Since the fight against Nicholas the Renegade, 2 months have passed. Today is the 23rd of February 2024. Since then, I have attempted to fight the floor boss of floor 47, and was almost able to take it down. However, due to not being careful enough, I was followed and I couldn't finish the boss on my own. I had deleted Asuna from my friends list, and decided to avoid contact for a while. I was now level 78, which I to reached through farming the mobs in the Forest of Wandering, a spot relatively EXP-efficient: the mobs were weak, and the EXP reward was good. The Forest, due to the change of seasons became warmer, and it could be possible to feel a fresh breeze flowing about.

Not even for one day had I forgotten my goal.

My ultimate goal would always remain to find Kayaba and make him pay. And right after that, I had to find out the meaning to my meeting with Sachi – why she arrived here, why a weak girl like her was forced into a corner like that. That's what she wanted, too.

I was having my usual evening farming session, when I noticed something was off. The mobs, apparently, had become unevenly spread: I couldn't find any in the range of 800 meters.

Then I heard a scream.

'Someone's in trouble!'

I started running as fast as possible, passing by trees and other plants that I didn't recognize. There was a low level of visibility in the area I was going through, but it was the shortest route to the place where I heard the scream come from. Soon, I came to a clearing which stood in the middle of the forest. I saw a girl, who looked like she could be no older than 13, trying to fend off 3 of the 'Berserk Apes'. As she was a knife user, it would definitely difficult to do so, as the apes had long clubs, while she possessed only a short-range knife.

Seeing her HP at a critical level, I performed 'Sonic Leap' and took care of all the 3 apes in one swift strike.

Once the polygons disappeared, I saw her face. She was clearly crying.

I understood, without being told, that something had happened. I wanted to keep leveling up, however I knew I wanted her to feel better. I therefore approached her.

She told me of how she had left her guild and how her Beast was killed shortly before I had arrived to killed the Apes. I recognized she was very troubled over this, so I decided to help her. I had some motives of my own, perhaps. Seeing her helpless in front of those mobs sort of reminded me of… Sachi.

She told me her name was Silica, and I agreed to take her to the hill of memories, on floor 46, and help her clear the dungeon to get the Pneuma Flower, which could revive Beasts within a certain time limit.

I gifted her some equipment I didn't need so that she would be fine. I also let her handle most of the mobs on the way: she could get some EXP from that.

Then, once we reached the end, she ran to the podium that had the flower on it and obtained it.

"Yay! Thank you so much for helping me!" She said with glee.

"It's no big deal," I replied.

We began to walk towards the exit of the dungeon, and as we crossed a bridge, I felt a presence… almost as if we were being watched. Not like I didn't notice earlier.

It was precisely for this reason I went along with Silica in the first place.

"What about you show yourselves?" I called out.

After a short delay, I heard a feminine voice calling out to me.

"You're pretty sharp."

She revealed herself. The girl who had spoken walked from behind the tree and looked towards us. She had red hair and what seemed to be a 'dark priestess' type of vest. She had a long spear in her hands, which ended with a cross.

"What about you tell your friends to join the party? Ms?" I asked her.

"Oh my… it seems my plans have been uncovered. Not that it matters." She replied coldly. "By the way, the name's Rosalia. Remember it, it will be the last name you'll hear."

She snapped her fingers, and from the trees beyond the bridge, at least 6 guys revealed themselves, weapons in hand. They are the sorts of people I despise the most in this virtual reality – PKs, player killers. They stared at Silica and I, attempting to intimidate us. Silica reached for me and wrapped her arm around mine.

"Kirito… what do we do now?" she asked me in a small voice.

"Don't worry. I'll handle this." I replied quickly.

I started walking towards the other side of the bridge. I knew very well of the fact there were 7 players. I didn't know their level, but judging from their gear, they should be around level 45, like Silica. They possessed various types of weapons. I saw one with an axe, and another one with a sword.

The 7 were clearly dazed when I started walking towards them, all alone, and unsheathe my sword. They looked at the woman who had introduced herself as Rosalia in a daze.

"Rosalia… are you sure about this?" one asked.

"Of course. That brat Silica most definitely didn't party up with someone that's strong enough to beat all of you." She replied, clearly losing her calm.

She encouraged them to step forwards, and they did. As soon as they were all ready and had charged up skills, they jumped at me.

In this VR world, the pain absorber was high: fatigue could be felt easily, but pain was really hard to feel: no wounds made on the character avatar would be enough to even make one feel like they were pinched on their arms. And so, the pinching began.

They began with a flurry of attacks, coordinating quite beautifully. They were definitely a party that had been together for a while – but not a good type of party. I simply stood there, and watched my HP. According to my calculations, my HP would drop no more than 14,500/15,000 in 10 seconds. And I was correct. My HP dropped to about 14,700/15,000, to then regenerate by 300 after 10 seconds. The swordsmen insisted and kept attacking for half a minute, using sword skills one after another.

Once they stopped, they took a good look at my HP. 14,767/15,000. Which then went back to 15,000/15,000.

"…How? Why?" They asked me.

"The reason's very simple. I have HP regeneration at my current level of 300 HP/10 seconds. You guys deal no more than 320 every 10 seconds. Considering the fact your higher-level sword skills go on cool down once you use them, that means your average damage to me is below 300HP/10 seconds. This means I just heal back up. Literally, you could keep attacking me for the entire day, and you would not even be close to depleting my HP. After all, 7 level 45s can't even match a good level 78." I replied.

They started looking confused. They turned to their 'boss' and asked what to do. Her face, at this point, was clearly displeased. Once she talked with then for a couple of seconds, she decided to come up to me. She walked to a distance of 5 meters and started talking.

"You may think you've won, but that's incorrect. We have many friends in higher-level killing guilds that would love to help us finish a job like this. Since the pre-requisites to get that item is to have a dead beasts' lifeline, be a beast tamer and spend a long enough time with your beats, and the dungeon only opens once per item, basically everyone would love to get this item, since it's so rare. So,

she looked at me with a serious expression.

Hand us the Pneuma Flower and we'll let you go. Else, you are both dead. I guarantee that on the name of The Titan's Hand and Laughing Coffin."

In my opinion, this Rosalia must really not understand the situation to threaten me. She was up against someone who could easily take her life in a matter of seconds. How did she expect me to surrender?

On the other hand, Silica was also with me, meaning I could not find a solution as simple as 'Just walk away', since they would go after her. I also didn't have a particular wish to become an orange player or wet my hands with the blood of people which have may been good before coming here. So I decided to stick to my original plan.

"Ok then, I will ask you to come with me and deliver yourselves to the prison which we've created here in SAO." I told her.

She started laughing.

"Do you really think we'll do that? We've got some strong people backing us up."

"I don't care if you even have Kayaba backing you up." I told her plainly. I then added;

"I am looking forward to finding him and killing him, as a matter of fact."

I had never before voiced out my real plan to kill Kayaba. It had become an obsession for me: the person who trapped Sachi here, who decided to allow players kill each other. I would find him and take my revenge for having made almost a year of my life go to waste cursing my weaknesses.

Rosalia stared at me for a while, probably not knowing how to reply to my statement. Then, she took the obvious course of action. Attempt to flee.

But I didn't let her. I knocked around her underlings and her too with a couple of slashes, and eventually all got them in handcuffs when they were knocked back.

'It's great how Kayaba made handcuffs but he hasn't forbidden PKing…' I thought with anger.

Silica then looked at me and asked me if I was alright. I told her I was fine, and that she should go ahead. I then teleport the newly found prisoners and I to the prison of the Aincrad Liberation Army, Black Iron Palace and I left them there. To also ensure Silica's safety, I told the guard leader to disable message communication in their cells, which he clearly was not happy of doing, but it had to be done.

I then teleported back out to floor 56, where I was staying while the boss floor raid was being organized. And that night I couldn't sleep, all I could think of was Sachi, who would have been the easiest target for PKers.

I knew she would have never wanted me to do this… But deep inside; I wished she had survived instead of me. Thinking of the fact that there are people killing other players – and Sachi may have been one of them if I had died in her stead, I could not bring myself to peace.

"Why is death the only way to settle things? Why can't people stop running after death and actually start seeing things differently?"

Questions left unanswered, I stood back up in the morning without having slept a wink.