Episode 2

## Shangri-La Frontier (anime)

**A Peculiar One** is the 2nd episode of Shangri-La Frontier anime series.

## Synopsis

Rakuro fights the Ravenous Python, arrives in the game's second town, and explores its weapons crafting system before venturing out at night.

## Summary

The high level knight in Firstia is Rei. As Firstia is started level's city, she stands out with her late game equipment. She had heard that Sunraku uses the same name in all of his game and is looking around to find him, since everyone starts in this city, however she can't find him and gives up, guessing she missed him.

Sunraku faces the Ravenous Snake area boss. He first decides to observe its attacks and activates Tap Step, giving him bonus to evasion. He easily dodges the snakes attacks. He guesses since its beginner's level boss, it shouldn't have one-shot kill attacks, altought since he is without an armor it will probably one-shot him anyway. He attacks it, but as the durability of his weapons was getting low, one of the blades ends up breaking. He switches to the Vorpal Choppers and prepares to land a Screw Pierce, however he snake ends up spitting on him something from its tail. He wonder what it was and a notification then shows up that he is poisoned and will be taking damage every ten seconds. Sunraku feels he underestimated the snake, however he had beaten more cheaper mechanics before. He calculates that he has about four minutes remaining. He had figured that this game doesn't land critical hits on random, but when you attack in an ideal way or hit a weak point. As the snake is covered in tough scales, its weak point should be its head. He aims for the head, but concludes its a hard to hit place. He then decides to make his own weak point and uses Screw Pierce to stab the snake and wound it. After that he proceeds to attack the wound, landing critical hits. However the snake doesn't die and pushes him away, while also heals the wound. Sunraku realizes that he was quite arrogant to think that this game would be easy compared to the trash game he played. The snake attempts to eat him, but Sunraku blocks the attack. He unequips one of his blades and grabs the snake's head with his free hand. He then lands a Screw Pierce on the snake's left eye, triggering a critical hit and killing the snake.

Sunraku gains 2 levels from the snake, reaching lvl14. The snake also drops Python Scale and Python White Hair items. To his surprise however, he is still poisoned. He quickly looks if he didn't miss anymore items and quickly dumps all his new stats into stamina and agility and heads running towards the town to buy an antidote. However he realizes that he doesn't know where the shops are, so it will be better to register a respawn point first, however he doesn't know where that is too.

At Secondil's front gates, a player Reiji, asks Mia if she wants to tame a dog-type monster. Mia confirms, since she isn't allowed to have pets in her apartment, she wants to have one in the game. Reiji is excited since after three months, he finally made his crush start playing SLF with him. The two then see Sunraku running towards them. Mia fears that he is a monster and draws her bow, however Reiji stops her and explains its a player since it has a player name above his head. He also explains that if she kills a player, she will end with a skull in front of her name. Mia wonders why is Sunraku running like that and Reiji guesses he got hit by the poison snake poop. Reiji then yells at Sunraku, telling him that the white building straight ahead is the inn and he needs to get into the bed to register the respawn point. Passing by him, Sunraku thanks him. Reiji explains that when the game started, there were quite a lot of players running at full speed like him. He also guesses that Sunraku is going for an agility build and had sold his armor at the start. Mia notes that Reiji sounds like a veteran and she really likes that. Reiji gets happy and thanks Sunraku for that. Sunraku manages to reach the bed with 1 hp remaining. He gets happy, but in that moment his HP reaches zero and he dies. As a death penalty, all his stats get temporary reduced.

Sunraku is for the first time in a town in SLF and goes around to explore and shop a bit. He wants to buy a map, some recovery items, new equipment, and a new more powerful main weapons to replace his Mercenary Twinblades. As he is half-naked and wears a bird mask, other players notice him and start laughing. Sunraku then decides to first go and buy some clothes. He goes to an armor shop and buys the cheapest one, Splitblade Leather, a leather clothing made from Mud Frog Skin, granting slash resistance for 4000 mahni. As he brought the set, he decides to put on the Splitblade Leather Mask too, but as it still looks weird, he decides not to. Going to a weapon shop, he tries to sell the Goblin Hand Axe, but the NPC isn't interested in that worthless weapon. Sunraku then look at the list of weapons the NPC sells, but can't find anything better than his Vorpal Choppers. The NPC explains that the Vorpal Choppers are a rare weapon and if he wants something to top them, then he can make him as long as he brings him the materials.

To go from Secondil to Thirdrema, the third city, players need to pass through Diremarsh Waste. Within it, there is a location where ores can be mined. Sunraku goes to mine to get some ores. However he keeps on mostly mining normal stones and gets frustrated. The NPC had told him that he needs five or six Gray Ore, but for 30 minutes of mining, Sunraku had obtained only two. He is also annoyed that there is mud all over the place, which makes him move harder and that the pickaxe he brought is too heavy. A Mud Frog shows up and since its not aggressive, Sunraku decides to ignore it, however as the frog starts digging around him, it ends up covering him in mud. As that angers Sunraku, he throws his pickaxe at the frog and knocks it out. He then heads towards it to finish it off. Since his armor is made from Mud Frog and is slash resistant, he guesses that slash attacks won't work on the frog, which leaves him bludgeon and pierce attacks. He equips the Goblin Hand Axe and finishes off the frog, obtaining Mud Frog Skin from it. Sunraku then sees some new players and decides to go back into mining. Since the summer break is starting, he feels like more new players will start playing and this place will become crowded with people mining for materials.

After collecting about a dozen Gray Ores, he goes to the NPC, which is impressed he managed to collect that many in just three hours. Sunraku had even found a Marshcoffin Fossil, which the NPC can also use to make a Marsh Dagger. Looking at the weapon, Sunraku agrees and tells him to make him two Marsh Daggers. While the NPC makes them, Sunraku goes to shop for maps and other items. He then comes back to take his Marsh Daggers, which have the effect of halving durability reduction for a time after a critical hit. The NPC tells him to find and bring him more materials and he will raise his weapon. As Sunraku wonders what is that, the NPC explains that since they use magic to make them, they can upgrade them to become more powerful. Sunraku is impressed by the NPC as it managed to properly respond to his conversation. As its getting dark, the NPC warns him to not leave the town at night in such armor, since the monsters at night are dangerous. Sunraku then gets excited that he can go out and test his new weapons at those night monsters. Meanwhile, Rei had searched the entire first zone, but had not found Sunraku. She concludes that he must have already defeated the Ravenous Snake and headed to Secondil, without dying, but wonders if a new player can really do that. She faces the Ravenous Snake herself and kills it in one strike.

In the Diremarsh Waste, Sunraku is fighting a Redcap Goblin. Previously he had encountered some night monsters and they are more aggressive and dangerous, and that helped him level up a bit and learn some new skills, however the Redcap Goblin seems too strong. Its faster and has more attacks than a normal Goblin. Additionally it has lots of HP and incorporates feints into its fighting style. The Redcap Goblin then calls more Redcap Goblin, which surprises Sunraku as usually only weaker monsters call other monster for help. Sunraku prepares to fight them, but suddenly the goblins get defeated. Sunraku then sees a large wolf, an unique monster Lycagon the Nightslayer. Meanwhile at the video game company offices, a monitor showcases that the game's story progress is at 0%, since not a single unique monster has been killed.

## Characters

* Psyger-0/Rei Saiga
* Sunraku/Rakuro Hizutome

## Monsters

* Ravenous Snake
* Mud Frog
* Redcap Goblin
* Lycagon the Nightslayer

## Battles

* Sunraku vs. Ravenous Snake
* Sunraku vs. Lycaon the Nightslayer