“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’re 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…Hmmmmmm!” I 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 mish-mash 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 charg
e. 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 mountain’s 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.
“Well, that was nerve-wracking … but at least it all ended safely,” Asuna said. She took two steps back from the lip of the flat mountaintop, sat down on a rock, and looked up at me, crossing her legs.
“Well? What is it about those heroes?”
I nervously looked back down at the far end of the basin, where the fifteen combatants were gathered together and raising a victorious cheer. However, there seemed to be differing degrees of celebration—Lind’s royal-blue team and the colorless Braves were truly rejoicing, while Kibaou’s moss-green team was a bit muted. Probably because it was Lind’s scimitar, Pale Edge, that had scored the last attack on the boss. I couldn’t tell how much it was powered up at this distance, but the strength of its glow suggested that a considerable amount of work had gone into it.
I fixed Orlando the paladin with another gaze before I turned back to Asuna. He was standing boldly right next to Lind, sword raised in the air.
Asuna’s cape hood was off, and the morning light shone dazzlingly in her light brown eyes. It was as though they stared right through my avatar and into my soul. There was no use hiding anything at this point. I summoned my courage and began to explain.
“… Nezha the blacksmith is one of the Legend Braves.”
“Wha…? So … you mean …”
I nodded. “Nezha’s upgrading fraud was done at the order of their leader, Orlando. I think. Do you know exactly when Nezha’s Smith Shop first set up in Urbus?”
“Umm … I think it was the very day that the second floor was opened.”
“So it’s only been a week. But even bilking one or two high-powered Wind Fleurets or Anneal Blades a day would make them a ton of money. At least ten—no, twenty times what you’d make in a day from farming monsters. Remember what you said earlier? Orlando’s group was weak, but they made up for it with good gear. Weapon skills have to be raised through experience in battle, but weapon upgrades …”
“… are easy if you’ve got the money. So that’s what’s going on,” she said, her voice hard. Asuna bolted to her feet and glared down at the battlefield, then turned to the path that wound down the mountainside. I rushed to stop her.
“W-wait, hang on! I know how you feel, but we have no proof yet.”
“So you’re just going to let them get away with it?”
“If we don’t at least figure out how exactly they’re performing the trick, people will accuse us of defamation. There are no GMs in this world, but you don’t want the majority of people treating you like an enemy. It’s too late for me, but I’d hate to see you slapped with the beater tag and—”
A finger jabbed right at my face stopped me mid-sentence.
“We’re about to go adventuring in the dungeon together, and that’s what you’re trying to protect me from? Anyway, your point is taken. If we don’t have any proof or explanation, the only thing we’re producing is empty accusations …”
She pulled her finger back to her chin and looked down, her voice softening. “I’ll try to come up with some ideas of my own. Something that won’t just expose how their weapon-switching trick works but also give us solid proof.”
There was a different kind of fire blazing in the fencer’s eyes now, and I had no choice but to agree with her.
Once the victorious battle party turned and headed back to Marome to restock supplies, we descended the mountain and stealthily raced across the narrow basin. The right to set the first footprint on the southern side of the second floor belonged to Lind or Kibaou, but we didn’t have the patience to sit around and wait for them. Plus, they seemed competitive enough that they’d waste time arguing about who got there first.
The far end of the basin turned into a narrow, winding canyon. The walls were nearly vertical and so sheer that not a single handhold could be seen. There was no climbing them.
We took a breather in the empty gorge after our sprint, then headed through the exit to a brand-new sight—well, for Asuna, at least.
The flattop mountains with two or three levels were the same, but the gentle grasslands of the northern area were replaced by thick jungle. Vines and ivy crawled up the sides of the mountains, and clumps of fog here and there made visibility poor.
There was one thing clearly visible through all of the fog, however, looming over everything on the far side of the jungle. The labyrinth tower of the second floor stretched all three hundred feet to the bottom of the floor above. It seemed thinner than the first-floor labyrinth, but it was still a good eight hundred feet across. It was really more like a coliseum than a tower.
We stared at the shape in the distance until Asuna finally broke the silence.
“…What’s that?”
I suspected that she was referring to the two protuberances extending from the upper half of the tower.
“Bull horns.”
“B-bull—?”
“When we get closer, you’ll see a huge relief of a bull on the side of the tower. It’s kind of the theme of the second floor.”
“I just figured that giant one they killed was the last of the ox things …”
“Not even close. The Moo-Moo Kingdom is only getting started. The ones ahead are certainly beefy, but they don’t look very tasty.” I coughed to hide my embarrassment at that terrible pun and clapped my hands to switch gears. “Well, let’s get going. The last village is about half a mile to the southeast, and beyond that is the labyrinth. We could do all the quests in the village a
nd still reach the tower before noon. It’s actually safer and quicker to take the detour to the left, rather than going straight through the forest.”
Just as I was getting ready to start hiking, I noticed that Asuna was watching me with a strange expression.
“…What is it?”
“Nothing…” She coughed as well, then looked serious again. “This isn’t meant to be sarcastic, it’s an honest opinion.”
“… Y-yes?”
“With all that knowledge, you’re very handy to have around. Everyone should have one of you.”
I had no idea how to respond to that comment. Asuna strode past me and turned her head.
“Come on, let’s go. I want to get into that tower before Lind’s group catches up.”
8
“EEK… NO! STAY AWAY!”
The beautiful girl’s eyes were wide with fear as a menacing silhouette plodded closer.
It sounded like a scene from a suspenseful horror film, but it would not be following the Hollywood template for much longer.
“I told you… to stay the hell away!” she roared, and dashed forward rather than backward. The large attacker reacted by waving its crude two-handed hammer, but her right hand shot forward like lightning before it could hit the target.
The rippling thrust caught the attacker directly on its exposed chest. Brilliant beams of light exploded outward, and the hammer’s progress slowed. Normally at this point, the player should dart backward and evade, but the girl plunged farther onward, pulling her rapier back and unleashing another attack. Two strikes hit the thick chest high and low, and the half-naked body writhed in pain.
“Brmooooh!!”
It leaned back and emitted a death cry, short horns and ring-pierced snout in clear profile. The massive body tipped backward, then stopped in mid-fall. The rippling muscles turned to hard glass and cracks trickled down the surface, emitting blue light until it finally exploded.