Since we've been stuck in this death game a month has passed. In that time Kirito and I have been trying to level like crazy. There is only so much money and xp on this floor, I think that it's mostly depleted here and we have to move on to the next floor. Yeah, after all this time we are still on floor one, but this afternoon there is a meeting to discuss finding and defeating the floor one boss. For some reason none of us have been able to find it. I may have been a beta tester, but Kirito and I just can't seem to locate the boss. Not that we would have taken it on by ourselves. We still could have found it and created a bigger party to clear it.
Everyone's spirits have been down. Two thousand players have been deleted since the game came online. Most of the remaining four thousand have given up on finishing the game. All that I can think about is how I have to fight for my life just so I can see my mom and Suguha again. IRL I always thought that I could see them at anytime because I still lived at home only that wasn't the case. I was always at work, which is where I would develop new video games much like SAO. When I came home I would continue to work on my own little projects, the ones where I didn't collaborate with other people on. They would just be my own little creations for myself that I would be too afraid to share with others, because they all didn't seem like they were as up to scale as the video games I made with other people. I'm not sure what they were missing… I thought I would figure it out one day, but now I realize I had everything wrong. Who puts a computer before their own family?
If I ever make it home I'm going to make it up to them. I'll go to the dojo and spar with Suguha every chance I get. I'll even let her train me in kendo just so I can spend time with her. I'll have to make sure I tell her and mom that I love them at least twice a day. I'll be all smiley and cheerful all the time instead of my nonchalant self. Also Kirito, he may be stuck in this game with me, but I have plans to take him on adventures with me around the world. We can go to Paris, London, Hollywood, or even Sydney. Really it can be anywhere as long as I can get him away from a computer, he is as attached to one as I am.
Why am I talking about if's? We will make it out of here. I have to start being optimistic otherwise there is no reason for me to continue fighting to complete this game. I believe we could finish this game, it will take quite awhile, but it can happen. Our first step is to go to this meeting.
Those of us that actually showed up for the meeting gathered in an outdoor amphitheater much like the one's in Ancient Greece. Kirito and I sat near the top a bit farther from everyone meeting didn't start yet, but it should any minute. Who called for this meeting again?
Someone started clapping slowly to get our attention. He was standing on the stage, so he must have been the one to call this meeting. His hair was blue only a shade darker than mine. It was a bit longer for a guy and he was wearing some newer looking armor over the top of his standard outfit the rest of us are wearing.
"Well it looks like everyone is here so we can start." He said. "Let's get this meeting started!" Looking around I don't know if I should be shocked these are all the people that came or if this turnout is what I should have expected with everyone in their bad mood slump. "First off I would like to thank you all for coming, nice to see you. My name is Diabel and in this game I rolled is knight!"
People started laughing. I don't understand what is so funny, if he wants to be a knight then let him be a knight. Someone from below me shouted, "Dude, there's no job system in this game!" while everyone else continued to talk about Diabel.
"Hey, do you guys want to hear this or not?" Diabel asked. The talking quieted and he continued, "Right anyway here's the deal, our party found the boss room at the top of the tower today." Everyone started chatting again, finally we have some good news. "First we have to defeat the boss and make it to floor two. The next step is we have to tell everyone waiting in the Town of Beginnings that it is possible to beat this game. The fact is it's our duty as the most capable players, do you agree? Or not?"
It took a couple of seconds, but everyone started clapping. "I think that's exactly how it has to be done. Don't you agree Kirito?" I asked him. He smiled and nodded. Huh, looks like he's going to be quiet today.
Diabel took that as a good sign. "Okay, glad you're all with me on this. Now to figure out how to beat the boss. First we'll team off into parties of six." Dang, where am I going to find four more people? I noticed Kirito frantically look around before he grabbed my arm and dragged me over to someone at the end of our row who was wearing a cloak.
"Were you left out too?" Kirito asked.
"Not really, it just seems like everyone else is friends." Replied a very feminine voice.
"That can be fixed." I said. "Would you like to be friends? We're solo players too, but it wouldn't hurt to have a friend in this game."
The cloaked girl didn't say anything to that so Kirito added, "You don't actually have to friend us, it was just a suggestion. It would be useful for us to all join in the same party though, Diabel was right about that." Kirito pulled up his main menu and went to add her to our party. I was a bit surprised that she accepted. She didn't really seem like she wanted to associate with others.
Her health bar appeared right below mine and Kirito's. "Your name is Asuna?" I asked. She nodded her head. "I'm Nieriel and this is my younger brother Kirito, it's a pleasure to be in a party with you!" I held my hand out to shake hers with a big smile on my face. She actually shook my hand, it was brief but there.
"It looks like everyone's teamed up." Diabel drew our attention back to the stage. "Now then-"
"Hold up a sec." Some guy interrupted him. He jumped down to the stage and took the focus off of Diabel. "My name's Kibaou got that? Before we take on the boss I want to get something off my chest, we all know about the two thousand people that died so far yeah? Well some of you need to apologize right now!" He yelled pointing at us.
"Kibaou, are you referring to the beta testers?" Diabel asked.
"Of course I mean them, the day this game started the beta testers just up and left. They didn't attempt to help anybody we were just left for dead."
That's not true. Kirito told me about how he helped that red-head, whose name I was told was Klein, activate his sword skills. However, I did not go out of my way to help someone like that, but I do give out little pieces of advice about with quests to do and which fields to hunt in. There really is not too much us beta testers can do.
Kibaou continued to rant about how the beta testers should give up their money to non beta testers. How we took all the easy quests and stuff. I tuned him out because he was annoying me. Kirito and I have been leaving the easy quests for other people to do. I've been having us go for the harder ones being that we were playing together now instead of solo like we usually do. I knew that with both of us we could take on harder work. It just works out in our favor with the higher amount of money and xp.
I saw Kirito was uneasy, so I took one of his hands in my own. "Don't worry about it. He doesn't know what he's saying." I whispered.
"Excuse me can I say something?" A bald African looking man asked. He got up and walked to Kibaou. "Hey my name is Agil, you're Kibaou right? I wanna make sure I'm on the same page. You think the ex beta testers are responsible for the rookies deaths because they didn't help them and you want them to apologize and give up their winnings. Did I leave anything out?"
"No, you didn't." Kibaou said.
"This is a guidebook, the item store was handing them out for free. You got one didn't you?" He asked pulling out a small brown book. Agil's got him now.
"Yeah, so?"
"Do you know who was handing these out?" Agil questioned. "The ex beta testers" Turning to the rest of the crowd he said, "Listen up. Everyone had equal access to this information, so see it's no one's fault. I'm here because I want to beat the boss." Agil left to sit back down and Kibaou followed.
"Moving on with the meeting." Diabel said. "Information on the boss is in the newest edition of the guidebook you just heard about. The boss's name is Illfang the Kobold Lord, also he'll be surrounded by his minions the Ruin Kobold Sentinels. He carries an axe and a bucklar. He also has four health bars, when the last one turns red he turns to a curved sword-type weapon called a talwar. He can change his patterns of attack too. That's all for briefing. Now money will be distributed equally. The group that defeats the boss gets the xp and whoever gets an item gets to keep it. Does that sound about right?" He took everyone's silence for agreement. " Good, we leave tomorrow at ten in the morning meeting adjourned."
Everyone else started talking to each other in their groups while Asuna got up and left. "Wait Asuna, we will go with you." I called after her. I got up and moved around Kirito with him following after.
"Why would you want to come with me?" She asked.
"Are you kidding? We just joined a party together, I want to make sure I can trust the person we will be fighting with." I said. It started to turn into night and the town lights switched on. I felt hungry. "Are you hungry? We can eat by the fountain."
"Looks like it will be bread again tonight." Kirito said.
"It's not so bad. I have some of that stuff left if you want some." I suggested.
"Nah, I'll be fine with mine." He said. The three of us sat down at the bench by the fountain and got out our bread. Asuna was just eating hers plain until Kirito suggested she put some of the stuff in his pot on it. I'm not even close to understanding how this world makes food. Kirito has butter, and mine is like strawberry jam. It makes eating this virtual food better. Asuna had no problem with scarfing down her bread with the butter.
Kirito and I chatted with Asuna a bit. She's kind of a bleak person. Kirito made her promise not to die tomorrow, because it kind of seems like she doesn't care if she lives or dies any more. She agreed not to let herself die, which relieved me. I wouldn't want someone who is in a party with me dying for whatever reason. I think that would be traumatizing. Don't forget to mention it's also a risk for us, someone has to cover where they fall.
The next day we met up with the rest of our group to head out. We were right on time. Diabel had our party as backup, so we will only be taking out the minions. Understandable, we are only half of his preferred party afterall.
On the walk to the dungeon Kirito was trying to think of a battle plan for our small party and didn't realize Asuna was never in one before. It's not like he can blame her, he didn't know what a switch was until we partied up this last month. So for his behavior towards Asuna I had to smack him upside the head. Then I explained to her what a switch was, it's pretty self explanatory.
We all stopped to prepare ourselves before we went into the boss room and that was when Diabel told us to win. We will damn well try. The door opened revealing a dark room. We walked in a little ways before the lights turned on and Illfang the Kobold Lord jumped in front of us. His minions materialized a few seconds later. We all charged into battle with the mindset of winning and that is exactly what is going to happen. Kirito and Asuna did their switching while I took all the surrounding minions that would try and attack them from behind.
I noticed Kirito's attention pulled away from the minions, so I looked to see that Diabel rushed up to the boss by himself for the killing blow. That wasn't a part of the plan he had told us. Now is not the time to be a hero. Wait a minute, is he going for that hit because he knows about the last attack bonus?
As Diabel was running up Illfang changed weapon's, only this was something different than what the guidebook said. I also don't remember that weapon being his in the beta. Something is not right. "Wait stop, it's no good!" Kirito yelled to him. Diabel kept going, determined to finish this boss. He didn't stand a chance. Illfang practically batted him to the side. I saw that Diabel's health bar was far down in the red and still dropping. Kirito ran to him with a health potion.
I tried to think of multiple scenarios in my head of how this could end. The good and the bad equalled each other out, so I decided this was the time. I sighed as I pulled up my inventory, "I was hoping to test this out some other time, but no time is better than the present." I switched swords to the new one I got the other day. It was gifted to me because I reached high levels of speed, strength and agility. I feel like it was mostly strength though.
Diabel disappeared into pixels, which signified his death. Kirito slowly got up and at the sight of the great sword in my grip he smiled. "You're finally going to take that thing out for a spin."
"Yup." I returned his grin. "I'll block his attacks and you and Asuna will hit him fast."
"Sounds like a good plan to me." Asuna agreed.
"Let's go!" Kirito shouted. I ran ahead first making sure to have a good grip with both of my hands and then activating my sword skill moments before my sword clashed with Illfang's. My sword was as big as his, though mine seemed to be more from the King Arthur era.
Kirito and Asuna passed by, each slicing deep into Illfang's side. His health isn't quite depleted all the way, but another hit should do it. Illfang pulled back a bit so he could swing his sword at me some more. Each blow came hard and fast, but I held on. I saw Kirito run up behind Illfang and slice him down the middle. Illfang disappeared with the blue shards of programming he became.
A large congratulations sign appeared above us. Just like that we had the first floor boss defeated. Cheers went around until things got a bit messy with Kibaou. He started saying mean stuff about Kirito being a beta tester. Of course Kirito had to talk back, now he is known as a beater. I think he actually handled that quite well. He even equipped into a black jacket and walked out. Asuna followed him not much later.
"You might as well classify me as a beater too." I said. "I can't let my brother have all the fun here. I'm worse than he is."
"You are despicable. " Kibaou said disgusted.
"It seems you have a problem with me and Kirito being different than you." I stated. "How about a battle?" I swung up my sword and got into battle position.
"With that sword? I don't think so." He said, eyeing my sword uneasily. "I bet you used beater knowledge to get it."
"Well you bet wrong. You know what? I just realized I don't have time to fight a little flower such as yourself, so I'm going to go." I attached my sword to my back and proceeded to follow Kirito out not paying any mind to the jabs Kibaou kept throwing at me. Asuna was coming back in, she must not be joining us. Kirito isn't used to being in a party. I'm actually a bit shocked he's letting me stay in a party with him. I like to believe it's different because we are family. Though I feel like there might be a time in the future that he will start to push me away.