Early and Late

  I pulled the round iron knocker, and the wooden door split into two sides, revealing a staircase leading down. The seven of us filed in one at a time, and when Klein closed it at the end, it automatically locked itself again.

  “Yikes…How many steps are on this thing?” moaned Lisbeth. I couldn’t blame her; the stairs in the six-foot-wide tunnel, lit only by the small pale lamps on the walls, continued down as far as the game engine would display.

  “Hmm, I’d say it takes us down about the length of an entire labyrinth tower from Aincrad,” Asuna said from the lead position. Liz, Silica, and Klein all grimaced. I couldn’t help but chuckle, and explained the benefit of the tunnel.

  “Listen, first of all, if you want to get to Jotunheim via the normal route, you have to travel to one of the staircase dungeons a few miles away from Alne, fight monsters all the way down, then defeat a boss at the end just to get there. It’ll take a single party at least two hours to do that, but this is just five minutes of walking! If I were Leafa, I’d start a business charging a thousand yrd per person to use these stairs.”

  “Big Brother, you know that once you get down there, unless Tonky comes up to the platform, you’ll just fall down into the hole in the middle of Jotunheim and die,” Leafa said exasperatedly, and she was right.

  In the center of the vast cave that was Jotunheim was a bottomless pit about a mile across known as the Great Void. The hanging pyramid dungeon housing Excalibur jutted out of the earth directly over said Great Void. The stairs we were descending now let out in the air above the Void, close to the dungeon. So jumping off the bottom of the staircase just meant you would fall into the Void, die, and be respawned at the save point on the surface above.

  I cleared my throat loudly to cover up the greedy statement I’d just made and formally intoned, “Well, at any rate, I should think that you will thank each and every step with all of your heart as we descend, boys and girls.”

  “As if you built them,” Sinon muttered from the spot in front of me. She was always quick with a sharp comment, but in this case, I was glad for it.

  “Thanks for the feedback,” I said, and grabbed the light blue tail waving in front of me by way of a handshake.

  “Fgyaa!!”

  The wildcat archer leaped up with an incredible screech. She spun around and, running backward down the stairs, held up her hands as if she meant to scratch my face with her nails.

  The cait sith’s triangular ears and tail were organs that humans didn’t possess, of course. But somehow, they had a physical sensation when you played as one, apparently. When someone suddenly grabbed them, a player still getting used to the sensation would feel something “very weird” (according to Silica), which meant their reactions were always entertaining.

  “The next time you do that, I’m shooting a fire arrow in each of your nostrils,” Sinon snorted. Over her shoulder, Leafa, Liz, Silica, Asuna, and Yui all shook their heads in perfectly synchronized exasperation. Behind me, I heard Klein murmur in admiration, “I gotta say, man, you know no fear.”

  As expected, the party reached the end of the staircase tunnel that passed through the mantle of Alfheim in less than five minutes. A pale light appeared ahead.

  At the same time, the virtual air dropped in temperature. Tiny little ice crystals began to sparkle around our faces. A few seconds later, we breached the earth and caught sight of the entirety of Jotunheim. The stairs, carved into a massive tree root, continued out into open air until they stopped at a point fifty feet ahead.

  “Wh-whoaaa!!”

  “Incredible…”

  It was the first sight of Jotunheim for the two cats, Silica and Sinon. Even little Pina flapped her wings wildly atop Silica’s head.

  The world below us was a cruel but beautiful realm of endless night, covered in thick snow and ice. The only light source was from the faint glow of mammoth crystal pillars extending from the earthy ceiling, carrying a dim remnant of the light from the surface. Here and there were Deviant God castles and fortresses, lit by eerie fires of purple and green. At the center of the map, the span from the floor to the ceiling was over half a mile, so we couldn’t see the countless Deviant Gods milling about from here. Directly below was the bottomless pit that sucked in all light: the Void.

  When I tore my eyes away from that hole and looked forward, I was met by another stunning sight.

  Entangled in countless writhing roots—coming straight through the earth from the World Tree that loomed over all of Alfheim—was a gigantic mass of sky-blue ice crystal, jutting out like an upside-down pyramid. It was the hanging dungeon that was our destination. Its base was about a thousand feet to a side, and the height of the crystal was about the same. From this distance, it was clear that the interior of the ice was carved out with many rooms and hallways—filled with large, prowling shadows.

  Lastly, I glanced down at the sharp tip of the pyramid at the very bottom.

  My spriggan eyes, gifted with an advantage to night vision, could only make out the occasional tiny glint of golden light. But the richness of that light exerted a powerful pull of desire on me. It was the Holy Sword Excalibur, the most powerful of ALO’s legendary weapons, sitting right there.

  Once we were done confirming the basics, Asuna raised her right hand and smoothly chanted some spellwords. Our bodies were briefly shrouded in pale blue light, and a small icon turned on above the HP gauge in the top left of my vision. Soon the chill receded, and it felt like I was wearing a thick down jacket. She had buffed our resistance to cold.

  “Okay,” Asuna said, and Leafa put her fingers to her mouth and whistled loudly. A few seconds later came a distant sound among the wind, moaning, Kwooo…

  When I looked down, a white shadow was visible against the backdrop of the Great Void. From the sides of its main body, which was flat like a flounder or a rice ladle, were four sets of white wings that resembled fins. On the underside of the body hung a mass of tentacles like vines. And on the head were three black eyes to either side of a long nose. It was Tonky the Deviant God, who had evolved from its jellyphant look into this eerie and beautiful form.

  “Tonkyyyy!” Yui called out from Asuna’s shoulder. The bizarre creature let out another long moan. With a flap of its powerful wings, it began to ascend in a spiral pattern. As it got closer, the sheer size of the beast caused those of us who hadn’t seen him yet to back away.

  “No worries, he’s an herbivore,” I reassured them. Leafa turned around and beamed.

  “But when I brought him a fish from the surface earlier, he ate it in a single slurp.”

  “…O-oh.”

  Klein and the others took another step back, but there wasn’t much room left on the narrow staircase. Once Tonky was right in front of us, he examined the party with his still-elephantine face, then extended his long trunk and, with the hairy tip, ruffled Klein’s spiky hair.

  “Ubyorhu?!” Klein exclaimed bizarrely. I pushed him.

  “He says to get on his back. It’s all you.”

  “Y-yeah, but…My gramps had one piece of advice for me before he died: never ride American cars or flying elephants…”

  “Last time we were at Dicey Café, you gave us his homemade dried persimmons! Get us some more, next time you visit him!” I scolded, and shoved him again. Klein’s momentum took him a step onto Tonky’s shoulder, which he quickly crossed to the flatter part of the back. Next was Sinon, who was always fearless, and Silica, who decided that her love of animals extended to cover Tonky as well. Lisbeth crossed next with a very unladylike shout, and then Leafa and Asuna, who were familiar with riding Tonky. Lastly, I scratched the root of his trunk and leaped onto the back of the thirty-foot-long Deviant God.

  “Okay, Tonky, take us to the entrance of the dungeon!” Leafa called from her seat right behind his neck. Tonky lifted his long snout and trumpeted again, then started flapping his eight wings in a pattern from front to rear.

  Including the times I did it just for fun, this was my fifth ride on T
onky’s back. I never spoke it out loud, but there was a thought that crossed my mind each and every time. It was…

  “…Hey, what happens if you fall off?” said Lisbeth from behind me, giving voice to that exact thought.

  As a basic rule, fairy flight did not work in Jotunheim, and the normal rules of fall damage applied. Damage would start occurring from a fall of just thirty feet, depending on one’s skills, and at about a hundred feet, death was unavoidable.

  At the present moment, Tonky was floating nearly half a mile in the air. There was no question what would happen if we fell. Perhaps there was some safety mechanism—say, his stomach tentacles grabbing us if we fell off—but I was certainly in no mood to test it out.

  Everyone else was grappling with the same concerns. The only ones enjoying the flight were Leafa the speedaholic in the front; Yui, who was now sitting on Leafa’s head; and Pina, in Silica’s arms.

  The answer to Liz’s question came from Asuna, who was sitting next to her. Despite the concern in her face, she smiled at me and said, “I’m sure that fellow over there, who once tried to climb the outer pillars of Aincrad to reach the next floor, will find out the answer for us.”

  “…When it comes to falling from heights, I’d think that felines are best suited for the task.”

  Instantly, the two felines in the party shook their heads.

  As we chatted, Tonky continued to flap his four sets of wings in a flowing pattern, gliding through the air. It was taking us to the terrace that served as entrance to the hanging dungeon of ice. Hopefully the trip would be smooth and safe—

  No sooner had the thought occurred to me than Tonky folded his wings and entered a precipitous dive.

  “Aaaaaah!!” bellowed the two men in the group.

  “Eeeeeek!!” screamed the women.

  “Yahoooo!” cheered Leafa.

  I gripped the thick hair covering the creature’s back in an effort to fight against the terrific wind pressure. We were practically vertical; the ground far below was visibly coming closer. But why would he do this? The times we rode him before, he just made gentle, relaxing tours from the root staircase to the ice terrace.

  Was he getting sick of being used as a taxi? Or had the fish Leafa fed him last time given him a stomachache?

  My pointless questions aside, the texture of the ice-laden ground came into sharper detail as Tonky headed us toward the southern lip of the Great Void. It was the very spot where Leafa and I had rescued Tonky from a raid party of undine hunters.

  Suddenly, extreme deceleration g-force hit my body, slamming me flat against the Deviant God’s back. Tonky spread his wings again, hitting the brakes on his speedy fall. Relieved that he at least wasn’t going to toss his cargo flat against the ground, I straightened up.

  Now that his back was horizontal again, I had the presence of mind to survey the ground, which was now under two hundred feet away. The surface was clearly detailed, unlike the previous aerial scale model view. Dead trees hung sharp icicles from their branches. Rivers and lakes, frozen solid. And…

  “…Huh?!”

  It was Leafa, stretching forward to look over Tonky’s head. She pointed at a spot on the ground and practically screamed, “Big Brother, look at that!!”

  The other five and I obeyed, looking ahead and to the left, where she was pointing. Instantly, I caught sight of a quick succession of bright flashes in the darkness. A bit later came a tremendous, low-pitched rumble. It was the signature of a wide-area attack spell.

  Tonky cooed sadly. I understood why at once.

  The target of the attacks was a large monster with a dumpling-shaped body, long tentacles, an extended nose, and large ears, somewhere between an elephant and a jellyfish. It was the same type of monster as Tonky, before he cocooned and hatched.

  The attackers were a large raid party of over thirty members. Based on the vibrant array of sizes and hair colors, they were clearly a mixed-race team. In that sense, it was a typical Deviant God hunting party. But what was shocking to us was that it wasn’t just players attacking the jellyphant.

  Standing six or seven times taller than the tallest gnome was a humanoid shape, but with four arms and three stacked faces in a column. Its skin was as pale as steel, and the eyes burned red like hot coals.

  Just as unmistakable as the jellyphant, this was one of the humanoid Deviant Gods who we saw trying to kill Tonky on our first encounter. Each arm held a crude sword like a rebar, and it was slamming the practically blunt weapons against the jellyphant’s back. When the hard surface cracked and liquid spilled forth, the players would attack those weak points with magic, arrows, and sword skills.

  “Wh-what does that mean? Did someone tame that humanoid Deviant God?” Asuna gaped.

  Silica shook her head furiously and said, “That’s impossible! Even with the skill maxed and a full boost from specialized equipment, the taming rate on Deviant Gods is zero percent!”

  “Then that means,” Klein grunted, spiking up his red hair to its proper height again, “they’re just…piggybacking? When the four-armed giant was attacking the elephant thing, they jumped in to help it out…?”

  “But would it be that easy to manage the aggro levels?” Sinon wondered calmly. She had a point. Given the aggressive behavior patterns of the Deviant Gods, even if the spells and skills weren’t causing it damage, using them so close nearby would most likely cause it to target the players instead.

  As we watched in bafflement and concern, the jellyphant’s body shook and fell sideways onto the snow with a great crash. A storm of swords and spells wracked its sensitive underbelly.

  “Hrroooo…”

  The jellyphant let out a dying wail and burst into a massive swarm of polygonal shards.

  “Kwooo,” mourned Tonky. Riding on his head, Leafa’s shoulders trembled, and atop her head, Yui drooped sadly.

  I had no comforting comments to offer them, so instead I looked down at the raid party below. Almost immediately, my eyes bulged with fresh shock.

  The four-armed giant, who was neither tamed, agitated, nor bewitched, bellowed victoriously, and the dozens of players at its feet cheered and hollered. Then the two sides set off together in search of a new target.

  “Wh-why aren’t they fighting now?!” I gasped, but Asuna raised her head with a start, noticing something.

  “Ah…look over there!”

  She was pointing out a distant hilltop on the right. There were more flashes of battle over there. I squinted to see another large party, this time assisted by a pair of the humanoids, hunting a Deviant God who looked like a many-legged crocodile.

  “Well, I’ll be damned…What the hell’s going on here?” Klein said in a daze.

  “Maybe these are the slaughter quests that Asuna said they’d discovered in Jotunheim? Teaming up with the humanoid ones to wipe out the animalistic ones…” Lisbeth suggested.

  “…!”

  Everyone else sucked in a sharp breath.

  That had to be it. Fighting alongside normally hostile mobs to complete a specific quest wasn’t particularly uncommon. But what did it mean that the reward for that quest would be Excalibur? The sword was sealed away in the hanging dungeon that was the humanoid Deviant Gods’ base. You’d assume that the way to get it was to kill the humanoid ones instead…

  Instinctually, my gaze swung to the huge ice pyramid overhead. But it was interrupted partway, as at the very rear of Tonky’s back, where no one was sitting, particles of light were floating and coalescing into the figure of a person.

  It was wearing a long robe. Blond hair flowed from its back down to its feet. The unearthly beauty of the figure marked it as female.

  But the unthinking comment that escaped from Klein’s and my mouths was hardly the kind of thing one was supposed to say to a beautiful woman.

  “She’s…”

  “…freakin’ huge!”

  We couldn’t be blamed. Even a conservative estimate of the woman’s height put her over ten feet tall, which wa
s twice our size.

  Fortunately, she did not seem bothered by our rudeness. She serenely opened her mouth and spoke in a voice modulated with a grand effect that further distinguished her from an ordinary player.

  “I am Urd, queen of the lake.”

  The enormous blond lady continued. “Little fairies who have aligned yourselves with my kindred.”

  Kindred? I wondered. If she were speaking of Tonky, who was still hovering with us on top of him, then that would mean this beautiful lady was friends with the animal-type Deviant Gods of Jotunheim…

  At that point, I noticed that the “queen of the lake” was not actually entirely human in shape herself. The blond hair that stretched to her feet actually ended in writhing, translucent feelers, and the feet peeking out from her long robe were covered in pearly gray scales. It made me imagine that she was another bizarre creature like Tonky, except she chose to assume a humanoid form.

  “My two sisters and I have a request of you. Please save this land from the attack of the frost giants.”

  The next thing I wondered was exactly what she was, system-wise. Given that there was no color cursor when I focused on her, she couldn’t possibly be another player transformed by illusion magic. But whether she was a harmless event NPC, a trap set by a spontaneous quest mob, or a human GM role-playing within the game was unclear to me.

  Suddenly, I felt a slight weight on my left shoulder, accompanied by Yui’s sweet little whisper.

  “Papa, she’s an NPC. But something’s odd. She doesn’t seem to be speaking using ordinary fixed-response routines like other NPCs. She’s interfacing with a language engine module very close to the core program.”

  “…Meaning she’s an AI?”

  “Right, Papa.”

  As I pondered the meaning of what Yui had just said, I lent my ears to the woman’s speech. Urd, queen of the lake, beckoned a pearly hand toward the vast expanse of the underground realm.