-3 years later-

[6 January 2026]

[Asuna's cabin on Floor 22 of New Aincrad]

"Have you heard about Absolute Sword, Arashi?" Lisbeth queried the red haired Salamander known as Arashi the Crimson Reaper.

"Atheletic Horde??" Asuna asked, clearly not hearing the name properly. Arashi facepalmed mentally, he turned to Asuna who was sitting adjacent to him and told her:"She clearly said Absolute Sword, Asuna."

"So anyways, is that a new legendary item they added or something?" Arashi asked Lisbeth, who was lightly chuckilng at Asuna mishearing her.

"Non non. Its a players name, or nickname, I guess. I don't know the actual avatars name to be honest." Lisbeth replied as she shook her right index finger.

Arashi put his right elbow onto the wooden table and rested his chin onto his right hand. And looked at Lisbeth intriguingly." That nickname to me suggests that this 'Absolute Sword' should be a really powerful player.Is Absolute Sword a PKer or something?And how did he or she get that nickname?" Arashi asked Lisbeth again.

"To answer that third question, Absolute Sword was so strong that someone called her that, and the name stuck. 'The sword of absolute invincibility' or something along the lines of that. Also, it's a duelist, not a PKer."

"The sword of absolute invincibility."Arashi repeated to himself. He was even more intrigued by this now.

Since Arashi entered the world of Alfheim Online as a member of the Salamander race, a race mainly focused on brute attack and fire magic casting, he was instantly spotted by SAO veterans who started to play ALO, and the word quickly spread that 'The Crimson Reaper' had entered the land of the fairies. Arashi was still a little displeased at people calling him that but then again that nickname still filled him with pride and regonition.

He had developed a surprisingly good realationship with General Eugene,the leader of the Salamanders, likely because of his skill. Arashi used a longsword in ALO too,called -Humanity-.

It had a golden hilt and guard that shone in moonlight, and a standard looking silver blade Although this was a powerful looking sword, he looked forward to using Laventinn again, which was in not dropped from the Floor 27 boss now.

He still looked for it in every nook and crany in New Aincrad, but all the efforts came out futile, so he could only assume that its was dropped in a higher floor since it was now I legendary class item and if someone got it the MMO news site 'MMO Tommorow' would have already reported about it.

Of course, Arashi too participated in ALO's monthly dueling tournaments, and always seemed to end up on the podium with the likes of people like Asuna and Sakuya, the leader of the Sylph race.

Arashi converted his old SAO avatar into ALO, thus all of his previous stats were maintained in ALO.Along with his -Searching- skill which allowed him to see oncoming and surrounding players.

This skills effects kicked in when Arashi sensed a familiar whiskered info broker leaning on one of the darker areas of the cabin. "Don't even try to hide, Argo."He told the yellow haired Cait Sith.

Out of the shadows, Argo started to approach the Arashi and the others calmly."Nyeheheh,didn't expect you to sense me."Argo mellowed to herself while grinning.

Argo then casually took a seat next to Silica, another member of the Cait Sith,and proceeds to fill Arashi and Asuna in more about the stats of Absolute Sword.

"This Absolute Sword is a Imp who uses a sword that looks more like a rapier to be honest. Her fighting style is similar to Kii-boy's fast paced style and she has a 11-hit Original Sword Skill."

Original Sword Skill. Otherwise known as OSS, was a new system the game managers of ALO implemented with the addition of of skills of SAO, which Arashi was quite pleased with. The OSS system was a function that players to create their own sword skills, and to create one was extremely simple.

But the problem was that you had to be able to move your body at the near superhuman speeds sword skills required without the assistance of the system. So to find a player that could achieve that was extremely rare.

OSS can be passed down using something called a 'Skill Tome', and OSS that had 5 hits or more could be sold at thousands of yrd each.

With Arashi being a former SAO player, his body was already used to fast movement, so he had not much problem creating his 7-hit OSS named -Bloody Scythe-. On top of that, Eugene had thought him his 8-hit OSS -Volcanic Blazer-, making him one of the few players to own not one but two OSS.

But 11 hits? Arashi thought even Kirito, the owner of the -Dual Blades- skill back in SAO, which was rewarded to the player with the fastest reaction time, could not achieve.

"So I assume that she's not a former SAO player."Arashi concluded."But to conclude this, I need to ask if Kirito has fought her."

Leafa, Silica, Lisbeth and Argo all begun to laugh hysterically. Arashi and Asuna started to look at them as if they were crazy.

"Oh, big brother already did, he looked really cool when he lost, though."Leafa replied inbetween fits of laughter.

Lost. The thought of Kirito losing was beyond imaginable to Arashi. Arashi was around the same level as Kirito at the time of Aincrad's collapse and the only person who could beat Kirito was Heathcliff who was secretly the games creator and had the system assistance.

"Was... He fighting hardest?" Asked Asuna. "Nyeheheheheh, I guess Kii-boy wasn't since he didn't use two swords, a idiotic decision on his part, really."Responded Argo.

Asuna understood what Argo said." I guess it's best if he doesn't fight his hardest again. Since he only does that when it's no longer a game."Asuna said.

The entire group nodded their heads in agreement.

"Well,if you have someone that powerful your bound to lose challengers, since even Kirito lost, and he's the strongest player I know."Arashi told the group.

Lisbeth pointed her right index finger at Arashi and told him with closed eyes with a sigh:"The thing is, she's giving a copy of her skill to the first person to beat her."

Arashi tapped his fingers on his left hand onto the table, showing much interest into Absolute Sword."Hey Arashi, how about you challenge her?" Leafa suggested.

Arashi was not taken aback by this. He was on par with Kirito, maybe even slightly stronger, so it made sense for people to ask him to challenge Absolute Sword.

"Uhhhh of course. Sure. I mean, there's no harm in trying." Shrugged Arashi. Asuna then stood up from her seat and said:"I'll challenge too. I want to see Absolute Sword's abilities.I'll use my Undine avatar that I'm using now since I'm more familiar with it."

With that, the group stood up and started to log out, Leafa woke up Kirito who was sleeping near the fireplace.

"Absolute Sword huh, she's a interesting one." Arashi thought out loud. With that, he logged out of the land of the fairies.

A/N:Wow two chapters published in one day what a oddly satisfying feat. Anyway I'll probably upload at least one chapter a weak maybe more if I have enough free time. So anyways thanks for reading and see y'all soon in the next chapter! ~Bl00dh00dz