Sword Art Online Progressive 3

  If it was the latter, we ought to be finding our target by now, I thought resentfully. We were not on the hunt for delectable fruits and nuts or bee’s nests full of sweet honey. We were looking for four-pronged claw marks on the tree trunks—territorial markings of the gray bear that ruled over this forest.

  We’d already defeated over ten normal-size black bears since entering the woods. It was “bear fat” that the old shipwright demanded from us, so the quest would obviously proceed perfectly fine with the fat those ordinary black bears dropped. In that sense, the amount of trouble this quest represented was determined by the player him- or herself.

  And Asuna was dead set on the fat of the king of the woods, whose existence the old man had briefly hinted at. It was highly likely that the quality of the item we brought back would have an effect on the quality of the boat.

  “Still, I’m a bit surprised. I didn’t think that you would feel so strongly about this sort of thing, Asuna,” I said, scanning for claw marks by the light of the moon. Her response came from the right.

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Oh…this sort of scenario happens a lot in RPGs. You don’t have to get the best possible result in order to beat the challenge, but if the player wants to, she can strive for it. I guess it’s a completionist thing?”

  “Well, I don’t like the way that it sounds like I’m being taken advantage of…but I wasn’t thinking about any game mechanics or design. I just thought, that old man might be gruff and unfriendly, but he probably really wants to make one more perfect boat.”

  “…I see.”

  At that point, there was no use demanding compromise from her.

  Just over three hours ago, once we’d successfully turned the ! mark over the old NPC’s head into a ?, he exhaled a long pull of smoke from his pipe.

  “I’m not a shipwright anymore. The Water Carriers Guild controls all the materials a shipwright needs to build boats. But if you still want one…first go to the forest to the southeast and get some bear fat, to seal the wood against water. But if you run across the bear king, best run and save your own hide. I’m sure his fat would be best of all, though…”

  There was plenty in that opening speech to be curious about, but the old man closed his eyes and showed no interest in elaboration, so we left the house, hailed another gondola on the move, then left the town via the south gate en route to our current location.

  The king of the bears did exist in the beta, and I did track down his claw marks back then, but I never ran across it in the end. But from what I heard, there were a number of full six-member parties who were scattered by the bear’s wrath.

  It was nerve-racking to be tracking down such a deadly foe with only the two of us, but we were already a far higher level than I’d been at this point in the beta, and a bear was a bear. It wasn’t going to be blowing fire or venom at us and had no sword skills. The attack patterns wouldn’t be much different from a normal bear…hopefully…but it would be best if Asuna gave up on this crazy idea…and I was getting hungry again…

  And after hundreds of times looking up at the trees, my mind vacillating between optimism and pessimism, I finally saw…

  “…”

  A clear pattern of four deep horizontal grooves. I looked ahead at Asuna’s back, and after a brief moment of hesitation, I made up my mind and called out to her.

  “Hey, I found it.”

  “What, really?!”

  She raced back instantly and looked up at the spot where I pointed, face bright with expectation.

  “You’re right! So if we just wait next to this tree, the bear will eventually pop nearby?”

  “Supposedly.”

  “Let’s take a break here, then. We’ll need to check…our…potions…”

  Her high-speed chatter slowed to a halt, so I looked over to see what was the matter. Her slender eyebrows were knitted in concern as she stared at the fresh markings. When she spoke again, her voice was 30 percent quieter.

  “…Um, Kirito? Those marks are a whole lot higher on the tree than I was expecting…”

  “Eh?”

  I looked back at the claw marks and calculated their height from the ground. Seven…fifteen…twenty…twenty-five feet tall.

  “…What kind of bear scratches a tree at that height?”

  “Well, it would have to be a bear that stands…twenty-five feet…tall…”

  “…That doesn’t sound like a bear anymore…”

  As our conversation got quieter and quieter, a heavy thud behind us shook the forest.

  I slowly turned around, terrified of what I might find, to see the shadow of a small mountain just inches away.

  Each gray hair was as thick as a needle. Two red eyes gleamed in the dark. Fierce fangs poked from its mouth. Claws like daggers protruded from limbs as burly as logs. And on its forehead, black, sharp, gleaming…horns.

  “…Yep, that’s not a bear. It has horns,” I muttered. Above the head of the creature that looked like a bear, but was not a bear, a deep crimson red cursor appeared with the name MAGNATHERIUM.

  “Grglololo…”

  The growl it uttered was nothing at all like a bear’s. It shuffled and stood up vertically. The beast’s trunk, which seemed to extend forever, blocked out the moonlight and shrouded us in darkness. Those gleaming eyes at the very top of the black shadow did indeed seem to be at least twenty-five feet tall.

  “…Stay calm, Asuna,” I whispered frantically. “It can’t be that agile with a size this big. Keep a tree between you and it at all times, so it can’t charge you.”

  This order came from the knowledge that the black bears we’d been fighting until now had liked to perform direct charge attacks. My partner nodded and we both drew our blades. Asuna’s Chivalric Rapier +5 and my Anneal Blade +8 began to glow faintly.

  The Magnatherium growled again in response to the light and opened its massive jaws. Asuna and I both hopped backward and retreated behind a large, ancient tree. If the Magnatherium charged headfirst into the trunk, that should stun it for a brief moment. Then we could each hit it with a single skill and gauge how much damage that caused.

  Within a single second, my idea was shot to pieces.

  Red light flickered deep in the Magnatherium’s throat. It was a beautiful but deadly effect that I had seen on a far higher floor in the beta—but for the first time since we’d been trapped in this game of death.

  The pre-effect for fire breath.

  I immediately abandoned the option of hiding behind the shelter of the tree trunk. Unlike the lightning breath of Asterios the Taurus King on the second floor, fire could make its way around obstacles to an extent. Even if the tree itself stood tall against the blaze, we could easily be charred to a crisp behind it.

  Perhaps a sideways dash, then. But the Magnatherium’s red eyes followed us perfectly. If we ran to the side, it could simply change the direction of its blast. There must be a more reliable method of evasion…

  “This way!”

  On a sudden burst of inspiration, I grabbed Asuna’s slender body with my left arm and jumped directly backward. One, two, three steps, and I was at the right spot. It was one of the little natural springs, small but deep, that had plagued me during our search.

  At the same moment that I jumped into the water without hesitation, orange flames burst from the Magnatherium’s jaws.

  Just after my entire body was engulfed in chilly water, the surface of the water turned red. I pushed Asuna down to the bottom of the spring and tried to shrink down as much as I could.

  The flames licked and howled for close to five seconds, bringing the near-freezing spring water up to lukewarm. For a moment, I was afraid it might eventually reach boiling temperature, but the breath finally abated right as it reached the point of a hot bath. As soon as the surface above us went dark, we leaped out.

  As soon as she stepped onto solid ground, her long hair and cape hem dripping profusely, Asuna muttered, “That is definitely not a bear.”
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  “Definitely not,” I agreed, scanning the surroundings.

  The Magnatherium hadn’t moved spots, but the terrain in front of it was blackened and smoking. The tree I’d thought to use as cover was still standing, but it was charred and ashen now. As I feared, the flames had covered the backside.

  “What do you think? Should we run?” I asked, recognizing that it was very dangerous to challenge such a deadly foe without any preparation or forehand knowledge. But Asuna didn’t bite immediately.

  “…We don’t have to force ourselves to fight it, but I at least want to collect a bit more intel. We should learn more about the bear’s attacks so we can beat it next time.”

  “…”

  I thought fast, watching the Magnatherium closely as it slowly stirred sixty feet away.

  As long as there was a nearby spring to jump into, we could evade those fire attacks without damage, and it probably didn’t have any other special skills to watch out for. Its physical attacks were no doubt quite dangerous, based on those knifelike claws, but we could shield ourselves with trees against those.

  “…All right. Let’s start retreating back for town and take down some good data.”

  “Deal.”

  Meanwhile, the Magnatherium began advancing. It started off as gentle four-legged ambling, but then, as though a switch had flipped, it began to charge. The sight of that imposing figure, over twelve feet tall at the shoulder—about the size of the Bullbous Bow from the second floor—racing along and pounding the earth, was nothing short of sheer terror.

  “Not only does it have its own name, I’m starting to think it’s actually the field boss!”

  “At the very least, it’s definitely not a bear!” Asuna hissed as we ran. We circled around to the right of the Magnatherium, hoping to evade the path of its charge, but it simply turned and followed.

  We weren’t just running blindly, though. Once we’d maneuvered so that a large old oak stood between us, we held that position.

  “Come on…do your worst!”

  If it charged headfirst into the six-foot-wide tree, that should at least stop it for several seconds. But two seconds later, my bracing challenge turned to shock.

  “No way!”

  As I expected, the Magnatherium charged straight for us and collided with the tree at maximum speed, but like some horrid giant’s hammer, the thick, short horns on its forehead crushed the wide trunk of the tree into splinters.

  Thankfully, it did stop the charge short, but the demon bear wasn’t stunned. It roared powerfully on the other side of the tilting tree.

  “Gyazgruoahhh!!”

  My ears ringing with the tremendous volume of its bellowing, I whispered to Asuna, “Hey, what are a bear’s natural enemies?”

  “First of all, it’s not a bear…but in real life, the larger bears have no enemies. They might be brought down by a tiger or killer whale every once in a while, though.”

  “W-well, that’s just great. Any weaknesses?”

  “Why are you asking me? Um…I think I read in a book once that their snouts are sensitive…”

  “The snout,” I repeated, staring hard at the Magnatherium as it began to move again.

  The beast’s forehead was protected by those hardy horns, but its black snout was defenseless. On the other hand, even on all fours, it was at least ten feet off the ground, so I couldn’t even hit it with my sword. I might be able to hit it with a jumping-type sword skill, but if it reacted to my attack and stood up, we were screwed.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a good magic spell, some ice magic with physical effects, slamming down giant icicles or something. At least then I’d be able to crit him a few times…”

  “How about rather than imagining things that will never happen, you decide what we should do?!” Asuna demanded, shattering my fragile hopes and dreams. Somehow she had opened her window to the map screen. It was set to be visible to party members, so I leaned in for a look.

  We were currently smack in the center of the woods to the southeast of Rovia. There were sheer cliffs to the north and east, beyond which was the usual river. The map was grayed out, but if my memory from the beta served, there were cliffs to the south as well. There was a good fifty yards of distance from the forest to the surface of the water, so even if it was the river below, I didn’t know if we could survive the fall.

  In other words, jumping into the river to escape wasn’t an option. We had to leave the forest to the west and escape into the safe haven of Rovia…

  “Hey.” Asuna tugged on my sleeve, drawing my glance from the map to her face. “It seems like the bear goes immobile for a little bit after blowing its fire breath and knocking down trees.”

  “…”

  I looked at the Magnatherium on her suggestion. The giant bear, which had just knocked over a giant tree with its horns alone, was not exactly stunned, but stood in place, grunting and growling. It would surely attack if we got closer, but as Asuna noted, after both the breath attack and the tree charge, it had stopped moving for a time.

  In other words, if we could make use of that habit, it might not be that hard to escape.

  “That’s weakness number one…if you can even call it a weakness,” I mumbled.

  It was a useful habit to take advantage of when escaping, but it was no use when trying to defeat the beast, because we still needed to get closer to attack. Besides, there were only so many major trees with enough bulk to stop the bear. If we stayed in one area, it would eventually knock them all over…

  At that point, I noticed something odd.

  It had nothing to do with me, Asuna, or the Magnatherium. Over near the creature, the fallen tree trunk was still partially there, even though its roots and branches had shattered like glass and disappeared already.

  It was a game object that fell to the ground but stayed there rather than vanishing. That meant it was an item that could be picked up.

  “Um, Asuna, how much storage space do you still have?” I asked, then remembered that she had filled her capacity with small articles of underwear.

  But Asuna seemed to understand exactly what I was thinking about.

  “I’ve got enough space. Remember when I told you that I’d returned most of the clothes I sewed to train my Tailoring skill back into cloth?”

  “Ah yes. Of course. Well, if you don’t mind, when I lead the bear away, can you go and pick up the log at its feet and check the item name and whether or not you have enough room for it?”

  There was suspicion in her eyes, but Asuna didn’t argue.

  “Sure.”

  At that exact moment, the Magnatherium burst into life again. About fifty seconds had passed since it crashed into the tree. I recalled a pause of around twenty-five seconds after its fire breath, which certainly left enough time for us to escape if we made use of it.

  I patted her on the left arm in a show of support and darted out of the undergrowth we’d been using as cover.

  “Over here, you overgrown teddy!” I shouted, running around the right side of the monster. The Magnatherium spun with an agility that belied its massive bulk and stomped after me, rumbling the ground with every step.

  When not using its special charge attack, the monster was just a bit slower than me. The problem was the treacherous terrain of damp moss and tangled roots that threatened a slip or trip at any moment. I guided the bear to the north, paying as much attention as I possibly could to the ground before me.

  Once I knew I was at least thirty yards away from Asuna, I stopped and turned around.

  I didn’t expect to beat the creature on my first attempt, but I at least wanted to get a sense of how to fight it. I clutched my Anneal Blade and waited for the bear to descend on me.

  “Gyoglrugul!” it roared, utterly nonmammalian. The Magnatherium’s front right arm swung up high, the limb thicker than a human body.

  The claws gleamed hungrily as they caught the pale moonlight.

  As the paw came roaring down at me, I shot
back the sword skill Slant. The thick blade, glowing light blue, clashed with the four claws in midair. A tremendous shock wave ran through my avatar’s arms, shoulders, hips, and legs.

  I was knocked back by the powerful collision and my back smashed against a tree, but I was still standing.

  The Magnatherium would not have been knocked over, of course, but its front paw was still floating in the air from the momentum of my strike. So at the very least, I could use a sword skill to deflect an ordinary attack. On the other hand, given that my Anneal Blade +8 had four extra points to sharpness and four to durability, a lesser blade would probably not stand up to the shock.

  I checked my feet and glanced at both HP gauges. The enemy was unharmed, of course. I’d taken a bit of damage from slamming into the tree behind me, but it was nothing serious.

  “Now it’s my turn,” I growled and stepped forward.

  The Magnatherium’s eyes flashed red, though it couldn’t have recognized my challenge. It snorted and pulled both front legs off the ground, slowly standing to an erect position.

  I sensed that more fire breath was coming, and I looked behind me. There was a small blue water surface gleaming to the back of the grove. If I jumped into it, I could evade the fire breath like the last time, but fear rooted my feet to the spot.

  The massive, twenty-foot-plus gray monster sucked in a wheezing breath like a bellows and opened its jaws wide.

  In that instant, I darted forward rather than back. I knew that it could follow flanking maneuvers without a problem, but I hadn’t tested its backside yet. Once I was halfway to the bear, I sensed a red light above. I kept running at full speed, evading the breath as it bore down with another earsplitting roar.

  When the flames hit the ground just behind me, they created a burning tailwind that buffeted my back.

  “Yeowww!” I wailed, but made good use of the extra boost to close the last few yards and burst right through the Magnatherium’s tree-trunk-size legs. Once I was behind the bear, I hit the brakes and spun around.

  As I was hoping, the bear didn’t turn around, but stayed forward, blowing its fire breath.

  This is my chance!