TL : Cnine

ED/PF : TimberLord, Kouksan

Setting off from the station building located near 【Naha】, the four of us rode the ox-cart to 【Nago】.

The field in IEO is HUGE. If we had gone on foot, would we even reach our destination by the end of the day? Well, a journey by foot will definitely be slower when compared to a ride on the ox-cart. Thinking about it, wasn’t an ox-cart’s speed only faster by a bit? I soon realized how naive I was.

「Hey… It’s a bit too fast isn’t it!?」

Unintentionally, I let out a hoa.r.s.e shout. Seriously, you can’t blame me. Who the h.e.l.l would consider the possibilities of an ox running as fast a normal limited express train? Though it’s as fast as a train, the body hardly shakes around. Ugh, actually, I think its grotesque appearance would shake us more than the fast running would.

「Anyone who gets on this ox-cart for the first time will have the same face as Sou-kun. Since this is the fastest transportation method and also because there are no other means of transportation, excluding teleportation which many do not have, everyone is already getting used to the ox-cart.」

I guess that’s not really surprising. Since players only can choose between walking by foot or using an ox-cart to move between cities, everyone is promptly choosing to use the ox-cart like us. Naturally they can’t just use it whenever they want, as the ox-cart has its own schedule too, and required payment upon use.

Riding the ox cart required you to pay in-game money. Thankfully Shinji paid for me as I  am really broke now. Though I have raw materials from the previous monster subjugations, I’ve yet to convert them into money. Since I’ll naturally give him his money back later, I had to gladly

take his offer when he handed it out. I wonder, could this debt be paid in a different form?

「It’ll take around an hour for us to arrive at 【Nago】 . The station building is separate from the city, though it’s not an issue since our destination is not there anyway.」

Certainly, our destination is a place in the north of 【Nago】 . However, will we go to【Nago】 on our way back then? Though I want to go there due to my curiosity, sadly I’m penniless right now.

「Can we go to 【Nago】 after finishing our quest? If there’s more time, I want to wander around, convert my raw materials and shop for new equipment.」

「Ah, that sounds good. We were planning to go there anyway to report the completion of the quest and receive the reward for it.」

「Thank you!」

I was a rather pitiful person to have been forced to wear a starting equipment. You could also  say that it’s my most important goal to get better equipment right now. The stop at 【Nago】would also be nice as I want to know how much money I can fetch from this knife which was taken from another player.

「Sou, come to think of it, have you confirmed the stats of the dropped item that you got from your PvP? 」

「Un? Ah, it’s an 18 cm survival knife made of iron. Its thickness is 5 millimeter.」

Shinji showed a complicated expression after hearing my explanation. What’s the matter, do you want to hear a more detailed explanation?

「Could it be, you’re not checking the stats of your equipment? You know, like open up your inventory and…」

「Oh, that kind of stats huh.」

No matter what kind of equipment, whether it is armour or weapons, it has stats that can give you extra defence or attack power. Whoops, I had completely forgotten about that. Clumsily,

Clumsily, I opened up my inventory to check it.

【Weapon List】

・Hand Gun

Physical Attack ：3

Common automatic pistol, ammo : 12

・Hand Gun

Physical Attack ：3

Common automatic pistol, ammo : 12

・Knife

Physical Attack : 6

A common survival knife

The heck is with those descriptions.

「Is this a good weapon? 」

Shinji is showed another troubled face after hearing my question. I see, so that’s the value huh.

「Maybe it was already a starting weapon. We should be able to find a better weapon for you if we go to 【Nago】 city.」

「I see.」

It seems this thing was originally trash. Looks like I got my hopes up too high. Anyway, you can compensate the lack of attack damage with one’s own skills.

「But then again, speaking of greed, I also want to buy a nice sword. Next what I would get would be a hand grena— No, should I get a rocket launcher? A rocket launcher would be great when we fight against gargantuan enemies. Next would be an a.s.sault rif— Wait a minute, this is the virtual world. Maybe they have charged particle cannons or railguns in stock!」

「O~i Sou, come back ple~ase!」

Whew, that was a close one. A bit more and I would have become a degenerate furnace. Earth aside, I would have caused commotion on a galactic scale. [E.D : Search up ‘black hole engine’, which is similar to degenerate furnace.]

「Sorry Shinji, the world just got saved because of your calling.」

「Hmm? I saved the world? What happened?」

Such a humble guy. You’re a great man you know? Conflict between humans might disappear if everyone was like Shinji. If everyone’s like Shinj… No can do, that’s too gross. Yup, it’s not good.

「Shinji, please don’t spread your ideals, for the sake of this world!」

「What the h.e.l.l?」

Then, we spent about an hour talking about various things on top of the ox-cart. After arriving at the station building, we

building, we headed straight towards the Pineapple Garden.

The 4 of us descended from the ox-cart and headed towards our destination―― The Pineapple Garden.

「We have arrived Sou. This is Pineapple Garden!」

「…」

The heck is this place? This place was as good as the real Okinawa.

Spreading before my eyes, were fields filled with overgrown pineapples. To make it weirder, the pineapples were floating in the air, defying the almighty rule of gravity. To be honest, my head can’t catch up with this anymore.

「Hive, do the pineapples in Okinawa have eyes and mouth on top of being able to fly?」

If those things were the native pineapples of Okinawa, I will change my opinion regarding Okinawa. Okinawans are way too amazing.

「Ahahaha, those are Okinawa’s limited monster, 【Pineapplegar】. They’re exotic monsters since they don’t sp.a.w.n anywhere except this place.」

「He~~」

Looking at the scenery in front of my eyes, I replied Hive with an apatethic tone.

By the way, it’s often misunderstood that pineapples were fruits that bloomed from the stem of the tree. Instead, they grow at the shaft itself, thus pineapple fields usually look like fields with overgrown gra.s.s when seen from far. Maybe I should visit Okinawa with my family one day?

「The number of people hunting the 【Pineapplegar】 is also unexpectedly low, in that case we won’t have any problems regarding loot.」

There were not many players trying to harvest the 【Pineapplegar】 in the garden. In addition, almost all of them are having a hard time landing an attack on the flying pineapples. I see, this is definitely a desired hunting field for my comrades of the shooting job.

「Can I shoot down those flying pineapples?」

「Ah, only Leaf can safely land her attacks onto those flying pineapples, but her magic has too many gaps. It’s difficult to hunt them in an efficient way.」

「My magic is fairly powerful but the downside is thedownside is the fact that it has a long charge time and recast time. My current target is to learn high level magic for prolonged battles.」

Come to think of it, Leaf was a magician. I really wanted to see her magic if possible. I might even be able to learn magic after grasping the key to it.

Heh, I’m getting even more fired up now. To stop anyone from finding out my new burning pa.s.sion, I tacitly changed the conversation to the rear guard of this party.

「Is it just my feeling, or will the sound of Blue’s flute be effective against those monster?」

Though I don’t know the full detail of Blue’s flute, it should be able to cover a large area. In that case, the 【Song】 that will inflict abnormal status should be effective against those pineapples.

「That’s great idea, but those guys have high resistance against abnormal statuses.」

Resistance huh. Looks like even monsters have that too.

「Sorry, if only I had even more skills or better【Song】skills.」

「Don’t mind it Blue. Since I’m here, leave them to me instead!」

「Y-Yes!」

「Come to think of it, what kinds of 【Song】 do you have with you Blue? 」

「I have 3  【Song】I can use. One is to distract the enemy, one to dull the enemy’s perception, and the last one to gradually restore a party’s HP」

When I heard her describing her 【Song】list, they seem to be powerful ones. But then, they’re not that effective against monsters who have high resistance.

「I see. Well then, I’ll be relying on you when we meet monsters with lower resistance to that skill.」

「Yes, please leave it to me when the time comes!」

What a cute smile.

「Well then, let’s hunt those pineapples」

Following up after me, Shinji and Wakakussan said their lines.

「Leave the fallen 【Pineapplegar】 to me!」

「I’ll do a cover with magic.」

Thus, our 2nd party battle for today began.