Snippet #2464567

Akira, as usual had found himself to be lost in a town. You see he had often gotten lost in the real world and Sword Art Online was no different in terms of size. He had noticed many eyes peering at him, some players dared to even follow him. "The nerve of such people! I wonder if they would be foolish enough to follow me outside of the town...", thought Akira, his own blue eyes darting back and forth in his skull watching other players trying to discreetly follow him. Is this what the Red-Status brought? Not only fear but multiple challenges from other players? No doubt he could easily take down two lower leveled players in a duel but that was beyond the point. This was one of the reasons why he had brought Amber along with him in his travels, and now she wasn't with him...Oh the irony!

He had picked up the in-hopes to lose some of the players that were following him and as he did the pursuers left their sneaking status and just openly chased Akira around for a good five minutes. Some players stopped but there were just these three that would not stop chasing him. He could not harm them nor could they harm him, this was due to the games Anti-Criminal Code Effect Area which stopped people from Player-Killing in certain areas, with towns being one of the locations. That is when something popped into Akira's head. He had read something, somewhere about the orange status and towns. He glared back at the players once more, they all wore high level gear and they stayed just out of detection range so he couldn't see their names. Akira slowed his pace and the figures quickly came into view. Three names popped up and by then Akira had realized that he was in some deep trouble.

[NPC] Vigilante 1
[NPC] Guard 1
[NPC-BOSS] Paladin

The thought had finally popped into his head, a line from the manual itself: The «area» also prevents Orange Players from entering a settlement protected by the «area». If an Orange Player attempted to enter such a settlement, they would be immediately attacked by a large number of powerful NPC guards.

No doubt Akira had drawn the NPC's attention the moment he walked in the town, how had he forgotten such a vital rule though?! No matter as he had already made plans to fight the NPCs. If he killed them now it should be another 24 hours before they respawned. Akira drew his sword, a [Level 5 Curved-Blade] called the Moon-Slicer for a level 5 item it packed a punch, especially in the right hands. It had the damage of a [Level 10] Weapon. Akira didn't even have to look to see that the vigilante and guard were [Level 12], he had assumed the Paladin was around [Level 15] but then noticed he was five levels higher than he had originally expecting, putting him at 20.

Akira held the Moon Slicer firmly in his left hand and pointed it directly at the vigilante. He quickly twisted his wrist to the side causing the blade to pulsate a radiating gold. It didn't take long for the Vigilante to take notice of this and rush at Akira, however he was far too slow. By the time the Vigilante covered half the distance between Akira and himself Akira had already activated his skill. "Charge Dash!" Akira had yelled, in the blink of an eye Akira had dashed through the vigilante, guard and the Paladin. The health on the vigilante and guard faded from; green, yellow, then finally to red before they exploded into pixels. The Paladin however was a far different story as the skill hadn't even scratched the Paladin's thick steel armor.

The Paladin wielded a halberd which was around six feet long. The Paladin had to be slow as anyone would be wielding such heavy steel armor and a six foot long iron halberd. This would be the one major advantage Akira had on it, speed. Akira rushed the Paladin, occasionally strafing around the Paladin to throw him off. The Paladin seemed unfazed, his battle-worn face hidden by a large steel Knight's Helm that wasn't in perfect condition itself. After closing the gap between the paladin and himself Akira had strafed around towards the back of the Paladin. He jumped and aimed for the back of the neck, the weak spot of most steel armors. With graceful speed the Paladin turned around and impaled Akira directly in the intestines with the tip of his Halberd.

The strike did tremendous damage sending half of Akira's health into gray. "AGH!", Akira screamed. He could feel the tip of the halberd entering his body through the front and coming out of the back. It had completely penetrated through flimsy leather armor that he had equipped. Akira tried to speak but couldn't muster up anything besides yelps that would be audible all throughout the town with each scream and yelp his breathing would get more frantic and each sound would sound even more desperate than the last. He had hoped that Amber had seen his health-bar wither into almost nothing on her party screen. After multiple attempts to calm his frantic breathing he had manged to yell out a single name. "AMBER!"