Chapter 1: Redefinition With Airships

Over a week had passed since the hero-kidnapping caper. Right after it ended, we plunged right into the big exam.

Motivated by the personal airship reward for the number-one student and the Merit Points we’d gain based on our scores, we had put our all into studying for this. Now it was time to reap the fruits of our labor!

Once we’d logged in and traveled to school, we immediately headed over to check the results sheet hanging in the hallway. It might have been a slightly excessive gesture, seeing as we were in a video game world, but it was still an elegant way of announcing everyone’s results.

By the way, test results could be accessed later on through the in-game menu.

This test was broken down into eight subjects worth a hundred points each, so 800 was a perfect score.

End-of-the-year tests and the like were a great chance to get stronger. More chances to get MEP, after all. It was much appreciated!

Pop quizzes were always a possibility, too, and those were still very welcome. They were pretty much rare events that gave out MEP like candy.

Now for our results.

Rank 1: Kotomi Maeda, 784 points

...

Rank 11: Nozomi Akabane, 744 points

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Rank 28: Akira Aoyagi, 704 points

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Rank 168: Ren Takashiro, 567 points

Rank 169: Shinichi Kataoka, 566 points

...

Rank 377: Yuuna Yano, 271 points

“Oooh!” Akira, Yano, and I yelled upon seeing the results.

Heck yeah! Our girl is brilliant!

“Good job, Kotomi!” Yano cried.

I let out a sigh of relief. “Phew! Always pays to have a brainiac on the squad.”

“I ended up bombing it, but you really came through for us!” Akira had caught a cold, so she hadn’t been in top condition for this one.

But no matter how we got there, this was huge for our guild! We were gonna get our own airship!

“Yes! I did it!” Maeda shouted in her excitement, assuming a very out-of-character victory pose.

“Chirp! Yay, yay!” Draco shared in our joy, whirling around Maeda.

Yano grinned. “Okay, time to toss her into the air! Let’s do it!”

“Huh?! N-No, I’m fine! That sounds rather embarra—”

“Nah, girl,” I replied, shaking my head. “Everyone knows that when you take first place, you’ve gotta get tossed!”

Akira rolled her eyes. “Maybe in baseball, but... Oh, whatever!”

With that, we threw Maeda gloriously into the air!

I had set a secret goal of breaking 500 myself, so no complaints here.

“Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray!”

◆◇◆

After school, we invited Kokoru to come with us to receive our reward.

There was a pier that extended from the floating city of Telluna for airship use. This was where Maeda’s new airship would be parked and waiting for her.

“Whoa, look at all them airships, bawk. First time I’ve ever seen this many in one place, bawk.” As we walked along the third pier, where Ms. Nakada had instructed us to come, Kokoru sighed in amazement.

“Yeah. I’ve heard these are only made in Telluna.”

Airship-manufacturing technology was owned solely by the floating city of Telluna in this world; that was how the devs had set it up. For a foreign-born boy like Kokoru, they’d probably be a rare, awe-inspiring sight.

“Wow, bawk. It’s really generous of them to give you this big of a reward for something as small as a test, bawk.”

We continued making small talk as we progressed along the pier. Soon enough, Ms. Nakada waved and called out to us.

“Heeey, Maeda! We've been waiting for you!”

Next to her was a single airship.

“Hello, Ms. Nakada!” Maeda said, waving back politely.

“Yoo-hoo! Seems the whole guild’s here with you! It’s great that you have such good friends.” She was as merry as ever. Then, she glanced at Kokoru next to us. “Looks like you're still working on that guild mission, huh? I heard you gunned for the weakest character first. He doesn’t look very strong, to be sure... I mean, he’s a chicken!”

“Listen up, bawk! We weaklings have our own ways of winning, bawk!”

The fact that he could say that meant he was growing some spunk. Nice, nice.

“Don’t worry about that, Ms. Nakada!” I declared, puffing out my chest. “We’ve got some surprises in store for the main event.”

“Yeah! Thanks to Kotomi, I've got a feeling he’s gonna grow up just fine,” Akira added.

“Ohoho. I see Hell’s Crafters are full of confidence. Well, I’ll be the announcer at the battle royale that wraps up this mission. Since it’s an official event, I’d better do my research ahead of time!”

“Huh?! The tournament’s going to be a battle royale?!”

We had heard there would be a tournament at the end, but the format hadn’t been mentioned.

A battle royale, huh? Wow!

“Oh! Ahaha... I, erm, only leaked a liiittle bit of info just now because I was worried about you, okay? That's all! I didn’t do that by accident, no sirree! It was one hundred percent intentional.”

No one said anything in response.

Either way, it was fine with me. Knowing that the competitive guild mission would be settled with a battle royale was useful.

I’d better come up with a game plan.

“Ahem! So, look! Here’s the airship you’ve been dying to see. Go on, try it out!” Ms. Nakada pushed at our backs to cover up her error, urging us onto the airship.

“Ooh. So this is our airship!”

“Wow, nice!” Akira said.

“While we have the chance, I’d love it if we could paint it back at our guild later.”

“If it’s cool with you, Kotomi, I’d be happy to!”

It was much smaller and more compact than the passenger airships we usually took to faraway areas. Design-wise, those ships were much rounder; this one was sharper and sleeker, so it probably traveled fast.

“This is the LHS-13, the newest small high-speed model. It has a low weight capacity, but its speed more than makes up for it. Also, it’s not outfitted with options like cannons, but nitro is a standard feature on this model. So have fun with it!”

Nitro? Isn’t that, like, an explosive boost of speed you get when you press a special button in a car? I’ve seen it in movies, too.

“The wheelhouse is over here.” She pointed toward the back of the deck.

There was a staircase at the back of the airship that went pretty high up, leading to a little hut-like wheelhouse. The door below the wheelhouse went into the cabin. It was surprisingly similar to a normal ship.

We quickly shuffled up to the wheelhouse, where a steering wheel was affixed to a wooden stand. The glass in front of it was like the windshield of a car, commanding a wide view.

Inside, it was pretty darn plain. There were handrails running all around, probably to help you keep steady when the ship lurched.

“Now, I’ll explain the basic controls. As you can see, you steer with this steering wheel. Turn it right, it circles right. Turn it left, it circles left. It’s pretty simple.”

“How do you go up and down?”

“You do that by pushing and pulling the wheel. Pull it to ascend, and push to descend.” Ms. Nakada told me.

Maeda was the next to probe for more. She must have been really excited; her eyes were practically sparkling. “Ooh, ooh! Do you accelerate and decelerate with these pedals down here?!”

“Wow, someone’s already quite taken with their airship! Yes, the right accelerates and the left brakes. I take it you like this stuff, Maeda?”

“Yes, ma’am! I’m partly attached to it because I earned it myself, but I’ve played a lot of racing games at home!”

Oh, I get it. Maeda said she didn’t have much experience with MMOs, but that she played a lot of family-friendly games. So racing games are more her speed, eh?

“And how do you use the nitrous?!”

“See the little protrusions on the wheel there?”

The steering wheel resembled one you might see on a medieval ship, with little spokes sticking out of it.

Ms. Nakada pointed at one of them. “Notice the red one here? Pull it, and you activate nitro!”

“I see. Very interesting! Also, also, also! Do sky pirates get a bonus to their piloting abilities when they’re behind the wheel?!”

“Yes! You’ll learn certain traits that help with that as you level up. Your skill with the nitro rises, along with your cannon fire and hand-to-hand combat. Alternatively, you can raise these skills with a talent.”

“So nothing that requires you to be a sky pirate? Once you learn the talents, it’s all the same?”

“W-Well, I guess you could say that.”

Even Ms. Nakada was starting to get scared by Maeda’s zeal. She was full of enthusiasm when she was taking that test. It was partly in service of the guild mission, but you could tell she really wanted to pilot her own personal airship.

“Weird, bawk. Don’t think I’ve ever seen Kotomi that excited.”

Yano nodded. “Yeah, she’s like a class rep. Nothing wrong with havin’ fun once in a while, though, y’know?”

“True, bawk. Ren's always like that, too, so I’m used to it, bawk.”

“’Scuse me? Actually, I always analyze the situation with a cool head and figure out how to make bad apples into superstars.”

“Maybe, but you do it like you’re having the time of your life,” Akira chimed in. “I always see that excitement on your face; you’re just doing whatever you want. But I mean, I pretty much just enjoy the ride.”

“Thanks!”

“Speaking of, it’s time to enjoy the ride with Kotomi today.”

“Yeah! We gotta check out that Sky Fissure, anyway!”

Sky Fissures were entrances to instanced dungeons. These dungeons created a new, randomized area for each party who went in, so we had no idea what we’d find there. Basically, once you were inside, nobody else could bother you.

As long as people were stifling the usual grinding spots due to the guild mission, and as long as we didn’t have our own big-boy private dungeon, all we could do is find an instanced dungeon and start grinding up Kokoru.

To search for a Sky Fissure, we needed a personal airship.

“Well, that’s really all there is to it. Anything else you need, just check the manual. But you know what they say: practice makes perfect!” Ms. Nakada handed Maeda a thick book.

It kinda feels like she’s blowing off her job as an instructor, but we’re ready to get going ASAP anyway.

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you so much!”

“Okay, kids, I'm off. Have tons of fun!”

After that, Ms. Nakada vanished into thin air.

“Hey, can I really pilot? Huh?!” Maeda pleaded, her eyes aglitter.

“Yeah, of course. Let’s go find a Sky Fissure!”

“Agreed! Let’s go, already! Ahh, an area we’ve never been to before! I’m ready to grab some screenshots.” Akira already had her Otherworldly Lens in hand.

“Go, go, go! You got this, Kotomi!”

“Gladly. Then let us depart!” Maeda said, abruptly pulling the red handle on the steering wheel.

“Wait! That’s the nitro—”

But I was too late.

Bwooom!

Suddenly, the airship shot away from the pier with explosive speed.

“Gaaaaah!”

“Baaaaawk?!”

“Chichichiiirp?!”

Everyone except for Maeda was thrown against the back wall. The ship itself was banging against something, swaying and lurching all the while.

“Ahahaha! It’s so fast! This is wonderful!”

Damn! Is she one of those people who’s dangerous behind the wheel?! I thought. At least stop using the nitro!

“Aaaaah?!”

As we zigzagged around the pier with nitro on, other players and NPCs fled in terror. Their screams were audible from here.

In the wheelhouse, we were all heaped together in a big pile.

Huh, at least something soft is cushioning my face.

“Eep?! Hey, cut it out?! This ain’t my job!”

My face was buried in Yano’s chest.