“Don’t try to act like I did all of that on my own.”
“Look, I’m just saying, like eighty percent of the damage was from your—”
An irregular sound came from the forest ahead, and I stopped in place, holding out my arm. Asuna took a fighting stance and focused.
Little rustling sounds grew louder and louder, a few seconds later, a silhouette appeared out of the drifting mist, low and long. It was not human, but insectoid…no, a mammal. There were five types of animal-based creatures in this forest, but only one of them looked like that.
I reached back for my Anneal Blade +8 and gave a brief explanation.
“That’s a wolf. It doesn’t have any annoying special attacks, but it’ll howl to draw more of its kind when it loses half its HP. Once the gauge goes yellow, use sword skills to finish it off quick.”
“Got it,” she responded. I drew my blade. The shape beyond the mist suddenly charged, as though drawn by that metal rasp. The brilliant yellow mane from head to back and long, slender snout marked it as the foe I remembered struggling against in the beta: a Roaring Wolf.
I was the wolf’s target, so Asuna backed out of range. The beast tensed up and pounced in midcharge. This leap attack came down nearly vertical, and if the player tried to simply guard against the wolf’s six-foot-long body, they’d almost certainly get knocked back, if not into a Tumble status followed by the beast’s fangs closing in. The better choices were to dodge out of the way or fight back with a sword skill, but antiair skills that moved from low to high were an acute weakness of the One-Handed Sword category. The best angle I had currently was the second blow of Vertical Arc, but it was extremely hard to place accurately, given that the first swing would miss.
I lowered my blade and crouched slightly. Watching the wolf’s descent closely, I waited for the right moment, then leaped with all of my strength. My right leg took on a glowing effect, and my body rocketed off with an unseen force. The vertical kick as part of a backflip—the martial arts skill Crescent Moon—caught the Roaring Wolf right in the throat, and it flew back upward with a yelp.
The martial arts skill I’d learned with great pain—in more ways than one—from the bearded master on the second floor was an incredibly useful tool to have. Unfortunately, it did not add its own power to the player’s limbs, so its damage couldn’t match that of my sword. Despite the well-placed blow being classified as a counter, the wolf still had about 80 percent of its health left.
I wasn’t sure if I had time to follow up with a sword strike before the wolf regained its balance, but I wanted to get in more damage before I handed the fight over. But before either the wolf or I had landed, I heard a voice shout, “Switch!”
The fencer flew into the fray from the right, cape streaming behind her. She held her Chivalric Rapier to her right side as she ran, starting the motion for the two-hit combo Parallel Sting. I was a bit worried that she might not be used to the different weight of the new weapon, but soon I saw that silver shooting-star light again, and a thrust faster than my eye could follow caught the falling wolf.
With a heavy, satisfying slam, the Roaring Wolf shot away, spinning helplessly in midair, and smashed into a distant tree. The wolf’s HP bar dropped precipitously, from 70 to 60—and down into the yellow zone.
“…Oops,” I muttered. Rapier still held out in front of her, Asuna said, “Uh-oh.”
We immediately raced forward, but the wolf was already getting to its feet and let out a long howl from its lengthy throat. Soon, more howls responded from elsewhere in the forest.
Asuna stopped and glanced at me, then shrugged and pleaded, “Well, I didn’t know two hits were going to do so much damage.”
It took nearly ten minutes to take care of the pack of wolves that gathered. It was always dangerous to get in a drawn-out battle with monsters who could summon allies, but we were close enough to the camp that we could retreat if necessary. At least then, the worst we’d suffer was Kizmel’s disappointment.
We sighed with relief and returned our swords to their sheaths once the fifth and final wolf was dead before it could call yet more allies.
The Anneal Blade +8 performed even better than I expected, but the true stunner was the Chivalric Rapier +5. Fencers lived and died by the number of strikes they could inflict, and each of Asuna’s thrusts was as heavy as a two-handed spear. And there were still ten potential upgrades left. I shuddered to think at what it could do if fully upgraded.
The fencer herself strode through the dapple shade of the trees, oblivious to my astonishment. She was probably more concerned with the rapier’s feel and balance than its numerical stats. She wanted that feeling of trust, the reassurance that she could keep fighting to her heart’s content with that sword.
No doubt, feeling was crucial. In the days of games on a monitor before the NerveGear came along, the way a gamer’s mouse and keyboard felt and responded was of the utmost importance. I knew more than a few players who stockpiled multiple units of their favorite devices, just in case the manufacturer stopped selling them.
But I couldn’t help but feel that prioritizing gut feeling over numerical logic in this VRMMO was living dangerously. Ironically, the only “proof” I had to back my suspicion was another gut feeling, but it was undeniable.
“Wait,” Asuna suddenly muttered, and I nearly walked directly into her. I paused in my awkward, unnatural pose, scanning the surroundings. I’d been deep in thought, but not carelessly so. I didn’t sense any monsters around, either visually or audibly.
No, wait…
There was a high-pitched metal clang somewhere far off. It happened again, then again. The sound was not in a rhythm, but it kept happening.
“Sword combat?” Asuna wondered, turning to me. I nodded. This was Sword Art Online—the sounds of battle were not uncommon.
The problem was that the Forest of Wavering Mists did not feature weapon-swinging enemies like the kobold and tauruses of the floors below. The only possibilities were dark and forest elves fighting, elves against players…or worst of all, PvP—players versus players.
I wanted to believe it was not the last option. It was hard to imagine people setting up a proper duel out in this dangerous area, and if it wasn’t a duel, it had to be…
I forced myself not to think about that.
“Let’s go check it out, just in case.”
Asuna looked unsure for a moment, then said, “All right.”
The audible range of a battle depended on terrain, weather, and the status of those listening, but in any case, it was not particularly wide. We stayed low, following the source of the sounds for several minutes, then noticed flashes of light amid a grove of trees ahead—the sign of sword skills in action.
A few yards ahead, we put our backs against the trunk of a particularly old and large tree, then peered around either side.
The first thing I noticed was a semicircle of five players with their backs toward us. They wore matching blue doublets with silver highlights, the unmistakable sign of Lind’s Dragon Knights. The blue-haired man in the center with his long hair pulled into a ponytail had to be Lind himself. He raised his curved Pale Edge high, timing his orders. But the sounds of battle were coming from beyond the waiting group of five.
I leaned out farther, curious as to who or what was fighting, so that I could see beyond the group.
The first thing I noticed was a whirling green cape, platinum blond hair, and long ears. That was not a player, but a forest elf knight—exactly identical to the Forest Elven Hallowed Knight that Asuna and I fought the night before. The snow-white elf had his back to Lind’s group as he struggled in violent battle with someone else. His back was completely exposed, but none of the five made any move to strike. Which meant…
“Are they in the middle of the ‘Jade Key’ quest?” Asuna wondered, her back to mine.
“I think so…And they probably took the forest elf’s side. Which would mean the elf is fighting…”
Suddenly
I felt a tremble jolt through my back from Asuna. She must have come to my conclusion. On the other side of the Dragon Knights and the elite forest elf would be another dark-skinned, purple-haired Dark Elven Royal Guard…In other words, a second Kizmel.
It was possible. In fact, it was inevitable. Anyone could take on this campaign quest, which meant that the battle between forest and dark elf had to be occurring at every moment somewhere. It was extremely strange to think of many Kizmels existing at once, but we had no right to demand that every other player in the game avoid the quest. All we could do was watch as the two elves fought to their mutual deaths…
But that wasn’t true. I knew from experience that it was possible to avoid a double KO, to ensure that the champion selected would survive.
And I learned that fact because I was working with Asuna yesterday. If it had been just me alone, I would have been trapped by my beta knowledge, focused solely on defending myself rather than defeating the forest elf. But Asuna took everything dead seriously, using all of her power to challenge an elite foe far stronger than herself, and won. Of course, Kizmel did most of the damage, and I fought very hard myself, but that outcome would not have transpired without Asuna’s presence.
With that in mind, it was clear that Lind’s blue team knew what they were doing with this quest. Either Argo had already released the first volume of her third-floor strategy guide just a day in, or they learned about the quest through other means. At any rate, the fact that they were sitting back rather than taking part in the fight meant that they knew what would happen, and were waiting for the enemy elf to unleash a major attack, prompting the friendly elf to perform the self-sacrifice to win the fight.
What should we do? I bit my lip in frustration.
Should I leap into the fray, advising Lind that if they did their best to defeat the enemy elf, the survivor would be a powerful companion in the campaign? But Lind was nearly as suspicious of me as Kibaou—would he really listen?
The other factor was that if we did that, Asuna and I would be assisting in the murder of a second Kizmel.
It would be shameless sentimentality, of course. We sided with Kizmel on nothing more than a whim and callously slaughtered the forest elf. There was no right or wrong between the elven races. If we’d chosen, for whatever reason, to help the forest elf, we’d have killed Kizmel, spent the night at the forest elf base, and forged a pact of friendship with him instead. And just moments before, I’d been scolding myself about the dangers of prioritizing sentiment over logic.
…But.
I bit my lip even harder. A hoarse voice sounded in my ear.
“Sorry…this is your call, Kirito.”
Deep internal conflict was evident in Asuna’s words, as few as they were. She was grappling with the contradiction, just as I was.
Damn these quests, I muttered to myself.
I’d just discussed the inherent contradictions and dilemmas of MMORPG quests with Asuna the last night. There could never be just one hero in a world with thousands of players logged in at once. Everyone had the right to experience the story as the protagonist. Even now, with the stakes turned deadly—especially now.
But sometimes, different players following different stories would intersect. We should not have come so close to contact with Kibaou in the cave this morning, or Lind in the forest right now. If that happened, the story lost its consistency. It was no longer unique.
The ideal way to handle this was to spirit away every player or party into its own instance the moment a quest began, isolated from contact with anyone else. But it was also impossible to generate dozens, if not hundreds, of maps and dungeons at the same time. It was surprising enough to me that the elf base was an instance. Plus, too many instances removed the entire point of an MMO. How could you share a world where no one was connected?
As I gritted my teeth, the battle between the elven knights rose in intensity. Based on the state of their HP gauges, if I wanted to convince Lind, there was no time left to make up my mind.
But in fact, this was not the time for hesitation in the first place. Preserving the integrity of the story was not what mattered here—it was escaping SAO. I ought to do everything I could to increase that possibility.
“Let’s go,” I murmured, and I felt Asuna agree.
Suddenly, the positions of the fiercely clashing elven knights switched ninety degrees, and I saw the dark elf who had been blocked by a green cape until this moment.
The black-and-purple armor, long saber and small kite shield, dark skin and pale purple hair were exactly the same as Kizmel’s. But that was all.
“Huh?!” Asuna exclaimed. My eyes were wide with shock.
The dark elf knight, hair slicked back, was just as tall as the opposing forest elf. The arms were bulging and muscular, and the face was beautiful and proud—and masculine.
As I watched in astonishment, the dark elf knight leaped forward powerfully, evading the forest elf’s longsword and swiping upward to catch him with a solid blow. The blond knight was knocked back several feet, grunted, and collapsed.
Rather than chase down his opponent, the dark elf glared menacingly at Lind’s group. His saber took on a purple glow. Lind lowered his scimitar and raised his shield.
“All members, defend!”
His four companions raised their shields or large weapons in defensive stances. We’d lost our chance to intercept the encounter. If we darted out of the trees, Lind’s group would panic, and possibly lose their defensive positions.
The dark elf let off a sword skill directly at the tightly clustered defenders. He slid forward to close the gap and slashed faster than the eye could follow with his saber, left to right. With each collision of purple light and shield, a roar and sparks burst forth—but none of them fell.
I thought they’d successfully held strong, but the elf wasn’t done. Spinning like a top, he unleashed another sideswipe, then again. These three attacks together were a high-level saber sword skill called Treble Scythe.
The second blow knocked down the team’s defensive wall, and the third sent them all sprawling. They landed with an enormous clatter about six or seven yards away from where Asuna and I watched, behind the grove. All five of their HP bars plunged into the yellow.
I knew what would happen next, and presumably, so did the team. But my pulse raced out of my control, virtual sweat forming on my palms. I could feel a tension just short of outright panic from the five players looking up at the approaching dark elf.
Asuna took a step forward, and I hastily reached out to grab her hood.
The dark elf spoke in a voice as sharp as steel. “If you’d followed my warning and left, this would not have happened. Foolish humans…accept the punishment for your actions.”
It was the exact same line I’d heard in the “Jade Key” quest during the beta. The dark elf held his saber with both hands overhead, pointing straight for Lind. Lind raised his shield out of impulse, but it would not stop the coming blow.
The elf’s weapon began to glow, accompanied by a keening vibration.
“I am your foe, Knight of Lyusula!” bellowed the forest elf, who was back on his feet and charging. He struck with astonishing speed, longsword glowing green. The dark elf was unable to evade in time. He caught the strike with his saber, and the resulting shock wave sent Lind’s group sprawling to the ground again. Even the tree trunk we hid behind trembled with the force of the collision.
The two elves were locked in a stalemate, their blades grinding. But the forest elf, whose HP bar was in the red, slowly began to give. When the saber was pushed right in front of his eyes, the forest elf cried out.
“Holy Tree of Kales’Oh! Grant me the final sacrament!”
A brilliant, yellow-green shine erupted from the forest elf’s chest. When it had spread to cover his entire body, it shot out rapidly to engulf the surrounding area. It did not look like an attack, but the dark elf’s HP bar quickly drained to nothing, and the forest elf’s emptied with it. S
till locked in combat, their swords joined in a standstill, the two fighters slowly collapsed.
Every detail was as I remembered it. I had witnessed this scene three times in the beta—once for my own quest, twice while helping a party member. Whether on the dark or forest elf side, the event and dialogue were all the same.
At the time, I hadn’t given it much thought, other than that it was a common development, but this time, it felt as though I’d been stabbed through the chest. I could only take short, gasping breaths, and I clutched the end of Asuna’s cape.
Before he perished into motes of light with the dark elf, the forest elf imparted his final message to the Dragon Knights. Only a small leather pouch was left behind on the grass, which Lind reached out to pick up.
A greatsword-wielding man named Hafner, who was something like the second-in-command of the group, plopped down onto the grass and exclaimed, “Whew! Man, that was scary!”
I could vividly recall him swearing at Nezha for using the money from his sword to buy himself a feast when the blacksmith had admitted his crimes after the second-floor boss battle. It seemed like he’d been repaid with a weapon of similar level. Shivata, another of the scam victims, was present in the group as well. I didn’t know the names of the other two, but I recognized one of them.
The man on the right, holding a blunt flail on a chain, smacked Hafner’s shoulder bracingly.
“You’re just fine, Haf. That was an auto-defeat event.”
“Whatever. You looked pretty scared to me, too, Naga.”
“Can you blame me? That elf’s cursor went past red into black. I’ve never seen one that high.”
“Yeah. That was insane.”
Based on their conversation, neither seemed to be beta testers. Nor were Lind and Shivata, who were speaking a short ways off. I snuck a peek at the fifth member.
He was a thin man wielding an Anneal Blade like mine. He wore a chain coif that hung low on his head, so I couldn’t see higher than his mouth, but I didn’t think he was present for the second boss battle. I was pretty sure I’d never seen him before, but there was something eerily familiar about his manner.
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