"Aihh...that’s it for today, huh?" sighed Moonpiercer as her world warped to a white void.
She had barely killed six Sunblade Lionesses when she was kicked out, making her realize how much time she wasted watching Okuni.
But on second thought, how could it be considered wasting time when she already leveled up five times in less than twenty minutes?
Unbeknownst to her, the moment she disappeared, two youngsters riding basic-looking horse mounts with average looks arrived at the scene, catching sight of the respawning Sunblade Lionesses.
Their trial names, Nutter and Taro, were written in green, which meant they were E-rankers.
It looked like they were just as young as Moonpiercer and the others, but they were actually older by one year.
Being among the bottom of their batch, these E-rankers were still leveling in the Novice Zones when they suddenly received a call from their superiors, as they were now also rookies in a professional guild environment.
They were tasked to find a B-ranker named Okuni, who was apparently in this area of the Sunblade Savannah.
"H-Hey, Nutter, look!" Taro began, pointing nervously in a certain direction. "T-The Lion King..."
"I-It’s been killed, huh?" Nutter responded, trying to feign a calm exterior despite being utterly horrified.
It has only been barely two weeks since this batch arrived in the Myriad Sword Realm.
Yet, this B-ranker, Okuni, who was also their target, had already defeated the Sunblade Lion King.
Only five months in did he and Taro, along with a few of their friends, managed to become strong enough to challenge and defeat the field boss.
And that’s only because they formed a party of ten people.
Strangely, their confidence grew because of this, as a realization struck them.
Both of them could duel the Sunblade Lion King now and most likely emerge victorious.
While they would get nothing worthy of mention due to the level gap, even if they did so, this meant that, with the two of them working together, killing this Okuni guy shouldn’t be too difficult.
Even if he was a B-ranker, there was a one-year gap between them.
This difference might be minimal, perhaps not relevant in the later stages.
However, in such an early stage, this gap was massive, and this B-ranker could only bow to them, though they had to catch up to him and capture him first.
There was only one path someone who had recently been killing Sunblade Lionesses could take from here, and it was the rocky one leading to the Crystal Hollows.
Nutter and Taro looked and nodded at each other, their gazes turning resolute as they willed their mounts to head to the rocky path.
...
Cluster 4, Southern Bladeborn Academy, Ironblood Building, Room 95...
A lavender-haired young woman’s heart pounded wildly as she stared at the ceiling of her classroom, realizing that she lucked out big time, and the one who gave her this opportunity to catch up to or even surpass the higher-rankers, even if only in the early stages, was none other than Lord Okuni.
Remembering something, Moonpiercer stayed in her slumber capsule, pulling her phone out and accessing the forums.
It was natural that very few people would notice her thread at the time she posted it.
But now, other novices were being kicked out of the realm, and there were probably already quite a few who saw her post.
She logged in with an excited smile, which deepened upon seeing that there were now a little over a hundred replies
An E-ranker passed in front of her capsule and spoke to her while she was waiting for the thread to load:
"Moonpiercer, on your phone already? Haha! At least return to your room first or have lunch, or something!"
"Aihh, I told you not to call me that in Neo-Earth! It’s just that I made a post in the forums, and I want to see everyone’s response. Make sure to check it later, alright?"
"Hahaha, alright, alright, I’ll check it later. Also, I was just messing with you. See you later, then, Elune."
The E-ranker moved on after a short conversation; the thread has also already loaded.
At first, she couldn’t help but frown, a bit pissed that people were doubting her, questioning her with stuff like: if even S-rankers like Alopecion were teaming up with A-rankers and B-rankers to kill a level 25 field boss, how could a solo B-ranker be hunting level thirty-one Hackstroke Hyenas?
Elune was about to respond to someone with a trial name of Clam Destroyer due to the guy’s infuriating comment when she noticed that the essence of the replies was changing from doubt to a possibility of her words being true.
Moonpiercer continued scrolling down, and the more she did, the more she paled.
She f*cked up big time!
How could she kick her benefactor in the teeth?!
As it turned out, her post basically confirmed the existence of "Okuni", the B-ranker who assassinated Alopecion and five other B-rankers in the middle of their field boss hunt.
She instantly believed such a possibility after watching how demonic in battle her benefactor was.
But thanks to her post, there were a few shady individuals—likely people who had already sworn themselves to Alopecion’s guild—asking for information in the thread.
She was born in a pretty well-off family.
And while they weren’t as rich or prominent compared to the families of Sylphina and Alopecion, she knew how the rich operated.
There were probably people going after Okuni right now...
"Oh no...I have to warn him!"
Meanwhile, in the Myriad Sword Realm, the young man in question had arrived in front of a massive cave entrance, this one far larger than the Fangforge Cavern’s.
Daru was naturally unaware of what was going on in the Southern Bladeborn Academy and the forums, going about his business as usual with his extra hour in the sword realm.
Opening his map atop his not-so-noble steed, a notification appeared: [Valmaris Continent Map has been updated! Iron Hollows has been renamed to Crystal Hollows!]
The old layout of the cave was also now available on the map, since he had already unlocked the location.
As for how accurate it would be, he could only explore to find out.