«First Floor Boss Strategy Conference» Chapter 35
"Uwaa, we made it just in time," Keiko sighed dramatically.
"Haha yeah, we did cut it a bit close there," I shot back. We stood at the outer edge of the town center. The whole thing was inset into the ground, the center stage at the bottom. It was an old Greek or Roman looking building, just beginning to fall apart by the look of it. One side was a wall with a couple doors going out the back, another door to each side. I hadn't come to this area much, so I didn't know where those led.
Across from the straight, gray stone building, big semicircle seating expanded around the rest of the area, moving upward like bleachers. Again, all gray stone. There were a few sets of stairs spread throughout, since walking up the seating would be awkward due to the size of the seats and the drop from each seat to the next. While I say 'seats' there wasn't actually anything like seats used. It was all one long, curved piece of stone, as if the entire area had been carved out of a single, huge boulder.
The openness gave the area a very relaxed atmosphere, and I saw that there were numerous players sitting all around on the semicircle, mostly in clumps of five and six. There were more than there should be at a time like this. At night, this kind of place would be flooded with players, eating before they headed off to sleep for the day. It was a good area to relax in, though I personally avoided it.
As time had passed, I had become more aware of everyone's stares. They had been making me more uncomfortable than before. I couldn't go into such a crowded open area, where everyone in the bleachers would stare at me. Instead, I stuck to the outlying windmills. Keiko went along with this. She hadn't said anything, but I had a feeling that the constant stares were getting to her too.
As my eyes traveled over the crowd with their backs to me, I didn't immediately see Argo. However, I did spot a familiar face, mostly because it was the only face pointed toward us. Diabel was standing in the middle of the stage, arms at his sides while he seemed to wait patiently for something. Then, a movement caught my gaze. A hooded figure was waving at us. I realized it was Argo, standing halfway out of sight, in the far right corner of the Colosseum. She was nearly the shade of the doorway, with the neighboring staircase keeping her out of the line of sight of most of the players below us.
Together, we moved around the outside of the seats, keeping out of view of everyone there. We dropped down from the top of the stairs, landing lightly next to Argo from a height that would have caused some damage if this wasn't an Inner Area.(well, if we didn't have so much AGI anyway) She as I'd noticed before, she had a dark green half-cloak on, dark clothing mostly obscured beneath. From what I could tell, she wasn't wearing any protective armor. Granted, this was a town, so there was no real reason to. But still, wearing armor had always given both Keiko and I a sense of security, like all the extra swords.
"You're late," were the first words out of her mouth.
"No, you said to be here at 4:00 pm," I replied quickly, "we were here on time, looking for you."
Argo stared hard at me for a minute. "Fine."
"Well anyway, what's going on here, Argo-san?" I asked, tilting my head toward the assembly to my left.
"You'll see, it's just about time..." she didn't give me a straight answer. Oh well, if it was about to start, we would know soon enough. I peaked my head out from behind the stairs to get a look at the crowd. Most were dressed in regular cloth clothes like mine, with leather, or iron, armor. Some even had a mix of both.
Diabel had obviously upgraded his equipment from that old iron chest plate he had the last time we'd seen him. He had a blue coat, which looked like it had run him a pretty good chunk of Col. It even had a pattern of yellow lines running down the front and along the hem. Strangely, it was split and fell asymmetrically, with the longer portion wrapping around his side facing toward me. White gloves, and pants complemented his coat. Both looked rather expensive as well.
Taking the place of his single iron chest plate, he now had brown bronze armor, with a slight shine, all bounded with thick leather trim. The chest plate and heavy double layered pauldrons were held securely in place by a series of straps running underneath. Similar bracers were wrapped tightly around his forearms, though there was no indication of how they were held in place. Large greaves covered his high black boots all the way up to his knees. The now-familiar form of the «Anneal Blade» hung at an angle from the left hip of his belt, a small pouch tied just behind it. The white shield on his back had black trim and the image of a sword in the same color.
He really looked like a proper knight now. It occurred to me that despite having an unreasonably large amount of Col, neither Keiko or I had ever brought up the subject of upgrading our wardrobe. We were still wearing the same «Cloth Shirts» and «Old Skirts» from a month ago. Even the bunch random players in the stands were wearing more respectable outfits by now. While they had nothing fancy like Diabel's flashy armor, none of their clothes had holes and patches in them. Hell, if clothing was damaged by regular wear and not just by attacks, there wouldn't be anything left of our basic clothes by now.
Though I didn't want to voice the thought, I knew why we didn't upgrade our equipment. With our beautiful faces, we attracted so much attention already. If it was this bad already, while wearing little more than rags, how many times over would those stares multiply if we actually had attractive clothing on? I hardly even wanted to think of it. After I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the thought, I blinked up at the stands again.
While I watched, two more people entered the area, seating themselves all the way in the back, halfway around the semicircle from each other. One was a boy with black hair. When I saw the sword sheathed on his back, I recalled that that was the boy who had helped us open the dungeon that day nearly a month ago.
He no longer had the leather coat from back then. In fact, it looked as if he had removed most of his armor, the cheap looking leather chest plate, which didn't even cover most of his chest, being the only exception. Like everyone else, his clothes were normal looking, almost like modern day clothes, except for the slightly thick, woolen feeling they gave off.
However, the other figure was wearing a big, dark red cloak that completely obscured their appearance. The only thing I could make out were the similarly colored red boots. A big, dark cloak. Maybe that would help. If we hid our appearances that way, surely it would stop some of the stares. I would have to bring it up with Keiko later.
*Pan pan* The sound of clapping brought my attention back to Diabel. He still held his hands together for a moment before calling out in a loud, clear voice.
"O—K! Now then, it's five minutes late, but let's start! Everyone, a bit more to the front... there, come three steps closer!" He waited while nearly the whole crowd slid closer. The only ones who didn't move were the two solitary players in the back row. Again, he shouted in a friendly voice, introducing himself the same way he had when we met him back in «Harunka», saying his name, and that his profession is «Knight». He was immediately answered with playful jeers from the crowd about how SAO didn't have a class system.
Suddenly, the atmosphere became much heavier. Now in a quieter voice, Diabel spoke to the silent crowd.
"Well then, about the reason I gathered you top players who are active on the very front lines, I don't think I need to say it..." He paused for a moment. My mind split into two thoughts at once. First, he was saying that these were all of the strongest players. They were the ones who had been going into the dungeon and returning each day. The other thought that struck me was the only reason he could have to gather such players.
"Today, my party found the stairs going to the top most floor of that tower. That is, tomorrow —or, at the latest, the day after tomorrow— we will reach it: the first floor's... boss room!" As he said the final words, the entire crowd erupted with shouts. Shock ran across their faces. Some shot to their feet, others just looked stunned.
From the talk of a boss, paired with this being a gathering of the strongest players, I shifted down, huddling closer to the wall. Keiko pressed close at my side. No, this is still an Inner Area; there wouldn't be any wolves crashing down on us like last time, I told myself firmly. While the commotion still raged, and Diabel waited for it to calm down again, I turned to Argo and pulled about two hundred Col from my inventory, tossing it to her.
"Hey, Argo-san, do you know what happened back in that clearing outside «Horunka»? When those wolves attacked, what happened? I never found out afterward."
Argo ran her finger along the little sack of Col, then apparently deemed it enough for the information, because she opened her mouth to answer.
"Everyone there died. The wolves were only chased away when the Boss died."
"Ah..." I wasn't sure why I asked, but it somehow felt foreboding. Last time something like this happened, everyone had died. Surely, that wouldn't happen in the coming boss fight, right? Besides, if these were all the strongest players, if they all died in the fight, there would be no one left to clear the game.
This coming fight would decide whether we even had a chance escaping this world or not.
By the time I came to this conclusion, everyone had quieted and Diabel began to speak again. "One month. Coming this far took one month... Even so, we have to set an example. Kill the boss, and reach the 2nd floor! We have to show that this death game can be cleared to everyone waiting at the «Starting City». That is the obligation of us top players here! Isn't that right, everyone!" He seemed to be going through the same thoughts I had just had a moment ago. This time, his speech was followed by outright applause.
However— A new voice called out. With a kind of high-pitched nasally sound, it wasn't very loud, to the point where I don't know how it could even be heard above the crowd. It called out to wait a minute, in a tone that stopped the applause right in the middle. A man in the middle of the assembly stood and hopped down to the base of the seating. He approached Diabel and when asked to give his name, answered "Kibaou."
This man, Kibaou, wore a scale-mail shirt, a kind of armor I hadn't seen very often. Besides that, he only had some rugged leather gloves and calf length boots for armor. Then, I noticed that he sheathed his sword on his back, the same way the black-haired boy did. Of course, the most notable thing about him was his creep hair. It was like he'd buzzed it down everywhere but a few places, causing certain pieces of his hair to stick out in spikes. The image reminded me of the spiked maces some players carried.
All of a sudden, he demanded apologies. He didn't say who it was that should apologize, for what reason, and to whom. Of course, that left everyone with rather clueless expressions for a few moments, until Diabel asked him to clarify in a careful voice. He immediately explained that he was talking about the Beta Testers apologizing to the two thousand people who had died already.
When asked why, he launched into a long rant that he had either practiced for a really long time, or he was just listing out all of the complaints he had stored against the Beta Testers. Through his many accusations, it became clear that his essential reason was: 'because they knew more than everyone else at the beginning.' I had to sigh.
So he was one of those guys. The 'Beta Tester Haters,' as I called them. I really could not understand where they were coming from. They were all so angry at the Beta Testers for... what exactly? The only reason they had ever really given was along the lines of 'you know more about this game than me.' Seriously, just because someone knows more than you, how does that give you the right to hate them? When Keiko and I first came here, we didn't even know what the game was about! Everyone knew more than us. Did I go around hating everyone else because they were a gamer and already knew what Experience was at the beginning?
Really, underneath it all, they were just angry and grabbed at the only thing they could think of so they could take their anger out on someone else. People like him made me sick.
As I was shaking my head at this pitiful man, a new voice came from the audience. It was a deep, heavy sounding voice. That imposing voice wound up belonging to an even more imposing man. I guessed that he was about 185 centimeters tall(6 feet). His skin was dark, really dark. The appearance of his shaved head and angular face immediately said that he wasn't Japanese. A foreigner?
He slowly stepped forward, introducing himself as Agil. The name immediately appeared below the hp bar floating near him, since I was staring so hard. He had a few layers of light leather and iron armor on over his sleeveless white and gray shirt. He was facing toward me, so I couldn't tell what kind of weapon he had on his back, though it had a huge, shiny silver handle that gave it the look of a large mace or axe.
After clarifying that Kibaou was blaming the Beta Testers for all the deaths up until now, due to lack of information, Agil reached behind his back and brought out a little black book. Then—
"Hey, let's get going." This came from Argo.
"Huh? But, wait, uh," Keiko and I stammered together. Argo just grabbed our wrists and started pulling us along behind her, through the doorway we had been standing under.
"I don't really want to be around while people talk about my stuff," she complained. "Besides, now that its reached this point, they're going to split up into parties and map out the twentieth dungeon floor. Then they'll challenge the boss to a number of scouting fights over the next few days before moving in with the full raid group to kill it." From my ample practice, I quickly drew the lines to connect her quick explanation to what I understood, to figure out what she was talking about. As soon as I'd done that, I thought, wow, she really knows her stuff, doesn't she?
And then, "Wait, but that'll be too late!" Keiko called out in panic.
"Huh?" this time, both Argo and I were confused.
"It's the mass-suicide!" Keiko explained with wide eyes.
Author's Note: Argh, another bit that I didn't get quite right in the last chapter. I've changed where I said the third floor in the dungeon to the nineteenth floor, since I had the number of floors in the dungeon wrong.