Caenor and Kirito stood in front of the opened chest, staring into the empty container. Even the distant roar of monsters lurking the halls could not draw their eyes away from what sat before them.
"This is the place you wanted to show me? It's just a normal hidden treasure room."
"It means a lot more than that to me." Kirito let out a long breath through his nose. "It's a pretty long story."
"We have time, I think. You probably need a breather."
"Alright. Let's see… I don't know if you already heard about this, but I wasn't always the solo player that I'm now known to be. I used to be in a relatively lower-level guild, one called the Moonlit Black Cats."
"Doesn't ring a bell."
A bitter smile tugged at Kirito's mouth. "It didn't last very long, in all fairness."
"They split up?"
"Definitely not, they were tight-knit friends in the real world. I was the only outsider. Yet I was the only one who lived to tell the tale, all because I preferred to save them from the truth, rather than from their deaths."
"What truth?"
"The truth of a Beater; the truth of my identity. Beta-testers for this game have a poor reputation, as you're undoubtedly aware. I was twice their average level at the time, but I hid that fact from them because I knew what they'd think if I told them. I was a lot stronger than them in battle, but I always toned it down a little so that they wouldn't notice. Yet I was still useful enough for them to feel brave enough to try something a little harder than they would've done had I not been there, and that… that's what ultimately killed them."
Kirito paused.
"We'd finally bought our very own guild house, and we wanted to earn some quick money for the housewarming party by attempting a harder dungeon than we'd normally do. So, while the guild master was out getting the house ready, we made our way through this dungeon. We ended up earning all the Cor that we wanted to get, but then one of my guild-mates found this room." He patted the lid of the treasure chest. "This treasure chest was rigged with an anti-crystal zoning trap and a monster spawn trap. No escapes, no antidotes, no instant heals. Not even a message we could leave after we'd died. Just mob after mob after mob."
"I'm sorry to hear that, but… weren't you strong enough to fend those mobs off? You were already almost double the requisite level of this dungeon, after all."
"I originally thought that I'd see if we could fight our way out without me having to reveal too much. But when the first person was killed, I… I froze. I couldn't do anything. I felt like my limbs had been locked in place, and I could only watch as they were cut down, one by one. I don't really remember anything after that. All I remember are their faces."
"You made it out somehow, so you must've found the strength to fight."
"I suppose. But it came far too late for me to save them. And when I told the guild master, Keita, what had happened, he cursed me to hell for hiding my true level from him. Then, he…" Kirito looked away. "He jumped off the edge of the floor we were on. I guess I'm the last surviving member of the guild, if you could call me that."
"So, that's why you were acting so enervated. I understand now."
"I'm glad." Kirito chuckled nervously. "You know, talking about this to you was a great help. You're not the first person I've told this story to, but it's just… It's already been almost a year since that incident, yet the wounds that were cut in my soul remain. At some point, people expect you to get over it, but watching your friends die in such a callous manner, knowing that you could've prevented them from perishing if you'd been more forthright, both to yourself and to your companions…"
"It stays with you, doesn't it?"
"It does. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I know how you feel. I'm sorry for your loss, too. I heard about your friend's passing from Asuna."
"Don't be. I…" A numbness began to spread through Caenor's chest, but it was not an entirely unpleasant feeling. Perhaps the emotions he had been subconsciously repressing for the past week were finally being laid to rest. "I do feel a little better now. Thanks."
"You know, that's also one of the reasons I wanted to help you out. We're kindred spirits, in a way. Those who have watched people close to them die share a connection that those who haven't can never explain or experience. Those who have taken other people's lives, even more so."
"You've killed people before?"
"Out of necessity, yes. Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where it's either you or them, and your body moves before your mind wants it to." Kirito shrugged. "Better to live tainted by that mark than to die clean. Even more so if you have people you want to protect. You do, don't you? Like the girl who was with you."
"I would if she needed any protecting. I haven't seen her face in six days, or any part of her body for that matter."
"I don't blame her. Exposing herself to the world is probably the last thing she wants to do right now. Anyway, maybe we should get a move on. We've stalled here for long enough."
The coast outside the room was totally clear, save for the barely audible trundling of elementals as they patrolled the hallways. A good time as any to make some progress.
The dark dwarves proved to be not much more of a challenge than the elementals, and soon the now-reinvigorated pair were out of the Labyrinth once again, looted quest items in tow. As Caenor and Kirito made swift progress upwards through the quest chain, Caenor slowly felt his initial apprehension about Kirito fade. Such was his personality that he tended to be cynical about people whose reputations preceded them, given that many such people often had darker sides that they wanted to hide, but Kirito was as open and genuine a person as Caenor had ever met. He had his flaws, as everyone did, but he never hesitated to admit them or apologize for them – a rare trait in a world where the scale of one's power was often directly proportionate to the size of their ego.
As the day drew to a close, the final lap of their marathon approached: the interception of Kobold Lords in the Labyrinth of the 38th floor. After cutting their way through the swathes of kobolds that inhabited the Labyrinth, which took the form of a dark, soot-filled abandoned mine shaft, they soon arrived at the Kobold Lords' hideout.
The Kobold Lords present were somewhat smaller in size than their counterpart skulking the Labyrinth on the 1st floor, which was reflective of their status as sub-bosses, but as a gang they still packed enough of a punch for the unwary. Yet such was the confidence and synergy that brimmed within Caenor and Kirito that they, with naught but a nod to each other, strode into the chamber and immediately set to work. Their arms swung in tandem; their swords flashed as one. None could withstand them.
With the raw mithril ore secured, they returned to the smith shop on the 40th floor, emerging five minutes later with a stack of phosphorescent mithril ingots that seemed to catch even the faintest of the moonlight, which had been obscured by a passing blanket of clouds. Caenor took one out of his inventory to admire its sleek, pellucid exterior, then handed it to Kirito. As Kirito flipped it around in his hands and then made to return it, Caenor pushed it back into Kirito's embrace.
"Parting gift for you," Caenor explained. "You deserve at least that much. Sell it, turn it into a wedding ring, do whatever you want with it."
"Alright. Then I'll use it to buy something."
"Like what?"
Kirito passed it into Caenor's hands. "Your services. I'm looking forward to questing with you again in the future."
"You're so damn corny," Caenor replied, though he couldn't help but grin.
Kirito winked. "Let's hand these over to Liz before she shuts up shop," he said.
Caenor agreed, and before long they were back at Lindarth and in the familiar, smoky environs of Lisbeth's Smith Shop. Lisbeth whistled as Caenor laid out the bars of mithril in a neat row, lining them from one end of the table to the other.
"Impressive. I thought it'd take you guys three days at least. It's not an easy quest chain, that one, even though Kirito is seriously over-leveled for it."
"Be that as it may, Caenor really pulled his weight on this one." Kirito slapped Caenor's back. "Wouldn't have made it through the whole thing if not for him, especially in the first Labyrinth."
"If that's the case, then I'll be sure to make you the blades that you deserve." Lisbeth packed the mithril into a leather pouch and tied it up with hemp rope. "Just give me a few minutes. You can come in and watch, if you want."
The back room of Lisbeth's Smith Shop was considerably murkier and dustier than the relatively pristine shopfront, with tables, anvils and workstations scattered arbitrarily about the area. The two furnaces installed in the room were unlit, but with a flick of a rusty switch, the fires within were promptly reignited. Lisbeth unfurled the pouch on top of one of the tables, then grabbed a hammer and a pair of bellows.
"Let's see," she muttered as she fastened a pair of goggles to her face and pulled out the recipe. "Mithril and copper smelted together, then molded, then refined… Got it."
The mithril and a bag of copper shavings were deposited into a crucible inside the furnace, and Lisbeth rotated a crank located alongside the furnace, which brought the flames to a roaring, searing blaze. As the mixture melted into liquid, it poured out of an aperture in the side of the crucible and slid into a cast iron pot. Once all the metal had been collected in the pot, Lisbeth tipped the pot's contents into a waiting mold, before running a current of water under the mold to allow the metal to cool.
"Help me pump the water through the mold, if you don't mind," Lisbeth said as she rushed to gather the other materials.
Caenor went over to the water wheel and began to turn it. The red-hot metal soon settled into a dull chrome gray, but before it was allowed to cool completely, Lisbeth pressed a second mold on top of the first. The external mold was lifted after a while, leaving a delicate pattern embossed on top of the metal cast, which was now increasingly taking on the intended appearance of a wrist-guard.
Lisbeth slid an unhandled blade into the slot that had opened up on the topmost surface of the metal, then hammered a spring-loaded retracting mechanism into place. She attached a bronze button via a piece of wire to the mechanism – upon pressing the button, the blade duly sprang out of the slot.
"Once the button is pressed, the interior wire tugs on the latch, which allows the spring to push the blade out," she explained. Caenor and Kirito nodded in unison.
The final touches, which included the gold leaf and red paint, were applied, and as the last of the paint was dabbed onto the surface, the wrist-guard glowed, indicating that its creation as a piece of equipment had been finalized. Lisbeth invited Caenor to equip it, and Caenor gave the wrist-guard a few good shakes, and the button a few good taps. The button, it seemed, not only extended the blade, but also retracted it if pressed again.
"It's excellently made," Caenor commented. Lisbeth beamed at the compliment. "All that's left is for me to start training with it, and maybe a bit of dagger practice alongside it. Hopefully, I'll have some Sword Skills down by the time we really get going – that is, if I can get used to these sorts of weapons at all."
"Not to worry," Kirito replied. "That brings me to the second person I wanted you to meet. Someone who knows the dagger as well as any other player."