He was so obnoxious. But the fur-lined coat was indeed warm, and I could not resist its comforting embrace. The chill disappeared at once, and I sighed in relief.
“Well, which house do you suppose is the chief’s?” Kirito asked.
I looked around the small village and spotted one building across the way that had a higher roof than the others.
“Is that it?”
“Looks like it.”
We nodded and set off.
Several minutes later, our suspicions correct, we’d found the NPC chieftain, outfitted with an impressive white beard, and heard his story. Unfortunately, the story began with the rigors of his childhood, proceeding through adolescence and adulthood until his twilight years, stopping for a brief non sequitur to remark that, why yes, there was a dragon on the mountain to the west. By the time he reached that crucial detail, the village outside was wreathed in twilight.
We left the chief’s house, exhausted. The setting sun lit the blanket of snow adorning all the buildings orange, a truly beautiful sight. But…
“I really didn’t think getting the quest started was going to take so long.”
“Seriously…what should we do? Come back tomorrow?”
We traded glances.
“But he did say that the dragon was nocturnal. That’s the mountain over there, right?”
I looked where he was pointing and saw a treacherous, white-capped peak not too far in the distance. Of course, due to the absolute physical limitations of each floor of Aincrad, the “peak” could not be more than a hundred meters tall. It wouldn’t be all that difficult to scale.
“All right, let’s go. Besides, I’d rather not wait to see you blubbering with fear.”
“On the contrary, try not to have your mind blown by my graceful sword work.”
We turned our faces away from each other with simultaneous huffs. But for some reason, our constant trading of insults was starting to excite me…
I shook my head to clear my mind of that pointless thought and started stalking my way through the heavy snow.
Although the mountain appeared steep from a distance, once we actually got there, we had little trouble reaching the top. In retrospect, countless parties had scaled the mountain in the course of attempting the quest, so it should have been obvious that it wasn’t very grueling.
Perhaps because of the time of day, the toughest monsters we ran across were Frost Bones, an ice-type skeleton—but skeletons were the perfect target for my crushing mace. The undead foes fell apart with a satisfying clatter as I pounded them left and right.
After climbing for most of an hour, we saw the peak right as we circled around a particularly tall protrusion of ice.
The roof of the next floor up was just above our heads. All around us, massive pillars of crystal jutted out from underneath piles of snow. The last remains of purple light refracting into rainbows through the crystals was spectacular.
“Wow…!”
I couldn’t help but marvel in wonder, but Kirito grabbed my collar from behind.
“Wghak! What was that for?”
“Get ready to use your teleport crystal, if necessary.”
The look on his face was serious. I nodded automatically and materialized the crystal from my inventory, placing it in my apron pocket.
“I’ll handle it from here on out—this will be dangerous. When the dragon shows up, stay behind one of those giant crystals. And don’t come out.”
“…What’s the problem? I’m actually fairly high-level. I can fight!”
“No!”
His black pupils stared straight into me, and in that instant I understood that he was saying it for my sake. I held my breath and nodded.
He flashed me a quick grin and placed a hand on my head before saying, “Okay, let’s go.” All I could do was give him another nod.
It suddenly felt as though the air itself had changed color.
I’d come here with Kirito either in search of a change of pace or out of simple reckless abandon—but I hadn’t honestly considered that I was getting myself into a battle of life and death.
Well over half the experience I’d gained in the course of leveling up was from crafting equipment, and I’d never been in a deadly battle.
But I could tell that Kirito was different. He had the eyes of someone who put his life in the balance each and every day.
Trying to bring order to the emotions tearing me in different directions, I walked behind him to the center of the mountaintop. A quick look around showed no dragon yet. Instead, sitting in the space between the ring of crystal pillars was…
“Whoa…”
An enormous hole. It had to be at least thirty feet across. The sides of the hole were glittering with slick ice, and they seemed to extend vertically into nothingness. It was too dark to see the bottom.
“Wow, that’s deep…”
Kirito kicked a small piece of ice over the edge. I saw it flash as it fell into the abyss, but no sound came back.
“Don’t fall in.”
“I’m not going to fall!” I retorted. In the next instant, a birdlike screech rattled against the mountaintop, ripping through the air dyed with the final strains of navy light.
“Get in the shadows!” Kirito commanded, pointing to a large nearby crystal. I hurried to obey his command, turning to his back as I ran.
“The, uh, the dragon’s attack pattern is: claws from left and right, ice breath, then a wind gale! B-be careful!”
I hurriedly tacked on that last part. Still facing away from me, Kirito waved his left fist, the thumb boldly extended. At nearly the same moment, the air before him rippled, a giant shape oozing out of the air.
Roughly rendered clumps of polygons materialized one after the other. As they connected together and grew more detailed, a giant body took shape—and unleashed another massive, rattling roar. Countless tiny pieces flew in all directions, glittering as they evaporated into nothingness.
The white dragon’s scales shimmered like ice. It beat its enormous wings smoothly, hovering in the air. All in all, it was even more beautiful than it was terrifying. Its large, ruby-like eyes glared down at us from above.
Kirito calmly reached behind his back, loudly drawing his ebony sword. As though that were the signal to begin, the dragon opened its jaws wide and unleashed a blast of white with a roaring sound effect.
“Watch out, that’s its breath attack!” I screamed, but Kirito did not move. He stood boldly, his sword extended vertically.
Just as I thought, There’s no way he can block that ice breath with such a thin sword, the blade began spinning like a windmill in his hand. Based on the light green haze enveloping the sword, it must have been a skill. It was already too fast to see, like a round shield made of light.
The ice breath bore down directly on the sword. There was a white flash and I turned my eyes from it. But the cascade of freezing air simply bounced off of Kirito’s erstwhile shield, dissipating away.
I cast a hurried glance at Kirito to check his HP bar. The right corner was steadily closing left, perhaps a sign that he wasn’t blocking the effects of the ice breath entirely. But to my amazement, it was healing back to full every few seconds. Battle Healing was known as an ultra-high-level skill—and in order to increase your proficiency with it, you had to take massive damage in battle, meaning that it was virtually impossible to safely power up the skill.
Who is this guy…?
I wondered it once again. No one this powerful could not be a clearer. But his name didn’t appear in the registry of any of the top guilds in the game, like the Knights of the Blood.
Suddenly, Kirito moved again as the breath attack tapered off. He leaped at the airborne dragon with an explosion of snow.
The orthodox strategy against flying enemies is to attack them with polearms or throwing weapons, forcing them to the ground, where melee attacks will be effective. Impossibly enough, Kirito jumped almost high enough to eclipse the dragon’s head, launch
ing into a one-handed combo in midair.
With high-pitched twanging noises, he spun into the dragon’s body faster than the eye could follow. The beast tried to fight back with its claws, but the blows were simply too slow.
By the time Kirito finally landed back on the ground, the dragon had lost a full 30 percent of its health.
It was overwhelming. A shiver ran down my spine at the impossibility of what I’d witnessed.
The dragon shot more ice breath at Kirito on the ground, but this time he dashed to the side and leaped again. Instead of the high-pitched combo, he pounded the beast with single, hammering blows. Each one tore large chunks off the monster’s HP bar.
It was moving past the yellow zone into red now. One or two more hits would finish the battle. I got to my feet, preparing to give Kirito the honest recognition he deserved.
Just as I took a step out from behind the crystal pillar, Kirito shouted, as though he had eyes in the back of his head.
“No, you idiot! Don’t come out yet!!”
“Why not? It’s all over. Just finish it—”
At that precise moment, the dragon beat its wings powerfully from above. They clapped together loudly in front of its body, sending the snow beneath the beast upward in a huge flurry.
“…?!”
A few yards in front of where I stood dumbfounded, Kirito stuck his sword into the ground and tried to say something. The next moment, he disappeared into the flurry and I was buffeted up into the air by a wall of wind.
Damn…a gale attack!
I belatedly remembered the attack pattern I’d just spoken aloud a minute ago as I spun through the air. Fortunately, the attack itself wasn’t that strong, and I suffered very little damage. I spread my arms to maintain balance as my landing approached.
Except that when the snow cleared, there was no ground below.
It had knocked me directly over the gaping hole in the top of the mountain.
My mind stopped working. My body froze.
“No way…” I mumbled as I fell, helplessly extending my hand into space—
—only to have a black leather glove firmly snag my fingers.
I opened my eyes, dazed and unfocused.
“…!!”
Kirito had torn himself away from the distant battle with the dragon, dashed back without a moment’s hesitation, and grabbed my hand in midair. I could feel him tug me up to his chest. His other arm circled around my back and drew me close.
“Hang on!!” he shouted into my ear, and I squeezed both arms around his torso. That was when we began to fall.
The two of us plunged straight down the center of the massive hole, holding each other tight. The wind screamed in my ears, the borrowed coat flapping around us.
If this hole extended all the way down to the lowest point of this floor of Aincrad, we would undoubtedly die. The thought did occur to me, but I couldn’t feel it. I just stared upward, dazed, at the shrinking circle of light above us.
Suddenly, Kirito moved his right hand, still clutching his sword. He drew it back, then thrust forward. With a metallic ga-shunk, light exploded around us.
He was changing the angle of our fall by unleashing a heavy thrust attack, driving us toward the wall of the pit. The sheer face of blue ice grew closer. I gritted my teeth. Here it comes!
Before we crashed into the wall, Kirito swung again, jabbing the sword as hard as he could into the ice. The collision set off sparks like a weapon being touched to a grindstone. With a jolt, our fall slowed but did not stop.
Kirito’s sword continued to grind into the ice wall with a screeching like the tearing of sheet metal. I craned my head to look down in the direction of our descent—there was the snow-piled bottom of the pit. It was visibly approaching. Seconds left before impact. I bit my lip to prevent myself from screaming and clung to his body.
He let go of the sword, wrapped both arms around me, and spun so that his back was facing downward. And then—
A shock. A blast.
The snow sent skyward by our landing drifted downward, melting as it hit my cheek. The chill pulled my reeling senses back. I opened my eyes—and there were Kirito’s, black and deep at close range.
One of his cheeks twitched into a pained grin. He still clung tightly to me.
“…We survived.”
I managed to nod. “Yeah…we survived.”
We just lay there for several long moments—it could have been minutes, for all I knew. I didn’t want to move. His weight and warmth made my head fuzzy.
But eventually he loosened his grip and slowly rose to a sitting position. He returned his sword to its scabbard, then produced two small bottles from the pouch on his waist and handed one to me.
“You should drink that, just in case.”
“Mm…”
I grunted and sat up, taking the bottle. I still had a third of my health remaining, but Kirito, having taken the brunt of the fall, was down in the red zone.
I pulled out the stopper and downed the sweetly sour liquid in one go before turning to Kirito. It was hard to find the right words to express myself.
“Um…th-thanks. For saving me…”
He gave me his usual wry, cynical smile.
“It’s a little early to be saying that.”
I looked upward.
“Well, we made it away from the dragon, at least, but how’re we gonna get out of this hole?”
“Uh…we teleport, of course.” I rummaged through my apron pockets for the blue crystal, then showed it to him. But…
“It’s pointless. This was obviously built to be a fall-trap for players. They’re not going to make it that easy for us to escape.”
“But…”
I shot him a determined glance, then chanted the command, crystal in hand.
“Teleport: Lindarth!”
My order echoed weakly off the icy walls. The crystal’s response was to sparkle silently. His expression unchanged, Kirito gave a helpless shrug.
“If I’d been sure the crystal would work, I’d have tried it while we were falling. I had a feeling this was an anti-crystal zone…”
“…”
I hung my head, then felt him plop a hand on it. He scrunched my hair vigorously.
“Look, don’t get depressed. The fact that the crystal won’t work is simply proof that there has to be a different way out.”
“But you don’t know that! It could be a trap designed so that the fall kills its victims. I mean, we should have died.”
“Oh…good point.”
I slumped my shoulders in exasperation.
“Oh, come on! You aren’t even going to try to cheer me up?!”
He grinned in response to my flared anger. “That angry face suits you better, Liz. Keep it up.”
“Wha—!”
He took his hand off my head and stood up, while I stiffened with anger and embarrassment.
“Well, guess it’s time to start testing stuff out…Any ideas?”
“…”
At this point I had no choice but to laugh off his lackadaisical attitude. But doing so did make me feel a bit better, so I smacked my cheeks and got to my feet.
A flat ice floor lightly coated with snow was the bottom of our hole. The diameter of the hole was around ten meters, about the same width as it was near the top. There was a pitiful amount of light trickling down from a great distance above, reflecting off the ice walls as it traveled down. Within minutes, it would be pitch black.
There didn’t seem to be anything like a passage out on either the walls or the floor. I put my hands on my hips and rolled my head around, desperately working my brain. I spoke the first idea that popped into my mind.
“Umm…what if we called for help?”
“Wouldn’t this count as a dungeon?” Kirito asked dismissively.
A player can send a “friend message” to anyone registered on their friends list—for example, I could send one to Asuna—but that function doesn’t work in dungeons. There’s
also no way to track location. I opened my messaging window just in case, but as Kirito suggested, it was inaccessible.
“What if we yelled for other players who went hunting the dragon?”
“We had to climb a good two hundred and fifty feet to get up here. I don’t think our voices will carry…”
“I see…well, where are your ideas, genius?” I snapped, frustrated that all of my suggestions were being shot down. The next thing out of his mouth was preposterous.
“We’ll run up the wall.”
“…Are you stupid?”
“We won’t know until we try…”
I watched, dumbfounded, as Kirito approached the wall, then took off at full speed toward the opposite side. The snow on the ground shot up in a flurry, his wind whipping into my face.
Just before he hit the wall, Kirito crouched, then exploded upward. He put his legs against the wall far above and started running on its surface, his body leaned forward at an incline.
“No…way…”
I stood stock-still, eyes and mouth agape, as Kirito ran around the walls of the hole in a spiral pattern, like a ninja in some bad American B-movie. He grew smaller and smaller—and then slipped and lost his footing, around a third of the way up the wall.
“Aaaahh!”
He came falling down directly over my head, his arms flapping uselessly.
“Whaaa—?!”
I leaped out of the way, and with a smack, there was suddenly a human-shaped hole in the snow where I’d just been standing.
Precisely one minute later: Kirito was slumped against the wall, his second potion stuck in his mouth. I sighed.
“You know, I always thought you were stupid, but this…?”
“I would have made it if I had a longer approach.”
“No freakin’ way,” I muttered.
Kirito tossed his empty bottle back into his pouch, ignoring my barb and stretching.
“Well, at any rate, it’s too dark to try anything now. We’ll have to camp out. The one bright spot is that it doesn’t look like any monsters pop into this area.”
The dying light of the sun was long gone now, and the bottom of the hole was nearly entirely shrouded in darkness.
“Good point…”
“And on that note.…” Kirito popped open his menu and started pulling items out of it. A large camping lantern. A cooking pot. Several mysterious bags. Two mugs.
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