Did Morte…not want to escape this digital prison?
Could anyone really think that way?
“Say something!” came the high-pitched screech again. I raised my head. The man Kibaou had called Joe was shouting, his eyes blazing through the holes in the mask. “Where is she? I bet she’s rushing ahead, finishing all the quests before anyone else! And if not, bring her out here to prove it!”
It was not me who answered that challenge, or Kibaou, or Lind.
A voice, quiet but strong willed, carried through the night air of the forest from the back of the group.
“If it’s me you want, I’m right here.”
Later—much, much later—Asuna told me, “If someone had drawn their sword, I might have gone orange,” with a grin on her face.
Fortunately, it did not rain blood, but there was a fresh, different kind of tension that gripped the scene.
Both guilds were quite shocked, of course. But that was nothing compared to me. For an instant, I thought I had to be imagining that voice.
I stood dumbfounded on the path halfway up the hill, staring at the wall of players ahead. Eventually, the ALS members moved right, and the DKB members moved left, as though pushed by some invisible force.
The open path split east and west at the foot of the hill, and there was thick forest beyond that. Right across from the T-intersection was a particularly wide and ancient tree that dwarfed the others. From around the rear of that tree, whose trunk I had just been hiding behind as I spied on the group only minutes ago, a single figure emerged.
A red hooded cape tinged with gray. A dark crimson tunic and leather skirt. And at her waist, a silver rapier that glinted and shone bright, even in the dim light of the moon.
If she was hiding behind that same tree, then she couldn’t have been there all along, but only during the ten minutes I snuck around into the camp, I speculated, to little benefit or point.
Lind and Kibaou joined the others in stepping back. With the path entirely clear, the intruder coolly stepped forward. Underneath her rippling hood, the light brown eyes were firm and resolute. There was no way to read the emotions within.
Asuna the fencer, sole woman of the frontline population and my current partner, stopped at my right side and spun around theatrically, then spoke to the crowd, her voice crisp and clear.
“As his partner, I too will be heading for the labyrinth. Once there, we will be looking for the boss chamber. As I recall, whoever finds it first gets to be raid leader.”
At that, both Lind and Kibaou went pale, and the other sixteen stirred and muttered. In a way, her statement was even more grandiose than mine, but no one stepped up with accusations this time, partly because of the surprise of her sudden entrance, and partly because of the sheer presence of that glittering Chivalric Rapier on her belt. The knight’s sword, far better than even my Anneal Blade +8, unleashed a ghostly pressure in the bluish light of the moon.
This reminded me that I was planning to inform the group that the elf base camps were capable of forging weapons just as good during the meeting four days ago, but didn’t get the chance after Lind’s demand that we join guilds separately. Of course, if I had done that, all the guild forces would have immediately set upon the campaign quest, and this exact scene might have played out the same way, only with twice the people involved.
Just as I started to distract myself by planning to study the strange, unfriendly blacksmith more before revealing my findings to the group, it happened.
“I…I know the truth!! In the first and second floors, they didn’t bother to help map the tower, they just went around opening all the leftover chests! There’s no way that going from one to two will make a difference in getting them to the boss room!!”
Again, the screech belonged to Joe from the ALS. Now that the group had shifted right, I could see his entire form. Hanging from his skinny waist was a sharply curved dagger. I recognized it as a Numb Dagger, a rare drop from the minotaurs of the second-floor labyrinth that had an occasional chance to stun upon hitting an enemy.
Now that I knew him as a dagger user, the memory came back to me. Joe was the one who claimed that Nezha’s upgrade scam had caused someone to die…as well as the one who accused me of being a former beta tester back on the first floor. Sadly, I couldn’t put his face to memory because of the mask, but based on his open antagonism, that was a name I needed to know. I felt slightly ashamed that it had taken me this long.
My worst habit and weakness was my tendency not to look at others’ faces or bother to remember their names. Someday that was going to put me in danger. I focused on skinny, short Joe, burning his image into my mind.
Once I was certain that I would remember him the next time I saw him, I finally opened my mouth to speak for the first time in two minutes.
“If you think we can’t reach the boss chamber on our own, Joe, then why don’t you just let us go? We’re going to the labyrinth, just as we announced.”
“I am gonna let you go! C’mon, Kiba, let’s stop wasting time and move on to the next—”
The obnoxious shriek was cut off by a stern glare from his guild leader.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Joe. Shut yer damn mouth,” Kibaou growled, then turned to me and Asuna. He scratched at his cactus hair and grumbled, “I jus’ don’t know what’s what anymore. You really think you can handle the boss without the campaign quest rewards? If there’s any chance at all that we need ’em to tackle the boss, it ain’t too late to wait and find out.”
“You have a point,” I agreed and stared appraisingly at each leader in turn. “But if testing out the reward loot is truly your aim, then either the DKB or ALS should abandon the quest. If you attempt to complete the dark elf and forest elf factions at the same time, you will clash again, like tonight. If you can discuss the matter and determine which of the two will step down, I’m willing to wait until we’ve done our homework.”
Once again, the two guild leaders and their cohorts went pale. Joe was obliviously ready to screech another accusation, but the greatsword user next to him yanked on his arm to shut him up.
In truth, I wanted to announce that one man had successfully convinced both guilds to start on the campaign, but alas, I had no proof that the swordsman Morte who had just joined the DKB was the same person as the ax warrior I saw among Kibaou’s party in the cave. If I made accusations on uncertain evidence, it would only complicate the situation.
I watched the two leaders closely, hiding my desperate prayer behind a carefully crafted sour expression. If Morte’s aim was to pit the guilds against each other, then I needed to prevent the group of clearers from breaking apart. It wasn’t out of some great desire for justice—I just knew that Morte was my sworn enemy. This was a continuation of our duel, playing out on a very different battleground.
Kibaou and Lind shared a look for about two seconds, then snorted simultaneously. The ALS leader looked away in a huff, and the DKB boss turned to me and shook his head.
“I’m afraid that will be impossible, Kirito. Perhaps if we were just starting, but we’ve both reached the sixth chapter of the questline. We would be losing out on too much to stop now.”
I resisted the urge to drop my shoulders in disappointment and nodded with the same stoic look on my face. “I see. Then while you are butting heads, we will be racing through the labyrinth.”
“It is a shame, but I have to assume you are bluffing. The game’s labyrinths are not so easy that a party of two can reach the boss—even if they happen to be you two. I realize this is not the best timing to ask, but have you considered giving up on your stubborn refusal yet? Perhaps the time is right to stop insisting on your solo play and join a guild. As I stated the other day, however, you cannot both join the same guild, in the interest of balance.”
You’re going to bring that up now? Seriously?
I went pale—separate guilds was just the magic phrase that would set Asuna off. As I feared, the moment he said that, the silen
t fencer took a menacing step forward. But what she said took me by surprise.
“It’s not just the two of us.”
Before I even had time to wonder, the space just left of me, dyed in the pale blue moonlight, silently split open.
I’d seen this phenomenon, of the space turning inside out, four nights earlier in the forest outside of Zumfut. Well, technically, I only heard the rustling of the cape from behind me, but it was clearly the same ability at work.
Only one person could successfully hide in full moonlight, in the middle of an empty field, with the watchful eyes of nearly twenty players, for several minutes, without being spotted.
The cloak with the invisibility charm parted left and right, and a sheer, shiny head of pale purple hair like fine silk caught the moonlight. Next came an elegant breastplate of black metal with purple inlay. In her left hand and at her left hip were a kite shield and longsword, both with the rich shine of mithril. The bare skin of her arms and legs appeared to be deep navy blue in the darkness.
When she raised her head triumphantly, her side bangs rustled lightly, revealing a stunning beauty and long, narrow ears. Her onyx eyes stared down the speechless group, and the third member of our party spoke in a sharp voice.
“I am Kizmel, a royal knight of the Pagoda Knights Brigade in the service of the kingdom of Lyusula!”
She extended her right arm from the cape in the direction of me and Asuna.
“I have pledged my support to the human warriors Kirito and Asuna as they venture forth to the Pillar of the Heavens! Even the stoutest guardians within the tower shall be as helpless as the morning dew before my blade!”
If they were at the sixth quest of the campaign, both the DKB and ALS must have recognized the name Kizmel mentioned as the nation beneath the dark elf queen’s rule. The “Pillar of the Heavens” was descriptive enough to be an obvious term for the labyrinth tower.
What I couldn’t tell was exactly why every guild member present was stunned into silence—whether it was Kizmel’s beauty, the fact that an NPC knew our names, or the overwhelming power of the level-16 elite monster.
Probably all of the above, I decided. Lind staggered back a step or two, his face as pale as ice.
“A…are you sure you want to stand there, Kirito?”
“Huh? Why wouldn’t I?”
“That dark elf’s cursor is pitch-black…She must be a higher level than even the elite mob from the very first quest…”
Now I understood. To me and Asuna and the ALS members on the dark elf side of the campaign, Kizmel’s color cursor was the yellow shade that signified an NPC. But Lind and the DKB were on the forest elf side, so it would be the red of an enemy monster. Depending on the level difference between the player and target, a red cursor would change shades all the way from light pink to dark crimson. Now that the elite knight had leveled up during our time together, she must have seemed nearly black to the level-15 Lind.
Kibaou glanced back and forth from the retreating Lind to Kizmel, cloak rippling in the night breeze. He took a few steps backward himself and hissed at his rival.
“Hey! Is it true her cursor’s black?”
“Yes…I doubt we could defeat her as an entire party.”
“That’s crazy…How’d they get such a whopper ta work with ’em?” he moaned.
Kizmel must have heard him, because she turned to me and whispered, “Your human language is even more complex than I knew.”
That was probably a comment on Kibaou’s Kansai dialect. Whatever language engine Kizmel’s AI used must only work with standard Japanese, so half of Kibaou’s words had to be indecipherable to her.
I chuckled briefly, then realized something.
The group had been throwing around technical terms about the game: quests, campaigns, story items, and so on. These all pointed to the truth of the matter—that this was a virtual world existing only within a server in the real world. They suggested that the floating castle Aincrad was not a slice of the world set adrift into the sky by the Great Separation, but was merely the setting of this VRMMO game called Sword Art Online.
Of course, Kizmel had no knowledge of any of this. She was born and raised in this world as a dark elf and fought her way to knighthood. Who knew how she interpreted the words of the game’s players? Could we be certain that her interpretation did not do any damage to the AI controlling her?
Lind and Kibaou stepped down the hill to rejoin their partners, coming together for a deep discussion.
Now was the time to say to Kizmel what I hadn’t been able to say—assuming I really thought of her not as an NPC assistant, but a partner…a friend.
“Kizmel,” I muttered. There must have been something telling in my voice, for the dark elf knight and the fencer both turned to look at me. “Listen…Neither Asuna nor I were born in this castle. We were brought here from a far-off place, and we’re fighting to get back home to our world.”
Asuna sucked in a sharp breath. I reached out to brush the back of Kizmel’s hand, facing her directly.
The elf knight stared back at me, slightly puzzled. There was no way to know what kind of information processing was happening behind those onyx-black pools.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Perhaps the GM will show up out of nowhere, pull her away, and reinitialize her.
After an eternity of silent seconds, Kizmel’s luscious lips parted.
“Of course I know that.”
“…Huh…?’
“I chose not to ask you about it until now. It is the last great charm that humanity has, is it not? To summon warriors from a foreign land and have them fight to unify all of the Pillars of the Heavens as one…We dark elves are much the same—we carry on a long battle to protect all of the secret keys from the forest elves and preserve the seal on the Sanctuary…”
“…Um…I…guess so…?”
Kizmel’s description was a simple interpretation of the SAO incident in terms that made sense to the setting of the game, but I didn’t see any reason to go overturning her understanding in order to make it clearer to her. Instead, I agreed with her explanation, and she smiled.
“We have teleportation charms that allow us to travel between floors, so we have no use for the Pillars of the Heavens that you humans are so fixated upon. However, if you wish, I will assist you in your quest. But only for a price.” Her smile grew wider, and she looked back and forth at both of us. “Tell me of the land where you were born someday. What your families were like and how you were raised.”
“…Yeah, sure. I promise,” I said, struck by a sudden thought.
What was the point of stressing that Aincrad was only a virtual world and a game? To Kizmel, and to Asuna and me, this world was the only reality. The game lingo “quest” was merely a human-language term for duty. What was wrong with that?
“And we’ll also teach you all about our human language. If we go fighting in the labyrinth—that’s what we call the Pillar of the Heavens—you’re going to need to know our terms.”
“I would very much like that,” Kizmel replied, and I could sense Asuna smiling.
“Sorry about the wait. We’ve come to a decision,” Lind announced, and the three of us looked back down the hill. The scimitar user clearly did not wish to get any closer to Kizmel, but he overcame his hesitation to climb a few steps up the slope.
“To get right to the point…the Dragon Knights Brigade and Aincrad Liberation Squad have both decided to abandon the campaign quest.”
What?
I was mildly—no, significantly—surprised, but I made sure not to let that show on my face.
“However, it is still necessary to investigate whether or not the benefits of the campaign might be crucial to defeating the floor boss. We would like for your group to handle that duty.”
What?
Again, I kept my face straight. In return, I asked him, “That’s fine with me, but what are you going to do now?”
Lind looked uncomfortable, and Kibaou fil
led the awkward silence with an angry, resigned bellow. “That’s obvious! We’re gonna go map out the labyrinth! If we left it to y’all and someone died in an accident, I wouldn’t sleep well at night!”
“…I see,” I said, finally breaking my stoic expression with a wry smile. Asuna sighed and muttered, “That’s one way of putting it.”
But it was probably the best choice. The mysterious Morte did not show up, but he was probably still registered with the DKB while maintaining connections to the ALS. If both guilds continued with the campaign, it only left Morte with more opportunities to fan the flames of their rivalry. I had to get proof of Morte’s plot so that I could expose him publicly and force the truth out of him.
Speaking of antagonistic characters, I looked around for Joe, wondering how he was taking this decision. I spotted him at the edge of the ALS group, back turned and hands folded behind his head in an obvious sulking pose. Once again, I couldn’t help but be impressed at Kibaou’s leadership that he could manage a handful like him in the guild.
Rather than actually saying that aloud, I took a deep breath and turned to Lind. “All right. Today’s the nineteenth, and we were planning to tackle the boss on the twenty-first. We’ll aim to finish the campaign by the evening of the twentieth and report the results. You’ll have to trust our information, of course.”
Now it was Lind’s turn to give an awkward, stiff smile. “I’m not going to quibble about that at this point. Kirito, earlier you said that you were going to do what needed to be done as a front-runner. It pains me to admit it, but…you reminded me of Diavel.”
He bit his lip several times before finally continuing. “In the very first strategy meeting down in Tolbana on the first floor, Diavel said that we had to beat the boss and get to the second floor to show everyone that the game could be beaten. That it was our duty as the best players. I…I thought I was carrying out his will. To create the guild he would have started and raise it to be the best…That was my duty…”
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