Lastly, I pulled the Anneal Blade, sheath and all, off my back and held it in my dangling left hand. I didn’t have a folding chair, but I was about the same distance off the ground as Nezha was when he accepted the weapon from his customer.
Asuna held a deep breath, understanding what I was about to try. I looked up at her face and said, “Watch close and count the time.”
“Okay.”
“Here goes...Three, two, one, zero!”
I dropped the sword directly onto the window. Just as it touched the surface, the sword vanished in a puff of light and turned into text in the menu. I promptly touched the item name. When the sub-menu appeared, I selected materialize.” With another splash of light, the sword reappeared and I picked it up again.
“...How was that?”
I looked up and met the fencer’s wide-eyed gaze. Her hazel eyes blinked slowly, moved to my left hand...and she shook her head.
“It was a similar sight. But much too slow to be the same thing. It took well over a second for the sword to disappear and reappear.”
“Maybe if I practice, I can do it faster...”
“There were other differences. There are big fancy effects when you put it in and take it out of the menu. Even timed to happen at the same time the upgrading materials flash in the forge, you can’t hide that kind of effect. Plus, it shines twice.”
“...I see...” I sighed, and tapped the window on the floor to make it disappear. I stood up and slung the sword back into position.
“I thought I was onto something. I figured all the stuff stacked on the carpet could hide his menu...”
“Wouldn’t that be impossible, too? I mean, if you put something on top of a window set to the inventory tab, wouldn’t it all sink into it?”
“...Urgh.” She was right. I nodded and looked out the window again. Nezha was just leaving the plaza, rolled-up carpet balanced on his shoulder. His head was down, as though feeling the weight on his shoulder, and plodded heavily away. It was not the image of a man who had just scored himself a rare and valuable Stout Brand.
“If we can’t expose the trick he’s using, I suppose we’ll just have to go reveal the truth to Shivata,” she said.
“If the sword returns to him, that will prove that there was a deceptive attempt to steal it. But if that happens, all the blame will fall on Nezha’s shoulders, and the other five Braves could get away scot-free. Obviously, what he’s doing is wrong. But...I just get this feeling...”
I trailed off. Asuna fixed me with a direct stare. For a moment, it seemed as if the powerful light in her eyes softened just a bit.
“You can’t imagine that Nezha is doing all of this entirely of his own volition...Am I right?”
“Huh...?”
My eyes widened. She’d hit the nail on the head. Asuna turned away and leaned against the wall, looked up at the dark ceiling and spoke in a slow cadence.
“Do you remember what he said yesterday, when I went to ask him to upgrade my Wind Fleuret? He asked if I wanted a new weapon or to repair my old one. It was as though he left out the option of upgrading, hoping he didn’t have to do it...”
“I see...Good point. That would explain why he made such a sour face when you asked him to upgrade.”
“Honestly, if Shivata was able to expose his fraud and all the Legend Braves stood up for Nezha and said they were false charges, I wouldn’t mind that much. But...if they abandoned him and tried to pin all of the responsibility on his shoulders...”
In a worst-case scenario, all the rage of the player population would be focused on Nezha, and he might be executed. In fact, the probability was fairly high. After all...
“The five warriors all took the names of legendary soldiers and heroes, and they didn’t include Nezha the crafter in that pattern...”
“Oh, about that.” Asuna held up a finger as though just remembering something.
“What?”
“Something’s been bugging me ever since you told me he was a member of the Legend Braves. His name...Nezha. So I asked Argo...”
At that precise moment, a purple icon started blinking on the right side of my vision, and I held up a hand to cut her off. I clicked the icon and it opened a long private message. Speak of the devil–it was from Argo.
First Report
Beneath that header was all the information I’d requested about the Legend Braves: names, levels, rough character builds. It was an impressive amount of info to compile in such a short time.
I set my window to visible mode and beckoned Asuna over to look at the message. At the top was Orlando, their leader. Level 11, used a longsword and shield, heavy armor.
Along with these data was a simple sentence explaining the source of his name. That part was requested by Asuna. As my uncertain memory recalled, he was indeed based on one of the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, his paladin knights. But Orlando was the Italian styling of his name, while in the original French, he was Roland.
“Where do you suppose Argo got this information?” I noted wryly. Asuna giggled.
“She must know someone who’s a major history buff...So Beowulf was Danish, not English. Cuchulainn was from Celtic Mythology, like we guessed.”
We went down the list, ignoring the character info and reading the sources of their names. When we reached Nezha’s name at the bottom, I let out a long breath.
His level was 10, a fairly high number thanks to the fact that crafting gave experience points on its own. But it didn’t help his combat skill proficiency, which would make fighting on the front line difficult for him. Naturally, his player build was tuned to be a blacksmith. And at the end, the source of his name...
“Huh?!”
“What...?”
We yelped together. The answer was totally unexpected.
“Does this mean...we were pronouncing it wrong?”
“B-but I remember the other Braves were calling him Nezuo...”
We looked at each other, then back to the message. If what was written in his lengthy name background was true, I had terribly misunderstood him.
A moment later, several pieces of information stored in my brain as separate clumps suddenly began to rearrange themselves, linking together and shining bright.
“Oh...!”
I lifted my left hand and squeezed it, watching closely. Opened again, and closed.
In that instant, I knew that I had finally grasped the secret of Nezha’s weapon-switching trick for good.
“Of course...That’s what it was!!”
10
“Upgrade, please.”
I roughly thrust my sword and scabbard forward. Nezha the blacksmith looked up at me doubtfully.
He was suspicious because he wasn’t looking at my face, but the great helm that completely covered it. The only thing it featured were narrow slits at the eyes. Such helmets were excellent in terms of defense but terribly limited the player’s vision. It was one thing for a tank in the midst of a group battle to use it, but hardly any player would bother to wear such a thing in town.
As I was a vowed disciple of light, versatile armor, the only reason I’d ever wear this great helm was for disguise. And because I’d been present for the destruction of Asuna’s Wind Fleuret three days earlier, I couldn’t use my favorite bandanna instead, or Nezha would recognize me.
Perhaps this disguise was not that much better, but Asuna insisted that if I didn’t want to stand out because of the funny helm, I should commit to the full outfit and simply play one of those people.
So the great helm was only part of the costume, I was covered in thick plate mail all over and held a tower shield the size of an entire door. All the items were the cheapest of that type available at NPC shops, and the equipment weight was just light enough not to send me into the red, but the cramped, closed-in sensation threatened to make me go claustrophobic within half a day.
Feeling a newfound sense of appreciation for those tanks who’d
taken part in the boss raid, I handed over my sword–the Anneal Blade, my only truly rare piece of equipment right now.
“I’ll take a look at its properties,” he said quietly, tapping the hilt. When he saw the contents of the window, his downcast eye-brows shot upward.
“Anneal plus six...two attempts left. And its upgrades are S3, D3. A challenging sword, but a very good one...”
I watched his lips creep into a tiny smile, and I confirmed that my initial suspicions about him were correct. This blacksmith wasn’t an irredeemably evil person.
But just a second later, Nezha’s smile of admiration disappeared, replaced by a grimace of pain. Through gritted teeth, he murmured, “...Which value did you want to upgrade?”
Sunday, December 11, just before eight o’clock in the evening.
A chill wind blew through the eastern plaza of Taran. There were no other players or NPCs in sight. There were only Nezha the blacksmith, just before he closed up his street side shop, and me, his mystery customer. Somewhere in the empty houses lining the plaza, Asuna was watching our encounter, but I couldn’t feel her gaze for all the thick metal armor.
It was the preceding Sunday that we defeated the first-floor boss and opened the teleport gate to the main city of the second floor, so today marked a full week since then. I had run into Asuna in the eastern plaza of Urbus three days ago, and it was two days before that I had discovered the truth behind Nezha’s upgrade fraud.
Technically, I hadn’t identified the trick, only been “certain” that I had, but there was a reason that I’d waited a full two days to attempt to ascertain the truth of the matter. I needed to master the technique Nezha was using to switch out weapons.
Of course, this all depended on Nezha accepting my work request. Telling myself that the hassle of all this full plate armor had succeeded in convincing him, I murmured an answer to the blacksmith.
“Speed, please. I’ll pay for the materials. Enough for a ninety percent chance.”
Nezha had heard my voice three days ago, but the distorting effect of the great helm helped disguise it enough to keep him from realizing that I’d been the companion of the woman with the Wind Fleuret.
“Very well. For enough to boost the chances to ninety, that will be...two thousand seven hundred col, including the cost of labor,” he explained, his voice tense. I agreed in as flat a tone as I could muster.
Beneath the thick breastplate, my heart was already racing, and my gauntlets were clammy with sweat. If my suspicions were all entirely wrong, and Nezha wasn’t in fact a fraudster, and weapon destruction had indeed been added as a possible failure state, then my beloved Anneal Blade +6 might be gone forever in a manner of minutes.
No.
That was not all. After all, we had retrieved Asuna’s Wind Fleuret through the use of the Materialize All Items command. Even my theory about the trick was wrong, I could still get the sword back within an hour by using that button.
So all I had to do was stay calm, watch everything that happened, and hit one icon at the proper moment. Nothing more.
I waved my left hand to bring up the menu, flipped to the trade tab, and paid Nezha his price. Normally I might have closed it after that, but this time I left it open on the top screen. Fortunately, Nezha did not seem to find this suspicious.
“Two thousand seven hundred col, paid in full,” he muttered, and turned to the forge. Very naturally, he let the end of the sword in his left hand dangle just inches above the many products crammed on top of his carpet.
It all started here.
My concentration had been sucked toward the portable forge the last time, so I kept my gaze directly fixed on his left hand. My field of view was greatly limited by the helms eye-slits, but that helped me ignore any misdirection he attempted through the flashy forge display.
Nezha must have tossed the upgrade materials straight from his stock into the forge, because everything flashed bright green for a second. If I’d had a view of the forge, my eyes would have been dazzled by the light for just a second.
But the next moment, Nezha’s left index finger stretched and lightly tapped between two swords on the carpet. For just the briefest of instants, the Anneal Blade blinked.
That was it. The switch was complete. Such a brilliant, perfect trick. He could do this in front of a crowd of a hundred in broad daylight, and not a single one would notice.
Like Nezha when he saw the detailed properties of my sword, I let out a sigh of admiration. But I said nothing–I let the blacksmith finish his upgrading process.
Once the green light filled the forge like a liquid, Nezha lifted the sword in his left hand and pulled it from the scabbard with his right. The blade was the darkened steel color unique to the Anneal Blade. But to my eye, its shine was just a bit duller than usual.
The sword Nezha was holding right now was not my +6 sword, but the spent +0 blade he had bought from Rufiol three days before. It was only a guess, but I was sure of it.
The blacksmith laid the weapon in the portable forge, suffusing the blade in its green glow. He moved it to the anvil and started striking it with his smith’s hammer. Clang, clang, the same crisp sound I heard when he upgraded Asuna’s fleuret.
When the fleuret broke and Nezha offered to return the cost of his labor, I’d said, “It’s all right, you did your best. There are some crafters who say it doesn’t matter how you do it as long as you hit the weapon enough times, so they just whack away”
However, the reason these strikes sounded so heartfelt was not because he was praying for the operation to be a success through them. Nezha was mourning the loss of the weapon he was about to break for the sake of his deception.
Once a piece of gear was spent–no more upgrade attempts left–it would break without fail when the process was initiated again. Argo had confirmed that for us two nights ago. That phenomenon was about to happen right before my eyes.
...Eight, nine, ten.
The last hammer strike rang loud and high.
The sword burst into shards atop the anvil. Nezha’s back shivered and shrank. His right hand with the hammer slumped downward, and the sword-bound sheath in his left hand disappeared.
Hunched over, Nezha took a deep breath, screwed up his face, and was about to shriek an apology–until I cut him off.
“No need to apologize.”
“...Huh...?”
He froze. I went up my equipment mannequin from the bottom, switching out armor. Giant ski-boot greaves, plate leggings, gauntlets, plate armor, heater shield...The items that made up my disguise vanished one by one.
When the great helm came off, my bangs flopped down over forehead I pushed them back and heaved a deep breath.
Finally, I equipped the Coat of Midnight, its black hem swaying. Nezha’s narrow eyes went wide.
“...Y...you’re...the guy...from...”
“Sorry for dressing in disguise. But I figured you would refuse my request if you recognized me.”
I meant to say this in my most friendly, understanding tone of voice, but the moment he heard it, Nezha’s shock morphed into fear. In that moment, he knew that I’d discovered the existence of his scam and even how it worked.
Without taking my eyes off the frozen blacksmith, I pushed an icon on my main menu–the weapon skill mod activation button. With a quiet swish, another sword appeared in my right hand, heavy and wrapped in a black leather sheath. It was my partner in battle since just after this game of death began; my Anneal Blade +6.
Nezha grimaced. It almost pained me to see that expression.
“No one would suspect another player of having the Quick Change mod so early, especially not a blacksmith...And hiding the menu to use it between the wares lined up on your carpet? Brilliant. Whoever thought that up is a genius.”
Nezha’s shoulders slowly sank, until he finally slumped over and hung his head.
A skill mod–short for modification–was a skill power-up available to t
he player at certain intervals of proficiency in a particular skill.
For example, when the Search skill reached a level of fifty, the first mod became available to the player. You could then choose from a number of options, such as a bonus to search for multiple targets, a bonus to increase search range, or the optional augmentation ability of Pursuit. There were tons of useful mods, and choosing between them was as hard as it was enjoyable.
Mods could also be applied to the numerous weapon skills in the game. Quick Change fell into that category. It was a common mod available at the very first choice for most one-handed weapons, but very few players ever picked it first. There was no need for anyone to make use of it until at least the fifth floor of Aincrad.
Following that theory, when my One-Handed Sword skill reached fifty halfway through the first floor, I chose the “shorten sword skill cooldown” mod. When I reached one hundred, I would choose “increase critical hit chance,” and only at one fifty would I go for Quick Change.
Quick Change was an active mod, not a passive one. By pressing a shortcut icon on the front page of the menu, my equipped weapon would switch out instantly.
The regular method of changing weapons was a five-step process: (1) opening the window, (2) tapping the right-(or left-)hand cell in the equipment mannequin, (3) selecting “change weapon” from the list of options, (4) selecting the desired weapon from the available items in storage, and (5) hitting the ok button. When faced with a monster that had the Snatch ability, it was a long enough process that anyone would take at least one defenseless hit while trying to equip a backup weapon.
But with Quick Change, several steps were removed: (1) opening the window, and (2) hitting the shortcut icon. With enough practice, it could be done in half a second. The instant after you lost your weapon, you could have another one in hand and ready for battle.
On top of that, Quick Change had a great variety of options to specify exactly which hand received exactly which weapon when the icon was hit. You could set it to pull up a specific weapon, tell it to make you empty-handed–even allow you to automatically pull the same type of weapon as the one you were equipping, if you had a spare.