January 8th, 2024 (Floor 50: Boss Room)

I gasped awake, coughing and wheezing, and for a moment I thought I was in the real world, having an asthma attack. It felt like all of me had been slowly ripped away and I was hanging together by just a few loose threads but even those were fading. Still, as the spots cleared from my vision, I was alive.

"How-" I began to asked, my voice hardly more than a whisper when it came to me. Ah. The Divine Stone of Returning Soul. Blake hadn't had an opportunity to use it yet.

"You fucking idiot!" Maisie roared as I sat up. "If you didn't have three HP left right now, I'd run you through with your own sword! I'd butcher you and feed Nymer the pieces! I'd-"

"What the hell were you thinking?" Blake asked, her voice shaking. I looked at her and immediately winced. Her eyes were red and swollen and tears were still streaking down her face. Looking around the Hunters, Blake wasn't the only one.

"I..." My voice drifted off and I looked down. "We would have lost."

"We would have lost?!" Maisie shrieked. My battle healing was kicking in, so she felt no shame in smacking the back of my head- hard. "I swear to God, the next time you pull a stupid stunt like this, we're leaving you dead!"

I resisted the urge to tell her that, next time, she wouldn't have much of a choice. Instead, I took a shaky breath and looked around. Nymer and the wolves had formed a circle around us but, when I looked to him, he stepped forward and butted me gently with his head, giving a mournful keen.

"I know, boy... I'm sorry..." I murmured, patting his neck."I won't do it again..."

"You better not! I just- Ugh!" Maisie picked up whatever was closest to her- I think it was a rock- and lobbed it across the boss room. She was on her feet and pacing away, grumbling profanities to herself as she left to cool her head.

"I- Uh... Guess we should go tell Heathcliff we beat it."

Everyone stared at me blankly for a moment before Kirito cracked a smile. Then everyone was laughing and it felt, for the first time since we walked into that strategy meeting, that everything was going to be okay.

January 10th, 2024 (Floor 50: Algade)

"I feel like he's going to be mad," I whispered to Heidan as we walked towards the concert hall. He smirked.

"Well, we did get him and everyone else all worked up for nothing. Do you think anyone'll try to pin you for those offered upgrades? Because I have a feeling some will."

"Heidan's betting ten to twenty," Blake informed me with a sly grin. Heidan scratched the back of his head and chuckled sheepishly. Blake's grin widened. "I'm betting twenty-one to thirty."

"And I'm hoping it's every last one of them," Maisie grumbled, still mad at me. I sighed. Maisie wasn't generally one to hold a grudge, especially not against me, but I've never exactly died before. I had no way to know how long her anger would last so I was toughing it out as best I could.

We walked into the strategy meeting, again as the last clearing guild to show up, and Heathcliff looked up with relieved eyes.

"Good. We were starting to worry that something had happened to you."

"Actually..." I wasn't exactly sure where to start, so Kirito kindly took over.

"The boss is dead. The doors closed in on us and the room was an anti-crystal area," Kirito said bluntly. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Then, at no discernable signal, everyone erupted into incredulous noise. It went on for several minutes before Heathcliff raised his hand.

"Was the boss as we expected?" he asked, directing the question to me. His eyes moved between each member of my party, obviously taking roll.

"It was. It was called the Vengeful Destroyer. It was a giant bronze statue with six arms and six scimitars and three HP bars. It was surrounded with divine statues that would reform if you didn't destroy the rubble. It changed its attack patterns every time its HP bar entered the yellow, red, or disappeared altogether. Near the end of the fight, it ditched two of the scimitars for a massive war axe."

"How did you survive?" Heathcliff asked. I wasn't entirely sure if he was in awe or just shocked but I answered him honestly.

"Truthfully, I didn't. I died delivering one of the final blows and Blake had to administer the Divine Stone of Returning Soul to bring me back. Everyone else survived okay, though."

"That's because none of us pulled stupid kamikaze moves to finish him off," Maisie growled, smacking the back of my head again. I yelped and rubbed at the phantom injury. Inside Algade, I didn't lose any health but my pride hurt.

"Okay, next time I'll just let all of us die in the surprise boss fight," I grumbled. Heathcliff looked deep in thought for a long moment.

"Have you activated the teleport gate?"

"Not yet," I responded, shaking my head. "I didn't want to ruin the surprise of seeing it before any of you." That was a lie. I didn't want anyone to accuse the Hunters of rushing ahead and getting all the good loot to themselves. In their eyes, the fact that I had technically died wasn't good enough. All that mattered was the fact that none of them got the loot, experience, or last attack bonus from the boss fight.

"Very well. If no one has any objections, let's do that now. We must be on guard moving through the labyrinth but, since the boss is already dead, there shouldn't be much need to prepare the raid party."

A few people looked like they wanted to protest but I hid a grin. If we left to open the teleport gate now, I wouldn't be stuck doing hundreds of upgrades! Yes!

"Actually, Heathcliff," Maisie began with an evil glance in my direction. I immediately stepped on her foot and, reaching around with my arm, covered her mouth with my hand, preventing anything but a muffled shout from leaving her mouth.

"Nope! That's it! No complaints here!" I chimed, smiling brightly at the clearers gathered around us. Most of them just shrugged, probably more or less used to our antics by now.

February 13th, 2024 (Floor 28: Wolf's Den)

"Did you hear the news?" Kirito asked me quietly as I stepped back inside from the forge. I glanced up to see the Weekly Argo being held up for me to see. The front page article was about protecting oneself from other players. The article, which was a lot braver than I would have expected of Argo, listed a number of known orange guilds and their known members.

"About Laughing Coffin?" I asked. Laughing Coffin was a new orange guild but, according to Argo, they were gaining members and power quickly.

"Yeah... Do you know what I think?" Kirito asked. I looked at him and bit back a sigh. When Kirito got all excited, it was hard or impossible to persuade him out of something. "We should lock all these guys up. It shouldn't be too hard. We'd have to have eyes and ears on the ground, picking up information about orange players, but there's already a prison on floor 1 and everything,"

I thought about the Iron Palace and considered Kirito's 12% of a plan. It wasn't really a plan at all, it was barely more than a concept, but he had a decent point.

Orange players and PKers make a dangerous world even more dangerous. Sure, they tended to not hit guilds like the Hunters of Artemis but what about the other, less powerful players? They were at risk.

"We'll talk to Argo and maybe some of the other clearers. If anyone's heard anything, we'll be on the case," I promised.

Updated 22:12, 1.27.2022