SAO-X: The Lost Tales
Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of the SAO series. I really enjoyed it and I feel it was a great story. However, what was an amazing concept got caught up in the restrictions of its genre and lost out on the huge potential it had. This story is intended to build on the ideas and questions introduced in the original show from the perspective of an OC. Constructive criticism is more than appreciated as this is my first time putting my work on the web, and I figured here is as good a place as any.
A/N: Re-uploaded some stuff seeing as I had inconsistent timestamps. Sorry for any comfusion.
Stage V: March of a Tear
TIMESTAMP: 06 November 2022, 23:14:02, Floor 001, Town of Beginnings
Auran let out a yell as he activated a sword skill, thrusting his spear a full ten feet forward through another wild wolf. Normally, it would be physically impossible to move such a distance, but the automatic movements the system controlled basically forced you to. It had taken him a good two hours to get used to losing control of his body, especially the period of immobility after successfully completing a skill. He held the position for a moment, before stumbling just a little and standing up. Riku was looking at him with a blank, uncaring look.
He sighed. "Riku, how much longer are we going to do this? You realize it's 11:15 at night?"
The axe warrior maintained his gaze, nothing changing. "As long as it takes," came the reply. "I want each of you at level 10 minimum."
Worm yelped in surprise as another wolf burst into polygons. "Level 10? That'll take—weeks if we stay here!"
Riku nodded. "Absolutely. I am not taking any risks with the safety of my party."
He gripped his spear handle a little tighter. They had been just destroying these wolves over and over again for hours. He had personally run through a hundred—maybe more. He swiped his fingers together, bringing up his character menu. About half an hour ago he had finally racked up enough experience to hit level 3. At this point, the wild wolves in this area were giving so few points he couldn't even see the increase with each one. On top of that, each one was giving only a single Col. And to make it all worse, they were barely halfway to the next town—what was it called again? He tapped his Location Data tab. The map showed the four of them grouped along the path to the small city. Elia was sitting off to the side—he had made her stay there while they cleared the path. He should go check on her—
"Hey, Riku!" Balti called. "What do you say we make camp for the night? We're not going to make it to Tolbana tonight, and my arm's getting tired!"
The party leader seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Well…" he began.
"Of course we can," Auran interrupted. "I'm sure everybody is tired. We need to keep our strength up."
Riku seemed like he was going to argue, but apparently his common sense won out. "I…I guess you're right. But we need to take turns on watch duty, just in case something attacks. Alright?"
The three nodded. It made sense—if a monster's patrol pattern came to close to you, it would lock on and keep attacking until you either ran out of range or killed it.
Balti was the first to move. "Well, I'll tell you what, let's go park over where we left Elia. That's as good a spot as any."
"Yeah…okay," Riku agreed. "You're right. Let's go."
His friend feigned surprise. "No way! Riku actually agreed to something someone else said! Did you hear that Auran?"
Riku punched him in the arm, laughing. "Hey, come on, it's not that bad."
"Say what you will," Balti said, sticking up his nose.
It took about a full minute for them to trudge wearily back to the small circle of rocks where they had left the little girl. Auran was the first to walk in, leaning on his spear for support.
The circle was empty.
"Elia? Elia, where are you?"
There was no answer.
He stood up, eyes now alert. She couldn't be gone—what if a monster had attacked while they were gone? She hadn't been leveling with the rest of them, plus she just didn't have the reflexes to fight one her own, she might have been killed. She—
"She's over here," Balti called.
Auran rushed over to the spot his friend's voice came from, carrying his weapon in both hands. "Where?"
"Right here," Balti said softly. "Quiet, you don't want to wake her."
He quickly lowered his voice. "Sorry—oh."
The little girl was sprawled out on the ground, complete with armor and gloves. Her sword was lying on the dirt a few feet away. She was asleep.
Auran relaxed his tensed muscles—he hadn't even realized how nervous he had been. They hadn't even left the first floor, and he certainly didn't intend let anybody die here. With a small grin, he slung his spear over his back. The game's system assist kicked in and automatically attached it to the built-in leather straps. As carefully as he could, he reached out and picked up the grade-schooler. Her rather long, light brown hair fell down as he turned around and carried her towards the center of the circle. Worm was already assembling a small fire circle. The black-haired boy swiped through the items in his menu, finally finding the option he needed. The hands clad in black gloves tapped it, and in a flash of blue data, a small rock appeared—the item, Flint. He placed it in the dirt circle, then held his finger on it to bring up the item's menu, and selected Use. The item was consumed, and a fire roared up in its place.
The other two members of the party were already scrolling through their own menus, unequipping armor and weapons and replacing them with the default blank shirts. Casual clothing would become much more important now. In his limited gaming experience, it was only natural to walk around everywhere in heavy armor, but in Sword Art Online, you would actually get tired, as he discovered rather quickly. It had cost him a large chunk of HP, and he almost freaked out, but Worm was watching his back and was able to perform a quite admirable stealth kill on his opponent. Auran reminded himself to thank his friend for that later.
"Hey, Auran, bring the kid over here," called Riku. He stood up, the limp form in his arms, and walked over to where the pudgy gamer had shouted from. Riku was scrolling through his menu with almost inhuman speed, but he found the item he was looking for very quickly. He tapped it, and it materialized in a blink of light.
It was a sleeping bag.
"Hey—where did you get that?" Auran asked in surprise.
"Oh, I picked it up when you were shopping for weapons," Riku responded with a smug look. "You'd be surprised what you can find if you know where to look."
"Uh-huh," Auran said. "That's very thoughtful of you." As gently as he could, he laid the sleeping body of the fifth party member onto the fabric. Riku draped the built-in blanket over her. Elia made a small noise and curled a little tighter.
He couldn't help but smile, but it was short-lived. He'd kill the man who forced her to live here rather than at home with her family. He'd kill him. He looked up at the dark sky—no. That wasn't the sky. That was just what some electronic sensors were telling him was the sky. This whole world was a fake, no matter how real it looked. He had to remember that.
A hand clapped on his shoulder. "Hey."
He turned around to see Balti smiling at him, the usual grin on his face. "Relax," he said.
Auran loosened his grip on the spear shaft. "Sorry," he muttered. "Guess I'm glooming this place up, huh?"
"Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much. We'll be out of here in no time," Balti replied.
"Hell yeah we will," he said, brightening up. "Come on, let's go join Worm at the campfire."
The two of them began wearily walking over to where Riku and Worm were already seated on a pair of logs they had dragged to encircle the fire ring. Auran grabbed his kneecaps and bent down, coming to rest on the hard wood. Silence ruled the small camp for a minute before anyone spoke. Surprisingly, it was Worm.
"Auran," he said, "do you think somebody will come and rescue us? Like maybe the government will hack into the NerveGears?"
Was it possible? If what Kayaba had said was true, then any attempts to forcefully remove the helmet would result in a discharge. What if it was taken off so quickly it didn't have time to release the electricity? No…there must be some other trigger. Otherwise they would have returned to the real world by now. Suddenly, Riku interrupted his musings.
"I…I don't think so," the gamer replied. "To be honest, I was a huge follower of Kayaba, so I know that he really is a genius. It's doubtful even the best hacker would know what he was doing in an unfamiliar system. He would have certainly programmed it to be incompatible with devices besides other NerveGears. Hacking in real life isn't like in the movies."
"He's right about that," said Balti. "If the NerveGear's system runs nothing like a standard computer, there's no way they'll know how to operate it."
Auran chuckled. "So when did you learn so much about computers, hippie-boy?"
"Well…I may or may not have been teaching myself basic programming in my spare time…"
He shook his head in bewilderment. "Who would have guessed," he said, laughing.
Silence held for a time once more.
"So anyway," Riku said, "the way I see it, we have two options. Either minimize our numbers for maximum efficiency or build a large guild for safety in numbers. I've already explored the guild interface and it is fully functional. No matter which way we go, we have to create a guild of some sort. Any objections?"
None were raised.
"Good," the axeman continued. "In that case, your job is to think of a name and decide whether you want to go the big-guild route or the small-party route. We can survive either way."
"That's it?" Balti asked.
"One more thing—we will not be participating in any boss raids. Any."
"What?!" Auran interjected. "How are we supposed to keep moving up floors then?"
"Simple," Riku responded nonchalantly. "We let everybody else do it. Yes, it's a scummy thing to do, but we will do whatever it takes to get out of here alive."
"That's—that's—"
"He's right, Auran," Balti said. "As much as I hate to admit it, he's right. We only have one life in here, and Riku knows what he's talking about."
"One of my guild mates from Japan was a beta tester. He said that the most deaths usually came in a boss fight, sometimes up to twenty of them. And all thousand testers only made it to floor eight in two months. Boss fights are death traps, and none of my friends are going to walk into a death trap."
"But—" Auran stuttered. "But—we have a duty to fight to the next floor! We have a duty to help everybody else who can't fight, like the girls and children and—"
"Stop. Stop right there," Riku said harshly. "You obviously don't understand Sword Art Online. Let me demonstrate something. You're on the school baseball team, correct?"
"Yeah, I've been playing for three years. You already know that, why are you asking me this?" Auran questioned.
"Do you think you could beat me in an arm-wrestling contest?" his friend asked.
Well—sure. He may not be the absolute strongest in the school, but he liked to consider himself reasonably fit. He played sports quite a bit, worked out consistently, and compared to Andrew, who almost never left his room except to go to school with them, he was Superman.
"Of course. This is pointless."
"Wrong." Riku slammed his fist down on the log beside him. "Come over here. We're going to arm wrestle."
"Guys, come on—" Worm pleaded.
"Quiet Worm. Auran needs to do this."
The two boys knelt down on opposite sides of the fallen tree, elbows resting on the knotted wood. The brown-haired spearman had an intense look on his face as he readied his strength, but for some reason Riku seemed completely calm and composed. It made him slightly nervous. Why was his sedentary friend so confident? Sweating a little bit into the black fingerless glove, he grasped his opponent's hand.
"Go," Riku intoned softly.
At first, Auran barely exerted himself, but that changed quickly when he actually encountered resistance. Tensing his muscles, he inched up the power again and again, trying to force Riku's arm down. He didn't know how long it took, but soon he was straining as hard as he could to push his friend's limb to a horizontal position. Suddenly, his eyes widened as he realized—he was being pushed back.
Throwing all his accumulated strength into the duel, he involuntarily let out a grunt and clasped Riku's hand harder. Inch by inch, his own arm rotated backwards, falling further and further, until—
"I win," the pudgy gamer declared just as monotone as before.
Air escaped Auran's lungs as he sat back in shock. Barely able to speak, he mouthed the word, "How?"
"Simple," Riku explained. "My strength parameter was several points higher than yours due to random variables. Thus, I was stronger than you."
"I—I don't understand," Auran complained. To tell the truth, he was still slightly shocked—never in a million years would he have thought any of his friends could beat him at that. Possibly Marcus, but he had never capitalized on his innate strength. How could this have happened?
Letting out a small wheeze, Riku pulled himself back up to the log and returned to his original position. After a couple seconds, he reached down and offered his gloved hand to Auran. Finally coming to his senses, Auran grasped it and pulled himself up. He walked rather dazedly back around to the spot beside Balti, eventually falling back to his seat on the log.
"Do you understand now?" Riku asked, this time a bit softer.
"Well—I guess so," he replied, placing his hands on the smooth wood below him. The leather on the gloves prevented them from slipping.
"You obviously don't. The point I am trying to make is that strength in Sword Art Online is an illusion. You're only as strong as the numbers say you are, and if Elia's stats reach a certain point, she could just as easily pick you up and throw you as she could a rock. No matter what Kayaba thinks he's made, all he has on his hands is just another game."
Regardless of the gloves, Auran's left hand slipped a little. Riku continued without a second thought.
"Elia can protect herself just fine if she grinds the correct way. She may be a child mentally, but in here she's anything but a child. You've got to learn that, or you'll be an a huge disadvantage."
The foursome sat in silence as the fire crackled in the darkness. A log fell, and sparks flew up into the sky.
"I get what you're saying," Auran began, "but that doesn't mean we have to play by it. Doesn't doing what Kayaba wants mean we're giving in to him? That we're playing his game?"
Riku shrugged. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
"I can't accept that," Auran said. "We have a duty to get everybody out of here—we have a responsibility."
Worm tucked his knees in against his chest, then lightly shook his head to brush away a strand of hair. His forehead rested on the leather pants as if he was curling up into a ball.
"Believe what you want," Riku said. "Just remember that it may cost you your life. Anyway, I'm going to hit the sack. Good night." His round frame hoisted itself off the fallen log, already expertly scrolling though menus to summon and unequip the necessary items. Almost immediately after Worm stood up.
"I'm going to go to bed too," he muttered. "I'm exhausted." The skinny sophomore tiredly followed Riku's footsteps to the edge of camp.
Auran and Balti were left sitting in front of the flame. The brown-haired boy could barely tear his eyes away from the dancing blaze, although whether it was from the entrancing effects of the fire or simply his own fatigue was difficult to say.
"Hey," his friend said.
"Mmmhmm?" Auran hummed out in reply.
"So—Thomas—"
That made him sit up. One of the things Riku had explicitly told the group was to never use their real names in the game. Of course, when it was still just a game, he assumed that had just been to protect their identity. But now—why were they still addressing each other by their character names? Surely it wasn't for the sake of role playing. Also, it wasn't like people could do anything with the information, since nobody could log out. So why was his gaming friend so insistent on maintaining separate avatar identities?
"You know," he said, "our leader told us not to use our real—"
"Oh shut up," Balti cut him off. "I'm not calling you by some silly fantasy name, at least when nobody's around. I don't know where he gets off telling us to use those."
"Really—you really mean that?" Auran asked in surprise.
The only answer he received was a derisive scoff. "Like hell. It's just one more thing that means we're giving in to Kayaba, that we're proving him right."
He thought about this for a minute. Is that really what the creator of this death game wanted? To be honest, he had no idea. Kayaba could be putting them all through this for his own sadistic pleasure for all he knew. He had nothing to go on—but if he was going to find the man and kill him, he needed something.
"Balti—I mean Marcus, what happened? Normally you couldn't care less what other people do, and yet here you are, ready to follow Andrew off a cliff if he tells you. What's the deal?"
This elicited a chuckle. "Why am I so willing to follow Anderpina? It's really quite simple. Have you ever gone skydiving, Thomas?"
"No, of course not," he said. "But what does that have to do with anything?"
"Because," Balti said, turning his head up to look at the fake stars, "I haven't either. And I plan to before I die. I also plan to run for president. Also, I think I'll earn my medical license. And maybe I'll go be trained as a mercenary high in the Tibetan mountains. Don't you get it? There's still so much crap I haven't done, it'd be a damn shame to go and die in a stupid video game."
"I suppose…that's one way of putting it," he said.
But the sword-wielding boy wasn't done. "You know what?" he turned to Auran. "This game—this whole stupid idea—I think it's hilarious."
"What?" stammered Auran. "How can it be hilarious? Look at all the people that have already died!"
He was brushed off with a wave of a hand. "Not that, stupid, just the very idea. It takes a special kind of twisted to trap ten thousand people and then expect them to play a game. But I think it's not really twisted—no, it's just a pathetic attempt by somebody to control something. Somebody who was never able to control anything and who's so desperate for attention he's willing to kill off thousands. I find the whole idea laughable—that we might die, we might have our lives cut short just because some fucking kid was bullied in grade school. It's just so ridiculous, you can't help but laugh. I'll tell you what—I know the perfect name for our guild."
Auran was a little scared at this outburst, but he was able to croak out a "What?"
"The ones who make a game out of a game, the clan that makes a joke out of the tournament of death—Laughing Coffin."