Friday, December 16th, 2022, 5 P.M.
We made our way back to the dark elf camp with ease. Asuna led the way with her powerful Chivalric Rapier; with Kizmel right behind her, Kirito and I barely lifted a finger. I never even drew my dagger, though that was more because I was working on levelling my Martial Arts.
The quest was completed after we reported to the old elf and the commander. I was kind of put off, since we had to go all the way up the ridge just to do almost nothing and come back down, but there wasn't much to do about it. At least I had found something up there.
Speaking of which, it was kind of strange. I brought the necklace I had found to the old elf, but if he did know anything about it he wasn't letting on. All that he told me was that it had vague magical properties and that it would be wise to hold on to it. The necklace didn't have any actual stats, so I simply stowed it away in my inventory.
After initiating the next quest in the campaign, we left the commander's tent.
Kirito turned towards me. "You good to keep going?"
"I guess, long as we don't have to go up that ridge again."
Kirito shook his head. "Don't see why we would."
We started to make our way to the camp's exit. I stopped suddenly, prompting the other three to look back at me in confusion. "Actually, could we get some food? I feel like I haven't eaten all day."
Asuna rubbed her stomach. "Now that you say it, I actually feel really hungry."
"There should be some food prepared in the dining tent by now," Kizmel said.
I nodded. "Let's go, then."
Sunday, December 18th, 2022, 11:45 P.M.
A soft bump to my shoulder, a muttered swear, and after a few moments the light rustling of cloth prompted me to slowly open my eyes. I sat up just in time to catch someone exiting the tent.
I looked around groggily; Asuna and Kizmel were both still fast asleep in the center of the tent. However, the bedroll to my left was empty.
What was Kirito up to?
I quietly got up and made my way out of the tent. Kirito's silhouette was barely visible in the darkness ahead of me. I quickly put on my gear and tried my best to follow him. His cursor was at the edge of my vision, and while he would still show up on my map it was hard to keep track of him because of how hazy it was.
The Forest of Wavering Mists was dangerous at night in particular; it was hard enough to see during the day, but once darkness fell the mist would thicken and turn what little lighting there was into a dark gray void. Fortunately we were fairly familiar with the terrain by this point.
We had spent the past couple of days doing campaign quests. After paying our respects to the fallen scout, we went out to search for another missing scout, but this time our search was successful.
Well, sort of; the scout turned out to be a forest elf spy that was using a disguise charm. The forest elf attempted to steal the Jade Key, but failed thanks to Kirito and I keeping an eye on him. He managed to escape, however we were able to track him to a camp—the same camp that Asuna and I had gone near when we were searching for the first scout.
The next quest was «Infiltration», in which our goal was to steal some plans from said forest elf camp. However, we had to put the the questing on hold for a while since the field boss that blocked the path to the upper half of the Floor was tackled earlier today. It went smoothly—no one died, and unsurprisingly Kirito got the LA Bonus. Following the defeat of the field boss we made our way back to the dark elf camp where we bathed, ate, and then slept. Which brought me to following Kirito in the middle of the night.
Eventually Kirito made his way to the stairway back down to the second Floor. I stopped at a spot where the forest and mist were dense; I'd be surprised if Kirito hadn't noticed me by now, but I gave myself the benefit of the doubt.
"A few seconds late, ain't'cha, Kii-bou?" I wasn't able to see her through the mist, but the nasally, teasing voice provided no doubt that it was Argo.
"No excuse, I guess."
"I see," Argo said.
"Look, I don't mean to rush you, but do you have any information on what I asked about?" Kirito responded.
"Always so impatient." I heard footsteps, probably Argo's. "Well… first off, mind if our uninvited guest reveals themselves?"
"Huh?"
Took long enough. I clicked my tongue and stepped out of the mists. Kirito whirled around in shock, his hand already on his way to his sword.
"What the—oh, Rei? When…?"
I shook my head. "What, seriously? You actually didn't notice that I was following you?"
Kirito lowered his hand and relaxed. "No… I mean, you didn't get up when I accidentally bumped you, so I didn't really think about it…"
"Well, it doesn't matter. I actually had something that I was meaning to ask Argo about, anyways."
Argo grinned. "I'll always take extra business. Anywho, Kii-bou?"
"Yeah, yeah." Kirito pulled a coin out of his pocket and flicked it towards Argo, who caught it deftly between her fingers.
"Only one new member in the DKB since we started this Floor. Name's Morte, uses a 1H sword like yours, always wears a chain coif. Don't got much else on 'im."
DKB was the acronym for the name of Lind's guild, the Dragon Knights Brigade. He and Kibaou had formally announced the official names of their guilds, the Dragon Knights Brigade and the Aincrad Liberation Squad, at the most recent meeting. They had gone by those names for a while already, but they had finalized them now that they were almost done with the guild creation quest.
"Morte…" I mumbled. "That's some… awful name choice."
"Hm? Is it?" Kirito looked at me, confused. "It sounds like some kind of candy to me."
I sighed in exasperation. "Candy? No way. Well, it's… what is it, Portuguese? It means 'death'."
Argo put her hands behind her head. "Sounds right ta' me."
"Mm…" I froze when I registered the rest of what Argo had listed off. A chain coif? That was what the guy in Kibaou's group was wearing the other day. Sure, it was probably a coincidence, but two different people wearing such worthless, bizarre headgear was enough to me to warrant suspicion. "Wait, hold on a sec'. Kirito, where did you see this guy?" I asked.
"A few days ago, when you stayed behind at the camp to check for quests. We ran into the DKB while they were starting the campaign quest."
"Not the ALS? And he had a sword?"
Kirito looked at me skeptically. He was right to do so; without any context, I wasn't making any sense. "Yeah… what are you getting at?"
"Do you remember anything else at all about what he looked like?"
"Um…" Kirito put his hands on top of his head and closed his eyes. "He was wearing… scalemail armor, I think? And his sword was probably an Anneal Blade." His hands dropped. "That's all I can remember."
"Okay, um…" I couldn't help but think that something was going on. I turned to face the rat-like info dealer. "Argo?"
"That's my name."
"Do you know of anyone that matches Morte's description, but is in the ALS and uses a one-handed axe instead?"
Kirito and Argo both stared at me blankly.
Argo thought for a second. "... No, I don't. And I ain't gonna charge ya for that, cause that's… really weird. I oughta look into it myself."
Argo not knowing was a bad sign. "... Please, do that. And let me know if you find anything."
"Will do. If that's all, I need'ta get going," Argo said. Kirito and I didn't say anything to stop her, so she silently vanished into the mist.
I turned to face Kirito. "I'm guessing you were planning to do the quest? You wouldn't get up at midnight just to have a chat with Argo."
Kirito raised his hands in defeat. "It's easier to do at night. And having all of us along would just make it harder."
"Well, you're not wrong, but I'm coming with you anyways."
"I wasn't planning to stop you."
I shrugged in response. "That aside, you should have seen the guy I asked Argo about, too."
"Eh?"
"You ran into Kibaou's group in the spider den, right? He was with them."
"I guess… yeah, that does sound familiar actually…"
"Aa-chan didn't say anything about him either?"
"Nope. Are you saying he's the same person that I saw with the DKB?"
"Not necessarily, but it's weird. I couldn't imagine one person wearing such a crappy piece of gear like that coif, let alone two. And since Argo's never heard of him, I can't help but think..."
"... Well, I figured he was at least a beta tester. It didn't seem like Lind was getting his info on the quest from Argo, at least."
I sighed. "Well, whatever."
We headed back into the misty forest and made our way to the forest elf camp. Once we reached the camp, Kirito led me around to the back side of it, right next to the river that flowed through the Floor. From this side, the camp was sitting atop a cliff about 7 or 8 meters high, with roots sticking out of the rock in places obviously meant for climbing. The river was narrow and shallow here; it was only a few centimeters deep and a few meters across.
"Isn't trying to do this quest through stealth a lot more risky…?" I mumbled.
"Well, yeah, but…" Kirito said, "I dunno. For some reason it just doesn't feel… right to fight through all the elves like I did in the beta."
"That's… fair, I guess."
"Well, I wouldn't—" Kirito suddenly cut himself off, and whirled around to scan over a line of trees nearby.
"What's wrong?"
"It felt like… someone was watching us," Kirito whispered.
"Eh?" I looked around, but my Searching didn't pick anything up. Kirito's Searching was a higher level than mine, though.
Kirito's gaze was fixed on one spot on the far bank of the river, and after a few seconds a figure appeared from out of the shadows. The first thing I noticed was its cursor—it was green. A player.
The player was wearing scalemail armor, with gloves and boots that looked like they were made out of a similar material. A longsword was sheathed on his hip, and he wore a metal chain coif on his head that looked like it would ruin visibility.
"Yeah, no, he's the same guy," I mumbled. He looked exactly the same save for his weapon.
I briefly wondered why he was helping both guilds at the same time, but that thought could be saved for later. More importantly, what was he doing here?
If we had just encountered each other by coincidence, I would have spotted him before he spotted us since I had the «Distance Bonus» Skill mod for my Searching—or at the very least, we would have seen each other at about the same time if he had the same mod. In either case, it was pretty unlikely that he could have hidden before I would have seen him. Kirito probably had the Distance Bonus mod as well, and clearly he was more attentive than me.
That meant the more likely option was that he had already been hiding here. As if he knew we would be here.
Whoever he was, this Morte guy meant trouble.
Kirito had probably reached the same conclusion. His glare looked like it could rip Morte in half.
A voice much different from what I was expecting emerged from Morte's mouth. "Well, shoot! Guess you guys spotted me, huh?" It was a bright, almost sing-songy tone, much out of place in the current mood; but at the same time, it sounded… flat, somehow. His voice was barely quiet enough to not garner the attention of the elves in the camp above.
"You two are pretty good. It takes a lot of skill to spot me at this distance, and in this kind of darkness, too. And it was just on a hunch too, riiight?" Morte's way of speaking had an obnoxious theatricality to it.
This guy was getting on my nerves real fast. I clenched my fists and decided to let Kirito do the talking.
"... You're Morte, right?" Kirito asked. "From the DKB?"
"A-ha! You've got some sharp info there, for someone who keeps his distance from the main group! Mhmm, Morte's the name. You might not want to wear it out, ha-haa!" His response danced around Kirito's second question without really answering it.
"I take it we won't need to introduce ourselves."
"Oh, come, now!" Morte swayed from side to side. "When you put it like that, Kirito, it sounds like you're implying something!"
"It seems pretty clear to me that you were expecting us to pass through here."
Morte raised his hands in feigned defeat. "Ha-ha, you caught me. But if I'm to be honest, I wasn't prepared for you to bring one of your girlfriends along. Ohh… I apologize, perhaps I'm interrupting something?"
I felt quite tempted to jump across the river and punch that smarmy grin right off of Morte's face, but not wanting to be marked as a criminal by the system held me back. Nothing about his tone was directly impolite per se, but it just… pissed me off.
Kirito ignored Morte's inciting. "Did someone put you up to this? Lind, maybe?"
"Ha-ha, Lind's not a bad guess, I'll give you that. But naaah, this was all me. It's not like Lind would know about this spot for this quest; he's no beater, after all."
My curiosity overtook my anger for a moment, and I finally spoke up. "Beater… that's—" I quickly cut myself off. It was probably best to not say anything about my encounter with Kibaou the other day, as Morte might pick up on the fact that I remembered him. If he hadn't already. "... I've heard someone else use that word. What the hell is it? It's certainly not the English word, anyway."
Morte spread out his arms. "I don't mind to educate. Y'see, it's a, uh…" his dumb smile faltered. "A porta-something? A combination of two words."
I crossed my arms. "A portmanteau."
Morte snapped his fingers. "Yep, that! It's a portmanteau of 'beta' and 'cheater'. Came around from that mess of a boss fight on the first Floor. It's a dumb name, but I like that, ha-ha."
I'd had enough of this. "Okay, can we get to the point? You're here for a reason, clearly."
"Impatient, I see. Welllll, alright. Here's the deal: all I want is for you to not do this quest."
After a moment of stunned silence, Kirito shrugged his shoulders. "We're not going to do that, you should know that. Why should it matter to you anyways? Isn't the DKB on the other side of the campaign?"
I wondered the same thing. Nothing we completed on our side of the campaign should have any effect on the other side. The closest separate parties ever interacted during the campaign was if their quests happened to be in the same area… maybe they had one here?
Morte put his hands on his hips and shook his head, which caused his chain coif to jingle. "Well, y'see, it does matter to me. 'Course, I can't tell you why, otherwise I'd have no reason to be hiding, right?"
Kirito narrowed his eyes. "So… you intend to stop us by force?"
"Oh, no no no, that'd be a bad idea. The last thing I want to do is turn my cursor orange. That'd be a quick way to get kicked out of the guild I just joined, yeah?" Morte said. "There's nothing wrong about me singing a lil' song though, right? I always enjoyed the music inside the towns, it's a shame there's not BGM everywhere."
Morte's statement seemed completely out of the blue, but it held a thinly-veiled menace. He was planning to wake up the forest elves while we infiltrated the camp. Even with both of us, fighting off and escaping from a dozen elves would be difficult.
"You want to MPK us…" Kirito mumbled.
Morte grinned innocently. "Oh no, I wouldn't do that. I don't doubt that you two could slip away from them regardless, right? All I ask is that you wait for a day."
"A day…" I shook my head. "What difference does it make?"
Morte held a finger over his lips. "Nope, can't say! But it'll become clear if you just wait."
It was frustrating. What the hell was his goal? Considering the circumstances around him it likely had something to do with the DKB or the ALS, but I couldn't fathom what.
"And what if we refuse?" Kirito asked.
Morte lowered his hand. "Hmm, well… I've got a better idea. Why don't we settle this dispute the old-fashioned way? Y'know, like we would in the beta."
"... And that would be…"
"C'mon, Kirito, you're killing me! Use that head of yours!" Morte's fingers traced along the pommel of the sword at his waist. It was clear that he was proposing a duel.
"... You're joking."
"Oh no, I'm always serious."
I grit my teeth. Now we needed to figure out what Morte was trying to accomplish; whatever it was, it clearly wasn't any good. The location of this camp changed every time someone completed its quest, so that must have been the reason why Morte was trying to delay us. But what did that get him other than wasted time? He was obviously a beta tester; he'd be better off just checking the other known spots for the camp once he needed to do the quest. I'd seen him working with both the ALS and the DKB, but if it was out of sheer altruism it didn't add up.
"Well, whaddaya say?" Morte rocked back and forth on his feet. "I don't mind waiting all night for a response, but I imagine you two are just oh-so busy, ha-haa."
"... We can die even in a duel, you know," Kirito said.
"Goodness, Kirito, if you insist…" Morte shook his head and laughed. "Ha-ha! Of course not, right? A full duel would be super dangerous. No, I was thinking a half-finish duel would be perfect. Much safer, right?"
"If safety's a problem, we should just use first-strike," I said. A half-finish duel, which was won when your opponent was reduced to 50% of their health, was still awfully dangerous. A first-strike duel was won upon the first clean hit, which was… still dangerous, but much less so. Back in the beta most only ever used the full duel option, but by now it was clear why the other two even existed in the first place.
"Correct you are! But I'm no good with that. A first-strike duel is just too flimsy, y'see? One hit and it's over. It's so easy to win just on a fluke—not that good for making a decision, is it? A half-duel's much better, and it only takes a couple minutes. You've got at least that much to spare, right?"
Considering how much you want to delay us, every minute seems pretty important to me right now. From the way Morte was acting it seemed like he was happy to keep us away from the quest for as long as he could. It probably didn't need to be a full day—just an hour or even a few more minutes might be enough for what Morte wanted. But if it was just to help one of the guilds, this was a massive waste of effort on Morte's part.
"What's to guarantee that you won't interfere with us if you lose?" Kirito asked.
"Oh, that'd be horribly dirty of me, I wouldn't dare do something like that." Morte leaned to one side. "But if I do lose, I'd be at 50% HP at most, right? It'd be pretty dangerous for me to make any noise while I'm healing up—who knows what else is out in this forest, ha-ha!"
Kirito didn't look too convinced. "Okay… One last thing. As it stands, we don't have anything to gain from this. If you lose, you have to tell us why you're doing this."
"... Sure! Can't say it'll make sense to you, though. Anywho, which one of you wants to duel?"
Helping the guilds was out… Was it more malicious? But outside of causing us trouble I didn't see how this would accomplish anything. Maybe I was overthinking it. Regardless of his reasons, Morte was actively obstructing us from completing our goal.
If that was the case, then did he just have a grudge? I certainly didn't remember either of us doing anything to prompt something like this.
No, maybe he just wanted to stop SAO from being cleared at all. I couldn't bear the thought; I didn't want to believe it. But it fit his actions.
I quickly opened my menu and sent a message to Kirito asking him what side of the campaign the ALS was on. Morte would probably know that I was keeping something from him, but that was better than risking Morte overhearing me.
"I… don't know," Kirito mumbled. "Same as us, if I had to guess."
Opposing sides, huh...
"... Let me duel him," I said.
He turned to look at me. "You sure?"
"Yeah. I've just got a bad feeling about this. Besides, you'd probably have a better chance at slipping away without him noticing and doing the quest while we're fighting. But we need to hurry, he's obviously up to something."
"It's not like he'd be able to stop either of us from leaving once the duel starts, but okay…"
"I'd rather not take the risk. We don't know what he's up to." I turned back to face Morte. "Let's go upstream, there's a more open spot up there."
"Okie-dokie!" Morte put his hands behind his head and spun on his heel. "Man, if I gotta be totally honest I was hoping to duel with Kirito. I mean, he's the Kirito, the best player from the beta, y'know? But I suppose you're just as amazing as he is, Rei-san, ha-haa!"
"Tch."
"Ooh! Hostile."
After a few moments of walking we came upon the open area I had mentioned. Morte turned back to face us. He swiped at the air, prompting his menu to open in front of him. The faint glow from his menu made the smile on his face look that much more creepy. It sent shivers down my spine.
"Allllright," Morte said, "it's showtime."
Author's Notes
Hey everyone! Once again I barely eke out a chapter at the end of the year.
To those of you that celebrate it, I hope you've had a Merry Christmas!
I don't have much to say today. I probably could have posted this chapter earlier this month, but finals, the holidays, and being a lazy butt kept me busy. On top of that, I pretty much finished the whole next chapter to see if it would work well as just one double-length chapter, but as you can see I decided against doing that. Posting this now gives me a bit of a time buffer, plus I still have some changes to consider as of yet.
See you guys in 2018!
Take care, and have a great New Year!
