CHAPTER 19 MOONLIT BLACKCATS

APRIL 8th 2023

11th floor Taft , town square

Michael walks through the street with miku by his side and yuki off somewhere doing his own thing that he tells to no one but that's his business ain't it.

Anywho, back to michael.

It's been a while since guilds have begun to popup left and right but not everyone of them are strong enough to be on the front lines.

The notable ones are divine dragon alliance, freedom militia guild, etc.

 Not just anyone can join said guilds as they have certain thresholds to reach before one can even be considered a candidate to join said guilds.

 there have also been mentions of some guild that takes in only geniuses and by their accounts it sounds more like a rumour than anything else as they have no guild base at least no known ones, they call them the scion guild.

Michael himself has no interest in forming or joining a guild as doing so would restrict his freedom and reduce his training time and that's a big No in his book.

The frontline players are currently at floor 28 and searching for the boss room, michael took this chance to take a break and train himself using other weapons available in sao.

He has trained with various forms of polearms already to satisfactory level and right now he plans to begin his training with daggers as he's already familiar with them due to yuki.

"It's been a hectic month huh" Michael says to miku as they are walking by stalls by the road side breaking her out of her thoughts.

"It sure has" Miku replies shortly

"But it's not even been that long and we are already at floor 28, at this rate we may clear the game by the years end if we could only go faster" Miku adds.

"I highly doubt that because at this rate we would take longer to finish the game at least 2 to 3 years more and by my estimate going further up the floors the bosses would become more difficult to over come" Michael replies brutally shattering miku's hopes.

Miku sighs hearing this. She knew that he didn't mean to be so blunt by dashing her hopes like that but this current mikey doesn't hide his thoughts from her and tells her the cold hard truth even when it's painful.

She appreciates his honesty and likes that about him but he has no subtlety when spreading bad news.

"Couldn't you have said that in a nicer way" miku says while shaking her head.

"I could have but that would have been putting the situation lightly and giving false hope and that's a dangerous thing" Michael replies in a serious tone.

After that incident michael has taken to telling miku whatever he feels is important for her improvement and tries to keep her in line with his thoughts.

"Okay, I appreciate the sentiment but still" Miku said while sighing after then adds.

"Whatever, so what would you like for dinner anyways?" miku asks changing topics.

Then they both began discussing food items for the night, without asking yuki's input as he always just goes along with their decisions and miku is still as pushy as she was with him when they first met but he's grown used to it.

On getting to their house on floor 25, Michael took off his equipment and arranged his inventory before resting up for the day and waiting for yuki to return.

After some time yuki came back, greeting mikey and miku and quickly taking a shower.

 miku set the dishes by the dining table and yuki came to the table to eat together with them then they began exchanges stories for the day.

Mikey told them about his day as uneventful as it was to him but it still brought out the shine yuki's eyes as michael always fought strong monsters above his level and usually finishes them even with a massive handicap.

Miku was the same but not as crazy as michael's adventures then nagisa told his story of meeting a group of players who called themselves the moonlit blackcats.

 They played together for a while and asked him to join their guild but he refused and told them he could help them from time to time as they seemed nice and one of his friends in the real world is part of the group.

His name is kanada, they have been friends for a year before this happened.

The Moonlit black cats, it's a small guild made up of 5 guys and a single girl.

The leader's name is Tetsuo and the girl's name is sachi, he couldn't recall the others names and he didn't meet all the members yet but they had an average player level of 20.

The highest level player is level 22 and yuki is level 35 so he couldn't join them and lull them into a false sense of security.

Michael approved his choice and told him that he could do as he pleased but always think about the consequences of his actions before acting.

They finished their meal in silence after that and before turning for the night, he reminded them that they are taking a short vacation for this time to improve themselves so they can go back to the frontlines stronger than ever.

Knowing that he is going to be training again, miku told him to take his advice and take a break as well to which he agreed and said he would be fighting weaker monsters in the lower floors, accepting his reply, she let him off the hook and gave him an approving smile that caused him shivers for some reason but he doesn't intend to break that promise.

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May 1st 2023

Screech

The giant wasp made such sound as it became enraged by the constant assault of these ants trying to attack it.

Diving down for the kill, it furiously flapped it's wings moved at a ridiculous speed to the group down below.

A lesser player would have been unable to react to its charge but the players here could.

 Getting to formation, Sachi took the lead as the tank with and intercepted the wasp's sickle like appendage with her shield, her teammates, seamlessly followed through with simultaneous attacks from both sides to it's mid riff, Tetsuo followed with blow from his mace to it's head emptying the wasp's hp and leading to it's death.

CONGRATULATIONS

YOU HAVE LEVELLED UP

Tetsuo levelled up to 25

with the rest being between level 23 to 26.

 Ever since Yuki's addition to their party and his subsequent training, the black cats have become more skillful in combat and rely on their senses more often than just their stats.

Sachi is more confident and tetsuo now knows how and when to swing his mace and kanada has gotten faster with his attack speed since he heard about a rapier on the frontlines called lightning flash from yuki.

They've come a long way so far and were getting ready to go to the higher floors to test themselves but yuki told them to be patient as they were not ready yet, as he was frontliner as well they decided to listen to him.

During this period yuki met with kirito, the black swordsman aka the first beater.

He was surprised to see him here and asked him privately what he was doing in a guild like this.

 He said he was just trying to help and yuki was fine with that but kirito asked him not to tell them about his level to which yuki agreed, he didn't get why he was hiding it but accepted anyways.

Since then, kirito and yuki have been helping the blackcats to get stronger as they desired to one day join the front lines as well.

Finished observing the battle they regrouped before heading to the town for supplies.

On the way sachi began asking yuki about the frontlines and he said

"Nothing much has changed, at this time there's still some time before the 30th floor boss room is found, so no new updates there"

"It's cool being able to fight against those strong boss monsters" Tetsuo says then adds

" I don't think i will ever be good enough  to reach that level".

"Don't sell yourselves short, you'll never know until you try" Kirito replies while smirking while yuki nods along agreeing with him.

"Besides you guys have come a long way in the past few weeks" Yuki replies then adds

"i won't be surprised if you guys can defeat the area bosses in this floor alone".

"let's not get ahead of ourselves okay, one step at a time" Kirito quickly cuts in before the others could reply while giving yuki a small glare.

Tetsuo was about to suggest attacking the area boss but with kirito being against it he decided to trust their judgement with him being the most skilled player present after yuki.

Sachi began to ask kirito about his adventures so far and if he had been in any guilds before this.

"Not really haven't really been in a guild yet, couldn't find the right fit" Kirito said wistfully looking lost in thought trailing behind the others.

"Then why did you join us then, what was so different about us?" Sachi asks back

"I'm not so sure myself" Kirito replies, uncertainty clear on his face.

Looking at tetsuo with the guys goofing around by the sidewalk, yuki and kanada talking about something heatedly with yuki showing him something from a small book,  like a notepad probably telling his pal about some strategies to use his speed to a great extent cause he is such a person who likes helping his friends out.

He smiled to himself and promised himself to help them get stronger so they won't fall into that precarious situation which he met them in again, they where almost wiped out by an area boss at that time.

 "Let's go all the way with this, shall we" Kirito said to himself hoping for a wonderful adventure with his new found teammates

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