kscans

Chapter 467 - Expedition to Cat Island

Having obtained travel passes to Cat Island, Parfait's group boarded a ship with Orion and the other members of the clan "Cats are God".

Cat Island is located south by ship from a port in the Eastern Country, Azuma. From here, one could also travel to the underwater city of Ryugu or Onigashima, but this time, the destination was strictly Cat Island.

Being a newly implemented island for the current event, not only Parfait's group but also Orion and his clan, who had been playing AFO for a long time, were highly excited.

New fields came with new monsters. The tamer in them couldn't help but wonder if there might be new cats or other strong monsters they could make into pets.

As newcomers, everything was fresh for Parfait's group, but this time, being an expedition, they were even more excited than usual.

"By the way, you call this an expedition. Is it any different from our usual adventures?"

Ginny posed the question on the ship. The other members of the clan "Mont Blanc", all seemingly curious, gathered closer.

However, Parfait was a beginner herself. She figured Rick would be better at explaining this kind of thing and sent a look his way.

As if understanding from just that glance, Rick immediately began to explain.

"Simply put, it's an adventure where we won't be returning to our main base for a while. The idea is to set up a base at the expedition site and adventure from there."

"A base?"

"Just traveling by ship takes a lot of time. Plus, we don't know how big Cat Island is. Adventuring in a single day will be difficult, so we'll make a temporary base where we can resurrect if we're defeated and log out safely."

"Oh, I see. It would be a pain to get defeated on Cat Island and have to return to our base in Azuma. And I've heard that if you log out in an unsafe area, you can get killed by a monster and be force-teleported to your resurrection point at the base."

"Exactly. There are items like tents for camping, but those are just for logging out. If you're defeated, you'll still return to the base. So, for long adventures, we set up a base at the expedition site so we can resume quickly even if we're defeated. In AFO, that's what we call an expedition."

In short, an expedition was about making adventures easier by creating a temporary base that served as both a resurrection point and a safe log-out location.

The expedition system had various restrictions, but in this case, it simply meant they needed to be self-sufficient. They couldn't buy things like food for combat buffs or potions to restore HP from AFO staff.

They had bought as much as they could beforehand, but whether it was enough for an adventure on Cat Island was anyone's guess. That's why they needed to be able to craft such items on-site.

Moreover, this time, they wouldn't just be fighting monsters and looking for cats. They also had to consider battling the two clans that had arrived ahead of them.

The two clans were major clans on the same level as "Cats are God", and as fairly veteran clans, they were quite strong. And according to information Rick had brought, Cat Island was a field where players could fight each other at any time.

"Since it's a battle between major tamer clans, they're saying it'll probably be a three-way fight. It's a game, so we should have fun, but we might as well try to win, right?"

As Rick said this with a cynical smile, everyone nodded. Only Ginny said, "Ashley-sama from volume seven, page one hundred twenty six...!" Rick ignored her.

In the slightly awkward atmosphere, Abel raised his hand.

"What are those two clans like? Cretaceous and Highway Star, was it?"

"I think Orion-san gave you a brief explanation, but I'll add the information I've gathered. First up is Cretaceous."

Rick said, looking around at the others before continuing.

"Cretaceous is a clan of dinosaur tamers. They're said to have the strongest combat force among tamer clans."

"There are dinosaurs? I've never seen one. Are they strong?"

"They're strong. It's only hearsay, but they're monsters completely specialized in physical attacks, and their attack power is apparently immense. Plus, since there are dinosaur-type monsters on land, in the sea, and in the sky, there's no field advantage. It means you can't just escape to the sky or sea to be safe."

"Huh, but specialized in physical attacks?"

"Apparently, they used to breathe fire and use magic, but it was so unpopular that I heard Diite-san reluctantly had to patch it. I guess they became a physically specialized race as a result."

"What's with that information?"

Parfait latched onto the part about Diite reluctantly patching it. Parfait found it hard to imagine Diite, who was always so confident about everything in AFO, acting like that.

"The 'reluctantly' part might be a joke, but it's true there was a patch. The dinosaurs are said to live in a place called the 'Floating Island', and according to the people who first discovered them, it was underwhelming to see dinosaurs using magic."

"Dinosaurs are kind of like real-life monsters from Earth, so I guess people have certain expectations... But, Rick-kun, how do you know so much?"

Parfait knew that Rick was good at gathering this kind of information, but this was so much that she was a little taken aback.

"It's not that I'm just well-informed. There's a clan that gives out all sorts of information if you pay them in-game currency. I paid them for this. In fact, they're the ones who told me about Cat Island, too."

"A clan like that exists?"

"Yeah, the information clan 'Raven'. They deal in all kinds of information within AFO. Apparently, an acquaintance of my father and mother is the clan leader, so I was introduced through them... Anyway, that's beside the point. First, the dinosaurs."

Rick adjusted his glasses with a quick push and continued.

"Like I said, dinosaurs are physically specialized with high attack power. They also have an insane amount of HP, but they're weak to magic, especially mental-type magic. I also heard that weakening magic is very effective against them."

"Huh, weakening magic. Guess it's my turn to shine."

Abel was delighted by Rick's words. Role-playing as a sorcerer like his aunt, Ren, Abel could use curse-type magic, much of which caused weakening effects.

"We won't know for sure until we fight them, but I'm sure your magic will be effective, Abel. And I'm counting on your necromancy too, Natsu."

"Kukuku, leave it to me! Dinosaurs that went extinct from a mere meteor or ice age are no match for me!"

"Yeah, but if a meteor hit or an ice age started, humans would die too, you know?"

"When you respond to my joke so seriously, I, uh, don't know what to do."

"Right, a joke. Well, anyway, I'm also counting on your spirit magic and demon summoning, Ginny, so do your best against the dinosaurs."

"Leave it to me. By the way, could you say, 'I'm counting on you, kitten'?"

"...I am absolutely not saying that."

The back-and-forth between Rick and Ginny continued for a little while, but Rick emerged victorious. Ginny sat sideways on the floor as if in shock, but she was full of theatrics, sneaking glances at Rick, so he ignored her and went on.

"Next is Highway Star. This is a clan with many pets capable of high-speed movement. As a clan, they seem to compete over how fast they can move, and I hear they sometimes just move at high speed in a group for no reason."

None of them could quite grasp the meaning of that, but Parfait raised her hand.

"For no reason?"

"I'm sure it has meaning to them. Personally, I'm pretty interested in high-speed movement myself. Besides, the rides at Colony 'Amusement' have meaning to the people who ride them, right?"

"You mean, it's fun for them to do that?"

"That's right. I said 'for no reason', but for them, there's probably meaning in simply running fast."

"I get the situation, but is that clan strong?"

"Without a doubt. Apparently, all the players in Highway Star are people who live in the dangerous zones on Earth, so they're strong in real life, too."

Everyone was surprised to hear about the dangerous zones on Earth.

On Earth, you could live in the major cities like Central or the marine city Floating Island, or inside other massive structures, but living in a dangerous zone was unbelievable.

Rick furrowed his brow at their reaction, but then realized something and quickly corrected himself.

"Wait, wait. When I say they live in a dangerous zone, I mean around the production plants. They're the people working on the Earth purification and safe zone expansion projects."

"Oh, so that's what you meant. Are they from the Leo Foundation then?"

"I'm not sure about their affiliation. Most of them might be from Leo, but I've heard that the Libra and Gemini Foundations have also invested in the Earth Purification Project."

As he spoke, Rick glanced at Wilnel, who was also the next head of the Gemini Foundation.

"That's right. Libra and Gemini have also invested, so it's hard to say what their affiliation is. Do you know the name of their community?"

"I heard it's 'Scavenger'."

Wilnel's eyes widened, and she froze for a few seconds. Then she quickly cleared her throat with a small cough.

"The largest community in the dangerous zones... They're affiliated with the Libra Foundation. Incidentally, they're said to be the strongest unit in the real world, so if they've formed a clan in AFO, they must be exceptionally strong. They're said to be the best in the world when it comes to riding vehicles, so their riding skill is definitely top class."

Parfait's group couldn't grasp just how incredible that was, so they could only say, "Huh," but they vaguely understood that they were strong.

Such a clan was already fighting on Cat Island, and they were about to join them.

Parfait had been excited about the prospect of meeting new cats, but the thought of potentially fighting strong people made her even more excited.