Sword Art Online - Alternative Reality

Dragon Hunt CHP.4

Dragons, wyverns, wyrms, the list goes on. These stable monsters are almost always found in any fantasy sort of setting, with most games having them as high-level end game monsters, with dragons being final bosses in several of them. Normally, you would have countless ranged options to bring these sort of mythical monsters to the ground, finishing them off in an epic clash of man vs monster.

In SAO, while the 'epic clash' certainly is there, there is a distinct lack of ranged options that make even the weakest of these monsters a major pain in the ass to deal with. SAO, lacking any sort of magic and ease of access ranged weapon, taking on any sort of flying mob is normally one of the bigger dangerous tend to face in the fields. Add on top the general size and power that's associated with a 'dragon', and you'll be pretty hard-pressed to find anyone willing to actively hunt them without at least two full parties, much less alone.

So the fact that I neglected to tell Asuna where exactly I planned to go hunting and what mobs I was aiming for definitely had nothing to do with the possibility that she would come hunt me down because of it. Definitely not.

I had heard rumors about a certain quest somewhere on the 44th floor that granted an incredibly powerful item, and that's about it. With no one having found the way to initiate the quest, as well as the floor being a major pain in the ass to deal with, information about the optional dungeon I was in was going to be lacking for quite a while.

But, about two weeks ago while doing my own searching I found out the rumored quest was a campaign quest that started back down on the 41st floor. Running around gathering information and items whenever I had finished up my guild duties, and after just 3 days I eventually got to the 44th floor, and that's when things started getting complicated.

Getting information from Argo while trying to keep it as vague as possible, I eventually found the NPC that started the end phase of the quest, and after a few collection quests, a lucky gambling tournament, and some vague hints, I finally got to the part where I could really start tearing away at both my main objective and raising HC's retirement money. Of course, that didn't go smoothly whatsoever.

I was currently level 64, way above the standard level to safely farm on the 44th floor. But since I was trying to solo hunt dragons and fully grown wyverns, it took me the rest of the first week getting knocked around, being blown off cliffs, and learning the algorithms of all the mobs in the inner area of the 'Draconic Valleys' to finally start making any good progress. Learning their weakness's, gathering materials to make coatings and potions effective against them, and using the terrain to my advantage, I was able to make up for lost time rather quickly, and with HC giving me the green light, I was even able to sidestep Asuna's curfew, although if she found out what I was doing, I was probably never going to hear the end of it.

The main issue was making progress on hunting down the mobs specific to the campaign quest, called 'The Crystal Prisoner.' A great dragon lord tried taking over several floors, but kingdoms left over after 'The Great Separation combined their forces to try and take it down, ending up with those on the 41st and 42nd becoming ruins and the 44th floor becoming largely barren after the dragon's last stand. They failed to defeat it, instead, sealing it in these valleys, but one of the descendants of a royal family that fought against it noticed that the seal was weakening, and soon the 'Crystal Dragon Lord' would reawaken and start the war again.

I had taken on several of these campaign quests during my time here, and although none were at the level of the Elf War campaign, I knew that these quests tended to have some sort of unique ending depending on the player, so it wasn't impossible for a massive dragon to start flying around and attacking players at random. The good thing was that by hunting down its kin, you could provoke it into action before it returned to full strength and reseal it.