A/N: Sword Art Online is the property of Reki Kawahara, A-1 Pictures, Yen Press and Aniplex USA. Please support the official release.
Killing off the smaller lizards turned out to be a lot harder than I had expected. The sly creatures kept ducking, dodging and weaving away from all of our attacks, only rushing in to bite us in the cooldown period that followed using a Sword Skill. My usually black coat was covered in spots of blood now, blood that belonged both to the monsters I had managed to slay and to myself. Despite being a virtual world, the lizards' bites still stung like a bitch, and bled equally as much. The blood would naturally disintegrate relatively fast, but why Kayaba had felt the need to implement a bleeding mechanic in the first place was beyond me.
Meanwhile, in the corner of my eye, I could see Argo's health bar gradually dropping lower and lower, before finally hitting the yellow zone.
"Guys, this isn't working!" I shouted out, deflecting a jumping lizard with the broadside of my sword.
"Yeah, no shit Sherlock!" Marco responded somewhere to my right, equally as occupied with his own set of attackers. "But what do you want us to do?! They just… keep… coming…"
"I have an idea," Asuna piped up, finishing off her opponent with a flurry of quick jabs. She seemed to be having the least amount of trouble with this, at least compared to us. "If we form a circle and force them to come to us, one can pull the aggro whilst the other standing next to him can attack from the side."
"That…" Marco wheezed through gritted teeth, finally managing to cut the head off the lizard he had been fighting for the past two minutes. "Is actually a great idea and I wish I had thought of that myself."
"You're welcome," Asuna replied with a smile, working her way through the sea of mobs towards Klein and me. "Just get your ass over here."
It didn't take long before we were all standing back-to-back, facing the onslaught as a team instead of as individual fighters. The lizards responded to this by circling around us looking for openings, hunger and primal rage shining in their eyes.
"So what now?" Klein asked, swinging his katana in a threatening motion towards a lone lizard that dared venture a little too close to our group. "Are we just gonna stand here and wait for them to attack us?"
"Pretty much," Asuna chimed nonchalantly. "But if you have a better idea, feel free to speak up."
"Okay, we could totally do… ehh… we could like… hmm…" he stammered, desperately trying to come up with a better plan right there on the spot.
"We could what?"
"We could… Ahh, you know what, forget it. We'll go with your plan. Thinking never really was my strong suit."
Luckily enough for us, it didn't take very long before Asuna's plan started to produce some results. The lizards had apparently grown tired of waiting at this point, and one of them decided to take his chances and throw himself at us. Needless to say, he didn't get very far. As soon as he got close to Marco, Klein stepped in from the side and impaled him on the tip of his katana, effectively turning the poor creature into a rather grotesque form of kebab.
"Hey, that actually worked…" Klein muttered, genuine surprise coloring his features.
"Of course it worked, it was my plan," Asuna grunted back, pushing another lizard off her just in time for me to step in and deliver a finishing blow.
"Uhhm guys, not to be a total party pooper or anything, but could you perhaps speed things up a little? I'm kinda dying over here!" Argo suddenly shouted, drawing our attention towards her instead. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the condition she was in.
There were streaks of blood running down her cheeks, and I spotted several gaping wounds marring her otherwise slender body. Her left eye had swollen shut, and most of her armor had been destroyed or ripped apart. A huge claw mark went across her forehead, dripping blood into her eyes every now and then.
A quick look at her health bar told me she was about to enter the red zone, which signalized a clear need to switch her out of combat so she could heal.
"Asuna, switch with her!" I shouted out after having done some quick calculations at the top of my head. "You're the player with the highest Agility stats after Argo! Grab the boss's attention for as long as you can, we'll help you out when we're done with these!"
"Got it!" she replied; already well on her way towards the grievously wounded information dealer.
Sadly, she didn't get very far.
The Field Boss had apparently grown tired of being kited around the arena like some sort of puppy, as he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and stood up on his hind legs. Judging it to be yet another sound attack, all of us instantly covered our ears to prevent the debuff. But to our great surprise, that was exactly what the Boss wanted us to do.
As soon as we had our hands over our ears, the giant lizard shot back into motion, heading straight for Asuna with newfound fury. Before the poor girl even had a chance to react, an enormous claw shot out and connected with her lower torso, sending her flying towards a nearby wall and taking a big chunk out of her health bar. A deafening crash and the sound of broken bones filled our eardrums as her frail body smashed ruthlessly into the hard stone, the impact causing huge cracks to shoot out across the wall.
For a moment, nothing happened. We were all frozen still by the shock of seeing one of our comrades so brutally maimed. Then Marco suddenly spoke up.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Asuna!"
His shout served as a wake up call to the rest of us, and barely a second later, we were all rushing towards her unmoving body. Even Argo, who only had about 15 percent of her health left, was coming to help.
"Klein, Marco, form a circle around us and keep the lizards at bay! We'll check on Asuna!" I yelled, my brain going into overdrive as my adrenaline levels spiked. It was kind of surprising, to be honest. In real life, I had never been much of a leader. I had always tended to say as little as possible, remain as hidden as I could. But faced with a life-or-death scenario, my insecurities seemed to fly straight out the window.
With synchronized movements, my comrades followed my commands with robot-like precision, as if the notion of taking orders had been ingrained in their skulls since childbirth. It all just sort of… clicked. Everyone knew what they needed to do. What the group required of them.
Klein and Marco took up positions, standing shoulder to shoulder, fighting off waves of mobs as we knelt down and tried to wake up Asuna. She was unresponsive.
Dammit, just what we fucking needed. An unconscious party member, I thought to myself as I watched Argo desperately trying to shake Asuna back to life. How the hell are we supposed to make it out of here now? Think, Kirito, think…
Surveying my surroundings, I suddenly spotted something that I had previously overlooked about the arena. There were stalagmites hanging from the ceiling. And they were hanging low enough for someone to potentially knock them down.
You have got to be kidding me… How didn't I notice that before now?!
"Argo, look!" I said, pointing towards the low-hanging rocky spikes. "See those stalagmites? They are conveniently placed, aren't they?"
A brief smile flashed across her lips as her eyes followed my finger to where the rocks were, her entire stance shifting ever so slightly.
"Right you are, Kii-boy! Want me to knock them down for you?" she asked, already opening her inventory to grab a health potion.
"Very much so," I responded, readying my sword to unleash a Sword Skill.
"Alright, just give me the word and…"
Before she even managed to finish her sentence, I activated my 4-part combo skill, "Whirling Tornado", and let the System Assist guide me towards the nearest enemy. The attack took the unsuspecting lizard by complete surprise, resulting in me cleaving straight through it with the first swing, and finishing off two others behind it with the last three.
"NOW!"
Argo darted forwards without pause, rushing straight towards me with a wide grin plastered on her face. Getting down on one knee, I let Argo use my back as a springboard, pushing upwards at the exact moment her foot connected with my torso. The tiny girl flew through the air with impressive finesse, her trajectory lining up perfectly with the nearest stalagmite. But instead of just kicking it down, like I had suspected she would, she pointed one of her claws at it, and activated an unknown Sword Skill.
The claw suddenly detached from her hand, and automatically shot forwards like an arrow. The speed was so intense that it actually cleaved straight through the current rock, and continued on to knock down two other stalagmites behind it as well. The Skill finally ended with a flash of blue light, signalizing an item reaching the end of its durability and breaking apart.
The first stalagmite to fall hit empty ground, and did no damage. But the second one landed smack in the middle of the lizard group, instantly killing three and injuring one. And finally, the last stalagmite connected directly with the Field Boss's head, puncturing the skull and burying itself deep into the creature's brain. Needless to say, the giant lizard was dead before it even had a chance to register what was happening.
We watched in awe as Krom the Rockcrawler broke apart into a million tiny fragments, and a trumpet sound filled the cave.
CONGRATULATIONS!
A collective sigh went through our party as we fell to our knees in exhaustion.
We made it. We didn't die.
"That…" Klein started, leaning on his katana for support. "Was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."
"Yeah, note to self: don't try to kill Field Bosses with only one party. The only reason we're still alive right now is because we're at Floor 2. Once we get higher up, the monsters get a lot tougher," Marco added, sheathing his sword and wiping the sweat from his forehead. It was actually impressive that sweat even was a thing in this world. The amount of data required to simulate realistic water physics must be huge. Who in their right mind would waste precious computing power by implementing a sweating mechanic?
"I told you it was a bad idea," I chimed in, shaking my head in exasperation.
"But hey, we made it out okay, didn't we?" Marco smiled.
"Yeah, but just barely…"
"…"
"No point in crying over spilled milk boys, what's done is done!" Argo suddenly said, walking over to us after force-feeding Asuna's unconscious body with a health potion. "The only thing you can do is accept it and move on. Now though, it's time for everyone's favorite part of any MMO: checking out the loot."
"Ohhh, good point…" I mumbled, hastily bringing up the rewards window. A quick look at the specifics told me I had received an impressive amount of Cor, combined with enough EXP to push me all the way to Level 9.
Only a few more levels and I should be strong enough to take on the Floor Boss…
"Did anyone get any sick drops?" Marco asked, scrolling through his rewards with a disappointed look on his face. "I didn't get anything..."
"Me neither," Klein sighed, closing his window.
"Nothing here," I added.
"I did!" Argo yelled, equipping her new piece of equipment at light speed. It was a relatively short, brown leather cloak, with what appeared to be small chiseled rocks sewn into the material. "It's called "Krom's Gift" and gives me a significant buff to Agility and Defense! Just what I need!"
"Aww man, lucky you… I didn't get squat," Marco mumbled, kicking away a stray rock with his feet in a show of childish petulance.
"Hey, no need to be mad about it! There's always next time!"
"That… really doesn't make me feel any better about it, but thanks? I guess?"
"You're welcome!"
"Still though," I interjected, cutting off their conversation. "We need to find a way out of here. I dunno about you, but I don't particularly feel like being stuck down here until we eventually die of starvation…"
"Kii-boy has a point!" Argo smiled. "Now that the Boss is dead, an exit should have appeared somewhere in this room. All we gotta do now is find it!"
And so we spread out, searching every nook and cranny of the room for signs of an exit, until we at last rendezvoused in the middle of the chamber again.
"Did anyone find anything?" I asked, stroking my chin in contemplation like I had seen the hero character do in movies a thousand times over.
"Nope, nothing here."
"Didn't find anything."
"I came up short as well."
"Well that's just perfect…"
A moment of silence passed then, with all of us trying our hardest to think of a solution to our little problem.
"I mean, the answer is probably something incredibly obvious, and we're just too stupid to think of it," Argo sighed, stretching her arms over her head.
"Hmmm…"
Taking one last look around, I suddenly noticed something that I (in hindsight) probably shouldn't have been able to miss. The lone ray of sunlight was back, shining through the hole in the roof.
"Hey guys…" I started, leaving our little circle to walk towards the beam. My companions all turned around with confused looks on their faces to see what it was I was doing. "I think I might have an idea…"
The others watched in silence as I slowly approached the ray of sunlight, my right hand outstretched in front of me.
Taking a deep breath, I let my instincts guide me, and thrust my hand right into the trajectory of the beam. The second it was exposed to the light, a loud banging sound erupted from somewhere behind me.
We didn't even have to turn around to know what had happened.
A door had appeared. Our way out.
Town of Urbus, Floor 2
It was already late into the evening hours by the time we finally made it through the gates of Urbus. The trek back had taken significantly longer than any of us had anticipated, with our party being attacked by wild monsters pretty much every 20 meters. The spawn rate for mobs was drastically higher during the night, after all, resulting in twice the amount of encounters. But luckily enough, due to the EXP boost we got from killing the Field Boss, all of us were higher levelled than the monsters, and thus we made short progress of them.
"Damn, I am beat…" Marco puffed, leaning over to catch his breath once the "Safe Zone" notification appeared on our HUDs. "Great work today, everyone."
"Remind me to never go along with any of your plans ever again," I sighed back, opening up my menu to sort through my inventory. "That battle was a little too close for comfort. Next time we might not get so lucky."
"Ahh, come on, Kirito! Don't be such a buzzkill! We made it out, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters!"
"Hey, I'm just saying that we should probably try to be more careful in the future. We only get one shot at this whole thing, after all…"
The mood darkened considerably at that, and a pang of guilt flooded through me. I didn't want to be the one who constantly dragged the others down with my negative attitude.
"Anyway…" I said in an attempt to switch topics. "I think I'm gonna call it a night. I need to get some food and catch some sleep, so I guess I will see you guys… later?"
To be honest, I wasn't really sure if I was going to see them later. Our plan had been to meet up to take down the Field Boss, and now that that was over and done with, there wasn't a huge reason for us to stick together anymore. Despite the obvious safety benefits of playing as a group and the whole "you die in the game, you die in real life" thing, SAO was still an MMO at its core, meaning that competition was a natural part of it. Everybody wanted to get the best gear and rarest drops to ensure their own survival, and that got considerably harder the more people you had in your group. More manpower also meant more competition for the same loot, and when everyone wanted a piece of the action, it could be hard to figure out who deserved what gear and why. Most Guilds solved this issue by simply stating that "whoever gets the drop, keeps it", essentially choosing to utilize a traditional finders-keepers system, but that wouldn't really be the optimal solution in a party where 2 out of 5 members were frontliners (people ahead of the curve in terms of levels and equipment) that needed constant upgrades to keep up with the rest of their peers.
"Good idea, Kii-boy! I could really use a good night's rest right about now! But we should probably add each other to our Friends Lists first, so that our messages carry across all Floors and not just the current one," Argo smiled, leaning from side to side to stretch out her back.
A round of approving nods surged through our little group, and before long, we had all added each other as Friends. The Relationship System in SAO pretty much required you to add those you would like to keep in contact with to your friends list if you wanted to message them. The system basically "placed" your relationship with your fellow players into one of four different stages: strangers, friends, guild comrades and married. If you were classified as "strangers" by the system, you could not see each other's name and level, and only send each other messages of short length that did not go across Floors (the message would only be received by the recipient if the player was on the same Floor as the sender). If you were classified as "Friends", on the other hand, most of these restrictions disappeared, and you could also see each other's location on the map.
Guild comrades were pretty much the same as being Friends, just with the added benefit of a slight increase to your stats, and a shared Guild inventory. Married on the other hand… well, as far as I knew, nobody had even gotten married yet, so it was kind of hard to tell. Considering the huge difference in male to female player numbers, I had a sinking feeling nobody would be getting married anytime soon at least.
"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I could really do with a beer right about now," Klein smirked, probably already imagining the taste and sensation in his head.
"I don't get why you would want something like that though. As far as I know, you can't actually get drunk in SAO, right?" Asuna asked, furrowing her brows in thought. "And it's not like beer is known for its great taste…"
"Well, no, you can't get drunk, but I still find the act of cracking open a cold one calming. Back in the real world, I used to be… somewhat of an alcoholic, you see, and still being able to enjoy a cold beer in this world has really helped me accept it more… somehow," Klein muttered, none of us really surprised at the news that he used to be a drunkard. He just sort of gave off that vibe, with his wacky, unkept hair and stubbly beard.
"Huh… Well, I guess I can understand that…" I sighed in response, shooting a quick look up at the digital watch in the top right corner of my field of view. It showed the number 22.35, indicating that it was indeed quite late in the evening.
"Anyhow, we should probably disband the group for now," Marco said, opening up his menu and maneuvering to the Group tab. "We're probably going to run into one another soon enough anyway, considering that we're all stuck on the same Floor."
"True that," Klein grunted, running a hand through his red hair. "Plus, I imagine we'll all be present for the raid on the Floor Boss, once the Labyrinth here has been conquered."
"Well, considering all the EXP we got from slaying that Field Boss, I reckon most of us are already at a decent enough level to be able to take part in it," I agreed, inwardly shuddering at the thought of having to participate in such an event. The idea of facing off against the toughest enemy of the Floor was rather terrifying, after all.
"My thoughts exactly," Klein responded, turning to face me as he talked. "It would be kind of a dick move of us to take all of the resources from the Field Boss for ourselves without using some of it to help the other players with the big baddy of this Floor."
"I suppose you are right," Asuna nodded, her chestnut hair swaying slightly in the wind as she did so. "I helped out last time, so I might as well help out this time as well."
"Good to hear. Well, I'm gonna head off now. I'll see you guys later," Klein finally said, spinning around on his heels and walking away from our little group. It was actually kind of sad to see him go, as I had gotten used to the thought of being in a party with him. His witty, dry humor really brightened up the mood, after all.
"I'll follow his lead and head off too then," Marco smiled, waving us goodbye as he disappeared into the silent streets of Urbus.
"Seeing as everyone is leaving, I guess I better leave as well. Nice meeting ya in real life, Kii-boy!" Argo piped, already well on her way towards the nearest tavern. That only left me and Asuna, standing alone in the empty square.
"Well…" I finally coughed after a couple of seconds of awkward silence. "I think I'm gonna head off and find myself something to eat then. I'm positively famished after that little excursion."
"Oh, that sounds nice… Mind if I tag along?" Asuna replied, shifting her head ever so slightly to the right. "I'm not totally familiar with the layout of this town yet, but you seem to know your way around."
The question took me by complete surprise and left me at a loss for words. She wanted to… join me? To find something to eat? Just the two of us? Alone?
"Ehhh… uhh… yeah, I guess. Feel free to come along… if you want to, that is."
"Thanks."
Seeing her smile beaming at me, I had little choice but to accept her request to tag along and bring her with me. And so the two of us set off towards the center of town, with me leading the way.
"Wow, this place looks really fancy!" Asuna gasped as she inspected the restaurant I had stopped in front of. "No wonder you wanted to come here."
"Yeah, I suppose it is a beautiful place," I admitted, taking a moment to appreciate the delicate architecture of the building. Like most buildings in Urbus, it was made out of the same grey rock material that was commonly found in these mountains, but what set this particular building apart from the rest was that this one had been carefully decorated with wooden signs and beautiful rock carvings. Great care and dedication had gone into making the place look as charming as possible, the sight of it significantly more pleasing to the eye than the rest of the city.
"Let's go inside, shall we?" I offered, walking up to the door and holding it open for Asuna. Despite my background as an anti-social shut-in, I had played enough dating sims to know that you were supposed to do stuff like this for girls if you wanted them to like you. The act didn't go unnoticed either, as Asuna sent me a warm smile as she walked past me into the building.
Hey, maybe this won't be so bad after all, I thought to myself as I closed the door behind me, following her into the warm light of the restaurant.
A/N: Read and review!