“Yes, you’re right. From what I heard in Marome today, they’re going to challenge the last field boss tomorrow morning, then enter the labyrinth in the afternoon.”
“Wow, that’s quick...Who’s leading the battle force?”
“Kibaou and someone else...named Lind.”
I recognized the first name she said, of course, but the second was unfamiliar.
“Lind was in Diavel’s party during the first-floor boss fight. He used a scimitar.” Her words seemed to be coming from miles away.
The instant the words hit my brain, I heard his tearful scream in my ears. Why did you abandon Diavel to die?!
“Oh...him.”
“Yes. It seems like he took over in Diavel’s place. He even dyed his hair blue and his armor silver, just like Diavel’s.”
I shut my eyes, envisioning the dead knight in his blue-and-silver finery.
“Between Kibaou and the other guy as leader, I’m guessing they won’t save a space for me in the boss fight. Will you participate, Asuna?” I asked her. She was a solo player, just like me. Her long brown hair shook left and right.
“I took part in the scouting of the boss, but it was just a big bull. Didn’t seem like it needed too many, as long as they were well coordinated. Plus they started getting really bossy about who would get the last attack bonus, so I told them straight out that I wouldn’t be in the battle.”
I grimaced to myself; I could practically see the scene floating before my eyes.
“I see. You’re right; that boss isn’t anything to worry about. The real problem is the floor boss...”
“It’s a problem?” she asked, to the point. I grimaced again. “Of course. I mean, it stands to reason that the second-floor boss would be tougher than the first.”
“Oh...right. Of course.”
“His attack isn’t all that high, but he uses special skills on you. It’s possible to practice a defensive strategy on the auto-generating mobs in the labyrinth, but...”
If Diavel–secretly a beta tester–was still alive, he’d make sure that information made it to all the other front-line players. But without him, the only reliable source of beta info was Argo’s strategy guides, and that was a problem. As we learned in that terrible battle four days ago, the boss’s attack patterns could have been altered since the beta.
“Let’s ignore the blacksmith for now and spend tomorrow on practice,” she suggested.
I nodded automatically, lost in thought. “Yeah, good idea...”
“South gate of Urbus, seven o’clock tomorrow morning?”
“Sounds good...”
“And make sure you get a full night’s sleep tonight. If you’re late, you go back to a full hundred g.”
“Yeah, I know–wait, what?”
I tuned back in to the conversation and raised my head. Across the table from me, her normal spirits recovered with the return of her sword, Asuna set her morning alarm.
7
Scattered in the wilderness of each floor of Aincrad were unique named monsters called “field bosses” that acted as gatekeepers of sorts along the route to the labyrinth.
Field bosses were always found in tight areas adjacent to sheer cliffs or river rapids, natural chokepoints that couldn’t be passed without defeating the guardian. What this meant, in practice, was that while each floor might be circular in shape, it was broadly divided into multiple discrete zones.
The second floor was split into a wide northern area and a cramped southern area, which meant there was only one field boss on the entire floor. It was named the Bullbous Bow, a combination of “bull” and “bulbous bow,” the protruding bulb at the front of many large ships. As the name suggested, it was a massive bull with a bulging, rounded forehead that it used for powerful and deadly charging attacks.
I watched the distant, twelve-foot-tall monster, paw at the ground with powerful legs and lower its four-horned head. “Since his fur is black and brown, does that make him a Black Wagyu?”
I wondered.
“You’ll have to ask them to share any meat it drops in order to find out,” Asuna responded, disinterested.
“Hmm...”
I actually gave that option serious thought. Many of the animal-type monsters in Aincrad dropped food items like “so-and-so meat” or “so-and-so eggs” that could actually be cooked up into meals. The flavors varied far more widely than the offerings available from the NPC restaurants in town–meaning that some of them tasted much better than what you could buy, while some were much worse.
The Trembling Oxen that roamed the second floor had such unfortunately tough meat that you could chew it forever without softening it up. On the other hand, the Trembling Cows weren’t bad at all. Therefore, you’d expect the boss of all the cattle on the level would taste better than any of them. I rued my lack of foresight in not testing that theory during the beta.
“Forget about that. They’re starting.”
Her elbow snapped me out of my reverie, and I concentrated on the sight below. I, Kirito the swordsman, and my companion for the last two days, Asuna the fencer, were in a position atop one of the mesas that looked down on the field boss’s lair. Some low trees growing right at the lip of the mountaintop made for excellent camouflage that kept us hidden from those below.
The basin was about two hundred yards long and fifty yards wide. The Bullbous Bow stood its ground, ready to turn aggro at any moment, as a neatly organized attack party inched toward it. The group was made of two full parties and three reserves–fifteen players in total.
It didn’t seem that impressive in comparison to the forty-some warriors that tackled the kobold lord on the first floor, but field bosses were, generally designed so that even a single party of a decent level could emerge triumphant. Fifteen was more than enough to do the job, but that depended on their knowledge of the boss’s patterns and their ability to work seamlessly as a team.
“Hmm?” I muttered to myself, watching the raid closely.
Asuna whispered, “Which ones are the tanks, and which ones are the attackers?”
“I was just noticing that...Both parties look awfully similar from up here.”
The Bullbous Bow was the size of a small mountain, but its attack pattern was quite simple: charge, turn, charge, turn. With two parties, the orthodox strategy said that the tanks should hold its attention and absorb its charges, while the attackers did all the damage at its flanks.
But from what I could tell, there was no real difference in the equipment of the two parties of six. Both had roughly the same number of heavily armored tanks and lightly armored attackers.
I continued to squint down at them from our height of three hundred yards and eventually noticed a subtle detail.
“Wait...look at the cloth they’re wearing under their armor.”
“Huh? Oh, you’re right. Each party has its own color.”
It was hard to tell beneath all the metal and leather armor, but Asuna was correct. The right-hand part wore royal blue doublets, and the six on the left were clad in mass green.
If the colors were meant for easy visual identification of either party, it made more sense to wear brightly colored sashes on top of the armor. Also, blue and green weren’t the most distinct opposing colors. No, those were not temporary colors arranged for this fight–they were probably the original uniform designs of their parties.
“They didn’t reform into new parties based on battle roles,” Asuna noted, her voice hard. “The blue party on the right is Lind’s–they’re all Diavel’s friends. And the green party on the left is Kibaou’s. I suppose they weren’t the type to get along...”
“Maybe they just figure that they’ll perform better if each team is made up of familiar faces.”
“But that will make coordination across the parties worse. It seems obvious that against that boss, you want one team to pull aggro from him, and another to deal all the damage.”
“You’r
e absolutely right,” I agreed. The slowly advancing twelve below had finally breached the boss’s reaction zone.
“Bullmrooooh!!” it roared. Even the ground up here seemed to shake. White steam puffed out of the Bullbous Bow’s nostrils, and it lowered its four horns and began to charge.
There were still nearly five hundred feet between the boss and the raid party, which left plenty of time to react before it reached them, but that was easy to say from my safe vantage point. Those fighters down on the ground no doubt felt like the bull would reach them in no time at all.
After a pause long enough to make me feel nervous, the two leaders finally issued commands to their companions. I couldn’t make out their voices from here, but the orders were obvious. On either side, heavily armored fighters stepped forward, raised their shields, and roared.
That was not bluster but a skill called Howl that increased the target’s aggression and made it focus attacks on the user. At least, it was supposed to.
“Wait a second...why are they both trying to pull aggro?” I wondered. The Bullbous Bow looked back and forth between the two in indecision, then ultimately settled on the blue party. The fighter who had howled and one other shield user inched forward and stood their ground, crouching.
Two seconds later, thwam! The giant bull collided with the two fighters. If their defense was not up to the task, they’d be thrown into the air and take massive damage, but fortunately they managed to stay on their feet, despite being knocked ten yards backward. The other four members of Lind’s party descended on the beast, unleashing sword skills on its open flanks.
“I feel nervous watching them...but it seems like they might manage to win,” Asuna murmured, unimpressed. I hesitantly agreed.
“Yeah, I guess. It’s supposed to be beatable by a single party. But...”
Kibaou’s green party was standing off to the side rather than joining the fray. In fact, the tank was still up front, tensing himself for another Howl once the cooldown timer expired.
“Seems to me like there was no point to forming a raid party in the first place. They’re more like parties competing for the same mob. Maybe it’s working for now, but who can say if that will last?” I sighed.
At this point, I began to wonder about the three reserve members who weren’t in the equal camps of Lind and Kibaou’s men. Were they aligned with either side? I took my eyes off the fight and examined the backup adventurers standing far to the rear.
“Hng–?!” I grunted. Asuna gave me a questioning look, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to answer her. I leaned forward. Standing at the center of the three was a burly swordsman. He wore dark banded armor and a pointed bascinet helm that look like an onion sprout–the leader of the five men I saw last night after trailing Nezha to the bar.
His outfit was humorous, but I would never forget the sharpness in his eyes when he noticed me listening in on them. It seemed likely that the other two reserve members with him were also in Nezha’s party.
“What are they doing here?!” I muttered. Asuna shot me another suspicious look. I pointed down at the rear of the battleground. “Do you know the names of those three guys on standby? Particularly the middle one in the bascinet.”
“Bassinet...? Aren’t those baby cribs?”
“Huh? N-no, I mean the guy in the pointy helmet with the visor that looks like a duckbill. That’s called a bascinet helm...”
“Oh. Maybe they’re spelled differently. You know, it’s really irritating that being stuck in this world means I can’t open a dictionary. Maybe someone will make one.”
“I think it would be nearly impossible to craft an E-J dictionary, writing by hand. On the other hand, Argo did say that some folks were looking to create a simple game encyclopedia of sorts. Wait, why are we talking about this?”
I pulled us back to the topic at hand by pointing down at the rear of the basin. “That round guy in the middle of the reserve members. Ever seen him before?”
“I have,” she said easily. I froze for a moment, then turned on the fencer, the questions flowing out of me.
“W-when did you see him? Where? Who is he?”
“Yesterday morning, exactly where he’s standing now. He was at the Bullbous Bow scouting session. Remember how I told you about that? His name is...Orlando, I think...”
“Orlando...? First a knight, now a paladin,” I muttered to myself. Asuna raised a questioning eyebrow. I added a quick explanation as the three men continued to survey the battle before them. “Orlando was the name of a knight who served King Charlemagne of France and bore the legendary blade Durendal. He was an invincible hero.”
“A knight...I see.”
Something in her voice made me curious, and it was my turn to cast her a quizzical look. She extended a slender finger to point to the short warrior with the two-handed sword to the right of the onion-headed paladin.
“When we did introductions, he called himself Beowulf. That’s another legendary hero, right? From England. And the skinny spearman on the other side was Cuchulainn. That name sounded familiar, too...”
“Ohh...Yes, that’s another legendary hero. I think he’s Celtic,” I added. Asuna shrugged her shoulders.
“Apparently they already decided on their guild name. I think it was Legend Braves.”
“...I see...Hmm...Hmmmmmmm!” couldn’t think of anything better to say.
A player was free to choose any name they wanted to attach to their MMO avatar–as long as it didn’t violate the game’s terms of service, that is. If they wanted to name their guild Legend Braves and pretend they were all legendary heroes, that was their right. In fact, it was probably fairly rare for names like those to go unclaimed in an MMO.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a much harder sell in a VRMMO, where you literally became your avatar. That took guts. But...what if their choice of names was a statement of intent?
Perhaps they meant to grow into the heroes their names suggested. You couldn’t just write that off as youthful exuberance. Orlando, Beowulf, and Cuchulainn were currently standing just behind the front line of player progress in SAO. In terms of pure distance, they were two hundred yards closer than I was.
Before I could ask the question, Asuna said, “They just showed up in Marome yesterday morning, where all the frontier players were gathering, and asked to take part. Lind checked out their stats and said their levels and skill proficiency were a bit below average for the group, but their equipment was good and powered up. So instead of putting them in the main force, he let them join as reserve fighters. Part of the reason I didn’t join in is because they showed up to round out the group.”
“I see...That makes sense.” I nodded slowly and gazed down at the three heroes, feeling conflicted.
I hadn’t explained to Asuna yet that they were Nezha’s friends. Based on this new information, he must be another member of the Legend Braves. Perhaps the reason he had the name Nezha and not another knight or hero was because he was a crafter, not a fighter.
This also led me to a new conjecture. One that explained how three men that neither of us had seen until a day ago, who hadn’t taken part in the first-floor boss raid, could be right here with the other front-line warriors...
“Bullmrrrroooh!!”
Another ferocious roar redirected my attention to the far end of the basin. For the second time, I was stunned.
Now both Lind and Kibaou’s parties, a confusing mishmash of blue and green, were tangled together in one unorganized mass. They’d been squabbling over who was drawing the Bullbous Bow’s aggro and collided in an attempt to get into the proper position to defend his charge. The shield-carrying tanks had lost their balance–it took quite a long time for heavy warriors to recover from a Tumble status–and no one was able to defend.
“Watch out!” Asuna hissed.
“Attackers, dash outta the way!” I shouted. They couldn’t hear me, of course, but Kibaou and Lind finally raised
their hands and the eight light warriors darted left and right.
But they weren’t quite fast enough. The raging ox passed right through the line of shield-bearing warriors, who were only just now getting back to their feet, and caught two swordsmen with his four horns. With a vicious toss of his head, they flew high into the air.
Asuna and I both gasped. I had a momentary premonition of both men shattering into glass, either in midair or when they crashed to earth. Fortunately, perhaps because of the soft grass, they recovered and got their feet after only a few bounces. They had trouble keeping their footing, however; they’d suffered quite a mental shock.
Lind swung his arm again–probably the signal for retreat and potion recovery–and at the same moment, Kibaou looked back to the rear of the battleground and waved his sword.
As the bull dashed back to the far end of the basin, the two wounded members retreated, and two of the reserves stepped forward to take their place: Orlando the bascinet-wearing paladin and Beowulf with his two-handed sword. They ran forward a few yards, then stopped in apparent hesitation. The pair unleashed roars so loud that even Asuna and I could hear them, and resumed dashing toward the battle.
Orlando reached behind his round shield and pulled out a longsword of black iron that was unmistakable to me–the very same rare Anneal Blade that was only available as a reward for a quest on the first floor. The paladin brandished his sword high, glowing with the light of a highly upgraded weapon, and valiantly charged at the massive boss.
* * *
The Bullbous Bow, the only field boss on the second floor of Aincrad, exploded into a small mountains worth of polygonal shards about twenty-five minutes after the start of the battle.
Based on the scale, level, and gear of the raid party, that was quite a long time, but it was easy to say that from my vantage point, safely removed from danger. And above all, there was one new, ironclad rule that never existed in the beta: Even a single fatality was an unacceptable result.
In that sense, the three from the guild (technically, still just a team) Legend Braves performed admirably. Compared to the first-string members who had fallen into the yellow danger zone, their movements were a bit awkward, but they upheld their duty well.