lip; The two of you are pretty good friends, huh.”

Kasumi laughed at their back-and-forth.

Eri made eye contact with Jun and chuckled.

Jun thought, “That’s right. We’re nothing but just three acquaintances on this island. Could we possibly become good friends?”

Once they made it off the island&h.e.l.lip;

He glanced at Kasumi. What would she do? About the relations.h.i.+p between us three.

And if what she said was true&h.e.l.lip;

VOLUME 1

Chapter 2: The Quest
Part 1

Back in the real world, Eri Inui had no friends.

Well, some people may have thought of her as a friend, but she felt like she had none.

Coined by shy people who were not very good at making friends, “riaju” was a j.a.panese Internet slang word for young people who were happy with their lives and lived them to their fullest, such as normal high school students who spoke with their friends, got into relations.h.i.+ps, and were active members of their communities.

On the outside, Eri was one of these “riaju,” or at least she was very good at pretending to be one.

Deceiving others came very easily to her. She talked to her cla.s.smates in school, responded to text messages, and created harmless friends.h.i.+ps. Eri knew that she was good at that.

The only place where she could express her true self was on the Internet. On online games, even if she was hated for voicing her real opinions or if she was the target of hara.s.sment, ceasing to play games would cause her interpersonal relations.h.i.+ps to end.

She felt like she could not be herself anywhere but on the Internet.

One of her friends from another MMORPG invited Eri to join Sky World. An MMO whose client was only spread by word of mouth was very suspicious, but after checking out the client on many different Internet services to make sure that it was not a malicious file like a worm or a Trojan, she tried starting the client.

The day after Eri first connected to Sky World was the Birthday.

That day, Eri, tucked tightly in bed, opened her eyes, looked around, and found herself alone in a different world.

Fortunately, she was invited into the guild called the Crimson Scarf Knight a.s.sociation.

s.h.i.+roko, the leader of that guild, treated her nicely, and Eri thought that her scent was like that of somebody she knew in real life. She said, “Let’s relax and make friends with each other on this island.” In other words, it seemed like she just wanted to build up a close-knit community.

“Relax[ing]” was one of the guild’s main selling points. In reality, s.h.i.+roko only wanted to be in a position of authority. She could not let her guard down around anybody like Eri.

The only exception to that was one month ago when a beautiful young girl, Kasumi Yukasaki, who did not know much about this world, “fell from the sky.”

Eri remembered how they first met pretty well. Eri and the rest of her guild were busy near the bind stone in the forest preparing for the raid.

“Well, until the next airs.h.i.+p comes, let’s be friends!”

Kasumi shook her head quietly.

“Please allow me to look for ways to get off the island without waiting for the regularly scheduled airs.h.i.+p.”

There were no other ways. Soon, s.h.i.+roko realized what Kasumi was really trying to say. She would not spend any time slacking off. She was the type of person who, even if there were only just a tiny possibility, would devote all of her energy towards whatever she had in mind.

Before long, she discovered a way to leave the island. There was an empty airs.h.i.+p hidden somewhere, but it would be very difficult to reach it.

s.h.i.+roko took care of Kasumi, but did not really want to help her achieve her goal of escaping from the island. Doing something like that could result in the collapse of “s.h.i.+roko’s insular community.” Her paradise would come to an end.

Because of that, s.h.i.+roko did not really try to bring Kasumi to the empty airs.h.i.+p.

Kasumi Yukasaki did not pick up on that. She desperately wanted to help out. Conflicted, Eri wondered about her.

Then a lone boy showed up. He killed the Dread Sphinx on his own. That development could possibly pose a threat to s.h.i.+roko’s plan.

She still didn’t know whether he could be trusted&h.e.l.lip;

Eri prepared herself for the worst.

VOLUME 1

Chapter 2: The Quest
Part 10

There was something Jun had been hiding from Alice.

That was the real reason he accepted Kasumi’s request and stayed on the island to train her.

“My close friend, Sakuya-chan, is a very interesting person.”

The day Jun killed the Dread Sphinx, Kasumi visited Jun in the inn, and after having kneeled down to ask for Jun’s a.s.sistance, smiled exuberantly.

“She always said, ‘You can’t wait to make it past this wall. You have to take fate into your own hands. Whenever a chance arises, you have to jump at it, no matter what. You can’t let a good chance go&h.e.l.lip;’ ”

Those words&h.e.l.lip;

No doubt about it. That player had to have been&h.e.l.lip;

(That’s Kai!)

Jun s.h.i.+vered.

(Those words&h.e.l.lip; There’s no doubt about it. It has to be Kai! He is in Sky World after all)

He had been looking for Kai this whole time. He was getting a bit disappointed in the lack of any clues about his whereabouts.

Now Jun was that much closer to finding Kai.

“I thought meeting you, Jun-san, would be a good opportunity. I know I may be a bother to you&h.e.l.lip; but&h.e.l.lip; please&h.e.l.lip; help this powerless me.”

In saying this, she once again bowed down her head.

Behind her, Jun saw a vision of Kai.
He now knew how to go about succeeding in his goal &h.e.l.lip; his [quest[/.

He just had to help Kasumi Yukasaki get off this island.
‘Uh&h.e.l.lip; Eri-chan. Jun-san said you should come with us&h.e.l.lip; Is that fine?”

“He noticed what I did&h.e.l.lip; huh.”

‘Eri-chan, that was only a little push.’

“Well, either way, I did that. &h.e.l.lip;Ok, I’ll go.”

They did not intend to stay in such a rotten guild for much longer.

“I’ll go tell him. Thanks!”

Now, she understood. Eri was the one who pushed her onto Jun.

Even now, after finding that out, she did not change her mind about anything.