Christmas Activities

Five months passed in the blink of an eye.

Ever since the first floor was cleared by Eriri and the other girls, the players' enthusiasm and confidence in beating the game had grown immensely.

Furthermore, with the emergence of various talented individuals, even though the high-level monsters and bosses were incredibly terrifying, the players—or rather, the top-tier players—had still managed to clear their way up to the eighty-ninth floor in a short amount of time.

However, as that group of top players became increasingly powerful, the competition also began to grow incredibly fierce.

...

The Number One Guild in the World.

Although it was named Number One in the World, due to the sudden emergence of a large number of players, especially after the strong rise of a guild called the Underworld Mutual Aid Society, things had changed.

Whether it was this first-established Number One Guild in the World, or the Far East Magic Society guild founded by Rikka, they could only fight to a draw with the Underworld Mutual Aid Society, with the three factions competing against each other for boss kills.

Therefore, the Number One Guild in the World was merely on par with the Far East Magic Society and the Underworld Mutual Aid Society. Most of the time, they even needed to ally with the Far East Magic Society to hold their ground against the Underworld Mutual Aid Society.

And this Number One Guild in the World was, naturally, the guild established by Eriri.

At the time, in order to compete with Rikka for the title of the first established guild, she had chosen this name without a second thought.

But after that, many players felt she was exceptionally arrogant, and quite a few people had challenged her.

As for the Underworld Mutual Aid Society, it was a guild established primarily by Serafall after Rias and a few other girls met up. As more and more devils from the Underworld entered the game under Beelzebub's probing, the strength of this guild also rapidly climbed to the top among the player base.

This phenomenon made Ai extremely displeased, as this group of devils were all illegal immigrants, after all.

However, in order to have more games and players in the future, she couldn't possibly close the game helmet as a channel to enter the game, so she could only occasionally trip up this group of devils for no reason.

For example, when the devils faced bosses, they would always inexplicably take critical hits, their individual drop rates were always surprisingly low, and special NPCs would even have negative initial affection towards them, making it harder for them to obtain hidden classes.

But all of this was done in a highly subtle manner.

After all, there were quite a few devils from the Underworld, and all of them possessed decent strength, making them excellent leeks to harvest. Ai wouldn't truly stop them from playing the game; at most, they would just receive some debuffs due to their devil identities.

And for these devils, although even the NPCs in the game discriminated against them, devils inherently had a bad reputation anyway, so they didn't think too much of it.

Their goal was simply to clear the game and see if they could rescue the Demon Lord Leviathan.

Aside from the top three guilds, there were also many players who had become part of the very top tier of elite players by changing classes.

Among them, the most famous was probably Yamagami Tetsuya, who had pioneered a class option and was sought after by a large number of players wanting to apply for a class change.

Yes, because the Sharpshooter class was first pioneered by Yamagami Tetsuya himself, he was just like those special NPCs and could unlock class change quests for players.

Moreover, according to what most players had gathered, the number of class change quests he could hand out was linked to his level.

It was just unknown how many levels were required to issue one.

But right now, the level of the top players was nearing level 80, so no matter what, the number of Sharpshooter class change quests Yamagami Tetsuya had on hand was definitely not small.

This also made Yamagami Tetsuya's guild practically the first tier right below the top three guilds.

On the contrary, Kayaba Akihiko, who had given himself too small of a cheat, was now doing decently but had already dropped out of the first tier, making him feel immense regret whenever he thought of the heaven-defying stats of those players with hidden classes.

...

Just as the top players were frantically searching for the floor boss in the eighty-ninth floor labyrinth, the mid-tier players were frantically looking for other ways to increase their synchronization rates, and the casual players were starting to slack off and enjoy life in the game, an announcement echoed throughout the entire game.

[Christmas is approaching. In 3 hours, a special BOSS—Santa Claus—will randomly appear on floors 1-79 of Aincrad.]

[Santa Claus appearance time: Tonight from 20:00 to 24:00.]

[During the event, players will have a small chance to obtain top-tier rewards such as golden epic materials, random hidden class change books, and pink artifact-level random weapons and equipment.]

[By defeating Santa Claus, players will gain a massive amount of experience points and a random amount of Christmas points. Christmas points can be exchanged for Christmas gift boxes by finding the special NPC Christmas Tree in the towns on each floor at 8:00 AM the day after the event ends. Note: Christmas points are untradeable.]

[Christmas Gift Box: A small chance to unbox golden epic materials, random hidden class change books, and pink artifact-level random weapons and equipment, and an extremely small chance to unbox a synchronization rate ranging from 1% to 100%.]

[Merry Christmas to all players! — Left by Ai-chan]

With the appearance of the announcement, almost all the players dropped what they were doing and began to gear up in anticipation.

At the same time, quite a few players felt a bit dazed, realizing that before they knew it, it was actually already Christmas.

At the headquarters of the Number One Guild in the World, after reading the event information, Eriri looked excitedly at Shinomiya Kaguya and Hayasaka Ai.

"That's great! Kaguya, Ai, if we can get enough Christmas points this time, you guys will also have a chance to catch up."

As she spoke, she felt a bit of guilt in her heart.

Because she had established this so-called Number One Guild in the World, in order to help her maintain the guild's reputation, Shinomiya Kaguya had spent a lot of time helping her manage it. Coupled with the fact that the players' levels had all risen, and with Serafall and her group of devils, the two girls' levels had already fallen behind the first tier by several levels, and their synchronization rates were significantly lower than the highest batch.

But as the competition among the major guilds became increasingly fierce, the Number One Guild in the World could only bite the bullet and maintain their lead, otherwise they might not even be able to snatch a boss. After all, hundreds of players from other guilds were wandering the labyrinths every day looking for bosses. If they couldn't keep up, the other guilds might have already defeated the boss while they still didn't even know where the floor boss was.

In short, after discovering that the synchronization rate was not just an empty promise made by Ai, but something that could actually increase the upper limit of the players' strength, the players had become increasingly competitive.

Let alone them, even that group of devils felt immense pressure.

"Yes, Ai and I won't hold everyone back."

Over the past half a year, Kaguya had also slowly transformed from her former cold young lady persona into something more akin to a true leader.

Conversely, Hayasaka Ai hadn't changed all that much.

And just as they were conversing, the door to Kaguya's office was pushed open. Sirin, wearing knight's battle armor and with a calm expression, walked in and then looked at Kaguya and Hayasaka Ai.

"I will help you too. After all, you both call me big sister now."

"That is right! With Sister Sirin and me here, we can definitely make sure Kaguya and Ai catch up with the progress!"

Eriri spoke, brimming with confidence.

Soon after, Fujiwara Chika and Asuna walked over together.

"Don't forget about us!"

Fujiwara Chika waved her hand with a cheerful smile.

...