The group number was 155131664.
After adding the Pink Reply Crystal to his inventory, Wang Yang continued checking the other items. Once he was done, aside from the Healing Potions and Recovery Crystals, there were only two pieces of decent equipment. The rest was junk and Copper Equipment for beginners that could be bought in shops—enough to make a full set.
Shield: Boar's Repentance (Unique) Defense +256 Block Chance +10 Strength +10 Constitution +10 Vitality +10 Shield Bash: Has an attack hitbox. One-Handed Sword: Wind Flower Sword Attack +150 Strength +10 Agility +10 Rend: 10% chance to inflict a hamstring effect on the target, reducing movement speed by 30%.
Like the beginner equipment, neither of the two decent items had any equipment requirements, so Wang Yang equipped them right away. He also picked out a complete set of Copper Equipment and moved his nearly broken gear to his inventory. He didn't delete it immediately, since he hoped to sell it to an NPC and get some Kael back.
It had to be said: the Wild Boar Leader had dropped a lot of items, and even contributed over 30,000 Kael. This showed that elite monsters in Sword Art Online were veritable arsenals, one of the shortcuts for players to acquire fine equipment.
After sorting through the items dropped by the Wild Boar Leader, Wang Yang finally noticed an item called a Beast Trap at the very bottom of his inventory.
He suddenly realized that it might be what Argo had tossed to him. He opened the Beast Trap's description, and the effect left him stunned.
Beast Trap
Effect: Inflicts fatal damage on beast-type monsters and immobilizes the target for 30 seconds.
It didn't specify how much damage it dealt, but immobilizing a target for 30 seconds was an astonishing effect.
If he ran into another elite beast-type monster, perhaps he could use this Beast Trap to kill it without taking any damage.
No wonder Argo had dared to hunt the Wild Boar Leader alone so close to nightfall. It was all thanks to the Beast Trap. Most likely, the trap had been provided by a quest.
And just as Wang Yang had guessed, the Beast Trap had indeed been provided by the quest to help kill the Wild Boar Leader. Originally, the trap had been marked with the suffix "Quest Item," indicating that it could only be used against the Wild Boar Leader. But since the Wild Boar Leader had been killed without using the trap, the suffix disappeared.
Argo had also only just noticed that the suffix was gone, which was why she had given the trap to Wang Yang. The disappearance of the suffix meant it was no longer a quest item, and its use was no longer restricted to the quest target.
As for why Argo had been so generous, she hadn't expected the Wild Boar Leader to drop anything worthwhile, besides the quest item. This time, she had miscalculated.
During the Beta Test, after using a Beast Trap to kill the Wild Boar Leader, she hadn't even received any Experience Points. It had only dropped the quest item, Printing Technique. And when she had hurried over, she hadn't seen any joy on Wang Yang's face. He hadn't even looked toward the notification window for the dropped items.
For all these reasons, Argo had assumed from the start that Wang Yang hadn't gained much from killing the Wild Boar Leader. Feeling somewhat guilty, she had decided to give him the Beast Trap.
The Beast Trap could be considered a rare item, both because of the conditions required to obtain it and because the quest itself could only be accepted once a month.
A Beast Trap could make hunting an elite beast easy. Once players' levels had risen across the board, it would surely fetch a good price.
And Wang Yang wasn't about to suddenly message Argo to tell her that the Wild Boar Leader had dropped a whole pile of good loot. So Argo was destined to take a loss without realizing it.
He carefully put away the Beast Trap. To Wang Yang, it wasn't something to use for hunting elite monsters, but an item that could save his life at a critical moment. That was the difference in their way of thinking.
If a guild had a Beast Trap, it would use it right away to hunt an elite monster and obtain fine equipment. A solo player would also use it to level up and get equipment.
But Wang Yang's first thought was to use it to save his life. In a fight like yesterday's, if he ran into a monster as fast as the Wild Boar Leader, escaping combat would be impossible. With the Beast Trap, however, he could get away at any time.
After tallying up his spoils, Wang Yang walked out of the inn in his brand-new gear and headed straight for the Equipment Shop to sell the items he'd obtained to an NPC. As for the gear whose durability was nearly at zero, each piece was worth only 1 Kael.
Speechless, he chose to sell it all, then hurried to the item shop and unloaded all his junk to an NPC. His Kael total passed 40,000, making him the richest player at that point.
With money to spare, Wang Yang wanted to see what the item shop had to offer, but found that it only sold the World Map, priced at 1,000 Kael.
After thinking it over, Wang Yang bought a map while he had Kael to spare. Once he used it, the map data—which had originally been simple, showing only the route—became much more detailed, with miniature images and names revealing the terrain.
After leaving the item shop, Wang Yang went to a store and bought 30 White Breads. But before buying them, having learned his lesson, he bought one to try first. Once he found the taste acceptable, he bought the remaining 30. White Bread restored stamina just like Black Bread.
The whole trip took an hour. Afterward, Wang Yang realized he felt a little lost.
He had money now, and his basic needs were taken care of. What should he do next? Go level up? Get stronger? Join the front-line forces?
A choice lay before Wang Yang: live a peaceful life in Town of Beginnings on the First Floor, or keep leveling up in the grinding areas, grow stronger, and fight on the front lines.
Wang Yang had never thought he was cut out to be a hero. Even now, with two powerful pieces of equipment that gave him better stats than most players, he still couldn't bring himself to rush to the front lines.
At the root of it all, beyond his cowardice, was his resistance to reality.
At least in Sword Art Online, he had no relatives around and didn't have to deal with relatives who might suddenly show up. If he returned to reality, everything he faced would be unfamiliar.
There was another reason: he didn't dare interfere with the story's development. Especially during the game's first month, he couldn't interfere with anything. At least until Kirito got the limited-edition coat dropped by the First Floor boss, he could only stay silent.
Suddenly, Wang Yang felt truly useless. Just because death might actually happen, he was backing down, retreating.
Was he really going to cower in a corner and wait for Sword Art Online to be cleared?
He suddenly wondered: what were the players fighting on the front lines striving for? And what had made the players who had set their goals from the start choose them? What goal had He Gu held before he died, and what had he thought as he died? Why had Wang Yang been behind him when He Gu died?
Why hadn't he seen the expression on He Gu's face before he died? If he had, perhaps he could have learned what He Gu's goal was.
Why had someone so capable died just like that...
With his mind full of pointless questions, Wang Yang found himself at the Central Plaza without realizing it. He sat down on a relatively secluded set of steps and stared blankly at the players in the plaza.
Even during the day, the Central Plaza was still crowded with players. They traded items and exchanged information. It was a wonderful sight, and one that could only be seen in the early days of the game. In the time to come, deception and mistrust would fill Aincrad. By then, this kind of scene wouldn't happen at all, and the only bridges of trust between people would be guilds or small groups.
In the future, wariness toward strangers would be an ironclad rule.
If Wang Yang had opened his map while lost in thought, he would have seen a green dot moving toward him.
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