I like traveling the most

After Kobayashi picked up the dagger and looked at it for a while, Kirito appeared from the other side of the street with a look of reluctance.

"Haha, have you lost me?"

"Damn it, if only I knew where he teleported to."

"It's impossible. Although SAO's transfer crystal can be controlled with voice, it actually doesn't only use voice. Whether it's a window or brain waves, as long as you have the idea and hold the transfer crystal in your hand, you can use it, so You can’t catch that guy no matter what.”

"Tsk."

Kirito sighed unwillingly.

In addition, it wasn't that Asuna didn't stop him, but that she didn't listen to his advice even after she stopped him, so it was to be expected that she would return without success.

"Don't talk about this yet."

Kirito stepped forward, stared at the dagger in Xiaolin's hand, and said: "This must be the murder weapon that killed Miss Yako. It's enough to make people feel uncomfortable."

"Yes, its design concept is the same as the bloody spear that killed Kainz. Even without identification, you can know that they were made by the same person." Xiaolin casually threw the dagger to him.

Kirito looked at the dagger in his hand with a somewhat unwilling expression.

This small knife is made of the same metal material. Although it is not large, it is quite heavy. The sides of the razor-thin blade are carved with barbs reminiscent of shark teeth.

"Let's go up first."

Kobayashi and Kirito walked up to the second floor of the hotel. After announcing their names, they turned the handle. After getting permission from the owner of the room, the door opened.

The two met face to face with an angry Asuna.

"You two are really... really...!"

One recklessly ran after the murderer, and the other jumped out of the room, scaring her one after another.

Kirito glanced at him in surprise when he learned that Kobayashi jumped from the room. Although he would not be hurt, the pain was unavoidable. He must not have jumped off the building because he was bored, right?

"So, how did it turn out?"

"No, he used teleportation to escape. Not to mention his appearance, even his voice and whether he is a boy or a girl can't be distinguished."

Kirito shook his head.

Asuna frowned her beautiful eyebrows and asked, "Could that person be Grimrock? If it's what Miss Yako said..."

She also began to suspect that the murderer was Grimrock.

But Schmidt trembled and denied with a groan: "No. The man in black robe on the roof is not Grimrock. Grimrock is a little taller, and... and..."

Speaking of this, his voice was a little hoarse, but it was more out of fear.

"That hooded robe is the president's clothes. She always wears that kind of inconspicuous clothes when she goes out on the street. By the way... when he went to sell rings, he was also wearing that clothes! Just... the person just now It’s the president! She’s coming to take revenge on all of us! That’s the president’s ghost! Hahaha——”

He suddenly laughed like crazy.

"If she's a ghost, she can do anything. PK in the circle should be easy for her. We might as well ask the president to defeat the final boss of SAO. She won't die without any health points anyway."

Schmidt shouted hysterically.

Kirito threw the dagger in his hand on the table. As soon as the heavy sound appeared, Schmidt was like a doll turning off the switch, and his laughter suddenly stopped.

After staring for a few seconds, he screamed like a little girl.

"Ey---"

"That's not a ghost. This throwing knife is an actual object, just like the spear you put in the prop library. If you don't believe it, you can take it for investigation."

"No, no need! I'll return the spear to you too!"

Schmidt opened the window tremblingly, but he made several mistakes because he was too afraid of the operation, but in the end he materialized the spear. As if to get out of trouble, he threw the spear that appeared next to the window.

Kirito raised the corners of his mouth secretly.

Is this guy pretty bad too?

Asuna seemed a little unbearable, and she comforted: "Mr. Schmidt, I don't think that person just now was a ghost. If there is a ghost, it is definitely not just the president of Golden Apple, but the three thousand who have died so far Five hundred people, everyone should be unwilling, right? "

"No, that's not right."

Schmitt, who was hanging his head, shook his head: "Because you don't know her. That person is really strong and calm, but she is also very strict when it comes to lying or laziness. She is even more exaggerated than Miss Asuna from the Ghost Raiders." ...So if she knew that someone had set a trap to kill her, she would never let that person off lightly... she would even turn into a ghost to give that person the harshest punishment."

A heavy silence fell over the room.

It seems that President Golden Apple put a lot of pressure on him, and after these events, his psychological defense was even more damaged.

"Since you think so, there's nothing I can do about it."

Kirito sighed and said: "Whether I don't believe this kind of thing, there must be some kind of systematic logic in these two insider killings. And I will definitely find that method, so you must also follow the agreement assist."

"assist?"

"Next, I hope you can stay in the guild honestly. After all, it seems that the murderer must at least hit the weapon if he wants to kill people. If you stay in the guild, at least no strange people will break in."

"That, of course! Even if you don't say that, I will do it!"

Schmitt spoke loudly, but his words were very poor.

Soon he realized this too.

"It's embarrassing to do this as a player in the strategy group, but I don't want to go out recently... You don't have to count me in the team formation when you're attacking the boss, and--"

At this time, his former resolute expression had completely disappeared. The spear user who served as the captain of the Holy Dragon Union Guild could only look at them with empty eyes and murmured:

"Please send me back to the guild later."

None of the three laughed at Schmidt's cowardice.

From the 59th floor of the hotel through the transfer door to the 56th floor, before walking back to the Holy Dragon Union headquarters, the three formed a triangle to sandwich this sturdy man who had been corroded by fear. If an unknown person appeared, Kirito and Asuna might reflexively rush out.

Even after passing the huge gate of the headquarters, Schmidt still had an uneasy expression on his face.

Watching his back as he jogged into the building, Kirito sighed softly.

Asuna bit her lip and whispered, "Miss Yako's matter is really regrettable..."

"That's what I said."

Kirito also answered in a hoarse voice.

Only Kobayashi kept his expression the same, and he chuckled.

"Kobayashi? You don't seem sad at all."

"Why should I be sad?"

"Because Mr. Keynes and Miss Yako..."

"Dead? No, no, no one died in this incident."

"...Huh?"

Asuna stared at Kobayashi with her eyes wide open, and only Kirito seemed to have thought of something, but he was a little unsure so he didn't speak, but waited for Kobayashi to explain the reason.

Kobayashi's demonstration was very simple. He took a piece of paper from the prop column, tore it off in front of the two people, and scattered it on the street.

If it were the real world, he would definitely be scolded for having no sense of public morality, but this was a game, and soon they exploded into pieces because of the destruction, and disappeared in front of the three people.

"Huh??"

Asuna was confused.

Kirito suddenly realized.

"——Is that so! I was wondering what was wrong, so that's how it is! Xiaolin, when did you find out? No, you found out when you were trapping Yako with the thread, right? Oh, Asuna also said that you jumped down from the second floor, just to confirm this!"

As expected of Kirito, he understood everything immediately.

Asuna was confused, and she quickly asked, "What's going on? Can someone explain it to me!"

"Xiaolin means that Yako is not dead. Whether it's Kainz or Yako, what we saw was just the phenomenon that Kainz's character sprinkled a lot of polygonal fragments, then emitted a blue light and disappeared. Although in the circle, no matter what the player does, the health value will not decrease, but the durability of the item will still decrease.

Just like the paper just now, because it was destroyed, the durability was reduced to the minimum and turned into blue fragments. Do you still remember Yako? At that time, her clothes had been pierced by the dagger, so the dagger did not reduce Yako's health value, but the durability of the clothes."

Asuna, who was originally frowning, suddenly widened her eyes.

Apparently she had discovered that it was not Yako's body that flew away, but her clothes.

"She calculated the time when her clothes would be destroyed, and then performed such a scene, and then immediately fell down and..."

"Used the crystal to transfer."

She seemed to understand the purpose of Kobayashi's jumping off the building.

"But is there a way to prove it?"

"It's very simple. Kirito, don't you have a resurrection crystal? Try it."

"Yes."

Kirito took out the resurrection crystal and immediately selected Yako as the resurrection target.

Asuna asked curiously, "Wait a minute, can't the resurrection crystal only revive players who have died within ten seconds? Even if you use it now, it's too late, right?"

"Hehe, Asuna, I can see that you have never used the resurrection crystal."

"I never got it from the beginning, okay!"

"The effect of the resurrection crystal is that it can only revive players who died within ten seconds, but in fact, the prompts it gives are also different. For example, dead players will be shown as unable to be resurrected, and the time of the player's death will be displayed, while players who are not dead will also be prompted that the player is not dead, so..."

"Can it test whether Miss Yako is dead?"

"That's right!"

Kobayashi snapped his fingers, and Kirito also shared the window of the resurrection crystal with the two of them. It really showed that the player was not dead and could not be used.

"In addition, Asuna, you and Yako have added friends, you should also be able to see that Yako is not dead."

"Yes, yes, I forgot... Great, she is not dead."

Asuna checked the friend list and found that Yako's name did not turn gray, and she was relieved.

Rather than being used as a tool, she was more concerned about players not dying due to strange killing methods.

"Wait, wait a minute."

Asuna suddenly thought of something.

"Last night, didn't we go to the Black Iron Palace to check in person? There was indeed a line through the name of Kainz."

"Then it should be the wrong spelling of the name."

"...What do you mean?"

"Just like my name - Xiaolin, there are many players named Xiaolin, but the spelling is different."

Xiaolin shared his window.

It was a conversation between him and Schmidt, and the content was to ask Schmidt to send him the IDs of other members of the Golden Apple Guild, including Kainz's.

But -

"Eh, Caynz... Caynz?"

"Yes, when we went to check, the ID was Kains. They are not the same person. If you don't believe it..."

Kirito uses the resurrection crystal again.

Sure enough, the shared window showed the same as Yezi, that Kainz was not dead.

"But the moment of death is correct, and the cause of death is indeed a penetrating attribute attack... Could it be...!"

"No, no, no, it wasn't Yezi and his accomplices who cooperated to kill Kainz with the letter K at that time. Think about it, the death record on the Monument of Life is [April 22, eighteen o'clock" Twenty-seven minutes], the time is correct, but April 22nd in Aincrad was actually the second time yesterday.”

"Ah...that's it!"

Asuna suddenly realized what she was saying and was speechless.

In other words, on the same day and at the same time last year, the player named Kainz with the letter K... who had nothing to do with this incident passed away, and this was the starting point of Kainz and Yakko's plan. The dead people were used to design this careful plan.

Kirito also spoke: "I think they knew about this a long time ago, and used this chance to create the illusion of Kainz's death, and staged this horrific insider murder."

"Indeed. The name of the deceased whose pronunciation is the same as his own, the equipment damage caused by continuous damage from being penetrated in the circle, and the use of crystal transfer at the same time... Using these three elements, you can make the PK in the circle look real. Same." Asuna also felt that this plan was too clever.

"And the purpose of doing this is..."

"In order to force the criminal in the ring incident into a desperate situation so that he could reveal his flaws, Ms. Yako and Kainz, in turn, used their position as possible criminals to act out the murders in which they were killed, creating an illusory revenge Or, after this terrifying Death who can ignore the prohibition of crime orders and carry out PK in the circle appears, the one who will act out of fear is..."

"Cainz."

Xiaolin answered this question.

"That's why you laughed just now."

"I am praising Kainz and Yezi for their fantastic and ingenious plan."

"I think you have pure bad taste."

Asuna rolled her eyes.

The mystery has been solved, and Yezi and the others were originally suspicious of Schmidt, so they targeted him like this.

"Although it's a bit rude to say this, if you hadn't gone through crazy contact levels or spent a lot of money to update equipment, you wouldn't be able to join the strategy group... So, was he the one who killed President Golden Apple and stole the ring? "

"have no idea."

"Hello!"

"I don't know if he killed anyone, but he did have motives and reasons. In fact, he did join the Grand Guild and became a member of the strategy team."

Kobayashi and Kirito share the same opinion about Schmitt.

"What should we do now?"

"Just wait and see what happens."

Xiaolin sat calmly on the chair and said: "Since Yezi and the others didn't tell us the truth of the matter, it means they don't want us to participate. However, their methods made me feel very helpful, so I won't hold them accountable for taking advantage of me. ”

"...Where did you come from as a pleasure monster?"

Kirito couldn't help but complain softly.