Soul Art Online

- Akeno Himejima -

"Be careful, Akatsuki-chan!" She warned as she used a Heal Spell, healing a chunk of the girl's health as the girl parried a blow from the monster which sent her skidding back several metres.

"Oryaa!" Naotsugu-kun covered her as the monster tried to go after her, coming in between them and using his Shield Drive Skill to throw the monster back and stun it temporarily.

Marielle swiftly used several of her buffs on them to increase their stats and then fired a magic arrow towards the monster.

Akatsuki-chan took this opportunity to get back into the fight and quickly used her backstab skill and triple stab skill to do massive damage on the enemy and finish it off.

She used a quick 'Detect Life' spell and didn't find anyone else in the vicinity.

"That was the last of them. We can take a break now." She instructed.

"Phew. This round was tiring." Marielle slumped down on the ground and Akatsuki-chan cleaned her blade before sitting down too.

"You tell me. That monster had four health bars. Four and it wasn't even a boss. Have mini bosses started becoming stronger now?" Naotsugu said as he checked the loot. "Hey! We got a Skill Book. Double Slash, a Skill for a sword user. Too bad we don't have any sword users in our group."

Akatsuki-chan used knives.

"We can auction it later or we might keep some for new team members. We need more front liners."

"Yeah. No offence to Shorty but Thief isn't exactly a front liner. Our offence is lacking due to this. We need to hire."

"We can put up a notice on the Adventurer's Guild Board and see if we can hire anyone." She suggested.

"That sounds like a great plan. Let's do it today. It's almost evening anyway and it's time for us to go back."

All of them collected the drops and left back for the town.

Things had changed after the raid.

Monsters had changed and become stronger, making their usual hunting grounds hard to traverse. More monsters were using Skills and Magic now which kept them on their toes to safely hunt here.

Since the raid, everyone had started forming groups and while their group was quite famous, not many top players were willing to join them.

The main reason was that they didn't want to waste their time and money on the welfare stuff they usually did, like helping the children of the town or donating to the orphanages. Due to this very reason, they didn't have any new teammates.

Their team desperately needed another frontliner.

Naotsugu-kun was good, very good at what he did but he couldn't hold everyone back by himself.

Akatsuki-chan could do highly damaging moves but she wasn't someone who could stop the enemy head on.

Both her and Marielle were not damage dealers.

Like this, their team was heavily unbalanced and while it wasn't that much of a problem Pre-Raid, they were feeling the difference now that things were becoming harder.

"There, all set." Marielle pinned the new application on the board and they looked at it.

'The Crescent Moon Alliance is recruiting a front liner. T3 or above apply only. Join us, we have milk and cookies.'

Under it were the details of the applicant and their team.

She smiled at the last bit. It was exactly Marielle's style to write something like that.

"Let's go. I am starving." Marielle pouted and the rest of the group followed her.

They had hired help from among the people of the town to run the makeshift children's home their group was running.

Five people were hired to cook, clean and teach the kids.

As for the things they made from their Production Classes, they were collected and sold at a store they had opened. The earnings were used to buy equipment for the kids as well as maintain the whole place. The five volunteers were all NPCs as no other player had come up.

Well, it's not like no one had come up.

There were some people but when they had spied on them, they were found to be embezzling the funds to buy equipment for themselves and were promptly kicked out.

Naotsugu-kun had beaten them up and taken all their equipment, sold them and gotten the money back.

After a few such attempts were foiled and the culprits punished in the same way, the rest of the players got the message and never tried anything.

But this also meant that no other players joined their group or even came forward to help the kids.

Sure some people came and donated some money for the kids once in a while but no one actively came to join in their group.

"We are back!" Mari shouted as soon as she opened the door to the place.

"Mari-onee chan."

"Big Sis."

"Big Bro, Naotsugu!"

Several kids ran out to greet them.

While Mari and Naotsugu went on to play with them, she went aside and checked on the store and today's earnings.

"Is this everything?" She asked Nina, an NPC they had hired to staff the shop. She had experience in managing a shop. In fact, she was the assistant and granddaughter of the shop owner of the beginner's village she had been sent to.

They knew each other well enough to know of her loyalty. Her grandfather wanted to send her to the town to teach her more about managing a shop and thus she hired her.

"Yes. We have three new orders. Two of them are usual but the third one wanted us to work on a deadline with compensation to them if we cannot complete the order on time." Nina said with a slight frown on her face.

"Compensation?" She narrowed her eyes. "Who were the ones who ordered this? Did you accept the order?" She asked.

Nina shook her head. "It was the Dark Fiends group. I didn't accept their order and said that I would need to talk with you all before answering."

Those people…

Dark Fiends were the top scorers in the recent raid. They had used this temporary fame to attract many people to their group and were currently an unofficial guild of sorts in this town.

Obviously, establishing a Guild was not that easy.

When they had seen the global announcements right after the raid, many people had tried to find out the requirements to establish a Guild but were severely disappointed to find out the results.

A T6 or a T5 with a million Gold Coins…

None of the two were something they could achieve anytime soon.

Even the best players in the town were only projected to reach T5 in another three or four months.

No one knew how the Guild Master of Fairy Tail had done it.

Some thought he must have gained some super rare skill, class or equipment while some just claimed him to be a cheater. But there was one thing everyone agreed on… the Guild Master of Fairy Tail is the strongest player in the game as of now.

And the difference between them would only grow as they would definitely have the extra advantage of guild perks.

She shook her head.

It was no use thinking about those things. They had to concentrate on what was in front of them right now.

Still, the Dark Fiends group wanted to make such a deal.

Their leader Clyde was not a good person.

Akeno had seen the looks he had thrown at her when he tried to invite her and Marielle to their group.

They had obviously rejected their invitation.

Their group had almost half of the top ten members from the raid and each of them were among the top ten ratings despite having classes unsuitable for direct damage in the raids.

In terms of skills, they far surpassed the other side and that's why they kept a distance despite the rejection. So… what had changed for them to make this kind of request?

She thought of it and asked again.

"What kind of compensation were they asking for?" She asked.

"Discounted price for the items. They wanted a thirty percent discount on the prices of the items if we couldn't provide them with the order on time." Nina replied.

A thirty percent discount?

They had a profit margin of twenty five percent. A thirty percent discount would mean they had to pay for the order from their own pockets.

Suddenly an idea struck her mind. "Did they say that they would provide the ingredients?"

"No but they were paying ten percent more than others." Nina replied.

Ah… so it was that.

"Reject them." She replied decisively. "And never accept such orders. We have a shop. The only things we sell will be the things we have on hand. If they want more, they can come back later and if they are so hell bent on placing advance orders, then we will not pay any compensation if we are late. We have opened this place to provide a place for the kids to get a better life. We are not going to turn them into forced labour here."

Nina nodded. "But the Dark Fiends?"

"They will do nothing because they can do nothing in the town. Those bastards were probably going to pull something to delay the order, probably disturb our hunting team, or maybe do something to the kids so that they could buy the order at a reduced price. If we accept the order, it would be taking a bait and asking them to attack us. Reject them."

"Yes."

"Also, tell the rest to keep an eye on the kids and not to let them go out of the town." She said after some thought.

"Yes." Nina agreed.

"What's the matter, Akeno-chan? You sound so serious. Did something happen?"

Just as she finished, a voice sounded behind her.

"Mari-san? It's…" She explained the situation to her and saw a rare expression on Mari's face.

"I see. Your decision was correct. Don't worry yourselves about this. We will take care of everything." She reassured her.

They had dinner with everyone and rested for the day.

Akeno looked at the ceiling wondering how the rest of her friends were doing before falling asleep.

__________________________________x___________________________________

"Taking on that boss is a bit out of our league for now. We need to be at least mid T4 to even try." Akatsuki-chan said.

She nodded too.

"We might need some more people too."

Even after their request, no one has been approaching them.

It had gone beyond them just finding it inconvenient as they never force anyone to contribute towards helping the kids out. On asking the Guild staff, she found out that many had shown interest in the request but they had all refused on the same day.

Someone… was working behind the scenes to push those people away from their team.

Just as they were talking they heard a voice.

"Excuse me."

Looking behind them, they saw a guy standing behind them.

He had blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing glasses. He carried a sword on his side and was wearing a light armour.

"Yes."

"I just saw a request on the board and was told that it was your group who posted the request for a Squire or Swordsman. I am a Squire and have recently come to this town. I was wondering if I could join your group." The guy requested, his face showing slight surprise when he saw her.

Did he know her?

"Oh hello, please join us." Mari invited him to join. "What is your name? What level are you?" She asked.

The guy brought an extra chair to their table and sat down with them.

"My name is Arthur. I am a level 5 Squire."

A level five?

That's… quite low even for casual players.

"Level 5 is a bit on the lower end but no problem. We can always level up. Getting the class you can play well is more important. Are you comfortable with playing as a Squire?" She asked. "Do you have any plans for the future classes?"

"Yes. I wish to pursue sword based classes like Knight."

"Oh, that's perfect. Nao-kun here is a Knight and is planning to become a Shield Knight. If you become a Sword Knight, it will be a perfect balance for the team. Let me introduce you to our team and tell us a few things about ourselves."

For the rest of the day, they talked to each other.

They found out that Arthur was a relatively inexperienced player. He probably had to switch several classes before finding one he was most comfortable with.

It would explain his low level. In this aspect she was lucky as she had a set idea on what she wanted to become and later on with the help of her friends, she was able to avoid drifting off in unnecessary directions. Arthur seemed to be one of the unluckier ones who didn't have this help and thus his current condition.

Even his equipment was low levelled. She originally thought that he might be here to mooch off to get better equipment but he rejected any monetary help and only accepted Naotsugu's extra weapons when he was told that he would need it to keep up his damage output to help the team, promising to pay him back.

Finally, everyone agreed to accept the new member.