I like crossing the most

Chapter 578 Hidden Mission
On the third day after Aqua obtained her familiar, they were still in the wild gaining experience and increasing their levels.

Just when Xiaolin was fully immersed in the work, an email suddenly came to the system mailbox. The name of the email contained only two words.

--help me.

And the sender is Argo.

"We have to save people." Sato Kazuma slammed the table and said, "Argo has helped us many times before. How can we ignore our benefactor?"

“Calm down, Kazuma. We didn’t say we wouldn’t go. Rather, we’re discussing how to rescue them.”

Darkness pressed down the impatient Sato Kazuma.

Kobayashi sneered. The reason why the devilish scum Kazuma was so nervous was purely because he had a deal with Argo, and a large sum of money earned from the concert was with the other party, so he was so anxious.

"elder brother."

"I know."

Xiaolin touched Alice's head.

Argo was a very good information trader. She was not only a bridge between the closed beta testers and the ordinary players, but also the eyes, ears and tongue of the Axis Cult. In addition, she had a very good relationship with Aqua, Alice and others.

"It's just that I'm thinking about who to send."

"——Of course everyone does it together!"

Aqua could no longer sit still. She slammed the table angrily and said angrily, "Whoever dares to bully the Axis believers will be punished by heaven no matter who he is!"

As you can see.

Argo is a member of the Axis Cult.

Even though she wasn't sincere, Aqua still protected her like a mafia boss.

"That's why we're here to discuss this."

Xiao Lin sighed helplessly and said, "The Murder Guild has been very active recently. I don't know if they are targeting Argo intentionally, or if they are trying to lure the tiger away from the mountain to do something else."

"That……"

"Aqua and I will go after that. Alice still has idol activities, and we can't just cancel the monthly activities. Ryuji will stay in the guild for now. As the one with the strongest attack power, don't act rashly for now."

This is the disadvantage of having a small guild.

As the Axis Cult's base grew larger and larger, Kobayashi felt deeply powerless due to the lack of personnel. After all, the guild was full of lifestyle players, and there were only ten or so strategy players. It was quite tricky to encounter such a thing.

Then the two of them went straight to the 22nd floor.

According to the email sent by Argo, her last location was the 22nd floor. I don't know what she was doing there, but of course this question is not important now.

"Xiaolin, are we going to the maze area?"

"...No, let's go to the place where Argo disappeared first."

The location of the player in SAO can be detected, but only if it is in the safe zone. If it is in the maze area or maze tower, it cannot be found. However, it is still unclear what happened. Xiaolin plans to go to the place where Argo disappeared first and then make plans.

The 22nd floor was a forest floor with beautiful scenery. The forest occupied almost three quarters of the entire floor. If there hadn't been a system prompt, they would have thought they had come to a wild maze area.

After crossing the small bridge and walking along the mountain road, they arrived at the place where Argo disappeared. But there was nothing there.

Aqua looked at the empty forest and scratched her head. "This is so strange... Is Argo really here? Should I ask someone?"

"I don't think there will be any players on this floor."

Just as Xiaolin was about to shake his head, a small bottle suddenly fell from above his head, almost hitting Aqua, causing the stupid goddess to yell at him. Xiaolin also raised his head and saw a jaw-dropping scene.

——A wooden house flying in the sky!
And it was flying so high that it almost touched the floor of the 23rd floor.

"Ah??? This game finally has a bug."

Aqua was dumbfounded.

Generally, games will have bugs, but unfortunately, so far, Kobayashi has not found any bugs that can be exploited. Instead, he has discovered more game features.

As for the house...

The durability of SAO houses is infinite, and they will not decay or be destroyed by earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. The customization function of the player's house is limited to the exterior walls and roofs. It is impossible for someone to destroy the exterior walls or roofs after purchasing a house. This is true even for the Axis Cathedral, the headquarters of the Church.

"Do you see anyone there?"

Aqua let out a light exclamation, and Kobayashi looked in the direction of her finger and found that there was indeed someone there, waving at them from the window of the house.

player?

Or NPC?

If it were a player, his HP would definitely be reduced to zero if he fell from that height.

Wait, could it be Argo?
That guy was trapped in a wooden house flying in the sky for some unknown reason, and because he was not in the safe zone, he could not send emails or determine his location... The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

"Aqua, can you make your familiar fly up?"

"No."

"Why? It's a flying familiar, right? Is there a prohibition against flying here?"

"Not that. Actually..."

Aqua took out a flying dragon with red cheeks and circling eyes from behind.

"It's drunk."

"You stupid goddess!"

Xiaolin couldn't help it and hit her on the head.

The stupid goddess is of no use, we have to think of other ways.

There is a towering tree below the cabin, about 20 meters high. In real life, it is a rare lush tree, but this is a game, so there are many trees that are lusher than it. And it is not tall enough to climb up to the cabin with the help of it.

"I thought if I got right down there, I'd be able to barely hear someone asking for help."

"It's too far away, there's nothing we can do."

Just as they were thinking about how to get up, a dangerous aura - actually an enemy search skill warning - made the two of them nervous.

"Wang Wang Wang!"

But when a barking puppy came to them, they relaxed again.

"so cute!"

Aqua picked up the puppy, held it in her arms and rubbed its head angrily.

"I say, this could be some kind of trap. Is it really okay to be so careless?"

"It's okay. Look, its tail is wagging like this."

"I mean, aren't you afraid that Emperor Juer will be jealous?"

The puppy that suddenly appeared wagged its tail in a flattering manner, seemingly without hostility. Xiaolin also learned the puppy's name from the cursor on its head - Toto.

It doesn't sound like a racial name.

"Is that the dog's proper name?"

"Xiao Lin Xiao Lin! Let's make it our familiar!"

"...No, it seems that it is not possible."

Xiao Lin saw a question mark on the puppy's head, which meant there was a mission, and the question mark meant it was in progress. But they had just arrived here and had never seen this dog, let alone accepted the mission. That meant -

"That one?"

Look at the house above your head.

"Then the next step is to find out why the house flew into the sky."

Perhaps it was Kobayashi's words that triggered the key words. A whirlwind suddenly formed around the puppy and without a word, it swept them into the sky.

“Waaaaaa——”

As the Stupid Goddess howled, the two of them spun and jumped in the sky with their eyes closed, and when they fell, they were forcibly sent into the chimney and drilled in from the only entrance above.

"It hurts!"

Aqua cried out in pain, but since most of her body was pressed on Kobayashi, she shouldn't have received much damage. On the contrary, Kobayashi felt like his butt was split in two because of his heightened sense of pain and reduced defense.

"—!"

A black shadow covered Xiaolin.

When I looked up, I saw a short figure wearing a cloak and a beard. As I had guessed, she was Argo.

"good afternoon."

“If you guys even come here, there’s no point at all, okay!”

"Hey, I don't think I have any reason to be blamed. I don't know who sent an email for help and then disappeared. I dropped everything I was doing and ran over to save you. Thank you with all my heart!"

"Well."

Argo was at a loss for words, and pursed his lips for a long time before mumbling a sentence. Xiaolin didn't quite hear it, but probably because he was too late and Xiaolin was at the top of the email list, so he sent the email.

It was probably when he was being rolled up that he realized something was wrong and thought about asking for help, but it was too late by then, so he just sent an email for help as quickly as possible, and then sent it to Kobayashi.

This wooden house is not big, with a 1DK layout.

Whether it is furniture or decoration, it gives people a slightly warm feeling.

"Could this be Argo's home?"

"No. Who would be in heaven?"

"so."

Xiao Lin sat down on the sofa, crossed his legs and said, "What is going on? Explain it to us."

Aqua also sat down next to Kobayashi obediently.

Seeing that things had come to this, Argo sat down helplessly and said, "Boss, you should have received the mission as well."

"I guess so. But rather than a clear mission, it feels like I was picked up by someone who had abandoned a mission halfway through, and then I was inexplicably dragged into this."

“That’s really rude.”

In SAO, top players believe that tasks should not be completed halfway, which would make people feel that he does not have the style of a high-level player, just like now.

Argo whistled.

After a while, she couldn't stand Xiaolin's gaze anymore and explained, "It's not my fault... Forget it, let's start from the beginning."

Argo had recently received information about a strange new quest in the lower levels of Aincrad, and it was just before the release of her strategy manual, so she came to investigate, but there was something wrong with the quest content.

"what is the problem?"

"Well... I also have some things I'm good at and some things I'm not good at..."

Her words were vague, but her eyes couldn't stop glancing at the dog in Aqua's arms.

It turned out to be the case.

"Argo, you're afraid of dogs."

"There's nothing we can do! Take it away quickly!"

Instead of being considerate, the stupid goddess exposed Argo's weakness and even forcefully shoved the dog into her arms.

Sometimes the stupid goddess can be quite excessive.

"In other words, although you successfully accepted the mission, because the key character was the dog, you ran to this wooden house out of fear. Then the mission moved forward and the house flew into the sky. But the dog did not enter the house, so the mission came to a standstill. As a result, you were in the house flying in the air and sent the email during this time, right?"

"That's not funny, boss!"

Kobayashi's explanation of trying not to laugh made Argo feel embarrassed and angry.

"In this case, the boss will be trapped in this hut for a while!"

"Hey, it's no big deal."

Aqua said stupidly, "If something unexpected happens, can't we just use the transfer crystal to fly to the town?"

"No, probably not."

Xiaolin didn't think that Argo had never used this method, but she was still in this room, which meant that the transfer crystal could not be used here - even emails could not be sent, so of course the transfer crystal was not useful.

"Although it was caused by the mission, this kind of forced event will basically prohibit teleportation."

"That's it. But as a last resort, jumping out of the window and teleporting before landing on the ground is not a bad idea."

I have to say, she came up with a clever idea.

"Boss, this is a rare opportunity. Do you want to give it a try? If it succeeds, it will be a great discovery. It may bring a lot of convenience to other players."

“…Forget it. I don’t want to try.”

It's a good idea, but good ideas are often accompanied by extremely high risks. Xiaolin doesn't want to take such a big risk to do something with extremely low returns.

"Hey, that's not right, Xiaolin."

Aqua seemed to have thought of something and said, "If the reason for the stagnation of the mission is that Toto was left outside and came in... this point has been resolved, right? Does that mean that the progress of the mission will continue to move forward?"

"You've become smarter?"

"What did you say--"

"Aqua, you're right. In fact, I can already feel this wooden house moving. I think it's probably moving towards the mission location, but you guys were chatting just now and didn't realize it."

Kobayashi pushed away the stupid goddess who tried to bite him.

Argo jumped down from the sofa, walked to the window in two or three steps and looked down.

"It's true! We're about to land!"

"really?"

Aqua also came forward.

"Yes! If everything goes well, we can get back before dark!"

"Great!"

The two women smiled happily.

Soon, the wooden house fell down, and the three people, the dog, and the dragon walked out of the room. They did not leave the 22nd floor, but rather, they did not leave the forest at all.

"Well, now that we've fallen behind, let's finish the task quickly and then go back."

"Um……"

Argo had no objection to the two of them blending in; after all, if it weren't for Krillin and Aqua, she would still be floating in the sky.

"Oh right! So, the name of this quest is "The Witch of the West and the Three Treasures" - that should be it."

"So ordinary."

Aqua couldn't help but complain.

But when they saw what appeared in front of them - a lion-beast man about two meters tall wearing cloth, a medieval full armor but with no human inside, and a scarecrow with an exclamation mark above its head waiting to accept the task.

"How can it be ordinary? It's obviously super expanded!"

(End of this chapter)