Chapter 4

Error: Overpowered Boss

I woke up screaming.

Every day since I had abandoned Asuna, it was always the same.

They would haunt my dreams, giving me different dreams every night. Asuna, the girl I abandoned for both our sakes, and Sachi, the mysterious and beautiful girl from my memory, or that's what my gut instinct told me. Some dreams were happy, some sad, some scary, some embarrassing, but they would always end the same way. I would see scenes of each of them dying, and then their voices would overlap, saying the only words that were able to drive me insane, pushing me over the edge.

"Arigatou, Sayonara."

I felt tears in my eyes, begging me to let them spill out onto my pillow, the dream still vivid in my mind.

Someone came into my room, making the nightmares vanish from my mind, quickly followed by a sigh of relief by me.

"You had that nightmare again, didn't you?" A gentle, smooth voice said, sitting down on the bed next to my sprawled-out form.

"Yeah, you know me too well, Miko-chan. Thanks for putting up with this every morning. Your patience, kindness, and cooking skills are on a whole other level," I said gratefully, closing my eyes and enjoying the smell of breakfast cooking in the other room.

Wait a second, breakfast? I got up swiftly, hugging her and saying, "You made breakfast again! Thank you!"

I admit, we are a little closer than normal friends, but that's really just because she looks uncannily like my first crush and kendo sparring partner from before I quit. The only difference between them is their personalities, which were polar opposites. That's my reason, anyway. Oh wait, and her cooking reminds me of my aunt's as well, having a diverse selection of unbelievably good flavors.

"A-any time, Kiri-kun. Bu-but could you please let me—huh?"

Up and running towards the kitchen, I never gave her the time to finish her sentence.

At least some things in the beta stayed the same. I still knew from the beta where the quests were that paid out the option to buy a house, and so far they were still there with no changes.

My house had a typical medieval appearance on the exterior, but on the inside it was fit for a prince. Actually, it was the house of a medieval prince. To get it, you had to first complete the quest [[Kings Lost Child]], then the quest [[The Fugitive Prince]], and finally, the quest, [[Repairing Royal Bonds]], each quest unlocking solely for the player or party that completed the previous quest. In other words, all three were just parts of a giant quest chain.

The people in the beta gave up on just the first quest alone, seeing as there were no rewards, and no one knew what a Chain Quest was yet, save for me and the four other players who were MMORPG veterans. The bright side was that after you got the third quest completed, you got this house for free as a 'gift' from the prince in the second quest.

"Mou, you don't have to get so excited about it. Seriously, you're stuck with me until either you clear the second floor on your own or someone else maps out the dungeon, so you just have to get used to my cooking or you'll run around and break something with your reckless excitement," Kamiko scolded sternly, blushing slightly. Kamiko had originally said that she would be living with me until I got my nightmares under control, but eventually, it turned into "that."

After the meal, I decided to ask Argo a few questions that had been on my mind lately. I somehow sensed her listening in, probably still trying to get information about my so-called "ultimate skill". I had constantly avoided telling her about it, knowing that it could get someone else hurt trying to get it.

"Hey, Argo, I've got a deal for you. You answer my questions, and I'll tell you about my skill."

"Wha- how the heck did you know? Well whatever, I'll do it for the sake of my skill data collection," Argo said bewilderedly, walking around the corner that leads to my room.

That's right, Argo will do anything to get her claws on a sword skill's information, especially about powerful skills that weren't well known in the beta. I've hit the jackpot!

"All right, let's get started. Question one, is Asuna alive?" Argo nodded, so I continued, "All right, now onto question two. Is she doing well?"

Argo grinned cheekily "Ya know, she asks me the same about you every time we meet, seeing as I told her I was your friend. I feel bad for her, so I've stopped charging. Well, anyway, she always seems to be sad, but she perks up every time I tell her you're doing well. I know it's a lie, but I didn't want to make her even more depressed than she already was, so I had to try to put a smile on her face. Please don't torture me!" Argo rambled on, at the end getting down on her knees and begging pitifully. She knew very well from the beta that I hated lies.

"Relax," I said gently. "The only thing I'm mad about was that you were charging her for something as trivial as that. Since that's just typical of you, I'll overlook it." Then, teasingly, I said, "That was uncharacteristically nice of you to put someone else's feelings into consideration. Kudos."

"Now, one last question. What level is she?" I inquired. I hoped against hope for her to be high-leveled, even though she didn't need it with her natural talent.

To tell the truth, I was worried. Worried, because in the two weeks since our sad parting, she still hasn't forgotten about me. If she's been coming to Argo so frequently, then how much time has she spent leveling?

Argo's response confirmed my suspicions, as well as shocked me. "Mou, Ki-Bou, I'm supposed to be the one to tease you, not the other way around. Anyway, since she's been coming to me every day, she's probably a lot lower-leveled than you. She just got to level twenty-four yesterday."

"EVERY DAY?! Is she really that concerned about me? Well, tell her that she doesn't need to concern herself with me, and to focus on leveling up instead. Tell her that I won't die, and that I will meet her again."

That was a lie, as I had no intention of meeting her again. To be honest, I wanted her to hate me, like I thought everyone else did. Even though I hated lies to an alarming extent, I felt the need to make this girl happy.

In my dreams, which I had reason to think were fragments of the future, I would always see her dying in my arms. I didn't want that to happen, so I wanted to distance myself from her in hopes of stopping that future from even possibly occurring.

"Wait, what are you doing?" I asked, eyeing her suspicious actions. She had brought up the main menu, then the friends window, then the PM window, typing something out.

"What does it look like? I'm telling Asuna what you said to tell her, baka!" she said, looking at me like I was a total idiot.

"Wait, you guys friended each other?" I gave a sigh, "Whatever. With you, Argo, you'll always try to send something to embarrass me along with it, so let me have a look."

I did not like the look of the grin I got in response.

I walked over to her, looked over her shoulder, and low and behold, she had indeed typed out something embarrassing. Other that what I had told her to say, there was also this:

"Ki-Bou really seems to care deeply for you. How did you seduce him when he only saw you with your cloak off for like, ten minutes? I must learn your secret. It would be perfect for getting people to pay more for information! Cya tomorrow! -Argo"

Before I could stop her, Argo pressed send, and my cheeks flushed three shades of red, two of which were from dangerously intense anger.

"ARGO!"

Then, Kamiko stopped what could have turned into a war between two of the strongest players in the game. "Um, Kiri-kun, Argo-san, who is Asuna?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, she's just Ki-Bou's girlf—" Argo immediately decided to rephrase that when I sent her a glare with the force of a thousand suns. "She's just a girl he took in after he saw her immense potential being wasted. He taught her how to use her potential to the fullest, and then she became very attached to him. I'm not sure if it's completely mutual, since this is the first time he's asked about her."

"That's because I knew if I asked, you'd pull a stunt like this! Besides, I don't want her hated because she's around me, so I want her to either hate me or forget about me," I said, finishing on a sad note.

"You really are an idiot, Ki-Bou. You get so blinded by your concern for others that you don't see how much they care about you," Argo scolded sadly.

"Anyway, you wanted to hear about my skill, right? Here goes nothing. [[Crimson Momentum]]is a high-damage, nearly self-sacrificial skill. It's a six-hit combo, and deals 125% the normal damage rate, and has no cool down, but it halves my current HP, so it's a very risky gamble, making it useless in a duel. I can add three strikes in exchange for another 33% of my current HP, any number of times. I can have infinite strikes, and I'll never die unless I'm hit, but if I do…I'm dead. It's not a Unique Skill, but at the same time, only one person can get it. To get it, you have to be the first person to get the LA bonus on the [[Alpha Dire Wolf]]while in the red," I explained.

"Oh yeah, I remember now. In the beta, that chick with the white hair was obsessed with the Crimson-themed Skills. She was so mad that you got this skill that she would constantly fight you, just to prove that her abundance of Crimson Skills were better than your single skill. Funny how she lost every time," she said nonchalantly.

"Yeah, but that's just because she spammed the heck out of those skills. Sure, they have a lot of power, but they also have setbacks." I said, definitively.

*knock knock knock*

"I'll get it! I'm coming!" I said, getting up to answer the door, only to find a teenage boy about my age, wearing tattered clothes.

"Hello, are you the [[Black Beater]]?"

About a half an hour later, the teenage boy, now known to us as Cirdan, was fully fed and ready to explain why he came. "I was looking for you so you could tell me some good places to find large amounts of Col."

"If you're looking for a lot of Col, I'm guessing you're trying to complete the [[Touch of Gold]] quest."

"Right in one, just like last time."

I blinked. Wait a moment...

"How could I forget the best strategist in the beta?" I asked, slightly irritated. "You were always in the clearing parties, up until floor five when you vanished in the middle of a mini boss fight. Why'd you disappear like that?"

"Ah, that. Well, my dad decided to take away my nerve gear right at the worst possible time. He wouldn't give it back, so at the time of the official release, I found, took, and used the nerve gear to get in this death game. Big mistake, huh. Yeah, so do you think you can help me? In the beta test, I had to Col grind for TWO WHOLE WEEKS before I had enough to complete it!" he explained, embarrassed.

"Let's see. You need eighty thousand Col, right? I can just pay you however much you still need since I've been doing nothing but questing and mapping, but knowing you, you won't accept that. I do know of a way to get it, but if you're going, then I'm going with you," I said sternly, pulling up my menu and sending him a partying request.

"Thanks, man, I knew I could count on you! So, party means… either a field boss or a mini boss quest. I'm level twenty-four. What level are you?" he said, "For that matter, what's the boss's level?"

Cirdan's one of those people. He knows that I can judge how much people need to prepare, and in which areas, by their equipment, the rank of the quest or [[chain quest]], how many people are in the party, and the level of each individual player in the aforementioned party.

"I'm level twenty-seven right now. Let's see now, our levels are both good, your equipment looks slightly above average, we'll be in a two-person party, the quest is AA-ranked for this floor, the quest boss is level twenty, your new build is a cleaver and shield, and the quest reward is twenty five thousand Col, divided among party members. You probably have enough to cover the rest, so we just need to level you up one more level so you can get the level twenty-five Cleaver. I'll pay for the Cleaver from the midnight merchant, so that you get a chance at a Rare or higher one, and no objections, got it?"

"S-sir, yes sir!"

About a day later, we had taken care of his level and the Cleaver, accepted the quest, and found ourselves in the cave of the quest boss. The cave, dubbed Phibbius' Cave, in honor of the boss, [[Phibbius the Frog King]], lay before us. Filled with bridge-like stone arcs that traversed over rivers of red water, full of high-level fish mobs, most players gave this spacious, ominous dungeon a pass.

"Let me get this straight. We're fighting a giant frog?" Cirdan questioned disbelievingly, for the fourth time. I had counted his questions out of the sheer boredom that this cave seemed to bring to me, there being no mobs except the boss, his assistants, and the crazy amount of water-dwelling mobs. The water-dwelling mobs were all really high leveled, even in the beta, so they couldn't be fought at that point. The high experience just wasn't worth the risk of death.

There wasn't anything to fight on land, a blessing to the average player. However, the MMO veterans from the beta knew better. The best places to level were always in the boss's dungeon, so the lack of monsters told us that the boss would be at a higher than average level, which was very alarming. Many players died trying to complete this quest in the beta, Cirdan included, and if all of the floor bosses changed, then that could mean that this boss did too.

"All right, beyond this door is the throne room of this cave's boss, [[Phibbius the Frog King]]. Are you ready, Cirdan?" I asked calmly, though I was very nervous on the inside.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself. My mind raced, desperately trying to figure out what changes would most likely be made to the quest boss, since there was a ninety-seven percent chance that any beta knowledge had to be considered useless at this point.

"I was born ready, Kirito," Cirdan smiled confidently.

He'll have to watch that. I thought warily.

"All right, time to talk strategy. What have you thought up at this time, Cirdan?"

"Whew, I seriously thought you were going to try to come up with a strategy." He started, laughing intensely afterwards. He then donned a serious face. "Well, I'm building tanky this time through, so I trust you can see where I'm going with that?"

"You tank, I DPS?" I asked rhetorically, and got a nod in response.

"Provided the attack windows are the same, this fight should be a breeze. I know their patterns well enough to get... Perfect Blocks."

"Nice. If they decided to change the boss, we'll improvise, okay?"

We entered the giant double doors to the boss room, me being surprised to see that the boss had been enlarged since the beta, and as its form started to move into the light in the center of the room, we saw something that almost certainly spelled our doom.

[[Phibbius the Frog King]], was at level thirty-two.

As the doors shut and locked behind us, we knew that our fates were sealed.

We were going to die.

A/N:

CLIFFHANGER!

To anyone who still thinks that I seriously overpowered Kirito, here are some things you need to know.

I think I might have explained this to some who have PMed me, but Kirito isn't the only Champion out there. Each of the unknown GMs will have one as their secret weapon for defeating Heathcliff on the one hundredth floor (in other words, stopping Kayaba Akihiko from destroying the lives of any more players).

All of the Champions will have a unique skill, each with amazing capabilities.

All of the Crimson skills/weapons/equipment (yes, there are a lot of them) are extremely powerful, but all have HUGE setbacks, like how the one Kirito has is nearly suicidal, should it be spammed.

Also, I felt like I should mention that Crimson can also be a class, like (Rare) and above. The rarity of the Crimson CLASS varies from floor to floor. Sometimes they're rarer than (Ancient) class items, and sometimes they're more common than normal drops.

As always, positive criticism is taken into consideration, and flames are ignored.

Rewrite edit: YAAAAAY! Finally done with the rewrite! Now I can get back to writing new chapters! Oh, I forgot to explain this, but the reason Cirdan (supposedly) knew their attack patterns is because he fought other mobs with the same attack patterns on higher floors. Kirito had mentioned the attack patterns of the boss and minions' patterns in passing during one of their conversations in the beta, and Cirdan associated them with monsters on their current floor.

May happiness be with you (and hopefully the willingness to review),

OMG