Arc 1; Ep 2: Beater
-December 2, 2022 Floor 1-
It's been over a month since the game began, currently around 2000 players have died. Sadly the First Floor Boss hasn't been located, and I have gotten far in making myself stronger and ready for anything. Especially I haven't heard from Kirito the last time I saw him since he was a Beta Tester... But now there is a meeting being held to fight the First Floor Boss and advance to the next floor.
-Crossing Fields opening-
In the town of Tolbana a small group of players have gathered together at a stage area in town with people chatting. Sakore who has gotten a better sword and gear sits at the top spot of the area wanting to do as much as he can for this. The guy at the center claps his hands to get everyone's attention.
"Ok people! Now that everyone is here, let's get this meeting started!" He tells them and everyone takes a seat to listen to the meeting "So anyway I wanna thank everyone for coming, good to see you. My name is Diavel, and in this game the job I rolled is knight!" some people laugh
"Dude, there's no job system in this game!" a random guy tells him
"You guys wanna hear this or not?" He asks them and they become quiet as Diavel's face becomes serious "right, anyway here's the deal. Our party found the boss room at the top of the tower today." once told every were actually surprised at this. "First, we need to defeat the boss, and make it to Floor 2. The next step is we have to tell everyone waiting in the Town of Beginnings, that it is possible to beat this game! Fact is, it's our duty as the most capable players here! Do you agree, or not?!" the people were silent for a moment then some started clapping in approval to this plan. Sakore smiled with Diavel's speech to the people here. "Okay! Glad to hear you're all with me on this! Now, let's figure out how we're gonna beat the boss. First off, we'll team up into parties of 6!" hearing that made Sakore panic since he wants to help out, however people were already setting up and partying up then to the left he sees Kirito setting up a party with a person in a red cloak covering their face who is about Kirito's height. It was his only chance to pair up with someone, luckily it was someone he knew which was good. He quickly moves over to them.
"Hey there, long time no see." Sakore says getting Kirito's attention
"Oh hey, so you in on taking on the boss?" he asks and Sakore nods "You wanna party for this raid?"
"Yea, since everyone else has done it." Sakore replies and Kirito sends a party invite to him and Sakore accepts it, once he does two HP bars appear below his with the names of the two, and the one at the bottom got his attention "Asuna… so that's her in the red cloak… almost seems like her actual name possibly… but I'm glad to see a friendly face here." he thought, curious about the girl covered in the red cloak
"Alright, looks like everyone's teamed up. Now then-" before Diavel could continue
"Hold up a second!" A guy yells out getting everyone's attention at the top and he leaps down near Diavel looking pretty pissed off "My name's Kiboau got that?!" he tells Diavel "before we take on the boss, I wanna get something off my chest." His tone sounded serious "We all know about the two thousand people that died so far yea? Well some of you need to apologize to them right now!" he points to the crowd and to a few people know who he means.
"Kiboau, I think I know you're referring to, you mean the ones who were ExBeta-testers, right?" Diavel asks understanding the situation
"Course I mean them! The day this stupid ass game started, the beta guys just up and vanished! right?! They ditched all us beginners!" Kiboau shouts out "They snagged all the good hunting spots, and they grabbed all the easy quests too, they were the only ones getting stronger around here. This whole time they ignored us like we're nothing." in Sakore's mind he wants to interrupt Kiboau and disagree on his thoughts. "Hell I bet there's some of them here! Come on out Beta-Testers! We should make them apologize to us, and we should make them give up all their money AND the items they got! They can't expect the party to trust them when they don't trust us! Why should we?" Sakore really wanted to go down there and do something, but someone else decides to speak up
"Can I say something?" A guy with dark skin who looks to be half size taller than Kirito, who is bald with a bit of a beard growing "hey, my name's Agil. Kiboau right? I want to make sure we're on the same page. you say the ExBeta-Testers should be blamed for the rookies deaths, because they didn't help them. And you want them to apologize and give up their winnings. I leave anything out?"
"No, you didn't." he replies to him, and Agil pulls out a small booklet
"The item store hands these out for free. It's a guidebook, you got one didn't you?" Agil asks Kiboau
"Sure I got one, so what about it?" he asks
"You wanna know who was handing these out? The ExBeta-Testers." Agil says which people whisper a bit "Listen up, everyone had equal access to this information, even so lots of players still died. Now I didn't come here to point fingers at anyone. I'm here because I want to learn from those players deaths. I'm here because I want to learn how we're gonna beat the boss!" Kirito sighed glad not to reveal to him being a Beta-Tester. Agil looked back at Kiboau who looked annoyed though he sat down as well as Agil did.
"Ok…" Diavel pulls out his own guide book "Can we get back to the meeting now?" he asks and everyone nodded "for info on the boss, it's all in here. The latest issue of the guidebook you just heard about." people were surprised from this even Kiboau wasn't expecting that. "according to the book, the boss' name is Illfang the Kobold Lord. Also he'll be surrounded by his minions the Ruined Kobold Sentinels. Illfang carries an axe and a buckler, he has four health bars and when the last one turns red he switches to a curved sword type weapon called a Talwar. He can change his patterns of attack too." he finishes and closes the book "that's it for the briefing, as for the distribution of loot, money will be divided equally among everyone. The party that defeats the boss, gets the Exp, and whoever gets an item gets to keep it. Any objections?" none have any problems with what was said "good, we leave tomorrow at 10 in the morning. Meeting adjourned people!" people get up and leave and Sakore sees both Asuna and Kirito leave, he decided to get set up in town for items and rest up for the boss while people take some time to do whatever.
Sakore gets himself a room in a hotel to rest for the day and starts thinking about what happened in the meeting. About how Kiboau dissed the Beta-Testers, even though Kirito taught Sakore the basics, Agil showed respect to the Beta-Testers who wrote the guide book to help the beginners. So much is going to happen the next day, a raid on the First Floor Boss, and hoping to advance to the next floor.
-Dec 3, 2022 Floor 1 forest fields path to Labyrinth-
The next day the large raid group is making their way to the Labyrinth where the Floor boss resides, and Sakore with both Kirito and Asuna talking about their strategy with taking on the boss.
"Let's go over it again. We're the backup, so our targets are gonna be the Boss' minions, the Ruined Kobold Sentinels." Kirito tells them
"I know…" Asuna replies
"I'll use a Sword Skill to knock their weapons up out of the way. When I do switch and jump in." Kirito tells them
"Right…" Sakore replies
"What's a switch?" Asuna asks and the two guys look at her
"Ok level with me, is this your first time you've ever been in a party?" Kirito asks her and she nods confirming it making Kirito sigh and Sakore placing a hand over his face
"Girls… they aren't much of gamers… though this is rare to see a lot playing games… unlike my sister…" Sakore says in his thoughts thinking about his family now
The raid party gets to the top of the labyrinth and now at the door to the boss room. Ready to head in.
"Listen up everyone… I've only got one thing to say to you. Let's win!" Diavel tells them to encourage the group "Come on!" he places a hand on the door pushing it open to reveal a large hallway into a throne room and at the end red eyes glowed signalling it to be the boss. The raid group moves forward cautiously until the room lights causing the boss to leap right in front of the group showing the name "Illfang the Kobold Lord" along with 4 health bars appearing and summon its minions. They enemies charge forth at the group "Commence attack!" Diavel commands and everyone runs in and begins the battle. Diavel commands the squads fighting the boss and have the others take on the minions.
"Switch!" Kirito knocks the weapon from one minion and Asuna charges at it with her rapier
"I'm on it!" she tells him and the two boys were amazed with how quick she struck the enemy
"Damn she isn't half bad." Sakore says impressed
"Right on…" Kirito says also impressed and the trio continue taking on the minions as the other groups fight the boss bringing its HP to the last bar and now at Red. It was now anger and tosses away the current equipment it held.
"Good, it's almost down. Just a bit more left until we win." Sakore says and Diavel decides to face it head on, and the boss pulls out it's new weapon and both Kirito and Sakore looked at it and noticed something different "Wait a second! That isn't a Talwar, that's a Nodachi! This isn't like the beta!"
"Wait stop! It's no good! Get outta there!" Kirito yells out as the boss leaps around and heavily strikes Diavel greatly and strikes again
"Diavel no!" Kiboau shouts out scared as the boss lands right next to them roaring as Kirito goes over to give a potion to him, but he pushed it away telling Kirito something and bursts into pieces making that last moment his death.
"No…" Sakore couldn't believe what he saw happen, a person killed in battle. How could he protect himself when other lives are also at stake, in his mind he had thought about only trying to survive, but there are others who need support as well. "I won't let another person die… We'll kill the boss right now!"
"Then back us up! Let's do this!" Kirito tells him as he and Asuna charge forth "We'll hit him just like we did with the minions!"
"Then I'll take lead!" Sakore tells them and runs forward and the boss sees them coming towards him and readys an attack and launches at Sakore as he readies a sword skill and collides knocking the weapon away "Switch!" he tells Asuna and she runs at the boss however the guys notice the boss going to strike her
"Asuna!" Kirito says her name and she avoids the strike only having her cloak shredded showing her long orange hair and hazel eyes. She readies herself and thrusts her rapier knocking the boss away and they were amazed, however the boss got their attention again "He's coming back!" Kirito goes in and rebounds again having Asuna strike again, then Kirito clashes but he gets rebounded and struck knocking him and Asuna down almost bringing Kirito's HP in the Yellow. The boss got near them and was about to finish them over
"You stay the hell away!" Sakore shouts as he and Agil rebounded the strike keeping the two safe and everyone else charges forward
"We can hold this bastard off till your health's back up!" Agil tells Kirito
"You got it." Kirito says and both Agil and Sakore go in to keep the boss busy to keep it defending until it knocks them away and about to clean sweep them all. "Watch out!" Kirito gets back up and readies a sword skill "You're going down!" he strikes the boss causing it to fall to the ground "Come on Asuna, Sakore! Help me beat this sucker! One last attack!"
"You got it!" Asuna replies
"Right behind you!" Sakore replies and the trio charge throwing multiple attacks and Kirito does a diagonal strike making it the final blow making the boss burst into pieces, and a Congratulations appears signaling the Floor boss being defeated and everyone cheers in excitement. The lights turn off and an info screen tells Kirito of getting the last attack bonus giving him a piece of equipment.
"Nice job." Asuna compliments him
"That was some fine swordsmanship. Congratulations. Todays victory is all thanks to you." Agil tells him though Kirito didn't feel like wanting to be congratulated, and people were cheering for him until
"Stop cheering!" Kiboau yells out getting everyone's attention "Why'd you do it huh? Why'd you let Diavel die?!"
"Let him die…" Kirito says
"That's what I said, admit it you knew the technique the boss was gonna use! You could've told us! Then Diavel would have stand a chance! He wouldn't have to die!" Kiboau shouts angry and people started talking a bit
"I know why he knew! He use to be a Beta-Tester! Think about it, he knew the boss' attack patterns, he knew! But he kept it from us!" A random player says "And I bet he's not the only Beta-Tester here, come on show yourselves!" now this was starting into a commotion where everyone is now doubting the Beta-Testers being all friendly to others. Sakore had to do something, what could he do
"Hey, calm down." Agil starts saying and Kiboau didn't seem to want to listen to him until Kirito started laughing suddenly
"So you guys think I use to be a Beta Tester… it's not cool to put me in the same class with those noobs." Kirito tells him which confused a lot of people and Sakore also
"W-What'd you say?!" Kiboau asked him
"You heard me, most of the thousand people who score a slot in SAO's beta were rookies." Kirito says which had Sakore figure out he is taking the blame instead of the others. "They were so green, they didn't even know how to level up… hell even you guys were better than they were." this was making Kiboau frightened of him "but me, I'm nothing like those guys man. During the Beta I made it to floors that were higher than any of the other testers! That's a fact, I knew about the boss cause I fought tons of monsters with way more sword skills on higher floors! I know a bunch of other things too, more than you can imagine… more than any info broker."
"W-What the hell…? If that's true then you're worse than a Beta-Tester, you're a goddamn cheater that's what you are!" Kiboau says
"He's a Beta-Tester and a Cheater! He's a Beater!" a random player shouts out
"A Beater. Yea that's good, I like it." Kirito says enjoying this and making others scared of him "Ok, you can call me a Beater, just don't mix me up with one of those Beta-Testers anymore." he equips the new item which is a black cloak and heads toward the path to the 2nd Floor and Sakore gets the message -Your Party has been Disband-
"I know he won't let others die, and I'll do the same as much as I can. I will prepare myself for upcoming fights that I'll get into." Sakore says in his thoughts making his path to Floor 2 and continues onward
Floor 1 has been cleared, and now there comes the Assault Team which will be the Front Liners to take on the Floors Bosses and any Field Bosses. Sakore has himself as a member of the Assault Team along with some people he meets. How far will they be able to reach while team continues passing, Kirito has gone solo as Sakore tries his best to help out. What will he do on the Floors above? Find out in the next chapter! (There will be characters seen here that weren't in the Anime but were the games. This will be some girls having some feelings on Sakore like how the other girls were into Kirito.)
Next Time; The Treasure Hunter