It was difficult to focus when I awoke, but after availing myself of some bread and water I felt a little more human. Hunger made even the bland travel rations acceptable. "So it wasn't a dream." It was definitely the boss room that I'd awoken in, and it was just as empty as I'd left it. I didn't feel triumphant, I felt frightened. The longer I stayed here peering into shadows the worse my nerves grew. It was past time I went to the next floor anyways. Out of pride I kept from running up the steps to the next level, but it was a close thing.
It felt like I could finally breathe again. The second floor was a welcome change from the wretched atmosphere of the dungeon I'd spent so long in. Urbus lay to the north, a cobbled path free of monsters waiting to take me there. Oddly, I wasn't eager to go. For all I knew I might have been sleeping for two days. By now Urbus was no doubt swarming with players that had teleported up, eager to find out who had killed boss and opened up the new floor. I'd just as soon avoid the attention if I could. I'd had a rather poor reputation during beta for last-hitting floor bosses to take the best items. It was considered bad gaming manners, but now that this was more than just a game I had to assume that it would be considered a far more grievous crime. I didn't even want to think about what they might say of me for taking the entirety of the loot. It was a little odd that it was only one item though. Or perhaps not. It was a special reward given for soloing the boss after all.
I opened my inventory and began sorting through all the various junk I'd picked up during my time in the dungeon. It was less than it would have been if I hadn't given so much to Diavel, but I was still running heavier than I would like. Items in inventory only weighed ten percent of what they did when materialized, but even so I was carrying around an extra fifty pounds. Any more and I might have missed the jump to the boss's shoulder. Frankly it was foolish to pick it all up in the first place, though after all the rpg's I'd played it was a hard habit to quit. Still, as long as I kept using daggers, throwing weapons, and a low-armor build, I had little use for the paltry amount of money I'd make from selling the low-level drops. Particularly now that I'd gained 50,000 col from killing Illfang, there was really no reason to hang onto any of it. "Goodbye, items." I felt a little twinge of loss as I dropped all my gathered items but a few backup daggers onto the ground. It would be hours before they disappeared though. Someone would likely find them well before that happened.
This early in the game experience was far more important than money. Too many players spent their time making sure every last piece of their armor was perfect, only to replace them hours later as they grew in strength and capital. I probably wouldn't be the only one not wearing armor in order to increase my speed if the death penalty weren't actual death in real life. The low level creeps had pitiful reaction times and significant recovery times after strikes. As long as I wasn't asleep on my feet it wasn't that difficult to avoid every strike they threw. Only striking power mattered, and daggers had the highest agility to damage ratio in the game, though their base damage was of course very low. With my high agility build it would be a while yet before swords became more efficient. That said, I wasn't against using good items if they fell into my lap.
I equipped the choker, trying to guess what effects it might have. I'd expected a rush of strength or speed, but all I felt was the vague sense of being strangled as I slowly grew accustomed to the light weight on my neck. Admittedly it was just the floor one boss, but a legendary item was a legendary item. I decided to stop guessing and just check the item's stats. 'Armor +78? I can't believe the game even let me equip it, it's got to be thirty levels higher than me.' I scrolled down to see if there was any other effects but all I found was a paragraph of broken symbols. Either it was hidden because I was so low level or Kayaba hadn't gotten around to programming all of it yet. The latter was far from impossible. Given the improbability of beating a floor boss alone he probably hadn't thought anyone would beat it solo for weeks or even months.
Armor taken care of for a measly .2 kg I took up my final task: assigning stats. I lingered longer than I should have over the buttons for strength and health. That last battle had shook me, and if I hadn't left the dungeon before picking stats I might have just placed all my points into them rather than follow my strategy. Stacking up on strength to wear better armor or pumping up my health to where I wasn't worried about getting killed in one shot by the next boss would do wonders for my nerves, but it wouldn't help end the game any sooner.
If this game was anything like others of its type, endurance wasn't enough to beat the final boss. Its hits would be strong enough to rip through anyone that wasn't fully tank-specced, and if I did that I'd have no hope of dealing significant damage. If I wanted to kill the final boss the only option was to focus on damage and practice dodging hits. It was the most dangerous path, death would always just be a step away, but someone had to walk it. If I was lucky there would be a few tank players that could aid me, but I couldn't depend on that. It would be safer to level up with a group, but that wouldn't give me the solo experience I needed. It was unfortunate, but I couldn't afford the crutch of having an ally. Besides... making friends in this body would just be too weird.
After putting the bare minimum of points into strength and health and sliding the rest into agility I set off. My nerves were still shot from the boss battle so rather than attack the first mob I came across I just walked around them. It was day at the moment, so the field mobs weren't particularly aggressive. It felt a little strange to be taking a stroll through a death game, but even though the sunlight was artificial it felt wonderful to feel its touch after so many days of darkness. Walking unaccosted across the grassy plain felt like a dream come true.
Once I started walking I didn't feel like stopping. The mountain felt more like an opportunity than a barrier, especially since I didn't have to worry about my legs getting tired. When I reached the flat summit it was like the whole world opened up. I could see the whole floor from here, a welcome change from the claustrophobic confines of the dungeon. 'What's with the old bald guy?' My perusal of Floor 2 was abruptly halted by the unusual objects on the other side of the summit. Besides the baldy there was a giant boulder and a decrepit little shack. It was all just strange enough that there had to be some sort of quest involved. If nothing else, the lack of random mobs on the summit was a dead giveaway.
I pursed my lips, deliberating. With rare exceptions, quests weren't the most efficient use of time for a skilled solo player. Except for a handful of quests that had transferred over from the beta there was generally no way of knowing what the quest reward would be. That was fine in a group of six since the mace user could take a mace or the tank could take the plate armor, but for me the chances of getting a useable item were slim. Well, no harm in investigating.
"Do you need help?" I asked. It was one of about thirty different phrases that could trigger the start of a quest. As I'd predicted, the simple question kicked off a lengthy conversation that boiled down to "Break this boulder with your bare hands and I shall teach you martial arts." Not the most thrilling quest, but the reward sounded intriguing. There hadn't been a hand-to-hand skill in the beta, it could be useful. Besides, I needed a vacation.
Chapter 2.2It took three miserable days of punching and kicking to break that god-forsaken boulder. I'd grown frustrated after the first day and switched to furiously beating at it with my stack of spare daggers. Ten of them had crumbled into sparkling polygons before I'd finally regained my calm. After that I'd resolved to take things slower. A few breaks to go brutally slay various mobs had greatly helped my boulder-induced rage. The field boss, Bullbous Bow, had been particularly fun.
SAO was normally a very slow-leveling game, excluding the skill system that created levels-between-levels, but the the five levels I'd gained from solo-killing Illfang had really pushed me ahead of the curve. Even with subpar weapons it hadn't been too difficult to slice through the field boss's hp bar. Holding onto the back of the giant bucking bull while simultaneously fending off hordes of wasps with throwing needles was a bit of a trick though. I didn't even have to feel bad about taking the bounty since field bosses respawned every eight hours. By the time anyone besides me was a high enough level to attack Bullbous Bow it would be ready for killing again.
The old baldy had finally coughed up the quest reward. Even better, it was counted as a passive weapons skill and thus didn't take up one of my valuable ability slots. On the down side, it turned out the skill was nearly worthless. Just like my dagger mastery skill, it allowed for system-assisted hits following the appropriate gestures. Also like dagger skills, there was a built-in follow through for every system-assisted punch and kick. During that tenth of a second I was wide open for hits. If I had a few teammates to switch with it wouldn't be such an issue, but it didn't mesh well with my evasive fighting style. On top of that was something I really should have realized after the first thousand punches against the boulder: I didn't need the stupid skill to deal damage with my fists.
I would call the experience a complete waste of three days of my life but it had done one thing for me. After all that busywork I was more than ready work out my frustration by mowing my way through any mob I came across. Lucky for me, I'd already found the Floor 2 dungeon entrance. After killing the field boss there hadn't been much on the floor that could remotely threaten me during the day, so I spent most of my time training my sprinting skill and slicing apart creeps as I passed. At level 200/999 it was granting me a twenty-six percent increase in my top run speed, which thanks to all my points in agility was pretty high. I'd kept out of the area around Urbus where other players were most likely to be, but I'd managed to comb over nearly the entirety of the rest of the floor during my runs.
I hit up a traveling merchant NPC on the way to the dungeon. I sold all my daggers save for two. The drop rate on them was pretty high in dungeons and whatever I found in even the first level of the second dungeon would likely be far superior to my holdovers from the previous. Then there was just the issue of supplies. It barely dented my savings to buy three weeks of rations, a replacement sleeping bag, and a few hundred bronze throwing needles. Definitely a step up from the wooden ones I'd had on Floor 1.
It was time to fry some mobs.
"Stupid freaking minotaurs." Kayaba had really gone overboard trying to recreate the feel of the real world. During those three nights towards the end of the dungeon where I'd gone without sleep I'd actually considered ripping my skin off to help get rid of the lingering stench of minotaur. It might have been just my imagination but I'd swear I could still smell it on me now that I'd left the dungeon. At least the boss battle was pleasantly dull. Baran the General Taurus was strong, sure, but he was slower than Illfang, and I had grown faster. Having to dodge around other players to avoid strikes from his massive war hammer would have actually made things more difficult. As it was, all it had taken to beat him was time.
I winced as half a dozen messages pinged at the corner of my eye. They weren't delivered in dungeons, instead lying in wait to give me a headache. Despite the damnably labyrinthine nature of the minotaur dungeon I'd managed to beat it in six days, it was surprising I'd built up such an inbox. After all, the only ones on my friends list were... actually it was just Klein. I'd meant to contact Argo and hopefully reestablish the business relationship we had in the beta, but after my change it had never seemed like the right time. Truthfully she could be a terrible gossip, and I had no desire to have my condition become widely known.
I frowned at the inbox beacon. I sorely wanted to ignore it and go to sleep, but I couldn't imagine he'd send so many messages without a good reason. Besides, despite three days without sleep, I really didn't feel as out of it as I did towards the end of the first dungeon. As strange as it all still seemed when I stopped to think about it, I'd grown accustomed over hundreds of hours of combat to the different center of gravity and shortened reach. During my nearly week-long charge through the mooks I'd eventually fallen into an almost meditative trance. Unable to find a safe zone during the last few days I'd been unable to sleep, but for much of it I hadn't been entirely awake, either. Yawning, I opened the first message.
Kirito, where are you? Have you found the boss room? – Klein
I smiled. Not only had I found it, I'd slaughtered the Floor 2 boss in just under an hour.
A lot of players are planning suicide if we don't show progress before the first month is up. – Klein.
My smile abruptly disappeared. Something about the message seemed off. Two floors in a month was far from ideal, but we were definitely making progress. At the current rate we could all be out of the game in fifty months, but I was hopeful that the first floor was an aberration. If I could just get a few people capable of scouting out the dungeons for me I was confident I could lower it to less than a week per floor.
We found the boss. There's a meeting planned for all high-level players in Tolbana tomorrow at noon. – K
High-level, I certainly fell in that category. It was strange that I hadn't seen anyone though, if so many were searching for General Taurus.
The boss fight is in three hours. My team could use a sixth. – K
I was tempted to hide in wait in the boss room to see their faces when they saw it was empty. I wouldn't though. Pettiness aside, it would be a waste of time and a possible detriment to creating a team later in the game if some players took offense.
We failed. 3000 people dead, a month trapped in this game without anything to show for it. People are giving up. Diavel, our leader, is dead, along with a dozen others. Those of us that remain are planning a final assault tomorrow. If we fail, most have decided to wait in the starting city until rescue comes from outside the game. I don't know where you've been, or why you won't respond, but we need every player we can get. If you still care about beating the game then help us now. This could be our last chance.
I read through message with rising horror. At last I knew what should have been obvious. He wasn't talking about the second floor boss, he was talking about the first. 'It's not possible.' But rapidly I realized it was. After beating Illfang I'd forgotten to do something very important. It was an understandable mistake given that I'd never been one for ceremony in Beta, but to have such a tragedy occur from forgetting to turn on the teleport beacon...
"This is all my fault." I nearly fell to my knees, but rallied myself around one goal: "I have to save them.
The sixth message contained only a time. I prayed I wouldn't be too late.
End Chap 8.
Pretty sure this chapter answered a few questions people had about post-boss battle. Nearly went another way with it, but hopefully people enjoy this somewhat original take on the SAO arc.
Chapter 2.3:I should have known, should have guessed that something like this could happen. After all, why would Kayaba program in a solo reward for boss kills unless there was an opportunity to kill them more than once. Given that SAO was perpetually stingy it was likely they respawned infrequently or a limited number of times, a mechanic that would likely favor well-organized guilds and reward them with items or materials that couldn't be acquired anywhere else.
Tears fell from my eyes as I opened the gift-wrapped package the boss had dropped. "Bullshit." Heated by my fury they rolled down my cheeks in a flood, the SAO graphics engine exaggerating them beyond what they could ever be in real life. My anger-fueled flush was similarly enhanced. Before this moment I hadn't ever truly hated Kayaba Akihiko. He'd been something of an idol of mine for so long that even when he sprang this monstrous game on all of us I'd still held a measure of respect for the man. Though his actions were outrageously criminal, and my own peculiar side effect incredibly annoying and awkward, I still admired his skill in creating a game that felt like a world of its own.
But now that had all changed. Staring at the legendary-class item in my hand, all I felt for the man was a burning desire to slice him apart. SAO wasn't a game to me anymore. It was obstacle in the path of me carrying out a genuine desire to kill another human being. "Fucking soy sauce." I crushed the bottle of virtual-reality soy sauce I'd risked my life for in my hand, smiling through my tears as bright polygons exploded from my fist. No, in my eyes at least, Kayaba wasn't human at all. Reluctantly I unclenched my fist. Kayaba would have to wait, for now there people I had to save.
I ran to the nearby town as fast as my legs could take me, thinking to activate the teleport beacon, but the shortcut wasn't to be. The error message was as predictable as it was infuriating. [Floor 2 teleport beacon inactive, Floor 3 beacon cannot activate.] I kicked the beacon with all my strength, an Immortal Object alert pinging off where I hit it. The pillar was entirely unmoved from my attack, though my foot wasn't so lucky. It tingled like I'd hit a funny bone, alerting me to injury with the now familiar almost-pain. The five hp I'd lost swiftly regenerated, discomfort erased as if it never was. My mental frustration and exhaustion was another matter, but there was no time for rest.
I equipped the Cloak of Midnight I'd gotten from the giant bull field boss, the hood casting my face deep into shadow. The hooded cloak just got in the way for boss fights, but its ability to lower the aggro range of most mobs made it invaluable for my next adventure. If I couldn't take the easy way to floor 1, I'd have to take the hard way.
It was time to reenter the labyrinth, that musky hell that I'd already spent six days escaping. "Fucking minotaurs."