The matter with the Loki Familia had already been settled.
What remained now was the attack on his own Familia.
With the enemy hidden in the dark while he stood exposed in the light, and with no idea what they were truly after, Noir decided that for now, the best course was to avoid the edge of the blade and lie low while building up his strength.
He swung the weapon in his hand over and over, all the while planning out the road ahead in his mind.
What he wanted was to experience a grand adventure alongside his companions and fight thrilling battles against the strong.
Revenge was no longer everything to him.
It would become just one part of his story.
He was not Bell, nor did he want to become that kind of hero who would cut flesh from his own body to feed others.
So toward those who sought to scheme against him and threaten him, he would show absolutely no mercy.
But not now.
Because he knew very well that he was still weak.
In terms of strength.
And in terms of connections.
...
Over the next few days, Noir spent his daytime hours wrapped in a cloak, taking side paths to the Dungeon for his adventures. At night, after his own training was over, he would cast his magic again and again until his Magic was exhausted and he collapsed into unconscious sleep.
After wavering three separate times, Noir ultimately decided to give up using the Flame of Vengeance to raise his stats quickly.
The risks and side effects were simply too severe.
He intended to keep it as a hidden last-resort technique, one meant for desperate fights with his life on the line.
It was true that the black flames could let him accumulate stats at terrifying speed by devouring his enemies, but that would only turn him into an oversized infant with power and no skill.
And that said nothing of the Great Feats required for leveling up, things that had to be earned by staking one's life on genuine adventure.
After using the black flames multiple times, Noir had gathered valuable experience and gained a deeper understanding of them.
First of all, the black flames seemed to be the embodiment of the negative emotions he had buried deep in his heart ever since transmigrating to this world.
Normally, those emotions stayed suppressed in the depths of his mind.
But as time passed, they piled up more and more until they could no longer be contained and erupted all at once.
Using the black flames consumed a special kind of strength within him, much like how casting magic consumed Magic.
For now, Noir called it willpower.
Running out of Magic made a person faint.
But overusing willpower caused one's sanity to collapse, leaving the body under the control of pure instinct.
And in Noir's case, that instinct under the black flames was revenge.
More precisely, the desire to make everyone feel the same pain he had suffered.
It would turn him into a true menace, someone who attacked everyone in sight without distinction.
Most frightening of all, once a person lost their reason, they no longer cared about consequences.
Noir still did not know what would happen if his willpower were completely exhausted, but after he lost control for who knew how long and attacked the Loki Familia, he had ended up unconscious for a full week.
What Noir wanted was to grow stronger as quickly as possible.
Not rush headlong to his death.
In a place like the Dungeon, where accidents could happen at any time, calm judgment was far more useful than a short burst of overwhelming power.
In the blink of an eye, three days passed.
During that time, Noir tried summoning multiple characters he knew well.
And yet, aside from his Magic rising noticeably, he failed to summon a single one.
The only result was that Noir managed to summon his own weapon, the Black Blade, which proved that Fels's theory had been correct.
As expected of a scholar who had studied magic for eight hundred years.
Unfortunately, since Noir carried the weapon with him at all times anyway, the discovery did not seem especially useful.
"So what exactly is the problem?"
He lay on the church steps outside, eyes closed, thinking carefully.
Then, all of a sudden, Eina's angry voice from earlier that day echoed through his mind, and Noir shot upright.
"Asuna!"
"Kirito!"
"That's it. I should try summoning people who might actually have some kind of causal link to me first."
The moment the idea came to him, he acted on it.
Noir immediately activated his magic, Call from Afar.
In his heart, he continuously painted the image of Kirigaya Kazuto.
Time slipped by unnoticed as his consciousness drifted through the dark reaches of the unknown.
His Magic was nearly spent, and a faint dizziness had already begun to rise inside his head.
Still not enough...?
Just as Noir was on the verge of giving up, his consciousness seemed to catch onto something.
...
ALfheim Online. Sword World. New Aincrad, Floor 22.
Kirito, basking in the warmth of the fireplace, was lying comfortably in a lounge chair when he suddenly felt something tap him lightly.
He drowsily opened his eyes and found Yui and Pina sleeping on his lap.
"What's wrong, Papa?"
Yui seemed to sense his gaze. She rubbed her sleepy eyes, then stretched lazily.
Glancing around, Kirito noticed that Asuna and the others were still busy with their studies.
"No, it's nothing, Yui. Did anyone come looking for me while I was sleeping?"
Yui placed both hands to her temples as though searching for something, then looked at Kirito after a moment and shook her head.
"No, Papa."
"Then I must've just been dreaming again."
Kirito was about to lie back down when a string of voices suddenly reached his ears.
"Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, Lord Kirito, Black Swordsman, Harem King, Matsuoka..."
"Who's there?!"
He had definitely heard someone calling him. Kirito leapt to his feet at once.
The sudden movement sent both Pina and Yui tumbling off his lap.
The two little ones fluttered their wings in confusion, unable to understand what had just happened.
"Kirito, what's wrong?"
"Big Brother Kirito, what happened?"
"Brother, what are you doing now?"
Kirito's reaction naturally drew the attention of everyone else in the room, and they all came over to ask.
Sliding his right index finger lightly, Kirito opened the system. After checking carefully, he confirmed that there was no incoming call signal of any kind. Then he turned to Yui and asked once more,
"Yui, search again for me, please. I'm sure someone was calling my name."
"Okay, Papa."
Yui extended her consciousness deep into the system and carefully checked Kirito's communication records. From the start of the day until now, there was not a single message or call.
"I'm sorry, Papa. I couldn't find any call records."
Kirito gently patted Yui's head and smiled.
"This isn't your fault. Maybe I just heard it wrong."
But as the voice calling him grew clearer and clearer, Kirito looked up at Asuna.
"Asuna, I'm logging out for now. Someone in the real world is probably calling for me."
"Kirito!"
Watching Kirito disconnect without hesitation, Asuna felt a flicker of unease.
"Don't worry, Asuna. I'll go check on him too."
Kirigaya Suguha logged out right after him, leaving only Asuna and the others behind.
Back in Kazuto's room, Kirito, who had been diving, suddenly opened his eyes and took the NerveGear off.
He quickly discovered that the voice by his ear had not vanished.
If anything, it had become even clearer.
"What in the world is going on?"
Bang bang bang!
Just as Kirito sank into thought, he heard knocking at the door.
Suppressing the confusion in his heart, he opened it and found his sister standing there in light sleepwear.
"Brother, did something happen?"
Seeing the worry in her eyes, Kirito forced a smile and answered softly,
"It's nothing serious. Tanaka and the others ran into a few technical problems, so they called me just now."
"Oh, I see. I thought something really bad had happened. It's been a long time since I've seen you look that serious."
Suguha finally let out a relieved breath.
Only after Kirito closed the door did the smile on her face gradually fade.
"Idiot."
Whenever danger appeared, her brother always chose to face it alone.
After all the years they had spent together, how could she possibly miss the worry hidden deep in his eyes?
"Who exactly are you?"
Once he had confirmed that no one else could hear him, Kirito sat down in his chair and asked the empty air.
Unfortunately, there was no reply.
Only that voice kept echoing in his mind, calling his name again and again.
Kirito frowned and thought for a moment, then finally asked the unknown voice in his heart,
"Who are you?"
...
Back in Orario, at the Hestia Familia's church home, half a day of calling still brought no response.
Even though the attempt had failed again, the direction at least seemed right.
Compared to the total lack of clues before, this time Noir could at least feel that his consciousness had managed to catch hold of something.
"Who are you?"
Just as Noir was about to cut off the spell, a familiar voice suddenly rang out in his mind.
"What the hell?!"
The sudden sound startled him badly, but he quickly realized that his guess might actually have been correct, and his entire body trembled with excitement.
Clearly stunned by Noir's answer, Kirito fell silent for a while before speaking again.
"Who exactly are you? And how are you sending messages straight into my head? Is it some kind of wireless technology, or electromagnetic transmission?"
"Well... I... you... um... it's..."
Originally, Noir had meant to greet Kirito properly, but the moment he opened his mouth, he could not even manage a full sentence. Then, suddenly, the connection vanished, and the voice stopped altogether.
Kirito was obviously caught off guard by the abrupt ending.
Even before that, he had already prepared himself for the possibility that he had stumbled into something enormous.
If the other side could send messages directly into his mind through wireless means, then whatever organization they belonged to was clearly no ordinary one.
The last person to achieve anything on that scale had been Akihiko Kayaba, when he uploaded his consciousness into the network.
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~ Naruto: Hidden Counter / Smart Mc, Highly Recommended