Anime Crossover: Master is Not Here Today

Argo snapped his fingers and laughed:

"of course."

-

After finishing his day's business, Nezha, carrying his rolled-up stall rug, walked wearily with his head down to a secluded guesthouse in Taran Village.

Standing in front of the guesthouse, he hesitated for more than ten seconds before finally pushing the door open and going inside.

".I'm back."

"Welcome back!"

"Niezi, you've worked hard today too!"

The other five members of the [Legendary Hero], dressed in armor and leather, were already waiting for him in the room. The moment they saw him, a sudden burst of cheers and applause drowned out his words.

At this moment, one of the companions asked expectantly:

"Nezha, how's business today?"

"Hmm, not bad. We sold twelve weapons and still have quite a few upgrade and repair requests."

Wow—a new record has been set!

"We made a killing today!"

"Haha, looks like I'll have to go collect ingots again!"

His companions cheered immediately, followed by another round of enthusiastic clapping.

However, Nezha lowered his head deeply, and only after the noise gradually subsided did his hesitant and uncertain words come out again.

"However, continuing like this would be very dangerous."

Nezha's words instantly cooled the lively atmosphere in the room. After a moment of silence, someone offered words of comfort, as if offering encouragement:

"It's okay, it'll definitely be alright."

"The situation isn't that tense yet, and the real show is yet to come!"

"We'll catch up with and overtake those guys soon!"

"But."

Nezha was about to say something when a knocking sound at the door interrupted him.

The atmosphere inside fell silent once again.

The group exchanged glances, their expressions becoming wary. Orlando, the team leader, stood up, slowly walked to the door, and opened it.

"Who?"

Just as he was about to ask a question, the moment he saw two lovely girls with delicate features standing outside the door when the door opened, he was momentarily dazed, thinking he had seen real elves.

He paused for a moment, unsure of what to say.

While feeling amazed, he had already recognized who the person in front of him was.

Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at the other person and smiled:

"Hello, my name is Ritsuka. You must be the Legendary Heroes?"

"I hope I can talk to you."

Damn it, I catch a cold whether the temperature drops or rises, I'm completely numb.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 182. Truth and Cause

182.

2023-12-18

Fujimaru Ritsuka and Asuna are the two most famous players in SAO right now. In particular, Fujimaru Ritsuka, who is the leader of the strategy team, is someone whose name you have at least heard of, even if you have never met her.

[Legendary Heroes] Their goal is to reach the forefront of the players, join the strategy group, gain fame, and naturally imagine meeting Fujimaru Ritsuka.

But the current situation is clearly beyond their imagination.

"Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka calmly recounted their deduction of the other party's entire fraudulent process, and then asked the group of "Legendary Heroes" before her.

"."

The room was deathly silent. The players of [Legendary Hero] all hung their heads, their faces showing a variety of expressions such as regret, trepidation, unease, and annoyance.

At this moment, the spearman named Cú Chulainn suddenly raised his head and stubbornly spoke:

Ultimately, these are all just your side of the story; there's no substantial evidence whatsoever.

“Cú Chulainn would never say such a thing, much less do such a thing.”

Fujimaru Ritsuka's gaze fell upon him, her tone remaining calm, yet leaving him speechless.

The content of her words, in particular, immediately filled him with shame, so he could only lower his head again and bury it even lower.

At this moment, Asuna, with a serious expression, said from the side:

"We have as much evidence as we need. Just gather the victims together, and they'll find that their weapons were all broken by the same blacksmith. That's why you keep moving your base, from [Urubas] to here, isn't it?"

"Well"

Upon hearing this, the atmosphere in the room became heavy once again.

Upon hearing this, the blacksmith Nezha, the main perpetrator of the fraud, clenched his teeth, and after seemingly making a decision, suddenly stood up from his seat and said:

"I'm sorry, I was the one who cheated the players, it has nothing to do with anyone else!"

"At this point, all I can do is..."

Before he could finish speaking, to everyone's astonishment, he suddenly sprinted to the side and crashed straight into the stone wall of the room with a dull thud!

Within the safe zone, players cannot attack each other, but collision damage with buildings still occurs; that collision just now directly deducted nearly half of the opponent's health.

However, Nezha's actions did not stop; he continued to bang his head against the wall, as if he had gone mad.

"What are you doing?!"

"Things aren't that serious yet, calm down!"

"Don't gamble with your life!"

However, at this moment, the other players of [Legendary Hero] finally realized what was happening and hurriedly stepped forward to grab him, preventing him from doing anything foolish.

Unable to move and pinned to the ground, Nezha wept and murmured repeatedly:

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry"

Encountering such a situation for the first time, Asuna couldn't help but feel flustered, but she quickly calmed down and took the initiative to walk up to Nezha, speaking sternly to him:

"What's the difference between your behavior and escapism?"

"Do you not only want to abandon your companions and shirk responsibility, but also want them to blame themselves for your death for the rest of their lives?!"

Faced with such a stern reprimand, Nezha finally regained some of his composure, and said in a trembling voice:

"No, I didn't. I just want to atone for my sins with my death."

"But this won't solve anything; it will only make things more complicated."

Asuna refuted his words without hesitation, leaving Nezha speechless with a face full of guilt.

However, the other party seemed to have taken Asuna's words to heart and no longer intended to commit suicide, which relieved his companions.

Nezha's reaction and actions were unexpected for both sides, but they broke the silence. Captain Orlando said to Nezha:

“Niezai, this fraud was a decision we made together, so we should all bear the consequences.”

"Eh?"

Nezha looked at the other person with a blank expression after hearing this.

The next moment, Orlando knelt down in front of Fujimaru Ritsuka in a dogeza position.

Seeing this, the other team members exchanged glances, nodded firmly, and knelt down behind Orlando.

"We apologize for the fraudulent enhancements we committed against other players. Please punish us!"

Fujimaru Ritsuka and Asuna exchanged a glance, their previously serious expressions finally melting away, revealing a hint of a smile.

In reality, if the other party's attitude is really bad or they have no intention of repenting, even though they certainly won't kill the player, they can still make all the players aware of their existence, giving them a social death.

However, despite some attempts to argue their point, the overall attitude of the other party still left room for reconciliation.

Compensation and apologies to the victims are a given.

Although they used almost all the weapons they swindled to upgrade and improve themselves with resources, some of the resources they earned themselves were also included in the upgrades. As long as they sold all the equipment they had, they could still get enough compensation from Cole.

Whether the victims will forgive their actions or what retaliatory actions they might take is a price they themselves must pay.

The Legendary Heroes was a team formed in another virtual stealth action game, in which Nezhar was also a member, but at that time his name was that of another famous hero, not the current Nezha.

Although the other game was also a virtual stealth game, it was so rudimentary compared to SAO that it wasn't even a demo. Therefore, after learning that SAO was about to be released for public testing, they decided to collectively switch to SAO and continue playing together.

Leaving aside the issue of SAO becoming a death game on its first day of open beta, after they mustered the courage to start grinding and leveling up, they suddenly encountered another problem—

Nezhar is an FNC, meaning he is not suited for full stealth.

Inability to fully immerse oneself in the game, meaning the brain cannot adapt to the electrical signals generated by the game, may lead to sensory problems or loss of body control during gameplay.

Nezha's ability to log into SAO successfully indicates that his FNC symptoms aren't too severe, but unfortunately, his FNC symptoms are extremely incompatible with SAO.

He cannot judge the distance between himself and objects by sight; in other words, he has no sense of distance.

In other games, this wouldn't be a big problem, because there are ranged classes like mages and archers with guaranteed hits. But in SAO, which is dominated by melee combat with cold weapons, this small weakness can be fatal.

Even so, he initially wanted to fight monsters and learned the [Flying Sword] skill to start leveling up with his companions.

However, the [Flying Sword] item is a consumable. Although you can use roadside stones to use skills, the attack power is very low, which slows down the leveling progress of your companions.

After persisting for two weeks, he finally faced reality and decided to give up his plan to become a warrior and become a production-oriented player.

To be honest, the atmosphere was quite heavy at the time. Nezha knew that he was the one who had dragged everyone down, so he was afraid that they would just abandon him like that.