Author's Notes:
Yes, I'm still alive. No, updates won't come any faster because I don't have a lot of personal time. This thing got me stuck for about 12 revisions.
I've also finished Cold Steel 3 and 4. No spoilers, but you'll see characters from those games starting to appear here.
Revisions will be done to the previous chapters. Mainly some editing to the timeline and to the profiles.
The trip out to Carnelia Tower was not as bad as last time. The terrain was hilly, sure, but we didn't have to carry the giant crate of parts; Rechter's airship, uh, "volunteered" to transport both Erika and the parts with them until the entrance to the tower. The plan was to use Tita's armor to carry the crates up any stairs. The giant mech suit needed to charge in first to get aggro on the mobs anyway.
The airship also carried Sinon and Rechter. Her sniper cannon—and it was no doubt a cannon given the size of the thing—was useless in close quarter fighting. It needed to be set up, and the close-range performance of that thing was, according to her, atrocious. For a game that had swords and magic, it also had near-accurate realistic simulations of projectile ballistics, bullet effects on material, and rocketry.
Argus was not a small company by any stretch, and it was evident that every scrap of its resources was devoted on Zemuria Online. Kayaba's betrayal crushed the company into fine bankrupt dust that would be a cautionary tale on the importance of employee mental health and background checks for centuries to come, but at the time we had only a guess as to how the servers were still running.
We were stronger this time, too. Most of us were hovering around Level 70 now, having grinded levels after Esmelas. We each got our first S-Craft. It was a powerful attack that we could activate with at least 100CP and with a special activation phrase and a pose. During the execution of our S-Craft, we were typically invulnerable to any external interference. It could not be interrupted, and damage could not be dealt to us even if we were subject to an attack, no matter how powerful.
The downside is, after the S-Craft, there was a significant period of time that we need to recover, during which we could neither attack nor effectively defend. Some S-Crafts even stunned player characters for a while. And, most importantly, in PvP, they conferred no damage protection, meaning that a skilled player could choose to interrupt and counter a player in the middle of executing one.
Mine was Howling Octave, a straightforward strike with eight hits. It granted a lot of power to those hits, including boosted armor penetration values, increased critical strike chance, bonus damage, etc.; in fact, it was so powerful that I could kill any non-elite mob and even some elite mob with a single use, but it only hit one target.
At the bottom of the tower, a pack of boss-level mobs awaited us. They were known in the game as "Crimson Lions", and they did resemble actual in-game lions, except they were much larger, their eyes much more malicious, and they had armor instead of manes. They had large health pools, stupidly high physical attack and defense especially at the armored parts, and ludicrous speed. They were also immune to any fire attacks.
Did I mention that they were armored? Seriously, whoever decided to put armor on that thing deserves to be locked in a mental asylum somewhere. With that said, though, the boss fight wasn't anything exciting. In fact, it didn't even feel like a proper boss fight and more like a "getting to know each other better" event for the party members. Tita's power armor served well as a Tank with its chainsaw fist and its large shield. Erika had taken about ten minutes swapping the flamethrower attachment on its shield arm for a pair of twin-linked machine guns and another ten minutes attaching two ten-missile pods to its shoulders. Emptying the pods into the area as an initial attack was enough to get the Lions' attention and hold them for a while, while the chainsaw fist and the machine guns maintained the threat level, allowing us to burst DPS them down one by one.
The armor was quite effective at soaking damage as well. The Lions had razor-sharp claws and pointy fangs fit for tearing up soft fleshy prey, but they found the shield on the power armor a bit too hard to chew. Claws raked at the shield and bites were looking for the soft exposed hydraulic hoses and servos, but overall the armor was too thick and too durable for them to break. The Lions had the intelligence to look for Tita, too. She was protected with a bolt-on canopy of hardened glass and thick armor plating, so they didn't find any luck there either.
The girl really was something else for a small pre-teen. She was sweating heavily and her cheeks were bright red from the heat inside the suit. After the initial volley of missiles, she charged into the fray with a sweeping burst of machine gun fire followed by a swing of her chainsaw fist. The first Lion that leaped at it got a mouthful of sharp chainsaw teeth, the powerful machine bashing it aside with a clear, sharp SMACK!
Orderly chaos ensued after as all the DPS in the team charged to behind the lions and unleashed our S-crafts in staggered waves. Adrenaline rushes in the middle of combat made it seemed longer than it actually was. We focused on three out of the five Lions, dishing out enough damage to outright kill two and bringing the remaining third to about one tenth health. Two simultaneous casts of Diamond Dust shattered the beast into thousands of ice shards, which then became a shower of iridescent polygons.
Sinon's giant sniper cannon barked with frightening regularity. The supersonic shots registered on the monsters before the reports hit my ears a split second later. The slugs had enough power to punch holes through the mane armor and carve off visible chunks of health. Her gun's chatter was occasionally companied by disciplined volleys from the two other Army guys, long dumps of ammunition from Tita's armor, or the thunderous roars from Claire's hand cannon. On top of the hum from the airship, these savage sounds of death created an interesting rhythm.
It was to this rhythm that Joshua, Fie, Yuuki and Estelle "danced" with me. As the melee DPS contingent of the party, we sliced, stabbed, and struck them in the soft fleshy rear where the armor was the thinnest. Although they only just met a couple of hours ago, Joshua and Fie already reached some sort of weird synchronization with each other. Joshua would stealth in and deliver a pair of painful backstabs; when the Lion turned around, Fie would flew in from the other end, give it a flurry of stabs, then back away shooting all the while. That routine was timed perfectly into one of Tita's chainsaw swings. The threat table of the Lion was finessed in such a way that it rapidly switched between the three characters due to the massive damage Joshua and Fie dealt, and because every time it switched targets it had to turn around and roar a bit, it never dealt much damage.
Yuuki, Estelle and I played to a different tune. Estelle's staff bashes were forceful enough to crack the mane armor. She somehow dared to use high threat attacks like a Tank, and after about a minute successfully peeled the final Lion off of Tita. Staff and swords clashed with claws and teeth as Yuuki and I waded in and out of the beast's reach, blocking and parrying attacks when Estelle readied her Crafts. Then she would step in with the business end of her staff, smacking the Lion in the face as well as in the softer, fleshier parts.
The rest of the party focused on ranged DPS, dumping large amounts of ammunition and Arts on them. Some of them—Asuna being the most prominent one—went into close range sometimes, using Crafts to add buffs and apply debuffs on the monsters, but they mainly remained distant. Given that the monsters were weak to Water arts, jets of water and shards of ice flew everywhere. We in melee range avoided the ice most of the time, but I was soaked after bringing our own lion down to 60% of total health.
The fight finished not long after. Most of us were already experienced with group activities. There was not much else to be said about it, even between the party members. Loot distribution was done with little fuss, either. Useful gear was distributed according to need, with vanity items and crafting materials distributed by random rolls. Nobody argued who did more and who did less, because everyone pulled their weight.
In Zemuria Online, leeching without consent was as reviled as robbery.
We proceeded into the tower after Erika conducted "the appropriate maintenance rituals". They included the usual screwdriver-and-wrench fares along with striking the side of the machine with a mallet while chanting nonsensical litanies. She also affixed a wax seal with a strip of paper on the shoulder of the armor. It was a "purity seal", she said, used to ward off evil and help the righteous.
Up to that point, I didn't even know what a wax seal was. Letters were sealed with the option menu. That she would use it on a machine decoration of all things spoke of the depth of, uh, nonsensical fanaticism, that Erika displayed. She was percussively insistent about avoiding the word "insane" when describing her, as she had demonstrated on Agate when he commented on the "purity seal".
The crate of parts remained on the airship. We cleared until the first window, where the crate was offloaded from the airship and necessary repairs were done on Tita's armor. At that point, she was not particularly concerned about leaving the canopy armor on the machine. It was fair, I suppose; the machine generated enough heat that little Tita inside was covered in sweat. When we popped it open, steam wafted out from the cockpit. She shot out of it and landed near Erika, who doused her with a bucket of water.
The inside of the Tower was surprisingly hot and dry. It was a consequence of it being linked with the element of Fire, I suppose; our hydration meters were depleting much faster than normal. The airship carried enough water to last us a couple of days, but for the sake of our own comfort, we forged ahead.
There was not much to be said about the trash mobs inside the Tower, either. They provided drops such as crafting materials and consumable supplies. Treasure chests also yielded little in the way of desirable equipment, though Tita was strangely excited about a portable mortar off of one of the gilded chests.
We reached the top of the Tower not long after. The air at the top was crisp and fresh; the setting evening sun cast long shadows over the well-worn red stone floor. The mood between party members, however, was tense.
There was a man standing at the top of the Tower. He did not appear to be armored or armed; indeed, he was wearing a white lab coat with a brown sweater and gray dress pants like a researcher. He was blond, and his bespectacled face showed much creasing. The glint from his comically round glasses blinded me for a second.
"He doesn't seem threatening," Yuuki heaved a sigh of relief.
"If you haven't forgotten," Schera chided, "there is supposed to be a boss monster here."
"Another member of the Snake, you think?" Estelle gripped her staff tighter. Behind her, both Joshua and Fie slinked out of sight, having activated their stealth skills.
"Most likely," Asuna opened her interface and glanced at the man, "I can't read much stats off of him either."
"That's because," the man spoke, but his mouth didn't move. Instead, each syllable exploded in our heads like a string of booming gunshots, "I blocked the search and analysis APIs against our avatars. They won't return any sensible value."
The tension in the air was suddenly so thick that I almost choked on it.
"Who the hell are you?!" Erika snapped loudly.
"Doctor Novartis, at your service." He spoke normally this time in his thick Russian accent, along with a mock deep bow with his left forearm across his chest.
"Of Ouroboros, I assume," Schera cut off Erika before she could make an angry retort. "Which number are you?"
"Very perceptive, young lady." Novartis adjusted his glasses and his smile grew into a toothy grin. "I suppose it was foolish of me to expect young Ari to hide much about our organization to you after your encounter at Esmelas Tower. I am Anguis Number Six."
"What's your relationship with Kayaba Akihiko?" Schera continued.
"Ah, that you will have to figure out yourself, young lady," he raised a hand and wagged an index finger as if lightly chiding a child, "for unlike Ari, I am not in the habit of revealing unnecessary information."
Schera growled under her breath in frustration: "Then tell us; what do you expect to do here?"
"Oh, just checking on the progress of our players," he took a breath after that. "I wanted to make sure the group receiving the Treasure is worthy of it, after all."
"I thought you were competing with us to get it," Asuna added.
"That was Ari wanting to light a firecracker under your butts to get you going," he waved dismissively and shook his head. "And here you stand, still proudly thinking that Ouroboros is a monolithic entity in your naiveté."
"To get us going?" Estelle seethed. Then, she exploded: "To get us going by murdering five people!? Five people who didn't do anything wrong!? What the hell is wrong with you!?"
"Now, now, little sunshine; I didn't say I agree with her methods." He raised his palms in a placating gesture. Asuna bit her lip and readied her rapier for quick draw. "Though, it seemed that her, uh, spur in your sides, so to speak, worked. You all are much stronger than the last time you tried to venture into a tower."
"What do you hope to accomplish by locking us all in here?" Schera continued, using her hand to stop Estelle from charging at the man.
"You assume that Ouroboros answers to Mr. Kayaba," he folded his hands behind his back. "We certainly are benefitting from the current situation."
"You can't possibly expect us to believe that you don't," I said, at last. "Arianrhod was too powerful for a regular player at that point in time. And you blocked our attempts at scanning your data. Those are not things ordinary players with ordinary level access could do."
"Very good!" The Doctor clapped slowly. His toothy grin turned predatory. "I do have access to all the private APIs on the platform. I spent months debugging it with my team, after all."
"Employees of Argus. Figures." I mumbled.
"We're linked with the same Nerve Gear hardware as you do, but we are able to log out," he continued with that same predatory grin. "If you kill our avatars, however, the same microwave components will also fry our brains. Fair is fair, right?"
"So, if I smash your fuckin' face in, you would literally go to hell," Agate gritted his teeth and took a step forward.
"Now, now, let's not get hasty. After all, we ought to respect our elders, and I am but a frail old man," Novartis held up a placating hand. His tone changed after he saw Agate's face: "But, young man, if you insist, I'll have no choice but to defend myself. A man can't let himself be helplessly murdered, you understand."
"Well, we certainly can't have that," I spoke up against my better judgment. A glare from Asuna stabbed icy knives into my spine, but I tried my best to ignore it. The daggers disappeared though after I continued my sentence: "not after your colleague murdered five helpless people at Esmelas Tower, and definitely not after hundreds expired at the beginning of this death game."
"I see how it is. I can't blame you, really. I would probably do the same thing if I were in your shoes," Novartis shook his head. Then he gazed intently at the power armor: "Interesting creation, that; it's powerful, durable, and also accommodates a child."
He tutted: "Be a shame if something happens to it. Something like this, maybe?"
The moment his voice dropped, the servos on the armor whirred to a yelp from Tita. The chainsaw fist revved and came crashing down on Agate.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" He cursed, using his sword to barely deflect the blow. The group immediately scattered around the field, but there were already targeting reticles marked on the ground.
"MOM! HELP!" Tita screamed, yanking as hard as she could on the joysticks in the cockpit. "I'VE LOST CONTROL!"
Erika's response was abruptly cut short when Estelle gave her a solid whack with her staff. It sent her flying toward the entrance. A missile from the Terminator Armor detonated where she stood a split second later; Estelle only took splash damage from that, but it was still enough to reduce her HP by nearly a quarter.
The robot focused on Agate. A burst of machine gun fire missed him and grazed an Army soldier, who only lived because he had the bright idea of getting out of dodge with a roll. Smoke grenades popped all around the robot, obscuring its view and reducing its accuracy.
And then, Sinon's sniper rifle barked. The high-velocity round rang a crisp ping against the robot's armor. Its HP bar, unfortunately, was only reduced by a few pixels.
"I didn't design the armor with that much HP!" Erika yelled behind the screen of her portable terminal. "What the hell did that old fuck do to it!?"
"Probably buffed it to boss-level HP, armor and resistances!" Claire snarled as her hand cannon roared. Large caliber bullets struck the thick armor plating and bounced into showers of shattered polygon.
"I can't eject!" Tita was panicking inside the cockpit. "I can't unbuckle myself either! The options are greyed out and I can't even press the button on the belt!"
"LET MY DAUGHTER GO!"
The battlefield descended into chaos. Red aiming lasers from the Army riflemen danced wildly about. Fortunately the range was short enough that they didn't have to be too careful with their shots, but then again their weapons weren't doing much against the increased armor values of the, well, Armor.
Estelle was in front of the machine, doing what she could to hold its attention. It seemed like Novartis implanted a boss AI into the machine; it was behaving as if it had a threat chart. Estelle's HP was at around 40% now. Her staff had some serious damage from parrying and hitting the chain fist.
It wouldn't hold forever.
"Estelle! Switch!" I bellowed with the best volume I've got just as she was flung aside. My sword flashed and I charged, stabbing the armor thrice on the chest. That got its attention; it swung the chainsaw fist, but I sidestepped it and stabbed it in the arm servo. Yellow critical damage numbers floated up from the wound to my satisfaction, but there wasn't a lot of damage.
I had to leap back to not take a gut punch from two smoking machine gun barrels. A straight jet of water struck the machine's shield, making it slide back several feet. Hopping to the side, I dashed in again, only to have my sword meet the biting edge of a flailing chainsaw. Sparks flew as I was flung back much further than the machine into a roll.
How did that girl hold its attention so long?
I glanced at my HP bar. It's got a little over 70% left just from that one hit.
Then, the familiar targeting reticles painted the floor again.
Damn it!
The explosions rippled across the floor. Claire was sent flying; she couldn't get out of the full damage zone of the missile. When she landed, she had about 10% of her HP left. Others fared much better, though; the missiles didn't track anything but the targeting reticles.
The machine turned toward her. I gave its back a bootful, staggering it slightly. Of course, I had to adjust my stance in the middle, which was a perfect opportunity for it to spray me with machine gun bullets.
I have 40% of HP left and I had its attention.
"Kirito! Switch!"
Joshua yelled at me and seemingly teleported behind the machine. The first dagger slashed the hip joint of its right leg. He vanished and then appeared to the side and struck the left armpit. His last sudden appearance sent him to the right side, and his dagger went into the machine gun. He didn't bother pulling it out.
The S-Craft drained about 8% of its HP with its three Crits. The machine seemed to groan in pain before it tried to attack Joshua, at which point Yuuki stepped in.
With two swords.
She drew her other sword and held it in her left hand. She then let out a flurry of slashes too fast for my eyes to track. Certain slashes were Crafts, too, given the different colors the swords took. Without a word she slid down, and both golden and turquoise Arts struck the machine from Asuna and Schera. Then she resumed her attack, her body whirling around the machine too quickly for it to even attempt to retaliate.
Sinon's sniper cannon barked again. The projectile struck a glancing blow against the front of the armor. It skidded along the slope upwards and struck the glass canopy, leaving a spider web crack on it and caused Tita to scream in terror.
"WATCH IT!" Erika screamed as well, both in rage and in panic. Then another burst of bullets from the Army shooters pelted the machine with plenty of metal, ricocheting absolutely everywhere.
Somehow none of that hit Yuuki as she kept slicing away at the machine. HP was chipped away as swords bit repeatedly into both its unprotected and protected parts, causing pitiful damage numbers to pop off in a constant stream.
But she was tiring; I could see that. Her CP bar kept draining and replenishing as she activated Craft after Craft in between chain hits. Even as the chain bonus and the damage numbers kept growing, her rhythm of attack wouldn't last long.
This was strange to me. When we met Arianrhod, she was this murderous unstoppable force that killed everything she touched with one hit. It was a miracle I lived seven seconds against her. This time, the armor that Novartis buffed seemed to have a lot of HP, armor, resistances and so on, but it was more of a sponge than anything dangerous. Oh, sure, if that chainsaw hit someone, it would mess them up plenty, but it was just so sluggish. The machine gun, too; every time it tries to shoot, it has to raise its arms and we would duck out of the way. The missiles have aiming reticles on the ground that wouldn't track a player.
So what was he playing at?
I stared at Novartis. The old man had a bored look on his face. It seemed that he had the same idea: "Is that the best you can do, 'heroes'? I thought you would have ended the machine by now."
Said impatience immediately earned him a bullet from Sinon. The bullet, however, simply despawned into a shower of polygons as it entered his vicinity.
"Immortal Object," the sniper's shaky voice came through the voice beads.
"Naughty, naughty," he commented in a sing-song voice, glancing at the sniper platform airship above. "It's a beautiful ship. It's a shame, really, that I have to get rid of it."
Then, the armor reacted. It turned around to face the ship and unleashed a barrage of missiles ala Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. The projectiles streaked toward the ship in zigzagged paths, leaving behind long, wispy vapor and heat trails.
"What the hell!?" Schera's cursing was cut short when all of them struck the port side of the massive target. The impacts initially pushed the ship to the right slightly as it rocked and shuddered violently, and then it began listing to the left. People jumped off of the ship before it exploded into pieces that slowly fell into a shower of shattered iridescent polygons.
Shit.
"Rechter! Sinon! Answer me!" I bellowed.
"Everyone's okay, Kirito! We all carry parachutes after all!" Rechter's singsong voice was rather venomous. "That guy just cost my government a pretty Mira!"
Sinon's answer was another loud bark from her sniper cannon. The projectile despawned on a trajectory terminating at Novartis' solar plexus.
Yuuki took the chance to disengage from the machine and keep a clear distance from it: "Nice shot, that."
"Hmph, that little cyka's got quite some pluck, trying to target me for attacks." Novartis scowled at the falling parachute specks in the distance. "No matter; I shall clean this up quickly."
The armor moved with a renewed vigor, faster than any of us expected, and it came straight for me. I was half a second too slow to respond; the arm with the flamethrower swiped me into the side of the wall. My HP dipped down to about 40% of max; a healer in Kev's party had the presence of mind of targeting a healing Art on me to try to recover some before the next time the armor paid its attention on me. He, on the other hand, started casting a wide-area healing spell around where Yuuki and Asuna were at.
Targeting circles were everywhere. It was on me, in front of me, around me and behind me. The missiles were aimed in a tricky pattern. It formed so quickly that I didn't have much time to recognize it. Instinctively I stepped to the right side as the first missile exploded into a cloud of acrid-smelling blast. Then the next missiles came, and I could only step forward. Two more detonated behind me. A split second later, half a dozen of them blanketed the area I was previously in, and I had to sprint with all my speed outside of the targeting area.
Red rays of projected machine gun fire intercepted my path. Both Asuna and Schera moved simultaneously; one casting a speed-boosting buff on me, and the other buffed my physical defense. Bullets pelted against me, tearing at my avatar with alarming ferocity. My HP bar kept decreasing and replenishing as healers shifted their attentions to me, continuously spamming me with their small, efficient healing spells.
Lines of targeting circles appeared on the ground, blanketing most of the area with missiles. The Armor pointed its missile pods to the sky, launching a long, ten-second barrage high into the air. Then it charged again for me, but I was ready. I had to step into a few red circles as I got out of dodge, my face missing the whirring chainsaw teeth by a few centimeters.
"Watch the missiles!" I bellowed again, this time to the entire raid. Asuna, Schera and Yuuki were already on the move. Asuna was a blur toward the outer edge of the ring, where there was a patch not covered by the blood red targeting circles. Schera used her whip to yank an Army shooter out of his firearm-induced euphoric trance; she took a glancing blast because of that. The splash damage alone was enough to knock her down into the 50% mark. Yuuki was happily slashing away at the back of the Armor while it had its attention focused on me; she kicked its metal back, using it as leverage to dart through the air. Missiles landed one after another, but each one of them missed her by at most a hair's width.
Joshua and Fie took the opportunity to stealth themselves. The rest of the raid—including Erika, Aidios bless her—scrambled clumsily out of the blast zones. The long chain of blasts sent my ears ringing, but I could still see the armor barreling at me at surprising speeds.
I had to jump out of the way. The mad scientist must have buffed the movement and reaction speeds of the mech. Given that Erika designed it to be operated by a human through levers, buttons, pedals and joystick, it could only move as quickly as Tita could move the control mechanisms. This means that the mad Russian put a boss' AI into the thing and hijacked them. This means that it could move as quickly as the AI thought, which means that the Power Armor could move as fast as a computer.
Power Armor.
Power.
"Casters!" I yelled as it turned toward me once more. I saw Tita openly crying inside the cockpit; she had apparently yanked a control lever free, and was uselessly bashing on the inside of the bullet-resistant glass canopy with it.
I saw red. "Zap it!"
As if on cue, a bolt of lightning crashed forth from Schera. It was joined by a line of brilliant electrical bolts descending onto the tower, two of them hitting arms of the machine. Then, bursts of electricity erupted from almost every caster in the party. Healers joined in with water-based arts; water, splashed onto the metal and electrolyzed by all the lightning, turned into combustible gas and lit up subsequently into explosions.
I had to give it to Argus engineers; they really thought of everything.
My guess was right. The Armor was not just taking damage. Sparks flew from the exposed joints and the back. The surge of currents was causing it problems, but it wasn't enough to put it out of commission.
"Erika, just how durable did you make this thing?" She was screaming at the top of her lungs. I used the opportunity to slither towards Erika, who was also openly crying. Her tears were disintegrating into polygons as soon as they left her face.
"Stop zapping it! I never designed it to be electricity proof! The cockpit was not insulated!" she said. "By the Omnissiah, it's just a prototype! It's never meant to be used as a raid boss!"
Oh crap.
Tita's screaming was muffled. The HP bar floating around her head was steadily decreasing. Not so quickly that she was dead in seconds, but pretty close. There was smoke coming out from the Armor, but it was quite clear that the casters couldn't keep shocking it with electricity.
"Casters! Cease fire and heal Tita!" I ordered again, immediately. I was disappointed when they yelled back that they couldn't target her.
Oh shit. Oh shit! OH SHIT!
I had to take responsibility. I had to get her out of there.
That was my only thought as I charged toward it, my sword in hand. Its arms were flailing; machine gun fire and chainsaw swings were everywhere. Missiles were firing sporadically from its pods, not enough to be a genuine threat but certainly still dangerous enough to force raid members within the blast zones to move. Seizing an opening, I leaped toward it, stepping on its machine gun arm and leaped again. The armor had a slope to it, slanted enough that I couldn't find good purchase with my boots but not so much that I slid off of it quickly. Finding an opening with my sword, I stabbed deep into the machine; the blade was tangled in something and became stuck, which was perfect for me as I could hang off of it.
Opening the inventory menu with my right hand, I brought out a crowbar. It was one of the few trade goods I have inside my inventory; a crowbar, like a towel, was an ever-useful item, especially one that could both bash faces and pry open crates. I swung the clawed end wildly at the glass canopy. It did not crack, but instead began chipping.
That was not good enough. "Help me!" I yelled. Promptly an arrow streaked into the canopy. It bounced off of the glass and did absolutely nothing, but the idea was there. Soon, bullets began peppering the machine again, most of them focusing on the glass, but almost none of it made a difference.
None, that is, except Agate's heavy sword. With a savage war cry, he barreled down at the canopy, his heavy broadsword swung with all his strength from overhead. It made a terrible clang and a persistent ring as he and the sword both bounced off with terrible force, but it left a white line of crushed glass. I aimed for the line and swung the crowbar with all my might.
The crowbar caught the shattered tempered glass. I let go of the sword and pulled with all my weight, bracing myself only with my feet on the slanted armor. Gravity along with my arms and legs caused the glass to crack into large pieces that still remain attached to the steel frame, but it wouldn't last. The last remaining bit of durability finally drained; the part disintegrated into a shower of shattered polygons. My crowbar lost purchase just as suddenly; I remember losing my leverage and falling back-first into the dirt beside the Armor's malfunctioning foot.
It was coming out of its electricity-induced seizure. The foot lifted and hovered over me. I somehow had the presence of mind to tumble out of the way as it came crashing down. The next thing I knew, Joshua materialized in a drab blur and with two precise cuts loosened the harness on Tita. Fie came out of stealth right after Joshua leaped off of the machine; she grabbed Tita by the straps of her pants, hoisted her onto her back, and disappeared.
The next thing was five different streaks of lightning and thunder crashing down onto the machine. My sword acted as a lightning rod, sending current into the interior. Bullets and explosives blanketed the area as well, no longer having to worry about collateral damage on Tita. One grenade was fortunate enough to land inside the wide-open cockpit. It dropped on the chair and rolled down into the pedals before detonating, causing a chunk of the machine's HP to evaporate into nothing.
It was on fire, then; sparks flew and smoke billowed from it as it twitched and spasmed in its last throes. Having been somehow reunited with her daughter, Erika watched with teary eyes as her creation slumped down into a pile of scrap metal on the ground. The current going into it through my sword had slagged the internals enough that there was no explosion. Even if there were, it wouldn't be big enough to affect everyone, who was then standing as far as possible from the machine.
"Tch," Novartis scoffed. Every pair of eyes on the tower was directed at him. "Boring."
"You're next, you stupid fuck," Agate pointed his sword at the mad doctor.
"Hmph, as if I would be brought low by you savages," he sneered at Agate before drawing a long-suffering sigh. "Still, I suppose you idiots had accomplished my test, so by his will, I will allow you access to the second clue."
With a snap of his fingers, the machinery on the tower came to life. It looked distinctly like the one we encountered on top of Esmelas tower; glowing lines adorned the base platform, and arcane rings began ominously floating in the air, inviting a single player to come forth.
"Kirito, is it?" Novartis smirked at me. "I'm surprised the grown-up players picked a teenager."
"I wasn't picked," I said, having stood up once again.
"Well that explains it," he shrugged; the sarcasm was not lost on me. "Step inside, then; surprise me with your keen deductions."
I turned around and glared at him: "I fail to see how you can still feel superior when you had to change yourself to an immortal object in this confrontation. At least Arianrhod wasn't afraid of a little damage."
"She's liked the combat system since the beginning," Novartis sighed. I only shrugged, and resumed my walk onto the machine. This time, I had the presence of mind to notice it glowing and humming, unlike the last time.
I took a deep breath and took note of myself. My skin felt a slight tingle. A shiver travelled along my spine. Something energetic was happening around me, it seems. Static electricity seemed to crackle in the air and it felt as if the hairs on my skin were standing up, even though the system should not have enough processing power to simulate them.
"四つの鎖を解除して…福音に…救い出せ…"
"Release the four locks, and free the Gospel…?" I mumbled according to the golden text plastered across my field of vision. No, it wasn't "free the Gospel", it was "using the Gospel to free".
The tingle subsided. I took the signal and stepped out of the machine, only to find Novartis standing on the palm of what I could only describe as an oversized Gundam prototype. It was painted white with elaborate ornaments and a horn on its head. The wings at the back looked like folded cannons; there were four pairs of "petals" per se, and each one arranged itself into the shape of a crow's beak. The rest of the thing was heavily armored enough that Novartis, despite being a Russian and being like six feet tall, seemed positively tiny on the palm of that thing.
"What the hell" was my exact comment at that moment. The Gundam was floating off the edge of the Tower, but it made very little noise given that it had huge jet thrusters at the back.
Orbal physics, ladies and gentlemen. Not a single bit was it was created sober.
"Seems like you are all appropriately dumbstruck. Excellent," the bastard said with a smug smile on his face, "the next time we meet, you'll be facing off against my own creations instead of your pile of scrap metal."
"As long as you're piloting it," Agate snarled, "'cause I'm going to stab straight into that fucking cockpit and pin whatever's left of your rotten black heart against the seat."
"If you have the skills to do it, then by all means," Novartis tutted. His grin turned into a twisted evil smirk: "The Thirteen Factories eagerly await our next meeting. Farewell, then! Try your best not to get killed before then!"
And with that, the Gundam's eyes glowed. A large golden sphere surrounded the space around it, and then with a thunderous crack, it—and all the air enclosed by the sphere—disappeared.
I could feel the adrenaline dissipate. My arms and legs felt far heavier than they were when I was fighting Tita's machine.
Oh, Aidios.
With that thought, I spun around toward the smoking, sparking wreckage. Tita was extracted from the machine. She was sobbing into her mother's chest. Erika was consoling the girl with pats on her head and strokes to her back, though the older woman was crying along with her child.
"She'll be okay," Schera put her hand on my shoulder as I heaved a sigh of relief. "At least nobody died this time, huh?"
"…Yeah," I admitted, "Yeah, I suppose. Still, that came way too close for my comfort."
"Your tip about using electricity to paralyze it was a good one."
"That almost killed her."
"But it didn't," Asuna walked up to me with a small smile. Somehow, the only thought I could form at that moment was that she had a very pretty smile. "It gave us an opening to take down the armor."
"Still too risky. She's still just a child."
"I could say the same about you, you know," Schera patted my head, "we're not all old and wise like Estelle's dad is. Even if we were, I don't know if we could've come up with something that didn't have any risks of hurting her."
I looked up at her face and saw a tired but relieved smile. "I don't know," I heaved a sigh. Then, I looked toward the Erebonian contingent, who were moving to gather by us and Erika: "Are the ship's crew alright?"
"Yes," Fie answered quietly with a similarly exhausted smile, "Rechter and Sinon landed safely along with the pilots. The ship is also not irreplaceable, though I think he'll have to kiss his salary good-bye for the foreseeable future."
"Hey!" His protest came a bit garbled through the earpiece. "Blame that lunatic for putting missiles in a mobile suit!"
"Who are you calling lunatic, you fool!?" Erika's shriek made me wince. There were chuckles among the raid members, though.
"In any case," Kev joined up with us, his crossbow at his hip and his retinue at his back, "Since y'all are fine after somethin' like this, I say it's time to hit the bar!"
"Oh my, you say some nice things, fake priest," Schera shielded her mouth, mimicking a high-class lady that I knew she was not.
"Rejoice, O Youth, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth," he recited, but in the manner of a well-known fake priest, even using the Japanese phrase verbatim. "So banish sorrow from your heart, with good beer and good laughs."
We all shared a laugh at that.
Say what you will about Kev. Say that he is an American redneck. Say that he is a fake priest. Say that he is way too casual and direct for the Japanese audience. But one could never say that he doesn't know his way around with beer and barbecue. Okay, maybe that is a bit stereotypical for a Texan, but it doesn't make a fact less factual.
Bar Forgel was his favorite watering hole in Zeiss. There were other Player-opened establishments across the city, but he liked the beer and sandwiches there the best.
All of us congregated there after we returned from Carnelia Tower. We had lost the airship that transported equipment and parts to the tower, but we had also lost the prototype, which meant that we were travelling light. In high spirits, we stormed through any respawned mobs in the tower and smashed through the respawned mobs at the entrance, and arrived at the City just as the sun was about to set.
The bar itself became full the moment we arrived. Zeiss was a city of craftspeople; every Liberlian player that liked to create items had a residence here. Zeiss Central Factory became the engineering hub for Liberl, much like how the Reinford Company in Roer was to Erebonia. Naturally, the city was also home to good coffee and good alcohol, both of which are essential ingredients in a creative person's diet.
The fullness of the bar was also expressed in the rowdiness of its patrons. The normally simmering atmosphere boiled over in hollers and laughs. The Church table was surprisingly loud; Kev was drinking along with his group and loudly chatting in rapid-fire English, while the sole lady at the table—a girl in nun's habit with long red hair—swept every single scrap of food off of it. Schera and Yuuki was drinking along with Rechter and the Erebonians, and had what appeared to be half a dozen large empty bottles of alcohol scattered around the table already. Agate and Erika were having some sort of contest, seeing how they were chugging one mug after another. Tita was biting her nails as she looked left and right at the two helplessly.
This was decidedly not my type of party, so I sat down at Argo's table in a corner: "Say, you got her rather quickly,"
The Rat simply smiled with a long exhale, and slid me a mug of beer.
"Yeah, I took the passenger liner," she winked at me as she sipped the glass of what appeared to be fruit juice. "I arrived just as your merry little band returned to Zeiss. I take it everything worked out fine?"
"Uh, not exactly," I sipped from the mug. I must say, Argus had some real beer connoisseurs in its staff; the taste of the beer here was nothing like the stuff in Japan.
"The boy here had to pull a fast one on a prototype robot," Schera sat down beside me, her cheeks already beet red from the alcohol consumption. Her speech, while not slurred significantly, was starting to sound like a drunk. Rechter, on the other hand, appeared to already have passed out. Poor man. "We brought it in 'cause we were stupid enough not to think about group composition. The bastard from Ouroboros jacked it through some system APIs and turned it into a boss."
"Spicy," Argo arched an eyebrow behind her glass of juice. She then brushed aside Schera's offering of vodka: "you're not taking me there, Scher."
"You're no fun, but I bet he's going to make my day…" she draped herself around me with the glass right in front of my nose, her tone sultry. I couldn't tell if the smell of alcohol came more from her or from the glass: "Hey, boy, big sis'll show you a good time if you drink this, y'know? I'll make a man outta you yet!"
I growled in annoyance, just as Asuna arrived. She saw the brown-skinned woman, and her blush turned rather red: "I-it seems like I'm interrupting something here."
"Please help," I threw her a pleading glance. Schera's embrace got tighter; her perfume, mixed with the strong smell of alcohol, was a heady drug.
"Aa-chan, if you don't mind," Argo chuckled at my misfortune. "Peeling her off would also help to move the conversation along."
"Ahem," she cleared her throat, and in her best impression of a princess, snapped: "Scherazard, get off of Kirito this instant."
Schera slid off of me the moment Asuna verbally punctuated that sentence with a period. I know that doesn't make much sense on paper, but I have no idea how else to describe the indisputable authority Asuna put in there. She pouted a little, her gait still swaying: "Gee, getting defensive, aren't ya? Gonna claim him tonight?"
"I will do no such thing!" Asuna's authority evaporated in a millisecond, replaced by the blush glowing atomically hot.
"Scher, the adults are talking," Argo rubbed her forehead and glared the way only a mother could, "be a good girl and go sit at your table, okay?"
"Fine, just ruin my fun!" Dejected, Schera wobbled back to her own table with a pout and plopped down into the chair.
"That little interlude aside, Kii-bou," Argo continued, seemingly unfazed, "What's the information you got from the thing?"
I was about to answer, when the NPC waitress looped around and dropped a plate of toasted sandwich, spätzle and sauerkraut in front of me: "I didn't order this."
"It's on me, Kii-bou. In Bavaria, do as the Bavarians do, and all that." Somehow the smile on Argo's face was not at all reassuring.
That fear was confirmed the moment I took a bite into that sandwich and almost instantly spat it out. There was the crisp of the toasted bread, the softness of the pulled pork, the milkiness of the cheese and the crunchiness of lettuce. All of that disappeared when the massive wave of bitterness and astringency hit my tongue like a ton of bricks: "what the actual fuck is this shit!?"
"It's a sandwich, Kii-bou," Argo's smile seemed much more demonic now. Rather, my entire perception was being twisted by the Aidios-damned taste.
"No, I mean, what the fuck is actually in this shit!?" I yelled at Argo after having gulped down the last of the beer in an attempt to wash away the taste. It failed miserably, of course; now my entire mouth stung of the bitterness.
"Oh, you didn't know? It's a Zeiss delicacy called Acerbic Tomatoes, straight out of ZCF greenhouses," her smile only grew more evil, "I quite enjoy the taste of it, and I thought you might like it as well. It does recover your CP by quite a bit, too."
"You call this a delicacy!?" Were those horns on her head and leathery wings on her back?
"Uh-huh!" She replied rather enthusiastically as a large plate of tomato salad got delivered to her. She stabbed a forkful of the vegetable from Gehenna and shoved it into her mouth, puckering her lips as Asuna sat down at the table. "Mm-mmm! Delish!"
"You're just saying that to annoy me, now, aren't you." My appetite was all but gone. When the waitress swung by next, I asked for a glass of ice water along with another mug of beer. The ice helped numb my sense of taste somewhat and diluted the bitterness enough that it no longer caused me to hallucinate.
"Not at all," she spoke after swallowing, "but back to the topic at hand, huh. What did you get?"
"Something about 'release the four locks' and 'free with the Gospel'," I answered, remembering the line of text floating in front of my face. "It's not much of a puzzle, but the last bit seemed strange."
"'Four locks' obviously refers to the four devices on top of the towers, huh," Argo agreed after shoveling another mouthful of salad, "but are you sure it was 'release with the Gospel' and not 'release the Gospel'? 'Cause I think 'the Gospel' is something that would be released instead of an object."
"The Gospel was used to refer to the books in the New Testament, like the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke," Asuna chimed in, having put away a small notebook of some sort, "In this case, could it be something related to the Church?"
Argo rubbed her chin in thought. I glanced at the Church group and sighed; none of them were sober enough to be of use at the moment: "It used 'ni' instead of 'wo'. Unless I failed my Japanese classes in school, I'm positive it's an item."
"So, clearing the four towers and activating the four devices aren't enough," Argo concluded. "We have to find whatever this 'Gospel' is. Given that this is Argus and Kayaba we're talking about, I wouldn't count on it being an artifact of the church or it being in the shape of a book."
"Just when I thought we're going to make some progress." I let out a long-suffering sigh. It had been six months into the game. Spring had come and summer was starting, yet we were making no appreciable progress on the Treasures.
"Any progress is good progress at this point. Remember, we're flying blind here, Kii-bou," Argo took a long sip of her fruit juice, "the challenging part is to maintain hope for people outside of the Scouting and Reconnaissance Group."
"Yeah, I see how Liberl News, Crossbell Times and Imperial Chronicles are helping by broadcasting what we did." The article Argo penned for Liberl News on the raid of Esmelas Tower was masterfully done, I must say. We lost five people there: Diavel, Schmidt the Main Tank, Ryufior the off tank, Soapbox the shotgun user and Rasta the mace user. Above the fold of that edition, the title was printed in big letters: "FIRST CLUE TO THE TREASURES UNLOCKED IN LIBERL". The story on "Ouroboros claim five in flagrant PvP murders" was below the fold, right under the main article that had a colored photo of the glowing mechanism as its anchor piece.
"Kii-bou, I'm going to make you a symbol to the player base," she said much to my surprise.
I paused for a few seconds: "Me? A symbol?"
"Uh-huh," she nodded sagely, finishing up her salad and getting another serving of that fruit juice in a wine glass. "Hope, Kii-bou, is important at this point. We must have someone who represents the SRG front-liners. Just having Liberl News speak for them is not enough; I need to attach a face to it."
"Why not Asuna?" She seemed a little startled at my prompting. "Her face is a lot more presentable than my ugly mug."
"You're attractive enough," Argo smirked. "Besides, let's be honest, gamers in general don't really trust girls to be good at what they do."
"That's bullshit and you know it," I spat. Even though Zemuria Online had an 80-20 split between the male and female genders, among the SRG the ratio is much closer to 50-50. Women in Zemuria don't do things half-assed. In contrast, the rest of the population consisted of a much higher percentage of males.
No, I wasn't trying to justify my perceived popularity with ladies. All I'm saying is that people on the SRG had much better chances with ladies, Klein being the exception of course.
"We all know that, but that's what a lot of the player base think, unfortunately. And in the journalism business, perception is critical," Argo shrugged.
"It shouldn't be just him." Asuna piped up, much to Argo's surprise. At her inquisitive stare, Asuna continued: "If perception is what you want, then you need to make sure that people understand a group of players—an elite, dedicated, hardcore group of men and women—is pushing the boundaries and looking for the treasures. You want the article to inspire them to make a living in this world and contribute to the process however they could. That way, the SRG could have their support, and then we all work toward finding the treasures and clearing this death trap."
Argo and I were silent for a while. After finally having a chance to breathe, Asuna's eyes darted over between the two of us, her face once again lighting up in a bright blush: "W-was it something I said?"
"Aa-chan," Argo grasped Asuna's hand with both of hers. I kid you not, her eyes actually turned into sparkling stars: "In my entire life, I have not found anything as attractive as how you said what you did just then."
"T-Thanks, I guess?" Asuna stammered and tried to shake off Argo's iron grip. "I-i-it really wasn't anything special!"
"Now, if only Kii-bou would actually be in a group…" Argo glanced to the side after letting go of Asuna's hand, sporting a Cheshire grin, "you thought about joining up with the Bracers, right?"
"Argo," I started, but she held up a hand.
"It'd be much easier to write that article in Liberl News if we could associate you with a group. Journalistic integrity demands that I never lie," Argo's smile turned innocent. Asuna turned to look at me expectedly.
"Well, they do say that half-truths are much more effective."
"Despite you seeming to think that I joke around all the time, I'm being completely serious here, Kirito." She said, her smile having disappeared. I winced not at her tone, but at her lack of smile and calling me by my full IGN. "Being good by yourself isn't enough in Real Life and it isn't good enough here. You need a team, if only to watch your back and support you as you go through the motions of looking for the Treasures. It's really time for you to stop being childishly stubborn and figure out that you can rely on people around you."
Was I being "childishly stubborn"? I don't know. Up till Zemuria Online rolled around, I really wasn't that good with people. Heck, I alienated my own family with a stunt I pulled when I was barely a teenager. I might have been afraid that I'd hurt them the same way so I kept them at arm's length.
Schera, Yuuki, Asuna, Argo. By extension, Estelle, Joshua, Kev, and even the Erebonian folks like Rechter, Fie, Claire and Sinon. They were reliable, good people who never let me down when I needed their help. Heck, during the Esmelas fight, I risked life and limb along with Schera and Yuuki. During that fight, Asuna was willing to trust me for seven deadly seconds, each of which could've been her last if I wasn't good enough.
I trusted them with my life. They trusted me with their lives. It feels funny saying this now that I'm putting my thoughts on paper, but I had to have faith that this trust couldn't be easily broken.
"Okay," I said after a long pause.
"Excellent!" Argo's grin behind her Gendo pose was positively radiant: "Aa-chan, I leave him in your capable hands."
"Wait, what?" both of us stared at her incredulously. Her jolly laughter was a string of jingling silver bells.