Friday, December 2nd, 2022, 4 A.M.

I yawned deeply, trudging behind Kirito as we walked the halls of the labyrinth. Somehow I wound up coming with him on his late-night grinding session, and I was starting to regret it. We were in the same party, but we often went into the labyrinth at different times; Kirito was a huge night owl, while I generally couldn't stand being up past 11 or so, let alone 4 in the morning. On top of that we both tended to be loners, so we usually preferred grinding by ourselves. "Remind me, why did I come with you to grind, exactly?"

"You said that you were behind on XP and needed to get some extra fighting in."

"Tch. I'm level 11… I mean, you're probably ahead of me, but I don't have much other reason to keep grinding right now. And it's not like we'll find the boss room…"

Kirito shrugged. "The fourth Skill Slot is at level 12, though. Well, you're free to try and leave on your own if you want."

"Pass. Too tired. How much long—Huh?" Up ahead of us I could hear the trademark sound of fighting and the use of Sword Skills.

"Who else could be out here at this time? It doesn't sound like they're in danger…" We rounded the corner to find a hooded player fighting a «Ruin Kobold Trooper». The Troopers were new enemies that started appearing on the 10th floor of the labyrinth, and were never in the beta. They were around two meters tall, and had blood-red skin. They wore little armor, and used a vicious-looking axe as a weapon. Their attacks were easy to see, but they had a lot of power behind them.

As we watched, the hooded player narrowly avoided the end of a three-swing combo from the Trooper, causing the oversized kobold to stumble. The counterattack that the person executed was hard to describe. It was a basic rapier Sword Skill, «Linear», but its speed was insane, far beyond what the system did on its own. I couldn't even follow the blade; all I saw was a white streak of light, similar to a comet shooting across the sky.

Normally, since the player was handling the fight fine on their own, we would have continued on our way. However, the speed of that «Linear» was too mesmerising, and something strange about it stuck out to me: their execution of the attack was flawless, but the strategy wasn't one a skilled player would use. The mysterious player continued fighting the kobold, continuing the same pattern of evading and striking with the same Skill, even when the monster's health was low enough that a simple strike would have killed it. Once the kobold was dead, the player staggered backwards to the wall and slid down it, clearly exhausted.

I glanced over at Kirito; he looked conflicted, but after a moment he walked out of the shadowy spot where we were standing and towards the player. I shrugged and followed after him. The player noticed us, and shrunk closer to the wall, unwelcoming of the company. Once I got closer, I quickly realized that the player was a girl, based on her clothes and slender figure. She had a simple red tunic with a copper chestpiece over it, mostly obscured by her red cloak; below that were close-fitting brown leather pants with knee-length boots. Her face was still obscured by the hood of her cloak, save for her light brown eyes, which reflected the light of a nearby torch.

"That was some heavy overkill, just now. You look exhausted."

The girl glared at Kirito for a moment without saying anything, before tilting her head slightly, showing that she was confused.

"What he means is… using a «Linear» for the last hit on that kobold was excessive. A simple strike or two without using a Skill would have been enough."

She remained silent for another moment before speaking, so quietly it was almost a whisper. "So? What's the problem with it?"

Kirito looked taken aback for a moment; he clearly hadn't realized until now that the player was female. "Er… as far as the game cares, there's nothing wrong with it, but… Sword Skills take concentration to use, so using them too much can be exhausting. Fighting while tired"—he glanced over at me, and I looked back, irritated—"can be dangerous. You need to consider the trip back to town too…"

"... Trip back to town?"

Oh, you can't be serious. "Yeah. When did you come to the labyrinth, exactly…?"

She paused to think for a moment. "Er… three or four days ago, I think?"

I struggled to believe that this person had been here for that long, but the tattered state of her cloak suggested that she wasn't lying. "B-But, what about supplies, and rest?"

"I have potions, but I hardly use them as I don't get hit much in the first place. I have multiple rapiers to use, as well, and I can rest in the safe area just over there. The monsters should be coming back soon, so I'm going now." Her voice was weak and full of fatigue, and she wobbled slightly as she stood up. Her rapier hung low in her hand, as if it was much too heavy for her. I was also very concerned about the fact that she had lacked mentioning anything about having food; while there was no negative status caused by the game due to hunger, you would still feel hungry, and that would only serve to make concentrating harder.

"You… you're going to die if you keep going like this." Kirito spoke in little more than a hoarse whisper, but the girl still heard him, and turned around to glare at him.

"It makes no difference. We've been here for a month. So many have died already, and we still haven't passed the first floor… we'll all… die anyways…" The exhaustion of fighting like she had for four days straight finally caught up to her, and she collapsed on the ground. Kirito and I stared at her for a few seconds without moving or speaking.

"... What should we do?"

Kirito tousled his hair. "Well, we can't exactly leave her here… We could move her to the safe area, but honestly, we should probably get her out of the labyrinth completely…"

"And how exactly do you plan to do that? We might be able to carry her together, but then we won't be able to fight at all."

"Hmm…" Kirito scratched his cheek while looking at the fallen girl. "Ah! This should work." He opened his inventory and materialized a sleeping bag, letting it fall to the ground.

"... Seriously?"

Kirito ignored my incredulous response and brought the sleeping bag over to the girl. "Help me pick her up so we can put her on the bag."

"You plan for us to go down 19 floors of a labyrinth, dragging her behind us all the way."

He shrugged. "You have any better ideas?"

I didn't respond, and instead muttered to myself. "Since when are you so eager to help others…"


"...ke up. Oi, Rei, wake up."

"Eh…" I opened my eyes, regretfully pulled out of my nap by the black-haired doofus sitting next to me. We were in a small clearing in the forest just outside of the labyrinth; a few meters away from me, I saw the red-cloaked fencer starting to wake up, as well. We really did pull her along through the whole labyrinth, and I was so exhausted that I started falling asleep the second we set foot in the clearing. It had taken a few hours, so it was close to 10 A.M. now.

"... Why?" The fencer girl, voice as faint as ever, muttered only that single word.

I sighed. "Well… it's not like we can just leave someone unconscious in the middle of the labyrinth…"

"Besides that, if you were really in there for as long as you said, you probably have a ton of map data that no one else has explored. It would be kind of a waste if it disappeared along with you."

I gave Kirito a confused look, but he just nodded his head back towards the girl. Her shoulders were stiff, as if she were ready to start arguing, but when she heard his rather selfish logic she didn't respond. Instead, she opened her menu and copied her map data into a small paper scroll, which she tossed to Kirito's feet. I guess she was expecting some speech about morality or staying alive… Kirito's logic probably makes more sense to her.

She stood up, noticeably less shaky than she was in the labyrinth. "If that's all, then I'm going now."

"Er, wait, there's one other thing… regardless of your method of doing it, you're still working to clear the game too, right? Well, this afternoon there's going to be a meeting in Tolbana…"

The fencer tilted her head, and I was just as confused. "Meeting?"

Kirito nodded. "A meeting about the strategy for the boss of this floor."

"Heeh? But the 20th floor hasn't even been found yet, let alone the boss room, right?"

"I don't know, all Argo told me was that there was a meeting today, at 4 P.M."

"Whatever, let's just get back to town. I'm hungry." The fencer girl had already started walking back to Tolbana, so I decided to follow suit, and Kirito trailed behind me. She kept some distance away from us during our walk back, so none of us said anything. Once we entered the safe area, the fencer disappeared into the crowd that was milling around in the plaza. I walked over to a NPC vendor that sold food, and bought a serving of some simple soup. It didn't have much taste at all, but it was better than the dry black bread that Kirito usually bought.

I sat down at a nearby table and quickly wolfed down the soup, ignoring the various people that were staring at me. After looking around for a moment, I saw that Kirito was standing near the edge of the plaza, talking to Argo. I walked up to them, and caught the tail end of Argo's last sentence.

"... Like I said, it's an estimation. Lotta people might've changed their names, and it's not like I can track 'em down."

"That's fine. It sounds accurate to me, considering…"

Argo turned to look at me. "Ah, Rei-chan. Ya need somethin'?"

"Er…" I paused for a moment, considering to ask her about the girl Kirito and I had saved, but I decided against it; we could always talk to her ourselves at the meeting or if we ran into her elsewhere. "No, not really."

"If you say so. I'll get goin', then." Argo walked off into the plaza.

"What were you talking about?"

"Ah, I had asked her to look into something for me, she was just telling me what she found." He answered in a roundabout way for no reason, so I didn't bother pestering him further about it.

"Well, whatever. I guess we have some time to kill until the meeting."


We had spent the last few hours lazing around, as there wasn't much for us to do until the meeting today. Kirito had went off to look at some shops, so I was wondering around Tolbana on my own. It was getting close to the meeting time, so I had started heading back to the plaza to get to the amphitheater. The bell in the center of Tolbana rang just as I entered the plaza, signalling that it was 4 P.M. As I entered the amphitheater, I spotted Kirito and sat down next to him. The hooded fencer girl was sitting on his other side, a little bit away. In total, there were 45 people, just a few people short of a full raid.

A loud clapping and a strong voice emanating from the center of the stage got everyone to quieten down. "Okay! Thank you everyone for coming here today. I am Diavel! You could say that my class is «Knight»." There were no such classes in the game, but he certainly looked the part. He had tidy bronze armor, as well as a sword and kiteshield on his back. He was quite handsome, and he carried himself with confidence. His hair was also dyed a vibrant blue, which was a rare sight this early in the game. That dye was either really expensive or far out of the way, hidden in some corner of the floor.

A few jeers and whistles flew through the air at the facetious comment. If nothing else, it helped to lessen the tension of the crowd. "Alright, settle down! Now, you probably have a good idea for why I've called you all here… today, my party found the stairs to the top floor of the labyrinth. That means that the boss room will be found within a day or two!"

Most of the crowd cheered, but I was confused. "Wait, he said they found it today… they must have gone in just after we got out, because I don't remember running into anyone." I looked over at Kirito. "Did you see them pass by?"

"Er, well, I fell asleep for a bit too…"

"Hey, that was dangerous, you know!"

"Mobs don't wander that close to the labyrinth's entrance, you know that."

After giving the crowd a moment to calm down, Diavel started speaking again. "A month… It took us a whole month to get this far, but we can do this. We have to beat the boss, and prove to everyone that it is possible for us to make it out of here!" Again, the crowd flared up in cheering, more vibrantly this time.

"Now hold on just a second!"

A rough voice resounded out from the top of the amphitheater. The source bounded down the stone bleachers and landed next to Diavel. He had strange orange hair with spikes pointing out of it like a mace, and wore a chestpiece made out of metal scales. He also had a sword sheathed on his back, like Diavel.

Diavel was a little nonplussed by the intrusion, but took it in stride. "I take it you have something you want to say, er…"

"The name's Kibaou." He gazed around at the gathered players with sharp, beady eyes. "There's a few people here that have somethin' they've got to own up for!"

"And, what would that be, exactly?"

"Obvious! Those guys kept everything for themselves, and 2000 people have died now 'cause of that!"

"... I take it you're referring to the beta testers?"

"'Course I am! They up an' left Starting City first chance they got, and hogged all the good hunting grounds and quests for themselves! I'm sure a few of them are here too. They should give up whatever they've stolen from us so far an' apologize!"

This guy… as if antagonizing us isn't bad enough, he expects us to give up all of our hard work so far? I was considering going down there myself to give this cactus-headed moron a piece of my mind, consequences be damned, but someone else beat me to it.

"May I speak?" A deep voice rang out across the amphitheater, and everyone looked over to its source. The man had his hand raised, and he was… massive, for lack of a better way to describe him. He was at least two meters tall, and was completely bald with brown-colored skin. He was quite muscle-bound, as well; while a player's physique had at best a minor influence on their playstyle, the large double-headed axe on his back suited him far more than any other weapon could. He walked up to the stage and stood next to Kibaou, towering above him. I would probably look like a dwarf next to him.

"My name is Agil. Kibaou-san, let me be sure: you say that because of the beta testers running ahead of everyone else, many players died, and the testers need to take responsibility for that?"

Kibaou was intimidated by Agil's stature, but stood his ground. "Y… Yeah. If they would have just stayed to help us, most of those people wouldn't've died! Most of those people were veteran MMO players, so we could've been done with this floor by now!"

"At least 300 of those people that died are testers..." Kirito muttered under his breath. Maybe that was what he was talking about with Argo earlier.

"Well, the fact is that the beta testers have helped us." He pulled out a small leather-bound book from his pocket. "This guidebook was distributed freely in shops across the floor; I imagine you have one as well, correct?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Other murmurs of agreement from the crowd proved that most of us here had one.

"It's compiled from information given by beta testers. These guidebooks were always present in shops, even before any other players had gotten there. Only beta testers would be able to provide information so quickly. It contains detailed information ranging from quest guides to item drops."

I looked over at Kirito, confused. "W-Wait, but that must be Argo's strategy guide, then. But they got it for free…?"

"Gah, that damn Rat. I paid 500 Cor for one of those things."

Kibaou had no response to Agil's statement, and stood there with his arms crossed, looking frustrated.

"Even with this information, many players still died. Kibaou, you said that many of them were veteran MMO players, correct? If so, that might be part of the reason. They may have made assumptions about SAO based on their prior experience, and because of that they got killed. In fact, it's likely that quite a few testers died as well, as many things may have likely changed from the beta test, and they made similar assumptions.

"Besides that, trying to blame people for deaths that they didn't cause is going to do us no good. We're here to clear the game, not jump at each other's throats. Our best option is to work together, tester or otherwise."

Diavel nodded after listening to Agil's speech. "He's right. We're here to fight the boss and make it to the second Floor. Antagonizing players is the worst thing we could do to ourselves… if anything, the former testers will be the strongest fighters we have. We can't afford to lose them."

Kibaou conceded their points, albeit not with much respect. "Tch, fine. I'll play along for now. But I still don't trust the beta testers." He stalked off of the stage, and Agil followed after him.

"Alright, now that that's cleared up, this meeting is concluded for now. Everyone, once the boss is found we'll meet here again to form a strategy. Do your best, and let's beat that boss!"

"Yeah!" The crowd erupted in cheers, and with that, the meeting was over. I looked over to where the hooded fencer girl was sitting, but she had already vanished from the amphitheater.


As Diavel had expected, the boss room was found the very next day. A meeting was held again, at roughly the same time in the afternoon. It went much more smoothly, with no noisy cactus-headed interruptions. The party had scouted the boss, and there was a new guidebook with updated information, so we were able to come up with a strong strategy. There was a small problem, though: the group was to split into parties, and since we were a few people short of a full raid group, there would be one party that would have less people. In other words, that would be our party.

I sighed. "Well, honestly I'm fine with not having to party with anyone else. Although…" I looked around, and as I had thought, the mysterious fencer was standing a little bit away from everyone else, alone. I jabbed Kirito in the side with my elbow. "Oi. It would probably be a good idea to invite her to our party."

"E-Er…"

"I know, she's kind of… cold, but we're not much different, honestly. Besides, you saw her fighting; she really shouldn't be left out. Plus, Diavel would probably just have her join our party anyways." I shoved him forwards slightly, sending him stumbling towards the girl.

"A-A-Ah… jeez, Rei. Um… you haven't joined anyone's party yet, right?"

"... No, I haven't."

"Well, you can join up with us, then…" She glared at him from under her hood, and he hastened to explain. "E-Er, that is, a raid group is made of eight parties, so to be able to participate you need to join one…" He sent a party invite to the girl using her cursor menu.

"... If that's the case, I suppose I will join you." She accepted the invite, and a third health bar appeared in the upper-left corner of my vision.

"Asuna, huh…"

She jumped and looked at me, startled. "H-How did you—"

"Ah, right, my bad… this is probably the first time you've joined a party, right? In the upper-left corner of your vision, there should be two other health bars…"

Asuna looked to the area in question, before carefully reading out our names. "Kirito… and Rei?"

I bowed lightly. "Nice to meet you. Though, we really should have introduced ourselves properly yesterday…"

Before we could go any further, Diavel walked up to us; he had probably been going around to the other parties assigning roles while we talked. "Party H… could you three please assist Party E with fending off the «Ruin Kobold Sentinels»?" He spoke with an apologetic look on his face, but there was nothing to be done about it; even if our party was comprised of two beta testers and a newbie prodigy, we wouldn't be able to help with the boss without a full party.

Asuna looked tense, probably annoyed that we would be fighting the trash mobs, but Kirito spoke before she could. "Of course, that's an important role."

"Thank you! With that, everyone should know what they need to do." He walked back towards the stage in the center of the amphitheater.

"Important… we won't even fight the boss." Asuna let her words out with a low, dangerous-sounding tone.

Kirito backed away a step. "H-Hey, keeping the additional enemies off of the other groups is important… Anyways, there's not much we can do about it. Without a full party, Switching and stuff wouldn't really be possible for us…"

"Er, Switching?"

At this point, Diavel spoke up from the center of the stage, catching everyone's attention. "Alright, everyone! You all should know what to do. We'll gather tomorrow in the central plaza at 9:00 in the morning!" Everyone let out their usual cheer, and the crowd dispersed, spreading around the town.

Meanwhile, Kirito looked completely defeated. I didn't blame him; aside from her skill, Asuna was a complete newbie, so we'd have to teach her what to do.

I sighed, blowing air up at my bangs. "Let's go somewhere else, trying to explain with the noisy crowds around will take forever."

"Nowhere in town will probably be quiet right now, and an inn room would be kind of cramped… let's just head back to our room, I guess." Kirito started walking towards the east side of Tolbana, and I glanced over at Asuna before hastening to catch up with him.

"Er, how would where you're staying be any different from any other inn room?"

We stopped to look at Asuna, confused, before remembering that she was completely new to this. "Aah, right. Well, it's possible to find unmarked rooms that you can rent besides normal inn rooms. They'll generally be part of an NPC house, so it'll usually only be at larger houses."

Kirito nodded. "Our room is the second floor of a farmhouse. It's 80 Cor a night, and has two rooms as well as a bathroom. There's free milk from the first floor, too…"

"W-Wait…" Asuna grabbed his collar quite forcefully. "You said it has a bathroom!?"

"Ehehe… you can use it, if that's what you're wondering." I was amused by Asuna's reaction; it was the most animated I'd seen her act so far. I started walking again, and Asuna hurried to follow me, dragging Kirito along slightly before letting go of his collar.

Hopefully, tomorrow we'd be standing at the top of the stairs to the second Floor.


Author's Notes

Hey everyone, thanks for taking your time to read my story!

Man, I've gotta say, I wasn't expecting this much of a gap between the last chapter and this one. Long story short, I wrote 3/4ths of a chapter, scrapped it, didn't do anything for over a week, wrote this, and then put off proofreading and uploading it until now. I have already started work on the next chapter, though, so that's a thing.

So, this chapter. Nothing new, really. We get to meet Asuna and some other people, and boss meetings happen. To be honest, this is quite similar to how it goes in Progressive Volume 1, but with the way I want things to go I couldn't justify changing things much. While we're on the topic of canon… I am 100% going to be doing the Elf Campaign quest line. It's too important to skip over, for one reason in particular that I don't want to spoil yet. That being said, I am going to do my best to change stuff as much as I can, otherwise I might as well just tell you to go buy the Progressive novels (which you should do anyways, by the way). Volume 4 hasn't quite released yet—it comes out in three days as of my writing of this. I'm not sure if I'll get it or not before I cover Floor 5, but it's safe to say that after that floor, I won't be following anything, minus pre-existing floor and gear descriptions and (probably) a few events from the original LNs.

Also, I fixed a typo in the previous chapter.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll be writing another one of these within less than a month this time. Take care!