Sword Art Online Crossover: They're all close friends, how did I become a player?

Chapter 187 Transformation

"Shall we retreat first?"

One of the teenagers had already begun to show fear.

Forget about arresting people now.

Looking at the dark forest all around, the eerie floating pebbles, and the ghostly lanterns that appeared and disappeared unpredictably, the boy began to have second thoughts.

After he took the lead, the others nodded in agreement and spoke to the boy in charge.

"Yeah, yeah, they're not letting us go first. Ding is getting weirder and weirder. Maybe there really is some kind of monster around him. We'd better not mess with him."

"But... ah!"

The boy in the lead looked somewhat unwilling and wanted to say something, but was suddenly hit on the forehead by a pebble and cried out in pain.

Then came two, then three. More and more pebbles were thrown at him, causing him to cry out in pain one after another.

Yu Bai looked at the boy who was covering his head and desperately trying to avoid being hit, and a smile involuntarily appeared on his lips.

Then, suddenly using all his strength, he surrounded the boy with five pebbles at once.

Seeing the stones surrounding the group, the other children had already fled in fear, not daring to approach the boy in charge.

Judging from the situation, the stones seemed poised to come flying again, and the boy in the lead was starting to get scared.

“…Let’s go!”

Watching the group return, cursing and swearing all the way, Yu Bai put his hands on his hips, a smug look on his face.

That's why we have to say the essence of our ancestors' tactics—the key to this victory was me, and the victory belongs to China!

……

After that small "battle" in the mountains, the children in the village had a significant change in their attitude towards Hozuki.

They dared not cause trouble for Hozuki, but they shifted from direct provocation to more covert forms of passive-aggressive violence.

However, this change did not have much impact on Hozuki and Yu Bai; on the contrary, it brought them a lot of peace and quiet.

In the past, Hozuki and Yubai always had to spend a lot of time dealing with the unreasonable demands of those naughty children.

After all, Hozuki still lives in this village, so he can't very well kill them.

If you really do that, believe me, if you beat the younger one, the older one will come right away. At that point, Hozuki's life and housing situation will be threatened.

Therefore, Yu Bai and Hozuki would feel extremely annoyed every time those kids came to cause trouble.

But things are different now. Without those kids causing trouble, they can focus more on their own lives. Let them use the silent treatment if they want.

Hozuki said that the passive-aggressive behavior from those little kids was nothing compared to the passive-aggressive behavior he had always endured. (Shrugs)

During this time, the relationship between Hozuki and Yuuhaku deepened.

Yu Bai was pleasantly surprised to find that through his daily meditation practice, the thin internal energy of Changge within him was gradually recovering.

Although the increase is negligible, Yu Bai is already quite satisfied with the current situation.

After all, any recovery is a good start.

So, Yu Bai started meditating the moment he opened his eyes each day. Gradually, after a period of accumulation, he also built up some internal energy within his body.

As a result, Yu Bai developed the habit of meditating immediately upon waking up every morning.

Day after day, his internal energy accumulated considerably without him even realizing it.

At least now he is able to use this internal energy to easily hunt some birds or rabbits.

Yu Bai looked at the rather thin Hozuki, who didn't need to sleep anyway and would go hunting at night.

Sometimes, if he's lucky, he'll even bring back a wild rabbit to help Hozuki recover.

At the beginning, when Hozuki woke up, he was startled to find a wild rabbit beside him.

Then he saw Yu Bai standing to the side, his face practically screaming, "Please praise me! Please praise me!"

A smile involuntarily crept onto my lips. Living together like this doesn't seem so bad, does it?

Under Yu Bai's care, Hozuki's body gradually gained weight, and a little bit of baby fat appeared on his face without him even realizing it.

This made Yu Bai extremely happy; it felt like raising a child.

Seeing that Yu Bai was always following him around and no one else could see him, Hozuki worried that Yu Bai would get bored, so he would use various small grasses and flowers to weave different little things and give them to Yu Bai to relieve his boredom.

When he was gathering herbs, he would clear a clean spot for Yu Bai to sit down, and then place the little toys he had woven next to Yu Bai.

While letting Yu Bai play by himself, he slowly gathered herbs within Yu Bai's line of sight.

Previously, Yu Bai felt that it was too tiring for Hozuki to gather herbs alone, so he thought about going with him and using his internal energy to control the plants.

But Hozuki stopped him from doing all of this, because he felt that dirty and tiring things like gathering herbs and collecting wood should not be done by someone like Yu Bai.

Hozuki always felt that Yu Bai was more like a god from heaven than a ghost, but this god had fallen to his side and was living with him.

He is his god.

He didn't want his god to do such a thing; he should be revered and worshipped.

At the same time, deep within Little Ghost Lantern's young heart lies a worry and fear that he has never revealed to Yu Bai.

He feared that one day, his own god would grow tired of his company and choose to quietly depart, disappearing without a trace from his world.

This thought often lingered in his mind, but he always chose to bury this worry deep in his heart and never revealed it to Yu Bai.

The figure of someone casually fiddling with a grasshopper woven from grass came into deep focus.

Hozuki slowly closed his eyes and exhaled.

At least... he's by my side now.

Just when Hozuki and Yu Bai thought that such mundane days would continue...

The severe drought that lasted for several months shattered the delicate balance in the village.

The sun blazed down, and the land parched. Even the mountain streams grew smaller and smaller.

For several months, not a single drop of rain fell from the sky, and the fields were cracked open in shocking ways. The crops had long since withered.

The villagers are on the verge of running out of food and ammunition. Their lives are threatened by death, and hunger and despair are spreading like a plague through the village.

The villagers became irritable and easily angered, and for a time, the entire village was shrouded in a depressing and gloomy atmosphere.

……

Yu Bai: (Hands on hips) Hmph~ I'm so awesome.

Hozuki: Pshaw, this kind of passive-aggressive behavior? It's not enough.

Yu Bai: Discovering the little joys of raising a pet~

Hozuki: He won't leave, will he? He won't, will he?