Sunday, December 4th, 2022, 9:10 A.M.

"...Alright everyone, let's head out to the labyrinth!" Diavel had given his usual speech about clearing the game before heading north out of Tolbana, the raid group following in his wake. Asuna, Kirito, and I trailed behind everyone else at the back of the group. I could hear the various chatter of the other players drifting back towards us. This kind of reminds me of—

"This is almost like...a field trip," Asuna spoke, mirroring my cut-off thought. She turned her head slightly to look over at Kirito and I. "Are other games like this as well?" We had talked at length with Asuna last night, explaining various things about SAO and the boss battle that we were walking towards. It took a while to explain all the different terminology and strategies, but Asuna was eager to learn.

"A field trip…" Kirito smiled before shaking his head slightly. "Not really. This is the first FullDive game like this… any other game that would be played on a monitor doesn't really give the same feeling."

"Still, it feels so… strange. We're walking towards a dangerous fight, that we might not come back from, and yet… everyone seems like they're just enjoying a walk."

I put my hands behind my head as we continued to walk. "Well… this is the norm for us now, I guess. We'll have to get used to it, whether we like it or not."

Asuna hummed. "Well, let's do our best regardless."


After a few hours of walking and cutting through kobolds, we found ourselves standing in front of the boss room. Diavel didn't give any sort of speech, as the sound would attract kobolds from around the area to come and attack us. Instead, he walked around, checking over all of the parties one last time before walking up to the door. After looking at it for a moment, he nodded and placed his hand upon it before slowly pushing it open. He entered, the rest of the raid group pouring into the boss room behind him.

The boss room hadn't changed at all from the beta. It was made out of the same stone as the rest of the labyrinth, and was about 100 meters long and 20 meters across. There were small stone pillars along either wall, spaced about 10 meters apart. A tattered red carpet ran across the whole room; at the end of it, I could barely make out a throne in the darkness, with a large door behind it. Once everyone had entered the room, the walls, floor, and ceiling lit up with a mysterious iridescent light. The boss, «Illfang the Kobold Lord», jumped off of his throne, and four health bars appeared next to his head. He held a massive axe made of bone and a round leather shield. Three «Ruin Kobold Sentinels» emerged from behind the throne. The boss and its minions started charging towards us.

"Alright everyone, this is it! Groups A, C, and F, prepare to attack the boss; B, D, and G, be prepared to Switch at any time! E and H, make sure to keep those Sentinels busy!"

The group responded in chorus with a "Roger!" and rushed towards the enemy. The Sentinels split up, two of them on the boss's left side and one on the right; Kibaou's group was already on the boss's left, so we took the right kobold. Kirito ran ahead of Asuna and I, and intercepted a Sword Skill from the kobold with one of his own. The Skills cancelled each other out, and the force pushed the two apart and knocked the kobold's mace above its head.

"Rei!"

"On it!" I had already started moving once the Skills cancelled. I activated my own Sword Skill, «Reversal», by holding my dagger behind me and to the left in a reverse grip. I ran at the kobold and slashed it across its throat, before reversing my grip on the dagger and slashing back in the opposite direction. Due to the kobolds wearing heavy armor and a full helmet, the throat was their only accessible weak spot. My attack took about 20% of the kobold's health, and it backed away slightly while I was stuck in my Skill's post-motion delay. Kirito stepped in front of me, ready to defend until he could make another opening.

We continued this pattern, with Asuna and I alternating Switches. Asuna was wielding an upgraded «Wind Fleuret», a rapier that Kirito had recently gotten as a drop, instead of her store-bought rapiers that she had been using. We had wanted to make a rapier out of one of the ingots we had gotten from the quest Kirito and I did early on, but we couldn't find a smith that could make use of them. In any case, we were having little trouble dealing with the kobolds that came our way. Kibaou's group relied on brute force more than hitting the kobold's weak spot, but they still dealt with their kobolds just fine.

The boss fight continued rather uneventfully for some time; Diavel did a good job guiding the groups and all of the boss's attacks matched the information we had. However, a few players were getting a bit careless with their Switching, and were taking longer to back off in order to do some more damage to the boss.

Kibaou's group and the three of us had no more kobolds to fight, so we were standing behind the other groups, watching them fight. Soon, the boss was down to its last health bar; in the beta test, Illfang had dropped his axe and shield and switched to a talwar once his health turned red. He also became much more aggressive with his attack patterns. We had gone over all of this during the strategy meeting, so everyone was prepared for it.

Diavel's group took the boss's health down into the red zone, and they stayed forward, despite not being fully recovered. As expected, the boss threw away its axe and shield, and drew a sword from the sheath at his back. I heard Kibaou speak up a few meters away from me. "Oi, I don't know what a talwar is, but it ain't any kinda Japanese sword, right?"

My breath caught in my throat, and to my left Kirito froze up as well. A talwar was an Indian cavalry sword, with much more of a curve than Illfang's current sword and certainly not made for a two-handed grip. What Illfang was wielding looked like a massive nodachi, probably as long as I was tall. "Shit!" I tried to get to Diavel, but there were multiple groups of players in my way. One of the Sword Skills that a katana-wielding mob had used in the beta was a spinning slash; since Illfang was surrounded, there was little doubt that he would use that attack. "That's not a talwar! Get away from the boss, now!"

One of the players had already noticed the discrepancy and started moving away, but it was too late. Illfang's nodachi started glowing, and he jumped up into the air. As he landed, he spun around in a circle, hitting all six players in Diavel's group. It knocked them back slightly, and afflicted them all with the «Stun» status effect, meaning that they couldn't move at all for a few seconds. One player, the only one in the group not wearing metal armor, was only at 50% health at the start of the attack; while he was stunned, the damage drained his whole health bar and he shattered into blue polygons. No one else that was hit was above 40% afterwards.

The delay on Illfang's Skill was long, over a second, but the stun was longer. As his delay wore off, he started another Skill, aimed at Diavel. I had managed to get through the crowd of players, but I wasn't quite close enough to help. Illfang slashed upwards, which threw Diavel into the air. The boss continued attacking, slashing Diavel twice more before ending with a thrust. The attack blasted Diavel away, sending him flying about 25 meters back, where he landed near Kirito and Kibaou. No one else moved.

After dealing with Diavel, Illfang turned his attention to me, as I was the next closest player. He pulled his nodachi far back over his shoulder, preparing for yet another Skill. There was no way trying to block it with my dagger would do any good. Instead, I jumped up and stabbed Illfang in the chest, just barely avoiding his sword. I used my dagger to pull myself up to the giant kobold's shoulder. Fortunately, having high Agility made it much easier to pull off difficult, gymnastics-like stunts like that.

I jumped backwards off of Illfang's shoulder and used the Sword Skill «Dive». It was a basic downward slash, but could only be activated while in the air, so normally it had little use; however, since Illfang was a tall boss, I was able to make use of the height to run the attack all the way down his back, as the Skill wouldn't end until I landed. After that, Illfang had about 25% of his HP remaining.

I expected Illfang to turn and face me, but he stayed facing forwards. I came out from behind him to see Kirito and Asuna rushing the boss, Kirito slightly ahead. Well, at least someone is trying to help. The three of us probably can't hold on alone though… we need someone to get everyone else fighting again. While Asuna and Kirito attacked the boss, I backed off slightly, ready to help if I needed to. I glanced back at the rest of the raid group; many of them were still recovering, and some were fending off more Sentinels, so they weren't able to help. I tried to ignore the fact that I didn't see Diavel among them.

I looked back at the boss; Kirito and Asuna were using the same strategy that we had used against the Sentinels. At some point, Asuna had removed her cloak, revealing waist-length, light orange hair. Kirito was putting everything he could behind his Sword Skills to block Illfang's, and sooner or later he would slip up and accidentally hinder the Skill or use the wrong one entirely. As the boss reached 15% health, Kirito misjudged which Sword Skill to use, and was caught by an upward slash. He got thrown backwards and landed near me, his health at about 30%, just into the red. Asuna had reacted to Kirito getting hit by dashing in to attack the boss, which put her right in the path of the Skill that had hit Diavel earlier.

Before Illfang could hit Asuna, Agil, Group B's leader, rushed in using a charge Skill and blocked the attack with his axe. "We'll fend him off while you recover! DPS shouldn't be doing a tank's job, after all." Asuna nodded and backed away, and I ran forwards to help Kirito up.

"You okay?"

"Okay as I can be after getting slashed across the chest… wish the pain absorber hadn't been lowered." In the beta, getting hit by attacks caused only a slightly numb sensation. Since the full release, though, getting cut stung somewhat, and it seemed like it had gotten a little worse over the past month. The attack Kirito just took wouldn't prevent him from fighting, but it still probably hurt. He pulled out a potion and quickly drank it, grimacing at the taste. His health slowly started rising, but it would be a while before it was full again. While he waited, Kirito called out the directions of Illfang's attacks to help Group B defend against them, since the attacks were unfamiliar to them.

Asuna turned around for a moment to check on us. The only other time I had seen her face without her hood was last night, though it had taken some convincing from Kirito and I for her to take it off. Even now, I was still amazed by how beautiful she was; even the symmetrical nature of SAO's rendering wasn't enough to justify her beauty.

I shook my head and returned my focus to the boss battle. I walked up to stand next to Asuna. "We can use the openings Agil and the others make to attack. If we go from opposite sides, we can attack at the same time… just be careful to not go too far around him, otherwise he might use his 360 attack again."

"Got it."

We didn't cut down Illfang's health quite as fast as when Kirito and Asuna were fighting alone, as it was a bit slower to work with eight people instead of two. We continued to fight for a while without much incident, and Kirito joined the fight as well. The rest of the raid group watched from a few meters back.

"Alright!" Kirito shouted once there was only a few percent of health remaining. "Rei, Asuna, one more attack!"

Agil and his party backed off, and the three of us attacked, Asuna on the left, myself on the right, and Kirito in the center. Asuna stabbed the boss with Linear, and I did the same with Lunge. Shortly after our attacks, Kirito activated the Skill «Vertical Arc», pulling the sword down Illfang's chest before reversing and pulling it back up. As the light of the Skill faded away, Illfang burst into countless blue polygons. I fell onto my rear, exhausted.

A large message window appeared above where Illfang died, reading only «Congratulations!» in English. A smaller window appeared in front of me, informing me of my gained Cor and XP; I recieved enough to reach level 12. The room remained silent for a moment before bursting into cheers. However, I didn't join in the celebrating; my mind was stuck on the fact that two people had died, including our leader.

"Congratulations, you three. We likely wouldn't have made it through this without you," Agil's deep voice boomed from behind us.

"... But… but Diavel—"

"Why!?" A loud shout echoed from the rest of the raid group. "Why did you let them die!?"

I shot up and turned around to find the source of the voice. Someone walked out in front of the rest of the group; their sheath held a curved sword. I didn't recognize the player, but I knew they were in Group C, the one led by Diavel.

Kirito turned around as well, tilting his head in confusion. "... Let them die?"

"You knew about the different sword, but didn't say anything until it was too late! They wouldn't have died if you had told us!"

My eye twitched. "So… so you're saying it's our fault, yeah?"

"Of course I am!"

It took a lot to get me to speak up in front of a group, but this guy's nonsense was just too much. I stalked up to him with fire burning in my eyes, undeterred by the full head of height he had over me. "Okay, NO. First off, we had absolutely no way of knowing that the sword had changed until it was unsheathed. I didn't even notice it was different until Kibaou pointed it out. Second, your group was extremely overextended by staying right next to the boss during a phase change while NONE of you were near full health. From what I remember, the plan we agreed on at the meeting was that whatever group was near the boss during the change was supposed to retreat. Third, unlike many of you, we actually tried to help. Kirito fended the boss's attacks off BY HIMSELF. He doesn't even have any metal armor!"

Someone from the back of the raid group spoke in a shrill voice. "... B-But you… you knew its Sword Skills! There's never been any Skills for a sword like that so far… you must be beta testers!"

"Oh—"

Agil interrupted me. "Why should it matter if they're beta testers? The information they know won't be different from what's in the guide. All that means is that there was a katana-wielding mob sometime later in the beta."

The man from Group C spoke up again. "That guide… it's written by the Rat, right? She must be a tester too! How can we know that any of that info is true—"

"Oh, shut the fuck up!" Blaming us was bad enough, but anyone else, especially Argo, was going too far. "You seriously think that any of us would put our lives at risk just to feed you false information!?"

"You testers are just greedy! You want to get everything for yourselves…" He pointed at Kirito. "He got the LA Bonus! You don't care if the rest of us die!"

Oh, this is ridiculous! "Are you serious!? We're just as stuck here as you are! Why the hell would ANYONE in here want to get someone killed just for their own benefit!? All that will do is keep us here longer!" Unfortunately, it was already a moot question; Kirito had told me a while back that another beta tester tried to PK him using monsters to get a quest item, and ended up getting himself killed instead.

The idiot in front of me opened his mouth to spew garbage again, but before he could say anything I heard footsteps from behind me. I spun around to see Kirito approaching, his sword held lazily in his left hand and a cocky look on his face. What is he doing?

"Listen, you're saying that testers like us are to blame for this, right? Really, you shouldn't compare me with the other testers. Most of the beta testers were complete newbies to the game; you guys now are probably better than they were at the end of the test. I got the furthest in the game out of anyone in the test. The reason I could defend against the boss was like Agil said; I've fought katana-wielding monsters before. I know way more than Argo, more than any tester for that matter."

"Are… are you insane? You… you're just a cheater!"

Kirito shrugged. "Eh, I wouldn't say that." He opened his inventory and messed with his equipment, and a new black coat appeared in place of his old gray one. "I just know what I'm doing." He turned back around and started walking towards the door at the back of the boss room. Everyone watched his retreating back wordlessly.

I shook my head. What an idiot… I guess he's preventing them from hurting the other testers? That doesn't really seem like him… Well, whatever. It's not like it puts us in a position we're unfamiliar with…

"Oi." From near the front of the raid group, Kibaou stepped up to face me. "Listen… I get it wasn't yer fault. Ya helped us today. But, that don't mean I respect ya… I'll do things my own way."

I nodded. At least he was honest. "Fair enough. Stay safe." I turned and started walking after Kirito. When I walked past Agil and Asuna, the former spoke up.

"Be careful. We'll see you at the next boss."

"...We will."

Asuna fell into step behind me without saying anything. I didn't have any reason to stop her. Kirito had already gone through the doors and up the spiral stairs, so we started up as well. Hopefully it wouldn't take another month to clear the second Floor.


Author's Notes

Hey everyone! Thanks again for reading, and a big thanks to those that have followed and favorited so far!

First, I made a small edit to Chapter 1: initially I wrote that the beta testers made it to Floor 8, but I changed it to Floor 10.

So, yaay boss fight, beta testers antagonized, Kirito shifts blame, yadda yadda yadda. I don't think I'll have many chapters on the Second Floor; it's really kind of a boring floor to me. It's just a bunch of angry cows. Maybe I can come up with something dramatic, or maybe I'll just have to be lame and roll with canon for a chapter or two. We'll see.

I'm going to cut down on my use of angle brackets; the only time I'll use them for names of things is the first time they're introduced (and possibly also if it makes more sense in the sentence structure to have identifying marks). They will also be used for system text that doesn't fall under the usage for corner brackets, which isn't nearly as vague. Dunno if I'll go back and make any applicable changes in previous chapters, because lazy. Formatting is too complicated sometimes. Blech.

Another formatting thing: in some cases (likely more often down the line), such as this chapter, italicized text represents speech/writing in a language other than Japanese, mostly English. The problem I have with this is that italics already has multiple other uses. I think it shouldn't be a problem, though, as the specific usage will likely be specified through context or just by flat-out stating as such.

That's all for today. Take care!