To be honest, Akimi normally couldn’t be bothered to attend BOSS raid meetings—because after one or two hours of discussion, the only conclusion they usually reached was something meaningless like which guild’s team would take the first strike.
After all, all the BOSS information had already been written down clearly in Argo’s information guide, so there was basically no need for further discussion.
In Akimi’s own words, instead of wasting time on such things, he’d rather grind more EXP.
Even watching Kirito, that blockhead, try to date was more interesting than sitting through these meetings.
But this time’s meeting was a little different—people from the Divine Dragon Alliance, for once, weren’t squabbling with the Knights of the Blood Oath over stupid matters.
(Not that Heathcliff ever dealt with such things himself—he always left it to a few of the vice-commanders to argue with the Divine Dragon Alliance.)
Of course, it wasn’t that the Divine Dragon Alliance had suddenly realized that taking the first strike in a BOSS fight didn’t decide the outcome of the battle overall.
Rather, it was because of what happened on the 39th floor that left them lacking in confidence—
They had colluded with PK players, and ended up handing over the BOSS that the raiding group was about to defeat.
Even that shameless bunch in the Divine Dragon Alliance found it a little embarrassing.
Rumor had it that some members of the Alliance were already voicing complaints against Xilocart.
In any case, the 40th floor BOSS raid was scheduled to begin this afternoon.
The Knights of the Blood Oath would, as usual, take the first line of defense with teams A, B, and C.
The Divine Dragon Alliance, unsurprisingly, would take teams D, E, and F.
As for teams G and H, they would be assigned to Klein’s Fuurinkazan and to a mixed team consisting of Akimi, Asuna, Kirito, and Agil’s big-guy squad.
And as for the overall commander this time—it was Heathcliff.
————–
After the meeting ended, Akimi and Asuna didn’t linger.
They went straight to the grassy field where they had agreed to meet Kirito earlier.
But Kirito seemed to have some business with Argo first, so Akimi and Asuna ended up waiting five or six minutes.
By the time Kirito arrived, Akimi had already counted thirty or forty birds flying overhead—Aincrad’s AI system automatically controlled the movements of creatures, making their behavior as realistic as possible.
Thankfully, Kayaba Akihiko hadn’t been deranged enough to design digestive systems for the animals.
“Forty-two… forty-three. Oh—Kirito, you finally showed up. What were you whispering about with Argo behind our backs just now?”
Catching Kirito’s figure out of the corner of his eye, Akimi tilted his head toward him, teasing as he spoke.
Kirito couldn’t even be bothered to argue.
At times like this, any rebuttal would not only sound weak but would give the jokester exactly the reaction they wanted, only encouraging them to go even further in search of amusement.
So instead, he just rolled his eyes helplessly, walked up to Akimi, and countered: “If you really want to know, just ask Argo yourself. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to tell you.”
At that, Akimi curled his lip.
Hah, ask Argo? Please.
He wasn’t stupid—there were levels even among trolls, and if he went to Argo, he’d just end up becoming the joke himself.
“Alright, alright, forget it—”
Dropping the subject, Akimi continued: “Didn’t you say you had an idea about how PoH and his people managed to lure all those monsters? Let’s hear it.”
Seeing that Akimi wasn’t joking anymore, Kirito straightened up.
He opened his inventory, scrolled through to the item category, and began:
“This time, among the event exchange rewards, there’s a special item—not that limited one-of-a-kind, but another one.
This item lowers a monster’s detection speed, which means as long as you use it, you can effectively reduce the chances of being spotted or locked onto. Now, if you stack that with a high-level Stealth skill and gear that boosts stealth proficiency, you can pull off something like drawing a monster’s aggro and then forcibly erasing it.”
Kirito’s explanation was simple, easy enough to follow without much thought.
But Akimi still frowned.
Looking at the brooch-like item Kirito had just taken out, he said seriously:
“But monsters have fixed aggro pursuit ranges. Even if you use what you just described to repeatedly reset their aggro, once you go beyond a certain distance from their spawn point, they’ll just return, right?”
That monsters had fixed pursuit ranges was something basically every player knew.
In fact, the vast majority of games on the market were designed that way.
Otherwise, mobs with infinite chase range would only ruin the gameplay experience.
(Kind of like how in that other game the little dendro slimes keep chasing you endlessly.)
Generally, a monster’s pursuit range was a circle centered on its spawn location.
Once you stepped outside that circle, the monster’s aggro would drop instantly, and it would turn around and leave.
While SAO’s monsters had larger pursuit ranges, they still followed the same logic.
This could already be considered a part of the game’s core design.
Kirito nodded at Akimi’s words, then added:
“Well then—what if you could temporarily change a monster’s spawn point?”
Hearing Kirito’s words, Akimi and Asuna spoke in unison:
“That’s impossible!”
Kirito wasn’t surprised by their reaction.
After all, when he first found out about it himself, he had reacted the exact same way.
Even in most regular games, monster spawn points almost never changed, let alone in SAO—a MMORPG that didn’t even have a proper monster tracking system.
Unstable spawn points might extend players’ game time, but they’d also be extremely unfriendly to players, making the gameplay experience miserable.
No normal game developer would ever design something like that.
With a sigh, Kirito explained:
“In a small town southeast of Jeyleum, there’s a monster-hunting quest. Completing it gives you a consumable item—the effect is that it relocates a monster spawn point to any chosen location, lasting for two and a half hours.”
After a moment of silence, Asuna frowned and said:
“SAO actually has such a broken item…”
“Honestly, SAO already has plenty of broken items,” Akimi replied with a wry smile, rubbing his forehead.
“This one’s just a bit more ridiculous than usual.”
At that point, Kirito quietly added:
“That quest isn’t too hard… and it can be repeated.”
That statement left Akimi and Asuna silent again.
Finally, Akimi scratched his head and asked:
“Wait—could you set a monster spawn point inside a BOSS room?”
“Uh… I think so… I don’t know about uncleared BOSS rooms, but cleared ones definitely can be set as spawn points,” Kirito answered, scratching his head as well.
…
Akimi admitted to himself that he had spoken too soon—because this was, without a doubt, the most broken item they had encountered so far.
— The end of the Chapter–
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