Sword Art Online: Another Reality

[Rewards have been fully calculated.]

[Congratulations.]

[Reward: x30,000 cols, +1 Sword Skill.]

"Phew." Sharia collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

His knees felt incredibly weak as he prayed to whichever god he currently believed in, hoping the python wouldn't enter a second phase.

Maybe it was luck, but whatever it was, Sharia was grateful for it.

"Haah," he sighed through gritted teeth. "I know my luck isn't great, but encountering two in a row is a bad sign."

Sitting up, he took a recovery crystal from his inventory. "Heal."

[Sharia]

[Level 9] — [Level 12]

[45%] — [100%]

Although his health was fully restored, he still felt tired and weary.

'I need better equipment. I'll... ugh, scam Argo when I get back.'

Sharia muttered through his teeth as he got up from the ground, using his steel sword for support.

As he headed toward where the python had disappeared, a menu popped up in front of him.

[Materials received: x20 Centennial Python's Scale, x10 Centennial Python's Fangs, x5 Centennial Python's Poison Sac.]

[Centennial Python's Scale Armor: A B-grade material used to craft tough leather armor. It can be sold to tailor shop NPCs.]

[Centennial Python's Teeth: A B-grade material that enhances weapon sharpness when added during forging. It can also be sold to Weapon Shop and Forge Shop NPCs.]

[Centennial Python's Rare Poison Sac: An A-grade material used to create valuable poison quenching potions.]

[When added during weapon forging, it has a chance to grant poison attribute attacks. It can also be sold to weapon shops and Forge Shop NPCs.]

"Haaah," Sharia sighed angrily before calming down.

He had naturally expected some powerful weapon that would carry him from the lower floors to the middle floors, but then..... there was nothing left.

"Tsk." Clicking his tongue, Sharia spat on the ground.

What had he done all that for? At this moment, he felt life was suddenly harsh on him.

In most scenarios, this should have been an event most newbies couldn't, no, could never clear—Blackie-sensei excluded.

That guy was a walking cheat.

But, Blackie himself aside, this event should have been impossible to clear, unless...

'E-eh.... Don't tell me....' Sharia shivered at the thought. 'Don't tell me this is actually related to a hidden quest?'

Yes! That would explain the difficult boss.

However, what was done was done.

"Haah. At the very least, I took down that boss, right?" Sharia muttered to himself somewhat crazily, his eyes spinning.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized this was a loss on his part.

For the nth time, Sharia felt like cursing Kayaba again. But this time, he thought against it. 'Haah, there is no use in trying to curse that old man.'

He must have had a different mind from birth to satisfy his psychopathic tendencies this way.

'But I can't blame you, Kayaba,' Sharia continued in a daze as he left the temple.

From today on, without his knowledge, Kayaba had once again become the target of a sixteen-year-old boy's frustration.

—In the future, multiple secret and assassination attempts would be secretly carried out on the poor old man, with the cause being Sharia himself—!

After returning to Horunka village, Sharia realized that with the cols he currently had, he could live leisurely.

However, that wasn't his modus operandi.

In a few days, he would head into the labyrinth and start exploring.

From there, he would continue his business with Argo, selling map data to her while also receiving information about the floors above.

Sharia also thought about his future attitude towards Blackie-sensei.

If possible, he wanted to be on friendly terms with him.

It didn't hurt to have a strong friend on the sidelines. Plus, Blackie-sensei was a solo player like him.

Although Blackie had made some really dumb decisions, he was, in the end, a flawed character.

Well, it wasn't like Sharia was any better.

'Haaah. I'll leave the rest to the future me to handle,' he thought.

Returning to Horunka, Sharia wasted no time securing a room in an inn for himself. Exhausted, he slept from evening until the next morning.

....

....

ONE MONTH LATER.

Honestly, we could have done a daily arc, but who wants to read about a guy's daily grind in a labyrinth?

Besides, exploring new areas in the labyrinth wasn't fun—it sucked.

Moreover, he was blitzing the labyrinth solo. 90% of the time he went exploring, he seemed to almost fall into a pitfall trap.

Other traps were manageable for Sharia the solo player, but the pitfalls were Sharia's worst enemies.

During the past month, a lot had happened.

[Centennial Longsword]

[Attack: 90]

[Defense: 75]

Instead of forging the scales of the Centennial Python into armor, Sharia asked for them to be reforged into a blade.

Fighting with armor impeded his fighting style, and the armor he equipped was nothing more than a light sash-type armor.

Other than that, he occasionally exchanged information with his exclusive information broker.

If he remembers correctly, she and some other testers had started making the guidebook a while ago.

Although he wasn't even a tester, he still provided bits of information about the floor one monsters he had fought.

'Argo is really working hard, huh?' he thought.

But he was working hard too!

After a full month of grinding, the results were as follows.

[Scharia]

[Level 14]

[Sword Skills]:

[Sword Mastery Proficiency (Lv 4): 76,253/100,000]

[Direct Thrust Proficiency (Lv 4): 23,541/100,000]

[Vertical Slash Proficiency (Lv 4): 10,320/100,000]

[Horizontal Slash Proficiency (Lv 4): 11,893/100,000]

[Cross Arc Proficiency (Lv 4): 180/100,000]

[Block Counter (Lv 3): 1,540/10,000]

[Cols: 15,920]

'Do the numbers hurt? Yeah, they hurt my eyes too,' he thought. The proficiency was just... this.

Even after a month, facing high-level mobs in the labyrinth had yielded little progress. When there was progress, it was meager.

In the end, boss monsters were the way to go!

However, he wasn't stupid enough to hunt for field mobs yet—scratch that, there weren't even mid-bosses around the first floor.

The only anomaly was the temple.

Ever since then, he had been scouting that place, but even after a month, there was no sign of respawn, which meant two things.

First, either the quest was entirely gone after he defeated the giant python, or everything was just a trap, with the giant python itself being the big trap.

Speaking of which, shouldn't it be almost time?

If he recalled correctly, he had successfully mapped out around 40% of floor one's labyrinth by himself, so it shouldn't take other players that long, right?

Ah—Scratch that.

Speak of the devil.

He had just received a message from his exclusive information broker.

[Argo: Hey, Shar, a raid party found the boss room yesterday. They'll be clearing it tomorrow. You interested?]

Seeing the message, Sharia sat up in his bed, excitement bubbling within him. "Interested is an understatement; that's my exp farm."

Sharia's motivation for joining the raid party was twofold. The first and highest priority was to farm proficiency.

Higher-level, especially boss-level, monsters gave higher proficiency. He wouldn't let such a chance pass him by.

As for the second reason, it was the long-awaited day he would finally get to meet Blackie-sensei in person.