Chapter 331
Aincrad, 35th Floor.
The Main Settlement in this Floor was a medieval European style town, with white buildings and red roofs. A lot of Players were seen active in this town called Mishe.
The 55th Floor was the current frontline, and since the Clearers basically have no interest in anything aside from the Labyrinth, this Floor was considered to be the Middle Floor where Players mainly made their living.
Although as obvious as it was, the middle-level players were basically not that motivated to clear the game, unlike the Clearers.
There were basically three reasons why middle-level Players would leave the Main Settlement to fight monsters.
First: In order to earn the necessary Cor for their daily expenses like food and inn.
Second: In order to earn the minimum experience value to survive in the Middle Floors.
Three: They’re bored to death.
This was the game world, after all. No matter how afraid of dying people were, being unable to sleep in an inn or eat proper food was basically worse than death.
Although there were still nearly a thousand Players who were too afraid to leave the Town of Beginnings, the rest of the Players have made the resolve to leave town and kill monsters in order to fulfill their daily needs at the very least, and yes, of course, they’ll be fully prepared in terms of item and equipment if they decided to leave the Main Settlement.
There were 100 Floors throughout Aincrad. In most games, the recommended level usually suited the stage or, in this case, Floor.
For example, the recommended level for the 1st Floor was level 1, and the recommended level for the 2nd Floor was level 2, etc.
But SAO was different, the recommended level, or to be more precise. The so-called safe level was ten levels higher than the designated Floor.
So based on that knowledge, the Players who resided on the 35th Floor should be at least around level 45, and the safe level for the 55th Floor was level 65, which was exactly the Clearers’ average level, only a game hardcore like Kirito and Rozen who managed to reach level 78 and 82.
Today, Rozen teleported to the 35th Floor and saw middle-level Players coming and going out of the town.
“It feels like a completely different world here.”
The scenes of Players wearing various equipment, talking and laughing with each other, made Rozen feel that way.
When Rozen arrived on the 35th Floor, Saichou and Hanachou no longer perched on his shoulders.
It couldn’t be helped since those two Rainbow b.u.t.terflies were very famous right now. If they flew beside Rozen, everyone would know who he was, but if he walked alone, no one would figure out he was the Clearers’ commander since they didn’t recognize his face anyway.
So, Rozen always made sure to store Saichou and Hanachou into the Tamed Monster Crystal whenever he teleported to lower Floors to avoid commotions.
“Just who the h.e.l.l comes up with such difficult conditions to tame Rainbow b.u.t.terflies? I haven’t seen other Player who managed to tame it anywhere”.
They were indeed rare since there were only seven of them throughout Aincrad, but let alone taming them, finding them was already close to impossible.
“Even normal Tamed Monsters were hard to tame, let alone Rainbow b.u.t.terflies.”
After nearly a year and a half, Players finally realized that Tamed Monsters were more suitable to be a support rather than to fight alongside Players and dish out damage.
In addition, Tamed Monsters were nothing like a normal monster. They possessed intelligence and capable of thinking on their own.
If it weren’t treated properly, they might die, escape, or even attack its tamer, which commonly happened among Players who had Tamed Monsters.
Eventually, the Players called Beast Tamers started to emerge. They were Players who were focused on training their Tamed Monsters. However, they were nowhere near Rozen’s ability in terms of drawing the Tamed Monsters’ potential and properly direct them during combat. As a result, among the hundred Clearers, none of them was a Beast Tamer.
“I wonder when we’ll have a Beast Tamer?”
Rozen’s mind wandered around as he was bored until he arrived at a certain building.
It was a two-story inn that was run by NPC.
“This should be the place, right?”
Rozen raised his head as he observed the building in front of him.
According to the information Argo provided, the Orange Guild that Rozen targeted moved to the 35th Floor recently.
“At this Floor, they should be scouting their target here.”
That was what Rozen thought.
Other Players would’ve thought that Orange Guild only ambushed other Players outside the Safe Zone to rob them and stuff like that, but in reality, that was not all there was to it.
“Using their green players to investigate and find Players who were loaded then lured them out of the Safe Zone where the rest of the guild members laid in wait, ready to ambush, a common underhanded trick that Orange Guild would use
If they simply ambushed every Player they saw, there was no point if they didn’t have that much Cor, to begin with.
Rozen knew that the method he just mentioned was the most efficient way to rob someone, and that was why he came to this inn.
He heard that there was a well-known Player who started to stay in that hotel recently. That Player was adored by many Players and had been receiving invites to join their parties from a lot of Players.
“In this case, this should be the perfect place to find the spy that Orange Guild sent.”
With that reasoning, he pushed the inn’s door open.
As soon as he entered the inn, he came across a lively scene where many Players were eating various dishes while laughing and talking with each other.
“This sure is a scene I can’t see every day on the frontline, especially during the day.”
At the frontline, Clearers would go to Outer Field or Labyrinth during the day and only returned at night.
Even the Players who went leveling at night would sleep during the day and hesitant to leave their room.
Therefore, a lively atmosphere could only be seen at night, and because the Players who stayed on the frontline were far less compared to Middle Floors, it was not exactly that lively either. If it weren’t for the NPC, the town probably seemed deserted.
Such a scene where Players seemed lively and not desperate could only be seen at Middle and Lower Floors.
The Players who resided in this Floor had no qualm as long as they had enough money to live; some of them even lived lavishly until they ran out of Cor.
“So, where is the rumored well-known Player?”
Rozen looked around for a moment, and it didn’t take long before he saw many Players were flocking around a certain Player.
Seeing this scene and the Player in the center of the crowd, Rozen was surprised at first and then said in a pleasant manner.
“Looks like things are going to get very interesting.”