by Nikita Thorn
“No,” said one of his clan members flatly.
The mood was starting to lighten as the rest of the Bandits slowly recovered from shock. Nervous chuckles broke out, soon evolving into hearty laughter as they realized the danger was over. Seiki allowed himself a few more deep breaths to calm his racing pulse.
Suddenly dying for a sip of water, he wanted to ask if Ippei happened to have any celebratory drinks on him, but the invasion was not over, and Seiki eventually settled for his own energy potion, drinking two in a row just to feel the refreshing gulp of slightly sweet liquid.
“All right. That went well.” Gin smiled. “Amazing reflexes, mister ronin. I knew we could count on you.”
Mairin walked over, unconsciously waving her right hand to keep casting Spirit Mend on her friends. “If it wasn’t for Seiki’s quick thinking, a lot of us would have been dead.”
Gin nodded. “I know. We were lucky to have a… professional.”
Again, Seiki wondered what the man knew.
Ippei leapt to his feet, his expression grim. “Did you know the guardian had Fear?” There was an edge to the samurai’s voice that was borderline dangerous.
“No.” Gin met his eyes. “I swear that was a surprise to me, too.”
Seiki believed him. Ippei kept his gaze locked on the man for a moment, before finally letting out a short breath and extending a hand to help Seiki to his feet.
A smile returned to Gin’s face. “Well, in fact, mister samurai, I’m as curious as you are as to what could have gone into it to give it the Fear ability. I mean, there aren’t a lot of items with that particular effect.” He glanced to the edge of the room, where a wooden chest had materialized with the drops from the defeated guardian. “Perhaps your friend can enlighten us?”
“It’s gotta be demon parts, right?” said Chika. “What else would have Fear?”
Seiki was not planning on taking anything, but he thought at the very least he could allow himself the excitement of opening loot boxes. The wooden container was the standard size. He lifted the lid to find the usual various Essences spheres, plus raw materials like leather and cloth.
That was not all. A wooden item materialized across the top of the open chest, five feet in length, polished black and decorated with white diamond-shaped patterns down its edge. The blade was too long to fit in the box and therefore faded in with the rest of the drops a second later.
Somewhere behind him, Gin let out a whistle. “Wow. That thing really dropped. RNG rewards good thinking.”
Seiki could not believe his eyes. The main weapon that went into a guardian was the most valuable thing that could be obtained from it.
Awadachi. +77 attack. +45 speed. +11 defense. Damage 4.5. Speed 3.2. Range 2.8. Heart of the Wild: deals double damage against beast-type creatures. Scalable. Unclaimed.
“Of course, it’s scalable.” Seiki grimaced. Luck at a time like this only served to test his resolve and make his personal mission harder. Still, he could not resist picking up the long sword. It was wonderfully heavy. Then he could not resist unsheathing it. The fine blade was slightly curved and gleamed bright silver. He stepped aside and did a test swing, careful not to touch energy lest he accidentally claimed it. The blade, as unwieldy as it looked, felt amazing in his grip.
With a tiny sigh, Seiki sheathed the sword and placed it back on the top of the box.
“What?” cried Chika. “You’re not taking it?”
“No,” said Seiki.
“No one would ever find out. For all the Rogami knows, it might have poofed with the rest of the ingredients.” The ninja girl let out a sigh. “Like the one we used for our replica.”
“Hey, I can help get your loot log wiped, mister ronin,” said Gin. “Think of it as a favor for your excellent performance.”
Seiki shook his head. He was here to end conflicts, not to start more, not to mention that an [unknown] player looting a particular named blade at a particular time was still ample evidence that something had happened.
“I just want to see what gave it Fear.” Seiki took another glance at the ingredients in the container. There was a vial of Goko Ointment that temporarily gave users three times the amount of maximum health and instantly healed for that amount as well, which most likely accounted for the extra health the ghost samurai had.
Nothing could explain the mysterious Fear effect, and Seiki was about to conclude that the ingredient must have disappeared, until his eyes fell on a tiny item in the corner.
It was a familiar-looking small glossy black tube, the shape and size of a name stamp, with the texture of jade.
It had no label.
Seiki suppressed a cry. That was perhaps why the Yureimusha’s Fear ability only activated periodically through direct contact. The Rogami had a Shadow Key. Somehow they thought it a good idea to put it into a guardian.
Seiki had no clue what to make of the revelation, but his reaction had not gone unnoticed.
Chika started trotting over for a closer look. “Anything we didn’t have in our replica?”
Seiki quickly slipped the Shadow Key into his inventory and snapped the box shut. The nodachi sword disappeared as soon as the lid dropped over it.
“There’s an ointment that gave it more health.” Seiki tried to keep his tone casual as he leapt back to his feet, much to the disappointment of the ninja girl. “I think we’re done here.”
“I thought we had the right recipe,” said Chika.
Gin shrugged. “The recipe was pretty close, considering the guy only got one quick glance at it.”
Ippei’s expression darkened. “You bet this whole thing on a recipe someone glanced at?”
The Bandit laughed. “Well, it worked, didn’t it? You see, the guy claimed he had photographic memory. Of course, I didn’t take him at his word.” He raised his index finger as if to make an important point. “I did a complicated game of match to test him, with one pair that didn’t actually match, and he never flipped the last two cards.”
Seiki had trouble telling whether it was just one fluent lie, but there was no point trying to find out. He turned to Ippei and shook his head. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Gin smiled. “I love your practical attitude, mister ronin. Let’s do the next bit, then. You can now sit back and enjoy. And your friend can maybe stop looking like he’s about to kill me.”
They moved aside to let the Bandits handle the next challenge. This part of the invasion, the Bandits had luckily gotten right. The shoji wall at the back was enchanted with a Nagaishi Wall Seal that made it indestructible, plus a Shintame Wall Seal that only allowed clan members to open them. The invasion, however, had already started more than fifteen minutes ago, and both Seals had already degraded by a rank.
Gin reached for his named Denkousekka bow, which promised an added 150% damage on a single shot every four minutes, and Seiki quietly noted to himself that you could change weapons during an invasion, as long as you were not in combat.
The group seemed to know what their leader was up to and cleared to the side of the room. Gin took a deep breath, gulped down a potion that Seiki had no time to inspect, then took the stance that signified the application of Extreme Focus.
“Cover your ears,” said Gin.
A fiery arrow flew at the panel with an angry hiss. It burst upon contact with the enchanted door, exploding into a bright flash of light and shaking the whole territory. Seiki grimaced as he realized he should have listened to the warning.
Yamura stared at the result. “Okay, I need to get Explosive Shot ASAP.”’
This was the first time Seiki had seen Explosive Shot up close. He knew it was a rare but highly desirable ryoushi Free Slot, and he had no idea how much of it was the ability itself, and how much was due to the bow or the mysterious substance Gin took.
The attack-boosting potion seemed to have left a debuff on Gin, and despite the group’s two houshi casting Heals, the man’s health ticked u
p by only a few points, before dropping again to linger at around a tenth of his total. The man staggered as he put his bow away, looking very pale.
“You all right?” whispered Chika.
“Never been better.” Gin smiled as the smoke cleared, revealing a gaping hole in the middle of the wall panel. Behind it was indeed a staircase leading to the top floor. “Wow. That really worked. Today’s lesson: it’s important to treat your clan members nicely so they don’t give away your secrets.”
“Yes, Gin.” Someone laughed. “You’d better start treating us well or we give away the floor plan of our clan hall.”
“Yeah, like some regular gold would help,” someone else agreed.
“Hey, you get gold when you do clan quests. I don’t see anyone doing clan quests. Do you see anyone doing clan quests, Chika?” Gin turned to his assistant.
“Nope,” said the ninja girl. “Not even you.”
Gin grimaced. “No wonder we can’t afford anything above the Tsubaki Room for the Shogun’s Banquet.”
“That’s second floor, right? Honor Warriors are up to Shobu now,” said Yamura. “Fourth floor.”
As murmurs rose about how some of them were going to defect to the Honor Warriors, the group slowly made their way through the broken panel. It crumbled over Chika when she tapped it out of curiosity, and Seiki noticed that despite the strength of the explosion, the damage was limited to only that single panel that had taken the hit.
Gin had to lean against the wall for a moment before mustering his strength to tackle the stairs, and he nodded to his clan mates to go ahead. “That’s it. No more traps from now on.”
The short trip up the final flight of steps indeed held no more surprises, and they found themselves on the landing of the third floor.
Seiki was not sure what he was expecting: perhaps something grand and befitting the first player to reach maximum level. Instead, the third story of the building was a simple open tatami area, kept pretty much bare, very much like the Society’s fourth-floor reception hall.
He was not the only one with the thought. “Hey, where’s the throne?” said Yamura in disappointment. “Shouldn’t they have like a badass welded sword throne or, like, skulls or something?”
“Maybe in their real Wilderness Territory?” said Mairin.
There were floor cushions strewn all around in clusters, suggesting that the space had been recently used as a gathering place before the whole clan headed off to the Shogun’s Ceremony. Seiki found it difficult to imagine Rogami members casually hanging out in their clan hall like normal people.
Gin finally recovered enough and followed them up the stairs. His expression still betrayed nothing, although he did not seem surprised by the minimal décor of the clan hall.
Ippei nodded toward the north-facing windows. “This is the safest location for the command hall,” he told Seiki. “Being at the back gives you plenty of time to see enemies coming through the front gate, and your ryoushi can be up here picking them off before they reach the building.”
The samurai then pointed toward the opposite side. “The back wall is built right on the territory border, which itself is on the edge between West City and South City, which is very smart of them. You can’t start an invasion from within South City, so they don’t need to worry about defending the back.”
Seiki wondered if his friend was trying to tell him something about designing clan territories. “Does this also mean that if the Rogami come back right now, we can jump out the south windows and land safely in a non-PVP zone?”
Ippei blinked. “Oh, good point. This means if they get invaded, they have a perfect escape route. As the territory-holding clan, they can just heal up and come back through the front gate.”
Mairin giggled. “Whoa, so you’re planning an invasion now?”
Ippei shook his head. “I’ve never really thought about this before. But this place might really be the most defendable territory in the whole city.”
As his friend pondered the intricacies of the setup, Seiki took the opportunity to look toward South City. The picturesque alley ran parallel to a canal and was lined with shade-giving willows. Seiki spotted a Festival quest giver he recognized, an old man sitting in his boat, who gave out easy daily fishing tasks that rewarded one Festival Token.
Mairin joined him by the window. “Decent view. Oh, you can see the fisherman guy there.”
“You too?” Seiki chuckled.
“Oh, yeah, three fish a day.” Mairin turned around to look at the interior. “To be honest, this place can use a bit of work. Like, they didn’t really put in any effort into any…” The kitsune trailed off.
Seiki turned to look at what had caught her attention.
“False wall!” Mairin exclaimed. She bounded off in fox form to the end of the building. “There’s a room right here.”
“Wait,” cried Gin from the middle of the hall. “It might be—”
Mairin had already slid the panel open. “Chests!” she cried. “Three!”
Luckily, there were no traps and the kitsune girl was not immediately killed. At the discovery, the rest of the Bandits dropped their exploring and rushed to join her. Excited chatter rose as they speculated on the loot.
Mairin turned around and raised her hands to bar entry to the tiny room. “Hey, no one’s coming in right now. This is all Seiki’s.”
Gin chuckled and shook his head. “Kitsune. I forgot.”
Seiki’s first thought was to leave the boxes untouched. After the incredible luck with the guardian, it was probably best to avoid any more temptation for himself.
The room full of hopeful looks from very eager Bandits, however, forced him to reconsider.
Seiki sighed. So far, the group had been strictly respecting his looting rights. Even Chika had not re-opened the guardian loot box to check after he had closed it. It must be frustrating for them, and he supposed it did not hurt to at least sate their curiosity.
“All right. Just a peek.” He gave in. “We’re still not taking anything.”
The Bandits made way for him. The room in question was not exactly a secret. Although mildly disguised by the painted flower pattern that was similar to the rest of the room, two of the sliding panels had a carved handle that clearly marked them as doors.
“Probably knickknacks they don’t care about,” said Yamura. “Or they would have added some protection.”
The hidden area occupied a narrow space of about three feet deep, just big enough for three storage chests to be put side-by-side in a row, next to a giant stack of unused sitting cushions. It looked more like a broom closet than an actual secret chamber. The panels were not enchanted, nor the chests locked, meaning that Yamura was probably correct in his assessment.
Seiki chuckled as he knelt down by the chests. “I’ve used up all my luck with the nodachi sword, so this is probably going to be lackluster.” He secretly reminded himself that it had been double doses of luck with the guardian, since the Shadow Key had also dropped.
The largest container turned out to be an enchanted storage box that allowed anyone access to their own inventory, which was perhaps not surprising. Out of curiosity, Seiki opened it and was surprised to find it empty.
“The functionality is reserved for clan members and guests, and we’re not exactly guests,” explained Ippei. The samurai had managed to squeeze his way to the front of the crowd to poke his head in.
Next to the inventory chest were two smaller wooden boxes, both with sixty slots and unenchanted. The first held a random collection of potions, monster parts, as well as raw materials. Seiki guessed it was for clan members to quickly unload unwanted items when they had no time to sort them out.
“Nothing significant here,” Seiki shouted to the audience outside. “Only health potions and random junk.”
Sighs and mutters rose in response, both disappointed and relieved.
“And for the last one…” Seiki lifted the lid.
>
Filling the chest to the brim were slim, flat pieces of carved wood, all painted with the same oddly familiar washed-out gray that was almost not a color.
Sheathed Blade. Must be Level 11 to unsheathe.
Sheathed Blade. Must be Level 9 to unsheathe.
Sheathed Blade. Must be Level 6 to unsheathe.
Sheathed Blade. Must be Level 8 to unsheathe.
Sheathed Blade. Must be Level 12 to unsheathe.
Sheathed Blade. Must be Level 13 to unsheathe.
Seiki stared, feeling light-headed at the sight. The six Sheathed Blades were only what he could immediately see on the top of the pile. He reached his hand into the box and found at least ten more of the light wooden items, all Sheathed Blades of similar levels.
“Oh my God, what the hell?” Yamura was the first to break out of stupor. “Why would they have a boxful of Sheathed Blades lying around?”
An icy knot formed in Seiki’s stomach. He knew exactly why. His hands clenched against the sides of the box as he suddenly recalled endless streaks of wet, messy cold from a giant rectangular blade across his chest.
Based on the relatively low level of these Sheathed Blades, they must have initially dropped for players of even lower level than himself when he had looted his. It would have been within the City itself, or during their first days out in the Wilderness, when no one knew anything, and when there was absolutely nothing you could do against a band of higher-level players making an unreasonable demand. Seiki’s heart started to race and his grip tightened on the box.
There was shuffling noise from the door before Gin’s head popped in. The man let out a shrill whistle. “Damn. That luck.”
An excited buzz had risen outside the room, and Seiki vaguely heard Gin explaining to his clan mates. “Zengoro’s been looking for the matching sword to his pairable named dagger, so he thinks that he gets a chance at finding it every time he pulls a Sheathed Blade. These ones are probably too low-level for his lottery spree, so I think they’re going into the clan welcome pack.”
One of the Bandits laughed. “I’d sign up in a blink.”
