He was strong.
In fact, there was something within his fighting that couldn’t simply be summed up by strength. Something that transcended power or speed, something that suggested the next dimension.
Asuna had no experience with online games or full-dive systems, so she didn’t know how to put this idea into words. If she had to describe it, he was “optimized.” There was no wasted movement in anything he did. His skills were precise and his strikes were heavy. With a quick swipe, he knocked the kobold warrior’s frightening halberd high up into the air, shouted a “switch” command, and floated backward. When Asuna leapt in to take his place, the kobold was still in the process of recovering its balance, leaving her enough time to unleash a Linear thrust into its weak throat. It was all very simple.
She thought back to what he’d said on their very first meeting: “Your attacks are overkill; they’re inefficient.” To which she’d asked what was wrong with being thorough. At this point, she understood that there was plenty wrong with that. Eliminating waste created better poise, and poise widened her viewpoint. These Kobold Sentinels were supposedly much tougher than the Kobold Troopers she’d been fighting back then, but she could clearly see the creatures’ every swipe and kick.
After her Linear struck its critical weak point, the kobold only had a sliver of life left. The old Asuna would have evaded the enemy’s attack by a hair, then unleashed another Linear, but that would have been overkill. As soon as the pause after her sword skill had worn off, she jabbed the same spot with minimal effort. That was enough to reduce the enemy’s HP to zero. It burst into blue shards and disappeared.
“GJ,” came the swordsman’s voice from behind her. She didn’t know what that was short for, so she offered him a neutral “You too.”
At this point, the boss kobold’s first HP bar had just emptied. Diavel cried, “On to the second,” and more Kobold Sentinels poured out of the holes in the walls.
Briefly forgetting that they were supposed to be sheer backup, Asuna joined her partner in dashing after the nearest kobold. The sword in her hand was brand-new to her, but it already felt familiar and precise in the palm of her hand. It was as though everything in the sword, from its leather handle to its sharp, glimmering point, was an extension of her own arm.
If this is what constitutes a true battle in this world, then what I was doing before today was something similar, but very different. There must be something more. This swordsman is far, far ahead of me down that path. This is a virtual, illusionary world, and everything I do here is false … but … this feeling, at least, is truth: that I want to see what he sees.
The swordsman knocked the sentinel’s axe high overhead. The next moment, Asuna shouted the command to switch on her own, and leapt in with her new favorite blade.
13
THE BATTLE OF THE KOBOLD LORD AND HIS COHORTS against forty-four players was going far smoother than I ever expected.
Diavel’s team C took down the first HP bar, team D was responsible for the second, and now teams F and G were the main attack force halfway through the third bar. The worst that had happened so far was the tanks in teams A and B going down to the yellow zone on their HP. No one had fallen into the red danger zone yet. Team E and the two extras had made such easy work of the kobold’s helpers that team G, the other backup group, was able to switch over to the main boss.
What stood out to me most was the effort of Asuna the fencer. Her Linear skill had already impressed me on our first meeting, and with a better weapon, it was even sharper, piercing the throats of the Kobold Sentinels with ease and precision. The amount of time it took from initial motion to damage infliction had to be half of the ordinary time when allowing the automatic system assistance to take over. I’d been studying and practicing ways to intentionally boost my sword skills since the beta, and even I wasn’t sure if I could match that speed.
And this was from a total newbie who only knew one skill. A shiver ran down my back at the thought of her limitless potential if she added more knowledge and refined her instincts.
If possible, I wanted to see that transformation happen with my own eyes—but I quickly stashed that idea away. When I’d taken the path of a self-interested solo player one month ago, I’d lost any right to connect with others. My very first friend in this world, Klein, was probably still busy leveling up around the Town of Beginnings, trying to keep all of his party members alive …
Unrelated to my own bitter reminiscence, Asuna was just finishing off her second victim. Ruin Kobold Sentinels were rare monsters that did not spawn anywhere else, so even if they weren’t as lucrative as the boss itself, they still dropped plenty of experience, col, and items. The money was set to automatically divide between all the raid members, but the experience belonged only to Asuna and me for our direct effort in defeating the creature, and the looted items were her bonus for inflicting the killing blow.
For that reason, if Kibaou was being perfectly honest, he wanted team E to do all of the killing itself. But the two of us, the supposed “leftovers,” were dispatching our targets much faster than their full party of six. Surely he couldn’t complain about that.
But just as the thought passed through my mind, Kibaou’s gravelly rasp issued from behind me.
“Yer plan backfired, eh? Serves ya right.”
“…What?”
I turned around, confused. Only two of the three sentinels that spawned in the third stage of the battle were left, and they were nearly dead. We had enough time for a brief conversation before more of them showed up. The cactus-headed swordsman squinted hard at me and raised his voice.
“Drop the lame act. I already know exactly why y’all slipped yer way into this boss fight.”
“ ‘Why’? You mean… to defeat the boss? What other reason could there be?”
“Oh, so you’re gonna deny it? You know what you’re after!”
We clearly weren’t seeing eye to eye about the substance of the conversation. I clenched my teeth in frustration and anger. Kibaou finally came out and said what was on his mind.
“You think I don’t know? I’ve heard all about yer style … how you’ve always used dirty tricks ta steal the LA on all the bosses!”
“Wha…?”
LA. Last Attack.
In a way, he was right. I’d made a solid practice of trying to leave the smallest amount of health possible and then unleashing my most powerful sword skill in order to gain the largest LA bonus possible. But that had nothing to do with our current circumstances—it was only during the Sword Art Online closed beta that had ended long ago.
Kibaou knew that I was not only a beta tester, but the way I’d played. But … hang on. He’d just said he had “heard about” my style. Which meant it must have come from someone else. But who would have …?
A second burst of understanding shot through my brain.
Kibaou had been attempting to buy my Anneal Blade +6 for a preposterous price through Argo the Rat. Yesterday, he’d finally upped his offer past the market rate to forty thousand col. However, when I refused his offer, he did not spend that money elsewhere.
No. He couldn’t spend that money. It wasn’t his.
Kibaou was just another proxy, like Argo after him. That’s how he was able to talk to me the next day as though nothing had happened. The true buyer was someone else, and that was the source of the forty thousand col. By placing another person between them and Argo, no amount of money I paid back up the line could buy the true purchaser’s name.
This conspirator had given Kibaou beta information, manipulating him and inciting his hatred of former testers. Which meant that this mystery buyer’s intention was not to gain the Anneal Blade +6 for improved attack points. Perhaps that was a side benefit, but the real point was something else. They wanted to drive down my attack power, to prevent me from making use of my skill at earning LA bonuses …
“Kibaou… Whoever told you that story, how did they gain that information about the beta test
?”
“Ain’t it obvious? They put up a grip of cash to buy the info from the Rat. All so’s they could sniff out the hyenas among the raid party.”
That was a lie. Argo might sell her own status numbers for the right price, but she would never sell beta test information.
I ground my teeth in fury but was momentarily distracted by a shout of triumph from up ahead. The boss’s lengthy, four-stage HP bar was finally on its last step. I couldn’t help but watch. After they’d eliminated the third bar, polearm teams F and G retreated, leaving the fully recovered team C to charge in and clash with the boss. Diavel the blue-haired knight, party leader and commander of the raid, sparkled dazzlingly in the darkness of the grimy dungeon.
“Ugruoooaaah!!”
Illfang the Kobold Lord roared, his loudest and fiercest yet. The final trio of Ruin Kobold Sentinels appeared from the holes in the walls.
“Go ahead, take one o’ them lil’ kobolds. Get your LA in,” Kibaou snarled, his voice dripping with scorn, and ran back to his team E partners.
I hadn’t recovered from the shock and confusion of our conversation, but I had no choice but to turn back to find Asuna.
“What were you talking about?” she asked quietly, but I had no time to do anything but shake my head.
“Nothing… Let’s just take down those enemies.”
“… Okay.”
We turned our blades on the closest approaching sentinel.
The next instant, I sensed something, and looked back to the main battle as briefly as I could.
The Kobold Lord had just thrown aside his bone axe and leather buckler. He roared once again and reached back behind his waist, gripped a handle wrapped in crude rags, and pulled out the long, malevolent talwar.
I’d seen this transition in attack patterns many times during the beta. From this point until he died, Illfang would use only Curved Sword skills. He made a terrifying sight in his berserk rage, but was actually easier to deal with than before, if you just knew how. His attacks were all vertical, long-range slices, so as long as you identified where he was aiming when he attacked, it was a snap to evade, even at close range.
On Diavel’s orders, the six members of team C spun into a circle surrounding the boss. This formation would not have worked against his wide horizontal swipes with the bone axe. The order was so precise and confident that you’d never guess he had nothing more to go on than a flimsy little strategy guide. Now the six could continue attacking and evading the talwar’s swings until the battle was …
“…Hgk…?”
A small grunt escaped my throat.
In giving Kibaou forty thousand col and attempting to buy my weapon from me, Player X was attempting to prevent me from scoring the last hit for personal gain—or so I presumed. While I still had my sword, X’s goal was essentially fulfilled at this point. I was a straggler at the very fringe of the raid, taking on these wimpy sentinels. I wouldn’t get within twenty feet of the boss.
But in that case …
Would the identity of Player X be whoever was poised to land that LA now? It made no sense to pony up so much money just to keep me from being successful. The only way that kind of expenditure made any sense was if the spender wanted to finish off the boss himself.
Meaning … the mystery player who was manipulating Kibaou and knew of my beta-tester past was none other than—
“Here it comes!” Asuna cried, snapping me out of my train of thought. The Kobold Sentinel lunged forward with its halberd, and only an instant reaction with the Slant sword skill was able to parry the blow.
“Switch!”
I leapt backward and Asuna took the front line. Again, I glanced back at the main battle, a good twenty yards to our left.
The boss’s invincible transition animation finished, and the combat was set to resume. First to catch his attention was the blue-haired knight, who prepared to deflect the boss’s initial attack.
Was it you?
Diavel the knight … did you arrange all of this?
There was no answer to my silent question, of course. Illfang bellowed and lifted his curved blade high overhead.
Again, something flickered through my mind.
It was alien. Something was wrong. There was a difference between the Kobold Lord I knew and this boss monster. It wasn’t his color, nor his size, nor his face or voice. The difference was not in the creature … but the weapon he held.
From my position, I could only see a vague silhouette of the blade … but was it always that slender? The gentle curve was the same shape I remembered, but the width and its luster were both different. That texture wasn’t crude cast iron. It was the tempered, sharpened look of steel. I’d once seen a weapon like that … on the tenth floor of Aincrad. A weapon carried by the most fearsome of foes I encountered in the beta, clad in their red armor. That was a monster-exclusive weapon, something not available to any player …
“Ah … aaah!” I gasped, forcing more air into my tense lungs so I could scream with all of my voice.
“No, get back!! Everyone, jump back as far as you can!!”
But my warning was drowned out by the sound effect of Illfang’s sword skill. The kobold’s massive bulk pounced low on the ground and leapt upward. He twisted his body in midair, building momentum for his strike. As he fell, all of that accumulated power burst outward in a crimson whirlwind.
Plane: horizontal. Angle: 360 degrees.
A wide-area katana skill called Tsumuji-guruma—“Spiral Wheel.”
The six lights that spun out from Illfang were red as sprays of blood. The readout of team C’s average HP on the left side of my vision instantly plunged below halfway, into the yellow zone. I could see individual totals if I touched that bar with my finger, but there was no point to doing that. They’d clearly all suffered the same amount of damage.
It was bad enough that a wide-area attack took more than half of a player’s full health, but this attack’s effects did not stop there. The six members lying on the floor had blurry yellow circles around their heads. They were afflicted with temporary paralysis—a stun effect.
Among the dozen or so negative status effects in SAO, nothing was worse than paralysis or blindness. At most, the effects lasted only ten seconds. But because of that short span, there were no recovery methods. If a front-line member got stunned, his partners had to jump in without waiting for the switch call and try to draw the enemy’s attention.
However, they were all stunned. The fight strategy had been meticulously planned out beforehand. All seemed to be proceeding well. And Diavel, the trustworthy and capable leader, was knocked flat on the ground. All of these reasons combined kept the other teams in the raid rooted to the spot. Amidst that eerie silence, the Kobold Lord recovered from his massive attack and prepared to resume fighting.
Finally I came to my senses.
“Watch out for the follow-up—” I tried to scream, as Agil and his party moved in to help. But they were not quick enough.
“Urgruaah!!” the beast howled, and swung its double-handed blade straight upward from its resting position near the floor—the sword skill Ukifune, or “Rising Ship.” It was aimed right for Diavel, who was still lying prone on the floor. His silver-mailed body rose off the ground, as though pulled upward by the pale red arc of light. This move’s damage was not so bad, but it was also not the end of the kobold’s assault.
Its large wolflike mouth open in a fierce grin. The sword blade glowed red again. Ukifune was merely the initial move of a skill combo. The best response when lifted into the air like that was to curl into a ball and focus on maximizing defense, but it was impossible to know that upon facing it for the very first time.
Diavel pulled back his longsword in midair, hoping to fire back a sword skill. But the system did not recognize his flailing motion as the initiation of a skill. Illfang’s giant sword caught the knight dead-on.
Two strikes up and down faster than the eye could follow, then a brief pause and a thrust.
If I recalled correctly, this three-hit combo was called Hiougi—Scarlet Fan.
The blows landing on the knight’s body burst with brilliant color and crashing sounds, the indicators of critical hits. His avatar flew sixty feet through the air, well over the raid party’s heads, until he came crashing down right next to me. His HP gauge was down in the red and decreasing rapidly.
“… !!”
An odd squeak gurgled up from my throat. I hit the oncoming sentinel’s halberd with a powerful Slant. It caught the haft of the weapon, breaking it in two and stunning the kobold. Asuna quickly darted in and delivered the fatal blow to its throat.
I spun around, ignoring the monster’s explosive death animation to look at Diavel. Once I’d finally locked eyes with him at a distance of mere feet, sparks went off in my brain.
I know this player.
The name and appearance were different, but I was certain that in the old Aincrad, I had seen this player, perhaps even spoken with him. Diavel was a former beta tester, just like me. And like me, he’d kept his past hidden. In fact, he’d found himself partners, so the pressure to keep that secret hidden had to be much worse than mine.
But that former tester knowledge was poisoning him, with the crucial juncture of the end of the first floor in sight.
I didn’t recognize him, but he knew me, and knew that I scored LA bonuses by the dozens in the beta test of Aincrad. He suspected I would do the same thing again this time. It was highly likely the floor boss would drop unique items, which would vastly increase anyone’s stats. Now that SAO was deadly, increased power meant increased survivability. Diavel wanted to do anything in his power to get Illfang’s rare loot in order to survive the trials of SAO—not as a selfish solo player but the leader of a group.
Diavel seemed to understand my conclusion. His eyes, blue as his hair, squinted angrily for a moment, then took on a serene light. His lips trembled and parted to speak words that only I could hear.