Now!
I jumped up and assumed a sword skill premotion.
Morte’s ax momentum was still to the right. If he attempted another horizontal swipe, my skill would fire off first…
But wait. Morte had overturned things I took for granted, again and again. Perhaps my assumption that the heavy swings of an ax weren’t meant for ultra-tight range fell into that pattern, too.
I held my sword back from its position over my left shoulder. At the same moment, Morte’s eyes gleamed from the shadows over his face.
“Shaiiii!”
With a scream, his ax flew directly for my face. But not blade-first. It was a square-based spike, embedded in the pommel of the ax. The vicious backhand thrust came much faster than the horizontal swing had.
“Hnng!!”
I gritted my teeth and pulled my head back desperately. The spike grazed my forehead and trailed to the left. Beyond the crimson light trailed by that attack, I fixed my sight on Morte’s defenseless body.
By pulling my sword just an inch farther over my left shoulder, the system recognized the initiation of a skill, and the blade kicked into a high-pitched whine, glowing silver.
“…Raaaah!”
The Anneal Blade came down nearly vertical, hitting Morte on his right breast. The blade instantly shot back into a high position and sliced vertically again, this time catching him deep on the left. Then it leaped once again, and—deeper and heavier than before—buried itself in the dead center of his chest with a satisfying wham! It was a three-part sword skill I’d just learned two days before: Sharp Nail.
Three vertical slashes glowed red in Morte’s chest, like the claw marks of some gigantic beast. Just as when I’d been hit by his Double Cleave, his body shot through the air to land on the surface of the water, back first.
The HP bar over his head rapidly fell, only to halt just a tick above 50 percent.
I knew that if I chased him down and just grazed him with the tip of my sword, I’d win the duel, but I couldn’t move from my current position. I’d concentrated so hard on this attack that my brain buzzed with a high-pitched whine, and my heart raced in my chest.
Even Morte lay prone in the water for a good three seconds, but he quickly jumped to his feet with an enormous splash and inspected his body.
The three damage marks silently spit out little red blobs of light. Within moments, the spots disappeared, and he looked up at me, thirty feet away. His mouth twisted, and I caught a glimpse of gnashing teeth before the familiar leer returned.
“…Well, well, well, I can see why everyone says you’re the best. When you knocked my shield off, was that the martial arts skill people talked about in the beta?”
“…Good question,” I replied, straight-faced. I didn’t want to give him any extra information. Morte’s grin widened, and he spun the ax in his fingers again.
“By the way, if I asked where to learn that skill, would you actually tell me?”
“…”
I was tempted to tell him the location of the bearded master hidden in the mountains of the second floor, just to see if he would go and get the facial markings that didn’t disappear until the quest was completed, but thought better of it.
“As long as you tell me who you practiced dueling with.”
Morte’s grin turned sour.
Unlike martial arts, the ways of the duel couldn’t be taught by an NPC. For Morte to have gained this much knowledge and experience with dueling, he had to have conducted an astonishing number of duels with another player since the opening of the retail version of SAO. And if I had to guess, that player probably shared the same scheme as Morte, who was splitting time between both the DKB and ALS.
“Why, of course I’d love to tell you,” he said, wriggling like a snake in the midst of the river, “but the truth is, I practice on the creatures of the forest. I only know the basics, see.”
“Seemed like Lind really took a shine to you.”
I decided not to mention Kibaou’s name as well. The ends of Morte’s mouth curled upward, and he whispered, “That’s not entirely true, but I do like him quite a bit…Anywho, we’ve only got a hot minute left in our duel. What’s the plan, boss? Shall we wrap this one up?”
“I think so. Our HP are about even, anyway,” I growled.
I mentioned remaining HP as a means to remind him that he wasn’t the only one who could attempt a PK through the duel, though it was a bluff, of course. Morte probably did mean to murder me, but I didn’t have the conviction to kill another player, knowing it would be fatal, even against someone who intended me harm.
As if seeing right through my bluff, the ax wielder shook his head, rattling the hanging chains on his headgear, and grinned even wider.
“Very good, very good. I really admire that about you, Kirito. Besides, it’s not a true fight until you go best of three. So here goes the tiebreaker!”
He spun his Harsh Hatchet around a few times and held it at a diagonal, still standing in eight inches of water. Was he calling my bluff or continuing the fight even with the threat of death over his head? In either case, there was no turning back. I lifted my Anneal Blade up again and into my customary mid-level stance.
Directly top and center in my view was the duel countdown, which read forty seconds left. As far as I could tell, our HP bars were at equal amounts. If time ran out, the victory would go to whoever had more HP left, but it rounded to increments of 5 percent, so that would probably result in a draw. Morte certainly wouldn’t like that outcome—he was going to come after me at some point in the next forty seconds.
I wrung the last of my exhausted concentration out to focus on Morte. Now that I had played my martial arts hand, there was nothing left up my sleeve, but I had no idea if the same was true of him. Would he dart in at once or inch closer bit by bit?
In the next instant, Morte betrayed my expectations once again.
He leaned backward and held his ax high in the air. The crude blade took on a turquoise glow—a sword skill. But we were over thirty feet apart. Even Sonic Leap, the longest-range skill I was aware of, could not close that gap. Was there some ultra-long leaping attack available to the one-handed ax that I didn’t know about?
I could dodge, defend, or move forward. For half a second, I couldn’t decide—a half second that could have resulted in the loss of my life.
But the duel was ended in the most surprising of ways.
Just as he was about to activate his sword skill, Morte’s head spun to the left, as though drawn by a sudden noise. He lowered the ax, automatically disengaging the skill, and the turquoise glow dissipated into the air off the blade.
“…”
I stood still, sword at the ready, while Morte held his hand up and waved it around.
“Well, dreadfully sorry, but it looks like I’m a bit out of time prematurely.”
“…We still have thirty seconds left.”
“Actually, you’d be surprised how long thirty seconds can be. I mean, if you counted one for every second, it would take you thirty seconds to finish, ah-ha-haaa,” he blathered, then crouched and plunged a hand into the water at his feet. When it emerged, it was holding the Anneal Blade he’d abandoned near the start of the duel. He calmly straightened up and returned the sword to its sheath, as if he had known it would be in that precise spot in the water. Next he walked a few yards upstream and picked up the round shield where it lay at the waterside.
“Well, I’ve got to be off. That was fun; we should definitely try it again sometime.”
As he walked away, I managed to find my voice. “I assume that if we draw, you’ll let me do the quest at the camp.”
Morte lifted his left hand without turning back and said, “Be my guest. You might find it a bit difficult, however. Ah-ha-ha-ha-haaa.”
The duel counter hit zero, and Morte’s retreating form was blocked by a large purple window announcing the results. As I expected, it was a draw. By the time the window vanished, the ax warrior was gon
e.
After a few more moments with my sword raised, I finally stretched and relaxed. My first step was to pull a recovery potion from my waistpouch, pop the cork, and drink it down. Its flavor, like acerola cherry juice spiked with tea, was not something I particularly savored, but that was a small price to pay for being able to recover full HP from a single bottle.
Next, I trained my ears but heard only the burbling of the river, the rustling of the trees, chirping insects, and a far-off wolf howl. There was nothing out of place that might have suggested why Morte called the duel off.
And what did he mean that completing the quest would be “a bit difficult”? Was he pretending to leave the duel only to sabotage my quest attempt after all? And why was Morte so insistent on keeping me away from the forest elf camp, going to the trouble of hiding and challenging me to a duel?
Now that it had ended in a tie, I couldn’t get the answers to his plot out of him. On the other hand, at least I hadn’t been killed. Ultimately, I couldn’t decide what he was after. The result was a draw, but a fair observer probably had to admit that I’d lost.
“…I need to work harder,” I muttered, putting my sword in the sheath over my back. But the truth was, I felt a resistance to training for PvP duels. As I’d learned today, even the half-finish setting could have fatal consequences. Whether it was legal or not, now that our lives were our lives, being experienced in PvP simply meant being skilled at murdering…
I shook my head and let out the breath I’d been holding in my lungs, sucking in the fresh night air. I could decide what to do about Morte’s apparent duplicity with the DKB and ALS once I returned to the dark elf base and talked with Asuna. I couldn’t completely rule out the possibility that he might simply be helping both groups out of a feeling of duty—yet.
With one last glance upstream in the direction Morte left, I spun the other way. A tall cliff loomed on the right side downstream, on top of which could be seen the flickering campfires of the elves.
Absent any unexpected intrusions, it wasn’t a very hard quest. I just had to climb the cliff, sneak into the leader’s tent, grab the orders off the table, then descend the cliff.
Wary of any followers behind me, I approached the cliff again. The slope at my side grew taller and taller as I neared, until it eclipsed my own height, when suddenly—
“Who are all of you?!” a voice bellowed, and I froze in alarm.
Did one of the night guards spot me? Even when I’m dozens of yards from the camp?
I instinctively leaped to my right to hide against the bottom of the cliff. I looked around wildly but didn’t see any red enemy cursors.
Next, I realized that the voice had come from quite a long way away. Besides, I was alone—why would he say “all of you”? So…what did it mean?
I slowly rose, popping my head just a bit over the lip of the rising cliffside and staring at the foot of the circular hill.
On the opposite end of where I was hiding, at the entrance of the path that wound up the hill from the south, I noticed a number of silhouettes. There was a series of shouts that I couldn’t make out. It seemed like two groups of five or six were facing off.
It was probably teams of dark elves and forest elves—perhaps another battle event, like the one that started the “Jade Key” quest. But as far as I knew, the “Infiltration” quest didn’t involve anything of the sort.
Curious, I stared harder at the grouped figures. My Search skill kicked in and brought the distant sight into sharper detail, as well as summoning a number of color cursors, barely thicker than tiny strings.
A groan left my throat when I recognized the color of the cursors.
“Wha…?”
They were all green.
Both groups were players.
8
THE LARGE FOREST ELF CAMP AT THE TOP OF THE HILL was not an instanced map generated only for players in the middle of a quest, so it was perfectly plausible for multiple parties to find themselves there at the same time. In addition to that, it was also possible for them to get into a fight over who was allowed to finish their quest first.
But with only a few dozen players this far ahead in the game, the odds of that happening were slim, and as far as I knew, Asuna and I and the DKB were the only people following the Elf War questline at the moment. Was this some kind of internal squabble in the DKB?
I didn’t want to get any closer, but even in the few seconds I watched, the two groups were getting visibly heated. If they raised any more noise, the elf warriors atop the hill would notice and be on alert. Reluctantly, I climbed over the lip of the cliff, feeling it necessary to get a better idea of what was happening.
I was at the western edge of the hill, a semicircle protruding to the south. The dozen or so players were congregated at the southern end. There were only a few bushes at best for cover in the straight line between us, so I couldn’t approach directly. My best bet was to head into the forest surrounding the hill and swing to the southeast, avoiding the gnarled roots and shrubs along the way.
Thanks to my recent life in the forest, I managed to circle around to my destination in less than a minute without tripping over any roots. The massive trees at the lip of the hill were ideal for hiding, so I hugged the back of a particularly thick trunk and activated my Hiding skill before peering around.
A small path ran east and west at the foot of the hill, and branched north to climb toward the camp. At that T-intersection—actually an upside-down T from my perspective—the two groups glared at each other. There were six on the east side, while on the west side there were over ten. If this was DKB infighting, this had to represent about the entire guild.
Based on what I could see by the dim moonlight, they hadn’t drawn their swords yet. But some of the members did have hands on the hilts of their weapons, and there was raw anger in the open air. The furious shouts and insults from before had stopped, but the mood seemed even more tense because of it.
One of the players from the east side of the intersection stepped forward. His long hair was tied behind his head, and a slender scimitar was strapped to his waist—this was clearly Lind, leader of the Dragon Knights Brigade. I could only see his silhouette from my position, but it seemed like the angular outline of his face was even more tense than usual.
Lind stared at the opposing party and spoke quietly. “There’s no use continuing to argue about this. We reached this point first. As the rules state, we have the right to proceed with this quest before you.”
It felt like a very stuffy, formal statement for an internal argument. And sure enough, another man leaped out from the other group, jabbing an accusatory finger at Lind.
“First? Ya only beat us by a couple seconds at best!”
—!!
I nearly gasped in astonishment but closed my mouth just in time.
That morningstar-like spiked hair, longsword on his back, and aggressive Kansai dialect. It could be none other than Kibaou, leader of the Aincrad Liberation Squad.
Which meant the dozen or so players across from Lind’s half dozen were the ALS. But why were they here?
Kibaou’s next outraged bellow halfway answered that question.
“And whaddaya mean, rules? If you made ’em up yourself, we don’t gotta play along! We’ve got ta beat this assault quest, too, no matter what it takes!”
Beat this assault quest.
The words were loud and clear. So the ALS were on the Elf War campaign, too—and on the dark elf side, to boot. But during the field boss battle that day—well, the day before—the ALS members had seemed disinterested in the campaign when I’d asked around about it.
That left two possibilities. Either all members of the guild were ordered to keep quiet about it, or they’d started the campaign yesterday afternoon and reached the sixth chapter already in just twelve hours.
I couldn’t believe the latter. The “Jade Key” quest was over in the span of a single battle, but “Vanquishing the Spiders,” “The Flower Offering,�
� “Emergency Orders,” and “The Missing Soldier” couldn’t all be completed in half a day without the presence of someone who truly knew what they were doing…perhaps a former beta tester taking the lead…
Which they had.
Yes, the ALS had a member who fit that profile, too.
Morte, the coif-wearing man, who’d traded blows with me just minutes before, a little ways down the river. He’d hidden his face and switched his weapons in order to slip into both guilds. If he was the guide for the DKB, nothing said he couldn’t do the same for the ALS.
So had Kibaou beseeched Morte for assistance in order to blaze through all the quests in the campaign up to this point? But he was steadfast in his stance not to associate with former testers. Why would he ignore that philosophy so suddenly?
Confused, I watched the two leaders face off. Now it was Lind’s turn to lose his cool.
“Whether it’s quests or hunting grounds, first come, first served is the obvious way of things! If you’re going to be the leader of a guild, you’ve got to follow your good conscience, Kibaou!”
At this haughty, sweeping statement by Lind’s standards, Kibaou flashed his canines in a snarl.
“Conscience? You’re gonna talk ta me about conscience, Lind?” He crossed his thick arms and leaned back, staring up at Lind’s face with menace in his eyes. “Well, I got a bone to pick about that. Ever since we got here, you been hidin’ the fact that this elf quest is crucial ta beatin’ the floor boss!”
Wha—?!
I clamped my mouth shut before the startled exclamation could burst out of it and into the virtual night air.
Certainly, proceeding through the campaign carried its own rewards, such as money, experience, and loot, but it certainly wasn’t necessary to beat the boss. The chamber door in the labyrinth tower would open whether the quest was active or not, the boss was available to fight, and if defeated, the way to the fourth floor was open. At least, that’s how it was in the beta…but it was also that way on the first two floors in the retail game. And even if it had been changed for the third floor, nobody here could possibly know that for a fact yet.
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