Sword Art Online - Volume 26 - Chapter 9

9

Silica and her companions decided to set up a makeshift base just outside the tunnel leading to the wasp dome.

They cleared away the brush, cut down trees, and carved out a flat space about ten yards to the side. Sinon and Klein used their Stoneworking skill to build a foundation, upon which Lisbeth crafted a simple hut with the Carpentry skill. It would easily be shattered upon attack by any large monster, but they only needed it to hold up until they conquered the wasp nest.

The reason for building a base was to stockpile resource items, particularly lumber. There were probably hundreds of those giant wasps, which would attack in coordination over a wide range, so it was quite likely that the classic method of luring out one at a time where they were easier to manage would not work. If they were surrounded by a swarm of wasps, it would make escaping the tunnel harder, so the plan was to erect a simple defensive structure within the dome—proposed by Sinon, who called it a “bunker.”

Players weren’t allowed to place structures on the ground in the wild in ALO, but crafting was possible anywhere in Unital Ring, whether in a dungeon or on top of a river, and a simple wall took no more than seconds to set up. If you were used to the commands, it wouldn’t be that hard to build a bunker while you were in combat.

The real issue was how long a wooden bunker could withstand a barrage of giant wasp attacks, and the only way to find out was to try it. It would be another hour until a minimum number of members would be around to help tackle the fight.

As an expert in sneaking, Friscoll volunteered to be the messenger to Ruis na Ríg. It wasn’t entirely clear how much they could trust him, but if his purpose was to be the first to reach the goal, too, there couldn’t be any benefit for him to betray them now.

Silica weighed the different options and possibilities in her head as she fed Pina and Misha. The bear ate plenty of harve meat and some blueberry-like berries they harvested while cutting down bushes, then curled up next to the shack and began to nap. Pina alighted on the massive bear and used it as a bed.

Lisbeth, grinning blissfully, watched the pets sleeping. Then her smile vanished, and she muttered, “When Unital Ring’s been beaten, this world will turn back into ALO and GGO again, right?”

“Um…I suppose so?” Silica replied before she realized what Lisbeth was thinking about. When someone reached the center of this world and Unital Ring vanished, Misha, the other pets, and the Bashin and Patter would go with it. Even newborn Yael would not be spared.

The fragility of virtual worlds was well-known to any VRMMO player. While using the Seed Package to build a game lowered the initial costs, it also lowered the resistance to shutting down games faster. In just the last year and a half, dozens of games had been taken offline, and all the NPCs that lived in those worlds had disappeared with them.

But the AI level of the Unital Ring NPCs was several levels above any other game’s. Every NPC here seemed equipped with the same level of intelligence as only a few special NPCs in ALO, like the gods and giants. Even pets like Misha and Kuro didn’t just execute a few standard routines, but exhibited the ability to understand complex orders, a sign of having their own AI.

Thousands of natives living in the vast world of Unital Ring vanishing in an instant? It was out of their hands, but even still, it seemed cruel. However…

“Even if we’re not the ones who beat the game, someone will…,” Silica said, condensing her thought process into one simple answer.

Lisbeth nodded. “For now, we don’t have any option other than heading for the goal.”

“Yes. Let’s do our best to beat this wasp nest.”

They bumped knuckles, right as someone called for them from the other side of the clearing. Silica waved, then trotted over to where Sinon and Klein were waiting.

The four of them focused on collecting resources while they waited for more players to arrive.

They’d need iron nails and sawed boards to make any proper wooden construction, but the bunker only needed to last for the length of the battle, so they made as many logs and ropes as they could, saving them up in the stockpile space within the shack.

Forty minutes later, when they had just about filled up the capacity of the shack, a number of footsteps approached from the southwest. They watched warily, just in case, but the group that emerged through the woods was a party much larger than what they’d expected.

In the lead was Friscoll, wearing a robe that made him look like a bagworm. Behind him were Agil, Argo, and Leafa. Then there were Holgar, Dikkos, and a few more ex-members of Mutasina’s army; Zarion, Beeming, and more from Insectsite; then three or four each of the Bashin and Patter. The group was nearly twenty strong.

Silica walked over, her caution forgotten, and gave the group an abbreviated greeting before telling Leafa, “I’m amazed you got this many! I know it’s Saturday, but it’s still early…”

“Well, that’s the thing,” said Leafa, glancing at Friscoll, who was talking with Agil and Klein about something. “He just went running all through Ruis na Ríg and rounded everyone up. Seems like he even picked up Bashin and Patter language at some point…”

“Guy’s gonna put me outta business.” Argo scowled. But then she smirked and added, “I was the one who reached out to Zarion’s group, though.”

“Out of our group, only Agil, Argo, and Asuna have any fluency in English,” Leafa noted, which was a fact. Kirito could speak a fair bit, too—he was considering going to school in America, after all—but not to a native extent. Silica was trying her best to study foreign language now, after she’d been totally unable to explain herself to any of the other players in the Otherworld War, since her speaking was very clumsy and she could only understand them if they talked slowly and simply enough for her.

Since they had the Insectsite players on their side, she wanted to overcome the intimidation from their appearances and be proactive in communicating, so Silica walked over to where the group was chatting with the Patter.

But before she could say anything, Zarion the rhinoceros beetle turned to her and said, at the very upper limit of the speed she could make out by ear, “Hey, girl, these fluffies are saying they know about the giant hornets we’re about to fight.”

“Really?” she replied, and turned to the three Patter.

The leader of the trio was Chett. She wore a light-green bandana around her head, neatly designed leather armor, and had a gleaming pitchfork slung over her back. She stood a bit over three feet tall and was a heroic figure who faced the Life Harvester without fear—but now it seemed that her ears and snout were slightly downcast.

“Silica, are you really going to fight the big green wasps?” Chett said, her words crisp and clear thanks to Silica’s hard work grinding up the Patter language skill.

“Yes. We must pass through the place where the wasp nest is if we want to go deeper into the forest,” Silica replied. The two Patter warriors who stood behind Chett—Chinoki on the right and Chilph on the left, if she recalled correctly—both twitched their whiskers. The swarm of giant wasps was an undeniable threat, but it seemed surprising to Silica that they would be so frightened before they’d even seen the creatures.

“When I was a child, my nana told me that long, long ago, it was terrifying green wasps that drove the Patter off the plains,” said Chett before she launched into the history of her people.

In the distant past, the Patter built a magnificent city on a rocky mountain to the north of the Giyoru Savanna. They grew corn, raised honeybees, and lived in peace.

But one day, the earth trembled and shook, and the side of the mountain collapsed. Then a swarm of green wasps, bigger than anything they’d ever seen, appeared and attacked the Patter. Those who fought back and those who ran and hid were killed in equal numbers, and in no time the wasps had control over the city. The survivors escaped to the savanna to the south, where ferocious dinosaurs pushed them farther to the east, until a small handful of just a few dozen reached the Great Wall of Gaiyu.

Since then, the Patter had eked out a meager existence inside the great wall, living in fear of the frogs and lizards inside, dreaming of one day reaching the land of promise to the far east…

The entire group had formed a circle to listen to the story. When Chett finished, her big eyes dripped with tears.

Her reason to cry was quite understandable. They had reached the Great Zelletelio Forest as they’d so dearly desired, only to encounter the same giant wasps that had ruined their old city in its prime. That was surely worthy of despair. It seemed to Silica that they were in danger of having all the Patter decide to move out of Ruis na Ríg to a safer place.

“In that case, Chett, this is the perfect opportunity,” said Sinon calmly. She’d been listening quietly next to Silica the entire time.

Chett turned in her direction with surprise, and asked, “Opportunity? For what?”

“For avenging your ancestors. I suppose they might be a different swarm from the ones that destroyed your city, but they’re clearly still the same species. Plus, if we figure out how to vanquish them, we might have a chance to take back your city one day. Assuming there’s still a nest there.”

“Take back our city…,” repeated Chett, trying on the words for size. Her drooping ears began to perk up bit by bit. Light returned to her darkened eyes, and her whiskers stood at attention again.

She turned to look at Chinoki and Chilph, then said, surprisingly, “Our ancestors were driven out by the green wasps, but they fought bravely. They learned the wasps’ weakness, and the elder told that secret to his children, who told their children, and so on. I am the child of Chignook, our current elder. I know the weakness.”

After those who knew Patter filled in the others on what she had said, a murmur of surprise ran through the group.

Most likely, learning how to defeat the giant wasps was supposed to follow these steps: speak to all the NPCs around the Stiss Ruins where the ALO players initially spawned, put together the clues to travel to the Great Wall of Gaiyu, then clear some quests to earn the Patter’s trust. But because Kirito’s group, in the process of finding Sinon, ended up taking the Patter all the way to Ruis na Ríg, the process had been significantly abbreviated. This might be a big chance to catch up to the Apocalyptic Date and Asuka Empire groups, who supposedly had the lead for now.

Silica stepped forward and asked, “Wh-what is that weakness?”

“Lobelia flowers,” stated the brave rat warrior firmly.