Sky World

Chapter 1: Altaria Island

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Chapter 1: Altaria Island
Part 2

Kasumi Yukasaki’s close friends often teased her, saying, “You’re such a ‘Yamato Nadeshiko’ [1] ”. There was an element of truth in what they said. Her long black hair [2] was certainly enviable. When she heard, “You’re so ladylike. You’re a beautiful woman,” she always got embarra.s.sed.

Her friends also sometimes added other remarks. “Your b.o.o.bs are too large. Your traditional j.a.panese clothes do not match them,” they said. She just wanted them to leave her alone.

Kasumi was brought up by her old-fashioned grandmother.

Kasumi’s family consisted of a long line of doctors beginning from the Meiji era [3]. Her father and mother managed a hospital together. Because of this, they were always busy and often came home very late, so Kasumi’s grandmother took on the duty of raising her.

She took a strict att.i.tude in raising Kasumi. She sent Kasumi to an all-girls boarding school for high school. That boarding school in the mountains felt like a maximum-security prison.

“Never forget about grat.i.tude. The feeling after having done a good deed is the reward itself.” Kasumi did not forget those wise words of her grandmother. For this reason, having been picked up by a local guild, she was not content to only receive help without returning the favor.

A large lizard’s sharp claws slashed her leather armor. Kasumi was. .h.i.t in her chest. She uttered, “Oof,” and groaned. Her light purple hair blew around.

“Harmful Status Effect: Paralysis” appeared on her message window at the bottom of her field of vision.

“I can’t believe it!”

Kasumi, biting her lips, noticed the harmful status effect and looked up, seeing the monster that had attacked her, a Honey Lizard. Honey Lizards were giant lizards (approximately the size of a large dog). Their favorite food was honey and, because of that, they commonly dropped high grade Honey. Honey was not for selling in stores. Rather, it was a general-purpose material used in alchemy. If she could defeat the Honey Lizard, she could help out everybody in her guild. This was the reason why she had spent two hours trekking from the town to the forest. She wanted with all her heart to help out even if she was only capable of just a little bit.

“No use being scared now.”

She wielded her short-sword and, with the aid of motion tracking technology, demonstrated a high level of proficiency in swordsmanship by landing a hit on the Honey Lizard’s arm. Squinting her eyes, she saw the HP bar displayed above the monster. It had gone down since she last looked at it. Then she switched to automatic attack mode. Short swords could chain together five attacks, at most. The first four strikes would be normal sword strikes. However, the fifth strike would be a jump attack. The Honey Lizard bit at Kasumi’s feet, but her HP only went down a little bit. Kasumi and the Honey Lizard continued taking turns going at each other.

Kasumi’s Paralysis status effect had a small chance of preventing her from being able to take any action. In spite of this, Kasumi readily decided that she would continue chain attacking. Nevertheless, if the effects of Paralysis activated, the Honey Lizard would surely be able to claw her.

Even so, she expected to win the battle, barring any outside influences.

Suddenly, she got hit in the back. She screamed “Ow!”

Another Honey Lizard had attacked from behind.

“Are these Honey Lizards working together!?”

When a Honey Lizard saw one of its kin in a battle, even from far away, it would immediately switch to hostile mode. This was becoming a two-on-one battle.

“At this rate &h.e.l.lip; I’ll lose. What can I do? I can still run away. Am I going to die?”

In Sky World, death did not mean the end for an adventurer. An adventurer would just lose 1/3 of his tablet battery and come back to life at his most recent home point. In Kasumi’s situation, she would simply resp.a.w.n at her guildhall back at Gazar.

However, she would be naked. The weapon she wielded, the armor she wore, and everything she carried in her bag would be put into a box and left on the ground where she died. Kasumi looked down in shame. This was how things worked in Sky World. In a way, it was cruel.

The two monsters targeting her landed hits on her. Kasumi’s HP bar now glowed red as a danger sign. Kasumi closed her eyes tightly, knowing that she would die soon.

“Quick! Roll!”

Kasumi heard a boy’s voice from above the trees.

Kasumi rolled as she was told. Opening her eyes to find that she had landed in a pile of dirt , she quickly moved and managed to just barely evade the Honey Lizard’s claw attack.

A human being came, slowly descending from the sky.

It was a boy wearing black leather armor and wielding a huge two-handed sword almost the same size as him. As he descended, he swung his sword downwards, slicing one of the Honey Lizards’ heads in half.

“Ah!”

“Hi!”

The boy, lifting his mean-looking eyes, glared at Kasumi.

“Don’t be an idiot. There’s still one more. Get up!”

Kasumi stood up. There was another Honey Lizard charging at her. Kasumi hastily readied her sword.

“Hey you, do you feel like dying?! Come here!”

“OK.”

The boy was right. If she took even just one little hit, she would die. Kasumi sprinted to the boy and hid herself behind him. The boy, with a mean expression in his eyes, quickly muttered “All right!” She looked up at his face and he smiled.

“Stay there for a sec. Don’t move!”

Right after saying that, the boy stepped out and charged with his humongous sword.

A bead of black light appeared from the tip of the sword and followed the sword as it moved. With just one hit, he cut 20% off of the previously unhurt Honey Lizard.

He was fighting with a magic imbued sword.

“You’re a magic swordsman, right?”

Unlike her cla.s.s, the light warrior, the magic swordsman cla.s.s, being an offensive cla.s.s, imbued magic into swords in order to increase damage output. At that moment, the boy’s attack force was actually more than double that of any light warrior.

“You’re awesome!”

He dodged the Honey Lizard’s claw strike effortlessly and retaliated, driving the edge of his sword into the monster’s belly.

Before long, the second Honey Lizard fell to the ground.

When Jun first saw Kasumi being attacked by the two monsters, he was lazily descending into the forest with his wing boots. While descending from the skies, he was able to get a good look, and saw another Honey Lizard sneaking up on her while she was already frantically fighting against one Honey Lizard.

“I guess I should help out.”

Shrugging lightly, Jun went to the rescue and he arrived in the nick of time.

And then&h.e.l.lip;

Jun landed, looking at the Kasumi and her light purple hair.

In her right hand, she wielded a Short Sword, a low level alchemized item. In her left hand, she had a Small Buckler, possibly bought from a NPC store. She wore beginner leather armor.

It was fairly obvious that she was a newbie. He was confused. Players had been stuck in Sky World for three months now. From the looks of it, one would have thought that she had just started playing.

He couldn’t believe it.

“I want to know something. How long have you been in Sky World?”

“Just a little while. My friend Sakuya recommended it to me.”

Jun almost took a spit-take. That’s impossible. Shaking his head, he forced a smile. No way could somebody like her just carelessly wander here.

“Break Down!”

Jun became covered in light. In just a moment, his armor and that huge sword he was wielding both disappeared. In their place was Jun’s school uniform. Jun’s hair returned to its original black hue. The girl, upon seeing this, also shouted, “Break Down!” Her long hair became enveloped in light, and it changed color from light purple to jet-black. Her eye color changed from teal into obsidian black. At the same time, her light warrior armor was replaced with a blazer and a skirt. While she did take a few creative liberties in designing her avatar, she was unlike other girls in that the changes were not so extreme. Possibly, she didn’t quite understand how to change her avatar’s appearance.

“I’m Kasumi Yukasaki. Thanks so much for saving my life! I owe you one.”

She lowered her head and quieted herself. Jun also gave his name. This verbal name exchange seemed a little bit peculiar given that their names were displayed above their HP bars.

“I was actually on my way to the city of Gazar. Unfortunately, the road I was taking faded away in the middle, and I got lost.”

“My home point is in Gazar. If you don’t mind, I could guide you there.”

“Really? I guess I’m counting on you.”

Jun nodded his head and Kasumi looked up at him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh&h.e.l.lip; I’m sorry.”

Jun thought to himself, “Huh?” and turned his head sideways in confusion. Upon seeing that, Kasumi became even more nervous.

“Your face is scary. Have I angered you?”

“Nope. This is just how I look.”

Jun hastily turned away.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No&h.e.l.lip; It’s my fault for being rude.”

Kasumi bowed her head and Jun gave a forced smile.

“Pick that item up. It’ll disappear soon.”

“Okay.”

Kasumi, after thanking Jun again, bent down to pick up the high quality Honey. The privilege of picking up drops was generally given to whoever had the biggest role in killing the monster.

“But you see&h.e.l.lip; Jun-sama [4], you were the only reason that I was able to win the battle.”

“What? ‘Jun-sama’?”

Jun swung his hands around with a blank look on his face. He was blushing.

“Uh. I’m not very used to talking to guys. Was I being rude?”

“No, you weren’t. Sorry. When you said ‘sama’, it made me think of roleplaying [5].”

“Role&h.e.l.lip; what?”

“Never mind that. Just ‘Jun’ is OK. You don’t need to add any honorifics. It makes me feel uneasy. If you have to, just use ‘san’ [6].”

“Oh. Got it. Then&h.e.l.lip;. Jun-san.”

A little embarra.s.sed, Kasumi held out the Honey for Jun.

“This is for you, Jun-san.”

“I don’t need it. It seems like you do though. That being the case, it’s better if you keep it.”

“Thank you so much!”

“Do you have any HP recovery items?”

“Like potions?”

“Don’t waste any of your consumables. Hold on a sec.”

Jun took a 30-centimeter long wand out, tapped Kasumi’s shoulder with it, and muttered a command word.

The wand shined brightly. A part of Kasumi’s HP was instantly restored.

“Thank you for the healing. Are you OK with using that on me though?”

“This Healing Wand has infinite uses. It’s nice not having to worry about running out of healing items.”

Usable items often came with restrictions. Some items would disappear after one use. Others could be used multiple times. Some could be used once every few hours.

As for the highest tiered usable items, some could even be used infinitely without restriction.

“That kind of thing would be really convenient. I’d definitely want to buy one.”

“They aren’t sold in shops. It’s a quest item, so they are bound.”

“Bound&h.e.l.lip; huh?”

“Bound items are usually obtained as rewards for NPC requests or achievements. It is impossible to transfer them between people.

Jun told Kasumi about why he was headed there.

He came from a town in the north of this island. He had come to Altaria Island alone. At this point, the only quests that he hadn’t completed on this island were in the town of Gazar.

“You’ve finished all of the other quests?”

“Yeah, the magic swordsman’s Long Walk spell helped a lot.”

Long Walk was very helpful for those Cla.s.ses who could use it. It could make battles go by two times faster, shortening the amount of time necessary to complete quests.

“After all, this is the eighth island ring. Even though there may be some hidden quests, I think that they would be revealed upon completing the quests in Gazar.”

Quest completion rate was calculated for every island. When all normal quests were completed, it would be easy to tell if there were any other quests remaining.

“Say, do you know anything about the other island rings?”

“I have gone as far as the fifth ring.”

“Amazing! I haven’t even managed to leave the eighth one yet.”

“So you aren’t from this island, huh?”

“I fell from an airship and got stranded on this island.”

“And because of that, you couldn’t leave?”

Kasumi nodded.

“And as for your guild?”

“At the moment, I’m a part of a guild. Our base is located in Gazar. If you would please, help make a name for our guild by joining.”

“Sounds like a bother.”

“If we had veterans like you, Jun-san, I’m sure that the guild leader would be very happy.”

“I’m hardly a veteran. n.o.body’s even been here for more than three months and a week.”

“That may be true &h.e.l.lip; but Jun-san, you have much more knowledge and experience than other people.”

Jun sighed.

“I get it &h.e.l.lip; but the fact of the matter is that I don’t stay in the same place for very long.”

Kasumi smiled softly. It was a very innocent smile.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

[1] – A woman who embodies the traditional virtues of cla.s.sical j.a.pan
[2] – A characteristic of Yamato Nadeshikos
[3] – 1868-1912
[4] – A highly polite honorific (akin to Lord)
[5] – Specifically, master/servant roleplaying (even more specifically, maid cosplaying), as ‘sama’ is often used by subordinates to refer to their lieges
[6] – Somewhat equivalent to ‘Mister’

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