Redefining the META at VRMMO Academy 4

“We can’t stop now. Might as well just enjoy it, right? And look at the view! I wonder if I can get some screenshots.”

Akira tried taking some pics mid-air. She was hungry for new sights all times.

That’s our girl!

Still, this conversation with Akira led to a flash of inspiration.

We can’t help it? That might not be so true, after all!

“Hey, Kokoru! Try calling the Frost Eagle!”

That was one of the monsters we had recruited using Golden Sweets. It was a level 77 normal mob. Very weak compared to the Deadly King, but it could fly.

The Frost Eagle was also capable of carrying players on its back. We had recruited it just in case we’d need a flying monster.

Short notice, but it might be able to help us out!

However...

“Momma, Daddy... forgive me for leaving this world before you...”

Kokoru’s body started to flicker!

“What?! Hey, Kokoru? Kokoruuu!”

I checked again to find that there was more to the damage log than I had first seen.

Dealt 310 damage to Kokoru!

Kokoru is exhausted...

He died from the cannon damage! That low HP was his downfall.

Kokoru disappeared, and we received a system notification.

Kokoru Sanders of Hell’s Crafters has fallen.

Your guild has lost 5 Battle Points.

Battle Point total for Hell’s Crafters is currently -5.

Your rank is 48 / 48.

Argh, last place?!

It wasn’t just placed in the log window, either; my shame was visible in large font at the edge of my field of vision, too. Kind of like in racing games, where it shows your current place at the corner of the screen. I figured it was convenient enough, but seeing that we were coming in last made me a little impatient.

“Aaargh, we can’t do anything!”

“Ahahaha! Just let it be! If we just rally our strength, we can still do it.”

Akira was really having fun.

How do you enjoy this sheer terror?!

Before long, my vision turned black.

Ren Takashiro of Hell’s Crafters has fallen.

Your guild has lost 1 Battle Point.

Akira Aoyagi of Hell’s Crafters has fallen.

Your guild has lost 1 Battle Point.

Battle Point total for Hell’s Crafters is currently -7.

Your rank is 48 / 48.

Yep, and we’re out of the park! Couldn’t do anything about it.

In my darkened field of vision, the death logs came up. In the next instant, the world changed entirely, and I was staring right at Maeda and Yano.

“Ooh! Did I respawn?”

Akira and Kokoru were next to me. All three of us were back on the deck of the JS Peachy Thunder.

There you have it, then. When you die, you respawn back on your airship. What happens if the ship itself gets destroyed, I wonder? Not that I wanna find out.

“Huh. So you come back here if you die.”

“Bawk, that was awful. Chickens can’t fly, bawk.”

Kokoru hadn’t died from the fall, anyway. He had died from the cannon damage. From afar, however, it would’ve seemed like he’d died from fall damage. Some lucky camouflage for us.

Now we had -7 points. We had to rally the troops; there was still time!

“We’re already in last place!” Yano whined.

“That won’t be a problem if we turn things around now. The battle has only just begun!”

“Akabane’s right. If we just sit around, people will keep hitting us. Let’s get away for now."

Cannons were still firing at Homura’s ship and the JS Peachy Thunder—not just from one enemy ship, but several.

“Understood. Let's hurry!” Maeda ran into the wheelhouse.

Despite all the damage it had sustained, Homura’s ship was still mobile as well. They kept on going, trying to open some distance between us.

“Everyone, get in! I'm gonna nitro us out of here!”

Obeying Maeda's order, we headed inside. If we were on deck when she pulled the nitro, we’d be knocked out of the park again.

“Here goes!”

Clunk!

At the same time, something huge came flying toward the bow. It looked to be a humongous chain with a pointy, metallic end.

That’s an anchor!

It wrapped around the JS Peachy Thunder, causing the ship to lurch. Though we activated nitro, we weren’t going anywhere.

“Ugh! We can’t move!”

The anchor can stop our dash, huh?

I looked at the other end to see a big, heavy fighter ship coming between us and the ships who were firing their cannons at us. It had thrown anchors in all directions, stopping multiple ships.

Their ship was large enough that it had stopped our vigorous nitro charge. Ours was a lightweight, high-speed model, so it didn’t have the strength to tug the large one.

Something about this seems familiar...

“This reminds me of that airship event on our first day,” Akira commented.

“Oh! Yeah, that’s it!”

Back then, enemies had invaded our ship with an anchor, just like this. After we had defeated the invading rare monster, he’d dropped Akira’s beloved Skyfall.

I took a good look at the anchor. “So basically, it’s an offensive part you throw it at an enemy ship to stop them in their tracks before you come in to smack them down in person?”

“Must be for people who wanna skip the whole airship battle part and fight at close range.”

“That part is called the Assault Anchor. It’s used exactly as you surmised,” Akabane chimed in.

“I see. Well, I have a feeling I know who’s at the other end.”

Akira laughed awkwardly. “Ahaha... Yep.”

“Our resident PVP lover?” Yano suggested.

“Bingo! Since each guild has the same amount of personnel, throwing anchors in every direction isn’t gonna let Yukino use numbers to her advantage. But she’s still doing it.”

Without the ability to outnumber anyone, turning each ship she targeted into a battlefield wouldn't necessarily end in her favor.

“The fact that she’s doing that means she wants to—so it’s gotta be someone who loves PvP. And her guild is all about that stuff! So yeah, it’s definitely Yukino’s doing.”

Her guild was a gaggle of PvP-lovers, after all.

“Hehe. That’s Snow for you!” Akabane said with a grin.

Huh? Wait, uh, I don’t think you should bring that up right now!

“What the—?! Nozomi, you know Yukino’s name from EF? That must mean you played it too!”

“Um, err...”

Aww, man! Akira latched right on to it! Akabane is actually super scatterbrained!

At this point, she might have already been outed as Scarlet. However, they had been playing nice recently, so it might not have been that big of a deal.

“Erm, let’s talk about it later! We need to focus on the fight right now!”

I backed her up. “You’re right. Good idea!”

Akira didn’t seem to have any complaints, as she said nothing.

“Maeda! Turn around and charge right into their ship! If we can’t run away because of the anchor, then we’ll go straight to ’em! A big brawl like this is a good chance to farm some points!”

“Got it! Let’s go!”

Maeda spun the wheel, and JS Peachy Thunder turned to face the behemoth of a ship.

“Charge!”

Clunk! Clunk! Clunk!

She pulled three of the nitro levers in quick succession. With the speed of three nitros, JS Peachy Thunder surged toward its mark. The Golden Drill on our bow made a direct hit.

Dealt 420 damage to Ren!

Dealt 420 damage to Akira!

Dealt 420 damage to Kotomi!

Dealt 420 damage to Yuuna!

Dealt 420 damage to Nozomi!

Dealt 420 damage to Kokoru!

More recoil from the drill attack! It was even more this time because of the three nitros.

“Bawk! Aah, I’m seeing stars...”

Kokoru was in trouble again, but he hung on by a thread. As long as he didn’t die, though, we would come out ahead. Akira and the others started rattling off healing magic.

Soon, we were fully healed!

More system notifications popped up.

You have defeated an enemy player.

Hell’s Crafters has gained 1 Battle Point.

You have defeated an enemy player.

Hell’s Crafters has gained 1 Battle Point.

Battle Point total for Hell’s Crafters is currently -5.

Your rank is 48 / 48.

Ooh. I dunno if that attack knocked people off their ships or if it just finished them off, but we got some points!

“Awesome! Let’s keep it up! Invade their ship!”

“Aw, yeah. Time for some combat. Now I can whip this out!” Akira raised her Mimic Fan.

Until now, we had kept the fight to airship-versus-airship, so she was still wearing her school uniform. It didn’t seem like her current defense was affecting the damage she received from airship attacks, so that was nice.

When it came to face-to-face fights with other players, however, defense from her equipment was actually important. If she didn’t change into real gear, she couldn’t fight. As we all knew, though, sword dancer’s real gear showed too much skin.

Less fabric meaning more defense was truly a concept that only worked in video games. For Akira, things would be even worse if Arima saw her wearing it, so she had to fight while maintaining Mimic.

Each guild’s fights could be seen from monitors placed in and around the audience stands. We didn’t know what angle they were seeing this from, but it was best to assume that Akira being seen in her usual garb was a definite “no.”

If they couldn’t directly monitor us, though, they wouldn’t know what was going on.

“Akira, turn into Kokoru!” I said.

Anyone would’ve been fine if it was just about tricking Arima, but leaving it at that would have been a waste of Mimic. By having Akira Mimic Kokoru and go out for him, though, we could preserve his image. In other words, we could continue to hide the fact that his defense was paper-thin.

We had to keep Kokoru from using up his allied monsters, anyway.

“Okay. Might as well be some good bait!”

Akira lightly thwacked Kokoru with the Mimic Fan. This had recorded him on the fan, as the item specifically transformed the user into the enemy they had last attacked with it. The effect lasted 600 seconds, so it was pretty darn long. If the effect was about to run out, we could just reapply it, too.

“Ren, what should I do, bawk?”

“Hide here so nobody sees you. We’ve gotta conserve your power! If anyone finds you and they try to attack, call the Frost Eagle and escape into the sky. You dying is the biggest point loss we can take, so it’s safety first for you.”

“Gotcha. Bawk.”

NPCs yielded five times the amount of points that players did, so no doubt our enemies would prioritize him. The key to this battle was protecting our own NPC while defeating the ones from other guilds.

“Here I go! It’s Kokoru time!” Accompanied by a puff of smoke, Akira transformed into Kokoru. “Equipment Set A!” Akira called out, changing her equipment.

For this battle, we had procured another Equip Ring for her.

Equip Ring

Type: Accessory

Level: 10

Effect: Allows the user to change equipment quickly through speech.

[Same effect as the talent Quick Change]

The skill would allow you to change clothes on the fly. I loved using one because it made things way smoother when I broke my weapon and crafted a new one.

Akira changed her weapons to two swords, signaling that she had donned the whole sword dancer getup. She still looked like Kokoru, so the weapons were the only visible change.

If the Mimic effect ran out, or if she was in danger for any other reason, she just had to change back into her uniform. Doing it from the system menu would be too slow, but using the Equip Ring would be just fine.

This Equip Ring was essentially insurance to give us all peace of mind. It had been a relatively hefty expense, but that was a small price to pay for my best friend’s happiness.

Maeda and Yano had also said we’d be better off having it anyway.

“Okay. Let’s do this, everyone!”

“Woohoo! Time to invade!”

“I’ll support you!”

“Now this is what I call bein’ a sky pirate!”

“This is very rude, but kind of fun!”

“Good luck, bawk!”

We left Kokoru in the wheelhouse and leapt out to the deck. Then, we boarded the deck of the ship connected to us by the Assault Anchor.

There were launchers for the Assault Anchors placed on the deck with HP bars visible above them.

“Hm? What's with the HP bars?”

“If you attack those and bring their HP to zero, it rescues your ship from the anchor.”

“You sure know a lot about these, Akabane.”

“Yes. We were planning to use one ourselves, so we procured one in advance. In the end, I guess it turned out to be useless.”

“Yeah, since Selphie went home.”

“Right. It’s in my inventory right now, so if you should need it, you’re free to borrow it.”

“Ooh. Maybe I’ll do just that!”

We did still have one free slot. But for now, we had to focus on direct combat.

“Heheheh! Some nerve you have, coming to face us! That’s Ren for ya!”

As expected, Yukino emerged.

“Hey, Yukino! I thought that might be you.”

“Oh? Good thinkin’.”

“Well, I mean, who throws Assault Anchors in all directions when it wouldn’t even give them an advantage? It had to be someone who loves face-to-face combat.”

“Heh, you’re right! Fighting under special conditions like this is pretty fun. And now, we can enjoy a fresh fight with a different level restriction! C’mon, Ren. Let’s dance!” Yukino excitedly brandished her dual axes.

A cute-looking wolf Beastman came out and stood next to Yukino. “Leave Kokoru to me!”

Ooh, it’s Mikott Corpul. She’s level... 78! Not bad at all.

She was one of the two most popular picks at the draft meet, along with Selphie. Despite how, uh, Selphie had turned out.

Really, no matter how much attention a newbie might get at the draft, you never knew how they would turn out once they went pro. There were a lot of comparisons to draw to real-life baseball here.

This one had actually grown up well under Yukino’s supervision, though.

“Level one hundred. Good job, Kokoru! Now, show me just how much stronger you got!”

“Hehehe. Don’t cry to me when you regret it, bawk!” Akira-Kokoru whipped out her dual swords.

Dang, she’s imitating his voice pretty well, considering Mimic didn’t do it for her. Did she practice for this?

“You're quite confident. Maybe you’ve really matured,” Mikott said, readying her massive, two-handed axe. It was even longer than she was tall.

That confidence is solely because it’s Akira, though.

Still, it was incredible that Mikott could swing that thing around with her tiny, slender build. Yukino also favored axes, although hers were one-handed. They were a good match.

At the tournament, Yukino had wielded two axes with the same designs. But this time, they were different. The right one especially was a translucent, emerald green. Very pleasant to look at. It seemed like a pretty rare weapon.

Well, maybe that was a dangerous assumption. There are plenty of MMO weapons out there that have flashy designs but shoddy stats—essentially, polished garbage. In fact, it’s probably rarer for good equipment to also look good.

Equipment with good stats is usually be ugly or otherwise lame. Easy-to-obtain equipment circulates much more, so it’s common for everyone to strut around the world with ugly equipment.

Not to talk about other games too much, but I had once put on this ridiculously ugly but very useful turban that made my attacks way faster. At that point in time, just about every player in the world had worn full body armor and a turban. Looks couldn’t beat usefulness, though. Thus, everyone had worn the turban, despite how ridiculous it looked!

Akira had complained about it, but seeing as she had been a big, hunky beastman at the time, the turban had actually complemented her appearance.

I had told her just as much, of course. “It actually works on you, so you don’t get to complain.”

But yeah, MMOs like that are common. This time, though, I was up against Yukino. She would never go into battle with a weapon that looked flashy without the stats to match. No doubt she had picked top-tier weapons for this battle. I couldn’t underestimate her!

“Let’s go, Kokoru!”

“I’m already on it, bawk!”

Akira-Kokoru charged toward Mikott. There was a loud clang of metal against metal as her swords met the two-handed axe. While Akira had gotten a head start, Mikott had guarded it well. There wasn’t even a bit of guard break, either.

Two-handed weapons can’t match up to shields, but they have good guarding capabilities. Meanwhile, one-handed weapons have low guard break. It’s incredibly difficult for a single attack from a one-handed weapon to break through a two-handed weapon’s guard.

“Akira ain't around, huh? Hey, get back to the wheelhouse and keep on throwing out anchors!”

“Gotcha, boss!” One of Yukino’s guildies fell back and returned to the wheelhouse.

“Heheheh. I’ll help even out the numbers, Ren! Hope you’re ready!”

“Thanks! I’m not gonna hold back either, y’know!”