NOVEL NEXT Chapter 17: Ara ara, are you alright?
A day later, Hikari recovered from her cold. That was fast.
Being all better now, I proceeded to drag her out of bed, so that she can attend school today.
"Noooooo! No no no no! I'm still sick, brother! Let me go!"
"No, you're not! A sick person ain't this strong when their brother is dragging them out of bed!"
"Nooooo! I don't wanna go to school today! Let me rest for one more day at least!"
"Get. Up!"
Ding dong! The doorbell then rang, as I dropped Hikari on the floor.
"Oof!"
"That must be Himeji. Get out of bed, change into your uniform and come down for breakfast. I'll go open the door for her. Understand?"
"Yes, moooom."
I welcomed Himeji into our house as she ate breakfast with us. Later, she and Hikari went to school together while I prepared myself for work afterwards before noon.
It was a normal day as usual. And upon returning from work, I did some household chores and did some prep for dinner later, before heading up to my room to log into the game.
I've practically explored the entire Shade Forest area in my first two days of the game. I could try to explore some other areas around the town next, but I think it'd be better for me to see what awaits beyond the Shade Forest instead.
With that as my goal for today, I put on my Dive Gear, laid comfortably on my bed and logged into the game.
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[Welcome back to Umbra Frontier Online.]
[Transporting to the last logout point....]
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Traversing with my map screen open, I carefully navigate through the Shade Forest to avoid running into The Jackson that is supposed to be roaming around the lake area of the forest.
I said "supposed" since there was the moment where I had most certainly heard that goat demon's voice when I was nowhere near the lake, two days ago after clearing the hidden dungeon. Therefore, I still needed to keep an ear out for the "hee-hees" as I do not plan on facing another boss any time soon.
That being said, there seemed to be something or someone coming my way as I could see a spot of light in the distance.
Is it another player? I thought, thinking it might be the light from their Lamp Bug.
The light gradually becomes bigger and bigger as it moves closer to where I am. However, I noticed that it was getting bigger too quickly, almost as if the player was running.
I squinted my eyes to see what the player was running from. Eventually, I was able to spot the silhouette of a familiar figure behind the player as they ran from it.
"No way..."
I sighed, appalled by the monster I'm looking at. For it was none other than The Jackson, chasing after the player whom I can finally see clearly to be a young boy equipped with some light armour and two daggers as his gear.
Also, The Jackson chasing after him looked quite different from the one that I fought before.
For starters, it's white. And secondly, it has four arms.
Could it be possible that there's more than one of The Jacksons?
While observing, I heard the boy cry out.
"Somebody! Anybody! Please, HEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPPP MEEEEE!!!!"
Looks like The Jackson was too much for him to handle, huh? Not gonna lie, I would run too if I were to see that thing after facing it once before.
But then I realised if the boy keeps running this way, I would get involved in his problem, won't I?
Not wanting to deal with that, I applied Haste on myself and sprinted forward to him.
Because he was too focused on his back while running from The Jackson, the boy failed to notice me approaching him from the front and became profoundly surprised when I scooped him off of his feet to save him.
"Wha!? Who—"
"Hex. Moon Walk."
With the boy in my arm, I applied Hex on The White Jackson to decrease its movement speed and used Moon Walk to gain some distance from it and myself. Fortunately, the boy was able to tag along with me when I teleported. As long as I am holding him, that is. Which was something I had learnt in the hidden dungeon when I used Moon Walk while holding onto Lampy with my chest. So, in this manner, I shall be escaping from The Jackson that is somehow white.
As I gradually widened the distance between us, I used Moon Walk again to make it even larger. Repeating the process until we have completely gotten The White Jackson off of our trails.
"Whew~ Looks like we'll be safe here for now." I said and looked at the boy I was still carrying.
Upon closer inspection, I realised that his character was not human, but rather a beastman with dog ears and tail.
"Ara ara, are you alright?" I kindly asked him, feeling an itch to touch those ears of his.
Maybe he'll let me if I ask nice enough....
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"So, this is the path that will lead me to this so-called next city?"
"Yes. That's right, Miss Yoru. Beyond this point, the next city of the game called the Holy City, Arialight, will be there if you walk straight here."
Several dozen minutes after rescuing the dog boy from The Jackson, I got to know his name, Yura, whom I then introduced myself to him in the same manner.
Yura seemed surprised when I told him my name. As he had heard about it from the World News which announced my achievement of soloing the Underground Catacombs, when the hidden dungeon was cleared for the first time.
We then exchanged a few conversations about ourselves and what we were doing in the Shade Forest.
I told Yura that I was aiming to explore the area beyond the forest, to which he then told me about the next city being located there.
Yura on the other hand, told me about the quest he was doing, which was to kill 50 Scrowlers in the forest and had decided to explore deeper, thinking that he could find more of them if he did. However, what he'd encountered instead was a white version of The Jackson, which resulted in the chase scene from earlier.
Now, after we had exchanged info about each other, Yura and I started travelling the forest together as the boy went on to tell me about the area beyond the Shade Forest and the next city which he had gotten from the game's many guides made by players.
"I see." I said in response to information he had relayed to me. "However, it looks like it would be difficult to 'walk straight' from here with all of this fog in front of me."
"Uh, well.... It is easy to get lost in there even if you were walking straight, like I told you to. But since you got a Lumen Stone in your inventory, it should be easy for you to pass through this fog and arrive at the next city."
Apparently, to pass through the fog, you need a certain quest item called a Lumen Stone, which I had when I defeated Gaius. And that same Lumen Stone is then needed for players to take on a special quest called the Liberation Quest, which will unlock the city where the quest takes place in, and a new section of the world to all players if it's cleared.
The devs should've really told us that in the Lumen Stone's item description.
Nonetheless, seeing as how I have cleared the base condition for taking on the Liberation Quest, I've decided to put it on hold for later after I have my dinner. So if anyone else cleared it before I do, then so be it.
But now, it was time to head back into the forest.
"Thanks for the info, Yura." I patted the boy on the head.
"I-It's no problem, Miss Yoru. I'm glad I can help."
"Well then, like we'd promised earlier, I shall help you with your quest now."
"Yes! Thank you so much! Hold on. Let me send you a party request."
Prior to coming here, I made a deal with Yura.
He would tell me about the area beyond the Shade Forest and in return, I would help him out with his Scrowler hunting quest.
At first, he didn't want me to help since he felt like the favour would not be repaid if I did. However, I told him not to mind it and that the information he'd provided me was enough to repay the favour.
It was clear that he still minded somewhat. But in the end, he accepted my offer to help and so, we made a deal.
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Notice! Player [Yura] has sent you a party request.
Will you accept?
[Yes] / [No]
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A window popped up in front of me and I pressed "Yes". Putting me into Yura's party with Yura as the party leader.
Seeing that his Lamp Bug was on this whole time, I decided to join in and asked Lampy to switch its light on.
"Now that I've realised it, Miss Yoru, you didn't have your Lamp Bug's light on this whole time?"
"Well, yes. I have a skill that negates the disadvantages of being in the dark, you see. Which is why I never really need Lampy to have its light on and just let it sleep on my shoulder instead. Ah."
I just realised, I've called my Lamp Bug, Lampy, in front of someone else for the first time.
Will Yura think it's strange, I wonder?
"Lampy... Lampy, huh...? Maybe I should give a name to my Lamp Bug as well...."
Welp. That doesn't seem to be the case.
"You can think of a name for it later. Let's go kill some Scrowlers first."
"Ah. Yes! Of course, Miss Yoru! Let's do that first."
