Chapter Six
I lost track how many days, or weeks, that we were stuck on the 50th floor, but we've been here for a while now. Of course, rather than giving up, I took the opportunity to level up my, recently obtained skill, shields. Due to the long time being stuck, I was able to easily master my shield skill, allowing me to block the most damage within the party. I wasn't the only one who changed their layout. Jace started using Two-handed swords, becoming the best DPS (Damage Per Second) of the group. Alexis recently obtained a familiar. He was a small fiery bird, probably a phoenix, with the ability to heal Alexis for a small amount of health, but also, occasionally, being able to send a sering ball of fire towards the enemy dealing massive damage. Finally, Elena began using a rapier, to allow unmatched speed within the group. We were able to finally achieve Jace's goal, to create a balanced group that could withstand most scenarios.
Not only were we increasing our combat skills, but we increased other skills as well. Due to sheer willpower, and ignoring Elena's cries of fear, I would allow monsters to hit me in the red, before finishing them off. I lost track on the amount of times it took, but it eventually paid off giving me Battle Healing, an amazing skill that allowed me to heal a small portion of my health every second. Perfect for assuming the tanking role.
We cleared all the monsters up to the boss chamber, before we walked back into town. We've already attempted this boss many times, and we have yet to clear it. However, there was rumor of one of the top clearing guilds meeting up to clear the boss. It was a little odd considering we were fighting a boss that was already cleared. In fact I had thought that it wasn't possible to repeat bosses, yet Jace had found a glitch that had something to do with talking to the quest giver for the floor boss. I guess rumors must've spread quickly, and people wanted to see how it was done.
"Well, looks like we might finally be done with this boss from their help!" Jace had said earlier today. Now we were walking back to town, where everyone was waiting. We even caught glimpse of the Beater from before.
There was a man dressed in red and white armor, clearly in charge of the group. It reminded me of Diebel, the brave man who helped lead the group to clear the first boss. "If everyone is ready, then we'll go after the boss" With his simple command, everyone began to head towards the boss room, for the sixth, or seventh time, I forget exactly, we opened the huge double doors, and emerged in the boss room. In the middle, stood two giant clay soldiers with four arms each, carrying deadly weapons in each arm. Many players charged at the statures, only to be slashed back with tremendous force, some even dying only within two or three hits. But that didn't stop our party, as we rushed in as one unit, targeting one of the giants.
"If we're careful, we should be able to take it. Jin, I'm counting on you to make the openings for us!"
I bravely faced the giant, attacking it, only to divert his attention to me. I was in luck, as my simple division worked, and the giant slashed at me with one of his swords. I quickly parried it with my sword, slashing at the arm, hoping to disarm it, however the giant was anticipating my move, and swung hard at my blade, causing me to stagger backwards, and almost immediately to the opportunity to lung the other three blades at me. I was able to deflect two of them with my shield, but the last one made contact with my shoulder.
"JIN!" Elena screamed. I grabbed my shoulder, though in SAO you can't feel pain, the sensors still locked up the muscles in my shoulder, making it temporarily useless, as if I was just hit with that devastating attack. I checked my health bar, to see that the one sword caused me to already be in the deep yellow, borderline red.
"No way?! That one attack is all it took?!" Seeing as the giant was about to swing at me again, I focused all of my strength in my feet, and lept of the floor, barely dodging the giants wild swings, and retreating back to a safe distance.
"Here." Elena handed me a health potion, and a quickly drank it.
"It looks like," my voice was staggered from still being out of breath from that blow. "We have to at least use two people at a time, in order to deflect all four of his arms, so that we can have someone else deal damage."
"It seems like it..." Jace sounded defeated.
"Jin, can you still move your shoulder?" Alexis asked.
I tried moving my shoulder in a circular motion for a bit, satisfied that I was able to move it without any strain, I nodded.
"Good, we're obviously going to need you to help deflect the blades. But who will the second person be?" Alexis looked down to think, and the giant took his opportunity to attack.
"ALEXIS BEHIND YOU!" Elena quickly deflected the sword that was after Alexis. Angered, the giant changed targets to the rapier wilder, striking the other three blades at her. Elena parried the first one gracefully, while dodging the second one, but there was still the third to worry about.
That instant, my body reacted before I could even think, and ran in front of Elena, my shield at the predicted angle of impact. There was a sharp sound, followed by a heavy force upon the shield. Success.
"Are you alright Elena?" I asked from behind me.
"Yeah, thanks!" Elena smiled.
"We're not out of this yet!" I remarked, getting ready for another attack. I laughed to myself, realizing I sounded like Jin again.
"By the way... Wasn't there suppose to be a whole group of these players?" Jace questioned.
"Yeah, you're right, what happened to-" We turned in time to see a bunch of players on the safe side of the boss room, their appearances different from earlier. "What happened, was that some sort of illusion spell?!"
"No..." Jace sounded weak. "It was most likely some item. But right now we have bigger things to worry about." I looked toward Jace's direction and the other giant was charging us. There was a small chance that we could take care of one giant if we all worked together, but there's no way we can take care of two...
"This doesn't look good..." Alexis looked down in defeat. The fact that players would do this... Intentionally ambush us to our deaths like this?! Shaking away all my anger, I charged at the giant with all my might, first slashing it at the mid section, then swinging low under his legs. The giant was surprised by the attack but only slightly, as it began swinging all four blades wildly. It was at that moment that time seemed to slow. The first blade was coming to my upper torso, at my left side. I simply raised my shield to block the blow, the second sword was coming for the lower torso on my right side, and the third was coming for my left side, at the same time. I simply bend my knees to both lower the shield to block the attack, but to also prepare for the fourth attack. The third blade was easily parried by my sword, and the fourth attack came around. I simply released all the pressure on my legs, dashing to the left side of the giant, dodging the fourth attack. I thought I was in the clear, but then another blade was heading toward my torso. It appeared that there was enough time for the giant to regain control of the first blade by the time I had dodged the fourth. As I blocked the blade with my shield, I couldn't help but feel defeated at this point. After I had blocked the second blade, and parried the third blade, and it was time to dodge the fourth blade. This time, after I had dashed to the left again, I had executed a Sword Skill to at least deal some damage during this.
"Why are we even fighting this boss, when it's already been cleared?!" Elena yelled as she deflected the swords of the other giant.
"Because, we want to be able to get the experience for completing the quest. Because, someone, wanted to practise their Sword Skills," he paused and I heard the sound of swords clashing against each other. "we ended up missing the clearing group, so in order to get the experience points and good armor from the quest, we have to clear it ourselves!"
"I still think!" I blocked two more blades coming my way. "That only you, would be so stubborn to fight bosses that were already cleared before, just to complete the quest." I dodged another blade, dealing a little bit more damage to the giant. I finally noticed that the giants HP was slowly draining each hit. One more, and it should enter the yellow.
"That may be true..." More swords were clashing together, followed by the sound of the sword scraping against the giant's natural armor. "But at least you'll get to fight every boss!" Jace laughed.
"Even so, if we end up dying from a boss that's already been cleared," I attacked the giant, depleting his health to the yellow. "I'm haunting your soul!" I laughed.
"Deal!" Jace laughed again, as the sounds of battle continued to rattle all around the room.
Occasionally, I'd be able to get a look at how my teammates are doing while dodging the giant. They're in a much better position than I am. Considering that it was three against one over there, while I was one-maning this one. Just as the great Heathcliff had did. I thought to myself, but I was immediately brought back to reality, just barely parrying his sword.
"Hey, Jace!" I slashed the giant once more, his health getting closer to the red.
"Yeah, what's up?" I looked as the giant was switching attack patterns, and hit the team for quite a bit of damage.
"This item better be damn worth it!" I slashed the giant once more, after dodging another barrage of attacks, causing his health to go into the red. This is it. The giant began to swing more wildly now, though there were more openings, the weight of the swings were much stronger. When I went to parry the third sword, the swing was much stronger than I had anticipated, and the sword struck straight through, the blow forcing me back against the wall.
"GAH!" I clutched my shoulder again and saw my health close to the red. If it weren't for the health potion and Battle Healing, I'd be dead right now... I drank another potion, and charged at the giant once more. This time, I quickly deflected two of his swords, and when the other two were over his head, I had turned my body, to free my shield of the other swords, blocked the two swords, and while straining to keep the swords off me, I stabbed the giant again. His HP was at critical. The giants swings were at blinding speeds now, but all I needed was one more opening, if I can just continue to dodge and block his attacks, I can find the opening... There! The boss, for a split second, after swinging it's second and third swings, pauses long enough, to swing the fourth and first simultaneously, if I can stab him during that pause, then maybe... I had continued to dodge his attacks, and everything moved almost to a complete still. The swords moved in just the pattern I had expected, then and just the right time, I thrusted my sword in the giant's torso, one final time.
After a long pause, my sense of hearing came back to me, and I heard a loud cheer, but I listen closely to the cheering, it sounded more like cries. I looked in front of me to see my sword was still in the torso of the clay giant, but when I looked up, I saw the two blades sunk deep in the torso of a humanoid figure that stood in front of me.
That figure was Jace.
As soon as I came to the realization, I dropped my sword, and clinged to Jace, just for him, and the giant, to shatter into thousands of pieces. Then the giant words, "Congratulations" popped up, as if to mock me.
"Jace!" I stared at the empty space in my arms, where Jace was just a second ago. My entire body trembled, with fear and anger, as I raised my head to the ceiling and let out a terrible cry from the bottom of my chest.
He was gone, my comrade, no, my friend whom I entrusted my life to, died protecting me... Though Elena and Alexis were crying as well, I was in no mental state to help them, but instead continued to cry Jace's name, as if it would bring him back.
After, a long time of screaming at the ceiling, I finally lost my breath, and couldn't scream anymore. I just started to beat the floor in anger. Of course, I couldn't actually do any damage, but I was still angry at the world, at this cruel game of death, at Kayaba for trapping us in here.
I'm not sure how much time we spent in that empty room, but I was now in the inn on the 51st floor. In there, Elena and Alexis had already fallen asleep in the bed. I was left with the words that Jace and I exchanged that one day.
"I have to rely on figuring things out while on the field. Though it isn't too hard of a task, there's still the possibility of death, if we don't solve a puzzle right away, or find the certain monster's weakness in enough time... When I think of that..."
Damn-it Jace! Why'd you have to die on me!
"I'm not that great of a fighter, I'm only good for information"
These last thoughts lingered in my head...
Elena stirred from her sleep. "Jin..." She wrapped her arms around me.
"He's really gone isn't he...?" I started to tear up again.
"He is... But I think, it's because he knew, that between the four of us, you'd be the one with the highest chance of completing the game." She put her hands together and held them against her chest.
"Elena. I swear, I will protect both of you. I won't have another teammate die on me again."
Elena smiled. "Don't kick yourself too hard for this. You had no clue what would happen."
"But I-" I was interrupted with Elena rubbing her lips against mine, at first I wanted to pull back and yell at her for interrupting me, but as I closed my eyes and relaxed, the pleasure of her lips against mine overwhelmed me. Though I know that this is a virtual world, I feel as though I can actually feel her lips against mine, and in return, I start to brush mine against her's.
I don't know how long we were brushing against each other's lips, but when we finally departed, I could feel my cheeks warm with embarrassment, and when I opened my eyes, Elena, too, had a deep blush on her cheeks. She smiled, and quietly got back into bed, I made myself comfortable on the floor using a bedroll.
"Goodnight, Jin... No, James. I love you!" She hid under the blankets at the last word, as if to hid her embarrassed face more.
"I love you, too Sarah. Goodnight." I closed my eyes. So she did feel the same way I felt. Though I felt warmth in my heart, there will always be a hole that'll never go away. Jace was gone, and the only way I can accept that the fact, is when I go back to the real world, with Elena and Alexis.
"I swear, Jace, all three of us will make it back out alive!" after softly saying this to myself, hoping that Jace may have heard, I finally drifted to sleep.
