I like traveling the most

After clearing the 56th floor, the members of the strategy team seemed to have grasped some key points. They broke through the 57th floor three days later, and the 58th floor a week later.

Generally speaking, the strategy team conquers a floor every ten days. But considering that a lot of time was wasted in holding the World's No. 1 Martial Arts Tournament, it can be considered a normal speed.

And now, Kobayashi and Aqua were wandering around on the 57th floor.

Let me be clear, this is not laziness.

This large-scale street, which is only two floors away from the current front line, has inevitably become the main base of the strategy team and a tourist attraction. In the evening, this place will definitely be transformed by many players coming back from the upper level or coming here for dinner from the lower level. It must be very lively.

Considering that everyone in the guild has become a celebrity, they shouldn't appear here, but the stupid goddess couldn't bear it and said that she found a particularly hidden restaurant and had to go there. She had no choice but to let Xiaolin accompany her, hoping that nothing would happen. Accident.

Go through the portal to the main road on the 57th floor. Kobayashi and Aqua walked side by side on the unusually wide main road, and it was really interesting to see many players passing by with their eyes wide open.

No wonder they have such expressions.

The actual leader of the Axis Cult, and Aqua, who is loved by many players, are two celebrities who attract attention wherever they appear.

The stupid goddess didn't care about anything. She skipped along the main road and greeted the players coming and going from time to time.

She likes this feeling of being sought after the most.

It was obviously only five minutes away, but it took half an hour to walk. If Xiao Lin hadn't taken her away by force, she would have performed her talent on the spot.

Came to a larger restaurant.

Xiaolin pushed open the revolving door first, and Aqua quickly got in. At this time, she and the NPC waiter stepped forward and made a welcoming sound.

Under the leadership of the NPC waiter, Xiaolin held Aqua's hand, and the two of them moved in the store, which was a little crowded at first. During the process, they could still feel several lines of sight coming from them.

Come to a more remote corner.

Aqua ordered a double portion of pre-dinner wine as well as appetizers, main courses and desserts without hesitation. I really doubt that she came here not to eat, but to drink.

Spending money lavishly...

Fortunately, Sato Kazuma has developed the guild very well. They have a lot of pocket money, and Xiaolin often earns a lot of money from killing monsters in the wild, so he can order so much food without any worries. If you are an ordinary player who lives a tight life, this meal will definitely cause a lot of bleeding.

"Xiao Lin Xiao Lin, the wine here is delicious! Try it quickly!"

"Yes yes yes."

Xiao Lin tasted it briefly.

The taste is not bad, ranking high among the wines I have drunk, but it is not as good as the rare wines obtained by completing tasks that can increase attributes.

By the way, has the stupid goddess been drinking a little too much lately?

According to Sato Kazuma, Aqua discovered that the liquids she touched in the game would not purify them into pure water, so she drank happily every day, even going so far as to fill the bathtub with champagne once.

Xiao Lin has only seen this kind of extravagant behavior in reality.

Sato Kazuma scolded her hard.

It wasn't because the stupid goddess poured champagne into the bathtub, but because the stupid goddess didn't call him when she was enjoying it, and later the two came together again.

In this regard, Sato Kazuma said that if you have never enjoyed it in reality, why can’t you still enjoy it in the game?

While the two were enjoying dinner, the door of the restaurant was pushed open again.

This is the fifty-seventh floor. Players from the upper and lower floors will come here. There is nothing strange about it. But at the same time, the players who can come to the 57th floor are top players, and there is a high probability of meeting familiar people.

This time he saw someone familiar.

Kirito and Asuna.

These two people are also very famous players. As soon as they came in, they were looked at by many people. Although their faces were as if nothing had happened, Xiao Lin could still see that they were a little nervous.

"I asked why the two of them didn't practice leveling on the 59th floor today. It turns out they were on a date."

"What what?"

The stupid goddess looked like a hamster with her mouth full of food. She was a little confused when she heard Xiaolin's words.

"Nothing, just go ahead and eat."

"oh."

After being perfunctory, Aqua once again ate the food on the plate.

Xiao Lin didn't pay attention to them all the time, nor did he think of going up to say hello. After all, no one likes to be disturbed when dating.

Seeing Kirito pulling out a chair for Asuna like a gentleman, he nodded with satisfaction, but when he found out that the two of them didn't even order pre-dinner drinks, he couldn't help but curl his lips. In the game, you abide by the law of not drinking until you are twenty years old, right? Something wrong with your brain?

The two quickly got used to the sight of people around them and started chatting.

They couldn't hear clearly what was said, but smiles appeared on both of their faces, and Xiaolin nodded with satisfaction seeing that the atmosphere was good.

atmosphere?

Xiao Lin was stunned for a moment.

Looking at Aqua, who was still eating the food and looking completely different from a goddess, she couldn't help but cover her face with her hands.

Why is there no atmosphere here?

And at this moment——

"...Wahhhhh!!!"

Suddenly, a very terrifying scream came from a distant place.

Aqua's body trembled and she stopped eating. Kobayashi frowned. Many players in the restaurant subconsciously put their hands on their weapons, including Kirito and Asuna.

This is the quality that high-level players should have.

When an accident happens, get into the state immediately.

I don’t know what Asuna said, after Kirito nodded, the two stood up with serious expressions, kicked the chair away and ran to the door.

Kobayashi also grabbed the wrist of the stupid goddess and dragged her away forcibly regardless of her wailing.

When he just stepped out of the restaurant door and came to the road outside, another heart-wrenching scream came into his ears.

At this time, Kirito and Asuna in front turned their heads at the same time and saw Kobayashi and Aqua behind them.

"Kobayashi, Aqua?"

"Yeah. Let's talk about the details later. Let's go over there first."

Kobayashi interrupted Kirito's words and looked at the square across a building. After looking at each other, he nodded and then sprinted south with all his strength.

The four ran to the square one after another.

What came into view was an unbelievable scene.

On the north side of the square, there stood a stone building similar to a church, and there - on the display window in the middle of the second floor of the building, a man was hanging by a rope extending from the window!

This man was certainly not an NPC.

You could tell by the equipment he was wearing.

He was covered in heavy armor and a large helmet on his head. Although the rope was completely stuck in the armor at the base of his neck, the players gathered in the square did not scream in terror because of this reason.

In SAO, there is no possibility of suffocation due to the rope prop strangling the neck.

The source of everyone's fear was a blood-red spear deeply stuck in the man's chest. The man grabbed the handle of the gun with both hands, and his mouth kept opening and closing. He opened his eyes wide as if he wanted to say something, but unfortunately he was too far away from the others and could not hear it at all.

And during this time, the wound on his chest kept gushing and flashing red light like blood.

In other words, the man's HP was constantly decreasing, which was a continuous damage feature that only some penetration weapons had.

It seems that the blood-red spear is a weapon enhanced for continuous damage.

Kirito woke up from the moment of surprise and shouted, "Pull it out quickly!"

The man glanced at him.

Then he slowly moved his hands to pull out the gun, but the weapon stuck deep in his body didn't seem to be so easy to move. Of course, it was also possible that the fear of death made him unable to exert force.

The man who was hung on the wall was at least ten meters above the ground.

Even Xiaolin couldn't touch him with the silk thread.

At this moment, the man with a large helmet suddenly stared at a certain point in the air with his eyes wide open, and everyone immediately understood that he was looking at his life value. To be precise, he was looking at the moment when his life value returned to zero.

Amid the screams and surprises of the people in the square, the man seemed to shout something.

And then——

Blue flashes flashed in the night sky with countless sounds like broken glass, the rope without the binding hit the wall, and the blood-red spear that fell made a heavy metal sound because it pierced the stone slab on the ground.

The screams of many players even covered up the BGM full of peaceful atmosphere in the street area.

Kirito opened his mouth.

He wanted to use the prize for the martial arts tournament winner right now - the resurrection crystal, but he didn't know the man's ID, and he couldn't find it out in the limited time (ten seconds). He could only look up blankly at the exploding polygonal fragments.

Although he was hit hard, he still stared at the vast space around the church.

He was looking for something that would definitely appear.

- Declaration of the duel winner!

This is the main street, which means it is still within the effective circle of the crime ban order. If the HP of the players in this place is damaged or even killed, there is only one possibility. That is to agree to accept the duel in a complete win-lose mode and lose.

There is no other possibility!

When the duelist wins, a system window of the victory declaration will appear in front of him, so that he can know who killed the man.

But the system window did not appear.

There was no trace of it around the square, and it would only appear for a short period of thirty seconds.

So Kirito shouted, "Everyone, help find the window showing the winner of the duel!"

He shouted loudly to suppress the commotion on the scene, and the other players immediately understood his intention and began to look for windows around. However, no one made a sound.

Fifteen seconds had passed.

Is it inside the building?

When thinking this, Asuna and Aqua suddenly poked their heads out of the second-floor window and shouted, "Xiaolin, there is no one up here!"

"There is no system window here, and there is no one inside."

How could it be...

No, thirty seconds have passed now.

Xiaolin and Kirito looked at each other, and after passing by the nun who lived on the first floor of the church, they climbed directly up the stairs deep in the building.

There are four rooms on the second floor, which are a bit similar to single rooms in a hotel.

The difference is that none of the four rooms here can be locked, and when the two passed the first three rooms and used the search skill at the same time, neither their eyes nor their skills found anything.

The two came to the fourth room where the problem occurred.

Asuna and Aqua were still standing at the window. Asuna was using her search skill to look for clues, while the stupid goddess was playing with the ropes in the room.

Of the four people present, two frowned, one looked calm, and the other looked stupid.

Xiao Lin was the first to speak: "There is no one else in the church."

"Could it be a cloak with added concealment ability?"

"No. Even the front line has not dropped any props that can invalidate my search skills. And for the sake of caution, I have asked players to block the door of the church. Even if it is transparent, players who encounter it will still be automatically See it through. And there is no back door in this building, and this is the only room with windows."

Kirito answered Asuna's question and revealed his careful arrangement.

"I see."

Asuna nodded, pointed to the table in the room, and said, "Come and take a look at this. There seems to be something wrong with it."

What she was referring to was a simple wooden table.

What's not simple is that this is immovable furniture, a solid wooden table in the game.

On the corner of one of the tables, there is a rope that looks quite strong even though it is tied. It is said to be tied, but in fact it is not really tied by hand. Instead, it is connected to the table by a system pop-up window of the rope. Just together.

Once tied, the rope will never break or loosen unless something heavier than the rope's durability is hung, or it is cut with a knife.

The shiny black rope spanned a distance of about two meters in the room, hanging directly from the south window to the outside.

Although it cannot be seen from here, its front end is formed into a ring, and the neck of the man in full armor just hung on this ring.

"Um……"

Xiao Lin pondered for a while and said: "Based on the general situation, it should be the duel target of the player wearing armor who tied the rope, then inserted the spear into his chest, and finally put the rope loop around the victim's neck and pushed the person down. ...Is that right?”

"That's about it."

"But there are many doubts about this duel."

Xiao Lin said: "First of all, although I don't know the man's ID, he must be very strong to reach the 57th floor, but he was pierced through the chest with a spear... If he just died like this No matter what, he was still hung outside, and it took a long time before he died because his health points returned to zero. "

"No, this method can still be done."

"Kirito, do you know the method?"

"There are various abnormal attributes in SAO, such as poison and paralysis... I see, that's it! He first paralyzed the armored man, then moved him here when he couldn't move, and then used continuous penetrating damage to kill him. The opponent is dead, which means this is not necessarily the scene of the first crime, and there is a reason why the winning window cannot be found! "

Kirito suddenly realized and looked a little excited.

Asuna still frowned slightly: "That's true, but the one just now was probably an internal duel, but we don't know who did it, why, and what method was used to accomplish it..."

There were constant commotions from players in the square outside the window.

Apparently, they must have noticed something unusual about this incident.

Asuna said: "We cannot leave this matter alone. If someone really discovers the PK skills in the circle, we must quickly find a way and announce the means of confrontation, otherwise it will definitely cause a big commotion."

"...I agree." Kirito raised his hand quickly, obviously he also felt that this matter was not good.

Kobayashi shrugged.

"You all said so."

As representatives of the Axis Cult, Kobayashi and Aqua could not ignore this matter no matter what happened.

"Then let's be great detectives for a time."

"You're right."

The four of them put their hands together.

"By the way, speaking of detectives, what famous works do you like?"

"Ace Attorney." "Sherlock Holmes."

The two answered differently.

However, they are all very well-known works, but in different fields.

Xiao Lin blinked.

"Really, I like Danganronpa."