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Belated Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Hope yours went well :)
I still remember when I first heard about Kirito's Dual Blades skill. There was a story in the player newspaper about how Kirito, Asuna, and Klein had saved a squad from the Army, and Kirito took down the floor seventy-four boss by dual wielding swords.
I didn't believe a word of it.
There was no way three players could take down a labyrinth boss on their own, and there was definitely no way a player could wield two weapons at once, at least not without proper training on the outside.
Lots of people tried using two weapons at once, myself included, but the system wouldn't be able to recognize the kind of weapon you were using if you tried holding one in both hands, even if they were two weapons of the same type. You wouldn't gain any of the benefits from your weapon mastery rank, and you wouldn't be able to use sword skills either. Lyle could dual wield because he had learned how to fence on the outside and didn't need the system's assistance, but he still couldn't use sword skills.
But Kirito could.
I still remember the first time I saw him do it - wield two weapons. Hinoka gaped as she watched him fight with perfect dexterity in a way that shouldn't have worked, using sword skills neither she nor I could recognize. Heck, I'm pretty sure I was gaping too. This went beyond the tales of his insane strength. Even Seriyuha didn't have much to say about it.
Heathcliff's Holy Sword was an ability that gave him powers exceeding twenty players, and Kirito's Dual-Wielding was much the same. Together, they were a force to be reckoned with.
That is, until the former killed the latter... But why had Kayaba Akihiko programmed such potent skills in the game in this first place? And now, with Silica and Pina, it seemed the miracle was happening once again. Just what were these unique skills?
Though Pina's sudden transformation had alarmed the gathered players, they began to calm down as it became clear that Pina wasn't dangerous. The gawking persisted, however.
After Silica had had her fun with her giant pet dragon she dispelled whatever skill had turned Pina huge in the first place. Razler stared, not sure what to think or what to do. Hinoka didn't move, nor did anyone else. Silica watched them watch her, her expression rapidly darkening. Then, finally, Seriyuha cleared her throat loudly and walked through the crowd, placing herself between them and Silica.
"Well, this was certainly an interesting twist, wasn't it?" she called out. Razler found it hard to believe she could keep her voice level in a moment like that.
"Well, Asuna," Seriyuha continued, loudly, "we were in the middle of discussing our guilds working together!"
A few of those present cast Asuna a glance, but she was staring at Silica herself, having apparently not heard Seriyuha at all.
Apparently realizing the whole situation would be impossible to defuse easily, Seriyuha changed course and gently urged Silica away from the gathering, which Silica concluded with a rather stilted "thank you," and "good bye". Once she was gone, Seriyuha addressed the elephant in the room, asking the assembled players to keep things under wraps until they knew more about Pina's transformation. Scattered agreement followed, and the crowd trickled away back to the teleport gate. Once most of the other players were gone, Seriyuha arranged to meet with Asuna that evening to discuss their plans, and then ordered the Summer Knights back to headquarters for a guild meeting.
Klein and his guild left as the Summer Knights did, leaving Lisbeth alone with Asuna.
The Summer Knights moved quickly to the gate, each of them eager to discuss what had happened but understanding that Seriyuha wouldn't want anything spoken in the open. When they finally reached Marten, Razler's heart was beating so hard it felt like it might escape through his throat. Pina's giant transformation had to be the same caliber of ability as Kirito's Dual Blades. What else could it be?
Upon returning to their headquarters, the Summer Knights quietly sat down around the table, Seriyuha taking her own spot at the front. Razler had rarely seen the Summer Knights so alert at a meeting; even Keh-keh was watching the guildmaster intently.
"Before we discuss the," she paused, frowning, "fiasco, I'd like to thank you all for your work the last two days. Helping Asuna was more important than some of you might realize, and her condition had us treading in very dangerous waters."
"It doesn't bring us much closer to actually clearing the game, though," said Danger. "Kirito's still gone, and he was our best chance for beating labyrinth bosses."
"Yes, and that's where Silica and Pina come in," said Seriyuha. She leaned forward, planting her hands on the table. "Do you remember what Kayaba said about the unique skills that he and Kirito had? There were ten of them."
Danger's eyes widened. A few others in the guild had the same reaction. Razler stared at the others, a little surprised that they had taken Pina's transformation at face value.
"So, what you're saying is if we gather the players with the unique abilities, it would be like having ten Kiritos on our side?" asked Flashy.
"Eight, technically," said Keh-keh. "Kirito's still dead, and I doubt Kayaba's gonna help us again anytime soon."
Razler frowned as Keh-keh's point sunk in. She was right; they had only eight skills available to them at best.
But still, eight was better than zero.
"Firstly, we'll begin with the little Dragon Master Silica," said Seriyuha. "It could be that Pina won't be quite as impressive as she looks, and whatever skill Silica used to make her grow might not even be a unique ability, but it's worth investigating. Asuna's agreed to let use handle this one."
"Why us? Wouldn't she or the KoB want to get involved?" asked Flashy.
"I insisted," said Seriyuha. "Asuna's in no condition to handle Silica carefully and the KoB can be heavy-handed in how it deals with outsiders."
"They did basically force Kirito to join them, I heard," said Lloyd.
"Exactly," said Seriyuha. "So recruiting Silica is up to us, and we should move before other clearers try to take matters into their own hands."
Razler watched as the shadow of a smile crept into Seriyuha's expression. He felt a weight hit his stomach; this was moving a little too fast for his taste.
"Silica's not even a clearer," he said. "She's a mid-level player. It might be tough to convince her to join us on the front lines."
"It wouldn't be her joining us," Keh-keh said without looking at Razler, "it'd be Pina. She just needs to stay out of trouble."
Lloyd frowned at Keh-keh and said, "And she might not like the idea of us treating her pet as a weapon, either."
"Then we're out of luck, aren't we," Keh-keh said as she toyed with her hair.
"We'll just have to convince her that Pina won't be hurt," said Hinoka.
"That's assuming we even end up deciding we need Pina in the first place," Seriyuha said after a moment's pause. Then she looked to Hinoka and Razler. "I'd like the two of you to get in touch with her and ask her if she'll meet with me. Let her know we could use her help, but don't tell her anything specific unless she starts asking questions. I'd rather bring up the idea of us wanting Pina to fight at our side myself."
Grinning to himself, Razler immediately began opening his menu. "Oh, no problem, I'll send Silica a private message," he said brightly.
Seriyuha gave an approving comment, but everyone else fell quiet. He had just began typing his message when the silence became overbearing. What was going on?
Looking up, he saw that Seriyuha was watching him.
As was everyone else. Even Hinoka was grinning at him, a silent laugh there in her smile. Razler sank into his chair a little, wondering what was going on.
"So, uhh," said Lyle, "how did you get Silica into your friends list?"
"I asked her? Yesterday, when I met her, just in case anything changed this morning."
"Huh, I didn't see that exchange," said Hinoka.
"I sent her a private message as we left."
"Pretty careful to get her, were you?" asked Lyle.
Lyle and a few of the others began chuckling. He glared at Lyle in particular, but to his gratitude not everyone laughed alongside him. Seriyuha, Samson, Hinoka, Flashy, Lloyd, and a few others were restraining themselves. Well, so was Keh-keh, but she was glaring around at everyone else as if she were exasperated at the proceedings.
"Razler likes dragons, I doubt it has anything to do with Silica herself," Hinoka offered, but that did nothing to stop the others. And she was still smiling a little too mirthfully for his liking.
"Silica being famous and cute for her age had nothing to do with it," Lyle said with a smirk.
Keh-keh groaned loudly. Razler glared at Lyle, wondering if he could convince her to help him pay Lyle back.
"Stop troubling the poor boy," said Samson, "anything can happen from a chance meeting! Judge only if you have nothing to be ashamed of yourself."
Razler, if anything, felt a little worse, as he couldn't decide whether Samson was on his side or not.
"Anyways," Razler said loudly and with his eyes pointed stubbornly at his menu, "I'm going to send Silica the message now."
"Thank you, Razler," Seriyuha said warmly.
He quickly send her a simple private message telling her that Seriyuha wanted to meet with her and announced, "Done."
"While we're waiting for a reply, does anybody have any other ideas?" asked Hinoka.
"Valel's gotta have one of those unique skills," said Elise. "The way his swords are always glowing dark and cursed? There's no way that's normal."
Keh-keh made a squeaking sound. Razler clenched his hands. Hinoka gave his wrist a light squeeze.
"I was thinking the same," Seriyuha said, her eyes narrowed at the wall, "but I didn't mention him yet because contacting him will be difficult. And we haven't exactly got a good history with him either..."
"Maybe if we tried looking for the remaining player killers?" said Elise.
"Let's just focus on one thing at a time," Hinoka said quickly. "Heath – Kayaba said that the players with unique skills weren't planned to appear as early as Kirito did, right? We're probably jumping the gun here."
"If we're right about Silica, then three of these abilities have already revealed themselves," Lloyd said, his arms crossed. "I wouldn't trust Kayaba to be right about them."
"Well one of those three was Kayaba himself, so he probably doesn't count for that," said Elise.
"He may have overestimated how difficult they were to unlock," said Samson.
Silica's reply popped up in front of Razler, reading: "Your guildmaster wants to see me? I don't see why not. Let me know where she'd like to meet me!"
"Silica said she'll meet you," Razler said loudly over the rest of his still-talking guildmates, "but she's probably confused about this, so you'd better have a good plan."
"Don't sorry," said Seriyuha. "Ask her to meet me at the sixty-seventh floor teleport gate tomorrow morning if she can make it, and I'd like you to join me there as well."
Razler was just opening his menus when he gave a start. "Me? Why?"
"Because she seems reasonably comfortable with you, and I thought you presence might set her at ease."
"Oh, definitely it would." said Lyle.
"Shut up," snapped Keh-keh.
Razler navigated to the private messaging menu, his stomach writhing. The sixty-seventh floor? That had to be where Seriyuha lived. He'd never actually been to any of her homes, not since she established a designated meeting area for the guild. A few seconds later Silica replied, agreeing to the appointment. He announced her acceptance, getting a smile out of Seriyuha - and a couple more obnoxious jabs from Lyle.
"So should we continue clearing the seventy-sixth floor?" asked Hinoka.
"Yes, please fill me in on what the next floor is like, this business with Asuna hasn't given me a chance to hear anything about it," said Seriyuha.
Seriyuha remained silent for a few minutes as Hinoka, aided at some points by Lloyd and Lyle, described the seventy-sixth floor and their explorations of it so far. Judging from what Lloyd said, the southern river bank had mostly been explored, but the north bank and the river itself was still completely uncharted. As the subject turned to the mysterious underground cave, Seriyuha agreed almost instantly that it sounded like a field dungeon of some sort. The only curious fact remaining for the floor was that they'd yet to find the floor pillar. Until that was found, there was no telling where exactly the labyrinth was.
They would need to explore the north side river bank soon.
The entire guild then mobilized to the seventy-sixth floor, split up, and spent most of the day exploring the seventy-sixth floor. Seriyuha went as well, intending to gather what information she could to share with Asuna. About halfway into the day, they found a rocky area far upriver where she could cross over to the north bank (slightly rockier and drier than the south, but not by much) on foot, but because they were unwilling to stay out on the river past dark (Elise aside), they turned back before long. Back at town, Seriyuha thanked her guild for their hard work during the day and relieved them. Where she normally would have waited around a while to make herself available to anybody who wanted to speak to her, that day she left quickly.
"She's in a rush for that strategy meeting with Asuna," Razler said to himself, the rest of his guild walking past him to the teleport gate.
"Losing someone you love is cruel."
Hinoka was standing a little behind him and to his side, staring quietly at the teleport gate. Razler and his sister traded looks and stepped silently onto the teleport gate, returning to their own home on the sixty-first floor. Somber quiet followed them on their way back to their house, and Razler's thoughts whirled the whole way. He stepped into their home first and turned on the lights, Hinoka following behind him, where she immediately slumped against the front door, as if shutting something out behind her.
Razler sat down on the floor across from her, fairly sure what she had on her mind. "Thinking about mom?" he asked quietly.
Hinoka nodded. "I... I was wondering who had it worse. Us or Asuna." She shook her head, laughing humorlessly. "It's stupid to even think about it, huh?"
"Maybe... but..."
It had been so long since then... And they'd had so much to think about...
If anything, it bothered Razler more how little their mother's death weighed on his mind anymore. But he remembered the pain of when it happened, the feeling of being left behind, thinking of all the things he'd wanted to do, that he could never do again...
"At least we managed to do something for her," he said hollowly, barely believing his own words.
"I suppose you're right. I don't think this'll be the end of it, though..."
She was right, of course. They'd managed to pull Asuna from the brink, but they weren't out of danger with her just yet. Seriyuha must have realized that. She was better at handling people than Razler or Hinoka, so all he could do was trust in her.
Razler ushered his sister inside, where they warmed their meal for the night. Their dinner was no less animated than their walk home had been, so as his seafood pasta neared running out, Razler offered up, "So what will it mean if Silica actually joins us?"
"It means we get our very own dragon to ride around on," Hinoka said without looking up from her meal.
Razler chuckled. "Sounds more like a lot of work for you."
Growling, Hinoka continued stubbornly eating her ravioli. "Please don't remind me. I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight thanks to all the thinking I'm gonna have to do. I gotta plan how we're gonna fight with Pina, but I won't have anything to go on until we've learned more."
She looked up, giving Razler a stern look. "So hurry it up with meeting her tomorrow."
Now it was Razler's turn to glare into his meal. Alone with Seriyuha. Looking up, he saw Hinoka giving him a sly grin, and he just rolled his eyes at her.
He slept quite a bit more easily than he had the last two nights, even though he still lay awake for a time as he thought over the following day. He shouldn't have been as nervous as he was, but he'd known Seriyuha as a guildmaster for much longer than he knew her as a personal friend.
But eventually dawn did come, and Razler found himself waiting at the teleport gate at the side of his guildmaster. It had been a few weeks since he'd last seen the sixty-seventh floor, and as he took it all in once again, he realized why Seriyuha would favor it.
The main village of the floor looked like the courtyard of a ruined castle, one filled with tents in which npcs had their shops and services set up. Some of these tents were offered to players for their own stores as well. The wilderness outside town was strewn with ruined castles and fortress and the wreckage of medieval seige weapons. All of it was overgrown. Whether the idea behind the floor's theme was to reflect a civilization in its final days or a lost fortress being reclaimed by new occupants, Razler wasn't really sure, but he'd come to realize over the years that Seriyuha placed meaning in locations, and this sad yet hopeful floor would be one to strike a cord with her.
Razler sat on the ground with his back to a short ruined wall, trying to avoid staring at Seriyuha while he waited for Silica. His guildmaster was standing facing the teleport gate, nothing shaking her apparent calm. All was quiet for a time as Razler examined the grass at his feet.
"Don't be so uncomfortable," Seriyuha finally said, not unkindly, "Silica might think we've got dark plans for her if she sees you looking like that."
Smiling to himself, Razler nodded. "It's just it's been a long time since we were just hanging out together. Casually, you know. Not since the guild formed and you got us a headquarters."
Seriyuha laughed and finally looked his way, smiling. "I don't intimidate you now, do I?"
Razler looked away and fidgeted. "Well... I wouldn't use that word exactly..." She was being kind about it, but it still seems strange to be in such a personal situation with her.
Seriyuha laughed again. "I'm sorry, I haven't given you or Hinoka as much attention as you two deserve. I've just had a lot of things on my mind these days."
"No, I understand that," Razler said quickly. "It's just-"
Thankfully, he heard the sound of a player teleporting in, and he looked over his shoulder toward the gate, his heart racing. To his relief he saw Silica's small frame materialize on the platform. She stepped through the gate, Pina flying just behind her, and looked around, her expression bright and curious.
"So, this is what sixty-seventh floor looks like!" she said, her mouth agape as she looked around. "It's kinda cool, don't you think, Pina?"
Pina gave a chirp. Razler could only speculate how she could discern any one noise Pina might make from another. Maybe it was just a matter of experience?
Seriyuha stepped forward, clearing her throat softly. Silica gave a sharp, "oh!" and rounded on her, blushing.
"Thank you for coming to meet with me on such short notice," Seriyuha said brightly. "Would you care to join me in my room? I can provide you some refreshments and we can speak in comfort and privacy."
Silica, however, stared at her with slightly-narrowed eyes. "I'm not in trouble, am I? Is this about yesterday?"
"Yes," Seriyuha said without delay. "That impressive show you put on earlier today left me and my guild a bit intrigued-"
Silica immediately grabbed Pina and held her close, causing her to give off a few distressed squeals. "I didn't hack her, if that's what you're wondering!" she snapped.
"Of course not," Seriyuha said quickly but warmly. Silica didn't move toward the teleport gate, but she gave Seriyuha a wary look.
"I may have only seen you and her together for a few moments, but I was able to tell that you love Pina very much," Seriyuha continued. "She's obviously not just ones and zeroes to you, is she?"
"Of course not!" Silica said with no hesitation. "She's my friend! She's always been there for me! I wouldn't have been able to get this far without her!"
"See?" Seriyuha asked, smiling. "So of course you wouldn't do anything like hacking her."
Silica frowned, glanced down at Pina. Razler felt a knot form in his stomach. Maybe Pina wasn't a weapon to Silica, but no matter how much they tried to dress it up, the truth was that they were trying to turn her into a weapon for them.
Hopefully Silica wouldn't be too offended when she caught on. Or wouldn't catch on at all.
"So come along, you three!" Seriyuha said as she turned and began walking back to the castle.
Silica gave Razler a questioning look, and he, after a moment, shrugged and jerked his head toward Seriyuha. He started following her first, the sound of Silica's footsteps soon following. She held her pace a few steps behind him for a while, until she sped up and was at his side.
"So you guys really are clearers?" she asked hesitantly.
Razler smiled down at her and said, "Yeah, we're another clearing guild, the Summoner Knights. I guess we didn't really explain that properly."
"It's okay, the last two days haven't made much sense," Silica said quietly. She looked up, right at Seriyuha. "So that lady is your guildmaster?" she whispered, "She's a lot different than Asuna. She reminds me of my mom."
Razler laughed quietly. "You're not the first to think that."
"What does she want with me?" Silica suddenly whispered sharply, her gaze darting right toward him.
"Nothing bad," Razler said quickly. "I wouldn't have called you out if she meant to do any harm to you or Pina."
Silica narrowed her eyes at him, lips pursed just slightly, but she finally nodded and looked back ahead. "Well, we're still in a town, so I'll trust you."
"Thanks."
As they passed through the castle's main gate, Razler expected everything to be drafty, dusty, and desolate, but the inside of the castle was strewn with braziers and npcs working, boarding up holes in some areas and replacing the ruined stone with fresh masonry in others. It was old and crumbling, yes, but there were still strong signs of life within.
"Do they ever make progress rebuilding the castle?" asked Silica.
"No," Seriyuha said, chuckling. "I've lived here for a few weeks and the npcs are always working on the exact same patches of wall."
"Maybe they're just incredibly bad at their jobs," Razler said with a small grin.
Seriyuha laughed a little more.
They walked down a stairway and through a door, leading into a corridor that was lined with doors.
"Luckily," she said as she stopped at one of the doors, "they got the old barracks where players can buy housing completely cleaned and patched up. That was nice of them, wasn't it?"
Seriyuha opened the door and walked through, Razler and Silica following behind her. As Seriyuha turned on the lights (or rather, activated the torches through her interface), the found that they were in the living room of a player home. The walls, floor, and roof were all made from stone, both cobbled and smooth, but Seriyuha had evidently tried to bring some life to things by adding rugs. The room was lit by simple torches, with no windows in sight.
Seriyuha interacted with her fireplace and started a roaring fire, and then took a seat on a large leather chair set not far from the fireplace. She smiled and gestured to the sofa that sat across from her, which Razler and Silica both sat in. Razler noticed that the sofa didn't seem to match the leather chair at all, and wondered to himself if it was a recent purchase.
"None of the houses here have windows, which you might consider gloomy," said Seriyuha, "but it comes in handy when it rains. It's actually quite cozy to just listen to it pounding above, since this room is underground."
"That doesn't sound so bad," said Silica.
"Also nice if you wanna sleep in," said Razler.
"I don't often get that luxury," Seriyuha said nicely as she opened her menu.
She summoned up a small plate of pastries, which she set on the table that divided herself from her guests, and invited them to help themselves. Silica immediately thanked her and reached for one, but Razler took his a little more languidly. Razler didn't want to be ungracious – even when it was unlikely Seriyuha had made the treats herself – but Sword Art Online food sucked as a rule.
He nibbled into the pastry as an act of courtesy, but a wave of flavor hit his tongue, making him wince. Before he could stop himself, he immediately shoved the rest of the pastry into his mouth and chewed feverishly. Flaky, buttery crust, creamy filling inside, it was like real food! How had she done it!?
"Thish ish mmzzing! Way bether thnn msshtuff!" Silica cried through a mostly-full mouth of her own.
Razler just nodded, not trusting himself to try speaking.
Seriyuha smiled laughingly at the pair, her head resting on her hands.
Before reaching for his second, Razler sent Seriyuha a private message, How'd you make these?
He saw Seriyuha receiving and reacting to his message on her end, and she chuckled softly before typing a reply on her virtual keyboard.
Asuna made them for me. She was a little abashed about it and she said she doesn't like cooking for other people, but she agreed when I said it was for the good of the clearing party. I'd heard she maxed out her cooking skill.
Razler could almost hit himself. So, the cooking skill wasn't completely useless after all. He'd assumed at first that it was meant to create dishes that either healed players or provided stat buffs – that seemed obvious when compared to how video games usually handled food – but he eventually heard that food in Sword Art Online only ever sated hunger, and that was that. In a game where everyone was fighting for their lives, Asuna had managed to become the now-strongest player in the game despite dedicating a lot of time to mastering a skill that gave her absolutely no direct benefits at all? He couldn't help but admire Asuna's talent.
But also, he was irritated at himself for not training the cooking skill so that he could actually enjoy his meals in this world. He would have to talk things over with Hinoka - for once her experience as a beta tester had failed him.
"Have as many as you like, but be careful not to eat too fast," said Seriyuha.
Silica and Razler helped themselves, though a little more slowly than before.
"So, Silica," Seriyuha said after a couple of minutes and a pastry of her own, "we've already established Pina's transformation isn't a hack, so what is it?"
"You mean how do I do it?" asked Silica. "Well, a month or two ago a new skill, 'Pet Transcendence', appeared in my skill list out of nowhere. All it says in its description is, 'For the most loving owner of a pet, your pet will achieve powers beyond its threshold'."
Razler and Seriyua exchanged glances. That was very similar to the way Kayaba had described Dual Blades; "the player with the best reflexes". Razler's heart began beating faster as Silica continued on.
"So I took Pina out into the field and tried it out. At first she became a lot smaller than she does now but she kept getting bigger and stronger when transformed as I ranked the ability up."
"What's your mastery level with Pet Transcendence?" asked Razler.
"Uhm," Silica said slowly as she opened her menu, "Seven-hundred thirty-two. It's higher even than my knife mastery. I can only use it once every six hours and only for thirty minutes, but it levels up pretty quickly, so that's convenient."
"Do you know how strong Pina gets when transformed?" asked Seriyuha. "Have you ever established a benchmark?"
"Oh she basically destroys normal monsters," Silica said, giving Pina a brief squeeze. The dragon chirped and flared out her feathers as she looked back up. "I think she has a lot of fun rampaging. Maybe it's because she's so small normally and can't really fight, so she gets excited when the tables turn. I tried fighting a couple of field bosses to see how well she does against them. She takes down bosses on earlier floors pretty quickly, but in the fifties – that's where I spend a lot of my time – she can hold off bosses on her own - and I help too. We're okay working together!"
Razler had to stop himself from gaping as Pina. If she were able to fight evenly against the floor-fifty field bosses when helped only by Silica, there was a good chance she could prove very useful against the floor-seventy labyrinth bosses once trained and properly supported by a team.
"That's impressive, doing all that by yourself," said Seriyuha.
Silica beamed at her and puffed her chest out just slightly. "Well I AM level sixty-three. I may not be a clearer, but I'm one of the toughest mid-level players there are!"
Seriyuha smiled back. "I wouldn't think to doubt you."
"So, why are you asking me all of this?" Silica asked suddenly, her smile fading. "Are you just curious?"
"That's partly it," said Seriyuha. "How many other players have you seen with this ability?"
"None, but that's not a surprise," said Silica. "Even now that most players have a better idea how to tame pets, you don't really see many who do. Or at least I don't, and I hang out with a lot of the mid-level players."
Razler knew she was right. Taming pets in Sword Art Online appeared to be a lot more work than it was reward. Pets could be handy with some of their supportive abilities, but they were small, fragile, and poorly-suited to fighting. It was a generally accepted fact that only the smaller pest enemies who didn't pose much threat could be tamed. Some players had apparently gone to great lengths to tame bigger things, but to no avail.
But Razler no longer had any doubt in his mind what Pet transcendence was, no matter how right Silica was about the unpopularity of taming pets in SAO.
"What would you say if I said I believed that your ability was completely unique among players?" Seriyuha asked, her hands clasped in front of her face.
"Why would you think that?" asked Silica. "There can't really be unique abilities in this game, can there?"
"Did you ever hear about Kirito being able to dual-wield swords?"
"Of course, it was on the player newspapers" Silica said, a troubled look on her face. Razler shot Seriyuha a dirty look for bringing up Kirito, but his guildmaster didn't even glance at him. "Everyone was hyped about it," continued Silica, "but I always thought that was just him being really advanced. Are you saying that was something only he could do?"
"Exactly. We learned from the creator of the game itself that there's ten unique abilities in this world, and Kirito's Dual Blades was one of them."
"And..." Silica paused, looking down at Pina, who was nestled in her lap. "You think Pina's ability to transform is one of them?"
Razler looked at her and smiled warmly. "It's not just her ability. It says it right there in the skill that it's only available because of your bond with her."
Razler had hoped that that might lend Silica some strength, but she just flashed him a worried look before turning back to Seriyuha.
"So, what about it? You brought me here to talk about Pina's transformation, and we did. Why did you want to know so much?"
"Because we need your help clearing this game," said Seriyuha. "Yours, and Pina's."
Razler was at first surprised at how blunt Seriyuha was in answering Silica, but as he re-wound the discussion, it became obvious to him that Silica had already guessed what Seriyuha was about to say. And indeed, Silica didn't look surprised at what Seriyuha said, she just frowned and hugged Pina a little closer.
"You really think that we can help you?" said Silica.
"I was confident even before we spoke, and what you told me about Pina's strength only made me more sure," said Seriyuha. She stood and walked closer to her fire, staring at it. "You understand, of course, that field bosses on the higher floors just weren't made to be fought by a single player? Even us clearers would need an ally or two. The fact that you and Pina were able to work together to fight any of them is nothing short of exceptional."
She knelt down before Silica so that the two shared eye level. "We'll show Pina the same respect and care that we would show any other player. She won't be used as a mindless siege weapon. I'm always fighting on the front lines, protecting the other players behind me, and I'll do the same for both you and Pina. This is my promise."
Silica stared at her, her hands shaking. Pina seemed to take notice of her mistress' apprehension, for she gave a soft chirp and nuzzled her head against Silica's cheek.
Slowly, gently, Seriyuha reached out and placed her hands over Silica's. "Razler told me that Kirito saved your life once, and helped you to restore Pina's. There must have been a reason for that, and I believe this is it. Will you please lend us your strength?"
Silica's gaze darted around the room, as if she were looking either for an answer or a way out, but she remained sitting where she was. Razler could only wonder how scared she must have been at the simple thought of going onto the front lines. Mid-level players like her were precisely that and not clearers becuse they feared for their lives, after all.
But finally, and to Razler's private amazement, Silica nodded. "I'll... I'll do what I can to help. Me and Pina, I mean. We'll both do our best!"
Beaming at Silica, Seriyuha stood up and returned to her chair. "And we'll do our best too. What do you understand about how clearing works?"
"Uhm," Silica mumbled slowly. A long, long pause, and then, "Nothing, really. I guess you guys plan how to fight labyrinth bosses then you work together and do it?"
"That's only the last step," Razler said, chuckling. "See, when we open up a floor, first we scout it out, gather information on the local enemies, best grinding spots, places to find new items that can't be found anywhere else, that sort of thing. Anything that'll power us up quickly on the new floor."
"So," Silica said, "do you also like to take floor quests when you get there? Other players I know sometimes complain about the clearers getting all the good rewards before we can."
Razler rolled his eyes and said, "There's nothing stopping them from starting those quests first."
"Oh, I don't do it!" Silica said hastily, "I'm not really worried about that kind of thing!" She gave a slight pouty look and glanced away. "I just wanted to know."
Razler wasn't completely convinced, but decided not to say anything about it. Hate for beta-testers had actually died down months ago - or maybe it was just that all the beta-testers Razler knew were up on the front lines with him, where the players who were the type to complain about them weren't likely to go. Either way, he hadn't missed the whining, especially since his sister was one of the players being complained about. But if the ordinary players were bitching about the clearers too, then things were going a bit too far...
"That's quite all right. Even if you did blame us, you wouldn't be wrong," said Seriyuha. "I think we can sometimes forgot that there's other players out there beside us. But to build on what Razler began saying, once the easy methods of powering up have been exploited, we begin exploring the labyrinth. As the name implies, they're very large dungeons. It usually takes a few days for multiple teams of players to fully map it out. Once we've located the boss chamber, we'll usually send in a small group to observe the boss' habits-"
"Not anymore," Razler said bitterly. Seriyuha gave him a questioning look, and he continued, "do you remember what happened when the Knights of the Blood tried to send a scouting party into Skull Reaper's lair? They got stuck inside because the room was an anti-crystal trap! I wouldn't be surprised if every boss room from here to the top are also anti-crystal traps."
"T-traps?" Silica said, her voice getting shrill. "You mean we can't escape if we're losing?"
"Unfortunately yes, but you don't need to be afraid," said Seriyuha. "My guild has a clever tactician with us. Thanks to her we managed to minimize losses against Skull Reaper."
"Not enough, not when some players still freeze up at the sight of a boss going after them," said Razler.
"And while we're discussing her," Seriyuha said loudly, "would you mind meeting her? She'll probably want to see what Pina can do so that she can begin making plans for fighting bosses with her help."
"Who is it?" asked Silica.
"My older sister," Razler said with a smile. "She was with me in Lizbeth's shop."
"Ohh, the one that was yelling at you and blaming things on you?" asked Silica. To Razler's relief, she was finally smiling, the first time he'd seen her done that in the last few minutes. "Sure, I'll see her!" Silica continued. "What do you think she'll have me do?"
"Oh, you'll know shortly," said Seriyuha. "I asked her to make plans to begin today on the off chance that you agreed."
"Oh!" cried Silica. "R-right now? W-well that's okay too, then!"
Laughing, Seriyuha said, "We can delay if you're uncomfortable, you know."
"No way, you're already taking time out to meet with me, right?
"You aren't wrong," Seriyuha said, smiling kindly at her.
"Okay then!" Silica cried as she got up.
"You're way more eager than I think I'd be in your shoes," Razler said, smiling at Silica as he too stood up.
"Weeeell," Silica said slowly, her cheeks quickly turning red, "actually I'm kinda worried that if we don't get this over with I'll change my mind."
"I think a little bribery might be called for, in that case," Seriyuha said as she picked the still mostly-full plate of pastries up from the table. "You can have the rest of these if you-"
"Oh yes, thank you!" Silica cried, her hands instantly reaching out to take the plate from Seriyuha.
Razler watched with a tinge of jealousy as the plate and its delicious contents vanished into Silica's inventory, schemes to convince Asuna to make more for him already forming. He'd have to put those on the backburner, though.
The trio began retreading their steps back through the castle. Razler noted with some relief that Pina was now riding on Silica's shoulder on the way back instead of being clenched protectively in her hands, and Silica herself was wearing a grin, but he suspected she was considerably more nervous than she was letting on. It was good that she was trying for their sake, at least; they just had to prove to her that she hadn't made the wrong choice.
"What is everyone else doing right now anyways?" he asked as they passed under the castle main gate.
"I asked everyone to gather at the floor seventy-sixth teleport gate so that I could introduce Silica and make an announcement or two," said Seriyuha.
"Everyone in your guild is there?" Silica asked, her eyes wide and round.
"It's not as impressive as it sounds, there's only about twenty of us left now," said Razler.
"Oh, that's not too bad then," said Silica.
Seriyuha gave a good-natured laugh. "Don't worry, I'll make sure nobody bothers you too much."
"Oh well that's good to know," grumbled Silica.
To Razler's relief, however, Silica only pouted at Seriyuha's back for a moment, and then began to eagerly ask him a few other questions on clearing floors. There wasn't much room from the castle main gate to the floor teleport gate so their discussion didn't go very far, but there was still time enough for them to get from, "What's it like exploring the Labyrinths?" to, "So how do you know where to get material drops? I just read the strategy guide booklets you guys write!" Once or twice, Seriyuha shot him a smile or a nod when Silica wasn't looking. Razler was in the middle of explaining the finer points of organized dungeon crawling - Silica listening with rapt attention - when Seriyuha suddenly announced they'd reached the teleport gate.
"Now," she said, turning to Silica, "I won't be disappointed if you'd rather not meet my guild just yet. A lot has happened all at once for you."
"No, that's fine," Silica said quickly and firmly. "Don't worry about me."
Smiling at Silica, Seriyuha turned and stepped onto the gate, her younger companions following her example. One teleportation, later they were standing in the midst of the river village of the seventy-sixth floor. Once Silica got her bearings she gaped down at the sight of the river rushing beneath the wooden platform, and then immediately ran to the edge to get a better look. Razler smiled, reminded of himself from a few days before.
"I wanted to thank you for your help today with Silica," Seriyuha said quietly but warmly. "I don't believe I would have managed to convince her to join us without you there."
Razler cocked an eyebrow at Seriyuha and tried to recall what he might have done. "Are you really sure about that? You were doing all the talking."
Seriyuha smiled and shook her head. "Do you know why I sat you next to her? She knows you a little, she doesn't know me. I'm sure she felt at least a little more comfortable not being alone with me. Besides, you don't hold anything back, unlike me. Openness gets people to trust you."
"Oh, okay," Razler said numbly and without being totally convince. Maybe Seriyuha knew better about what she was talking about, but he was no less a stranger to Silica than she was. Either way, things worked out.
"So where's everyone else?" Silica asked as she walked back toward them.
"Off near the boats that take players out of town," said Seriyuha. "I didn't want to let you get jumped by the whole guild the moment you stepped off the platform."
"Thanks for that," Silica said as she turned to scan the village.
Razler could already see them from where he was; twenty-odd individuals standing in a group weren't exactly hard to find. Seriyuha led the way there and asked Silica to stand before her. Seriyuha and Razler's guildmates were in the middle of discussing something when they approached. Keh-keh was the first to notice and pointed them out, quickly resulting in the rest of the guild quieting down and coming to attention.
"Everyone," said Seriyuha, "I have gre-"
"I-I-I'm going to be working with everyone from now on!" cried Silica. She rushed ahead and bowed hastily. "I hope we can all get al-!"
Like a wave crashing, the rest of the guild suddenly surged forward, overtaking the trio and shouting several things at once. Some of them were congratulating Razler and Seriyuha, while others were thanking Silica for her help. Even Hinoka hurried to Razler's side, beamed at the others, and raised his arm high.
"Hear that, everyone? We've got a dragon on our side!" she cried. "So spread the word-"
"ENOUGH!" cried Seriyuha. "Could we all please be a little quieter before we alert every clearer on the floor about this good news?"
Everyone fell quiet rather suddenly and took a few steps back, giving Silica a wider berth. Silica just stared at them, her eyes wide and Pina squirming in her arms.
"Uhm, nice to meet everyone!" she managed to get out. "Thanks for the warm welcome!"
"A little too warm," Seriyuha said quietly, her arms crossed. "Let's not scare her away before she even decides to join us properly, shall we?"
"Oh c'mon," Elise cried, one hand on her hip, you can't blame us for being excited about getting a dragon on our side."
"And we also get Silica, don't forget her," muttered Lloyd.
Shaking his head, Samson strode toward Silica and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry about them, Silica, we'd be glad to have you with us!"
"When're we telling the other clearers about Silica?" asked Lyle.
"I'm gong to discuss that with Asuna tonight," said Seriyuha. "We do need to spread the word, but we need to do it carefully. And she hasn't actually decided to join the Summer Knights, she's only agreed to support clearing operations."
Silica shot Seriyuha a nervous glance, and began speaking too quietly for Razler to hear over the discussions going on between the rest of his guild. Stepping forward, he said loudly to Seriyuha, "We didn't bring her here to discuss that, right?"
"No," said Seriyuha, "With Silica with us-"
"I need to decide how to use her, I know," Hinoka said with exaggerated weariness as she stepped forward. Stopping in front of Silica, she nodded to the younger girl. "That's where I come in."
"Oh yeah, Seriyuha said you'd want to speak with me to practice cooperation," said Silica, suddenly open again. "I hope we can get along!"
Hinoka smiled down at Silica and then turned to Seriyuha. "So when'll we begin? Because the sooner-"
"By all means, go ahead with her now," Seriyuha said with a wave of her hand. "We're going to try finishing up the north bank of the river today so we can try exploring that underground cavern soon. Making progress on the Labyrinth - whenever we find it - will be slow until Asuna can actually help us clear."
Razler stared at her for a moment, until he remembered Kayaba's grace period he set aside for Asuna. Even though she seemed to be out of danger, there was still over ten days left before she'd be able to fight enemies again.
"Actually there's something we learned about that," said Lloyd. "I forgot to report this last night but I spoke with an npc near the north bank, he informed me that those giant crocodiles gather at the end of the river during the day and then move upriver to the crossing at night."
"What does that mean, though?" asked Lyle.
"The underground cavern is most likely all the way downriver, trying to go in with those monster crocodiles down there could be a death trap," said Lloyd.
"I agree with Lloyd," Hinoka said almost instantly.
One hand on her hip, Seriyuha narrowed her eyes at the river. "Which means-"
"We're hunting those monster crocs tonight, aren't we!?" Elise cried. The axewoman was practically bouncing on her heels, her eyes glowing.
"One thing at a time," said Seriyuha. She looked out toward her guild. "Would anybody like to help Hinoka with getting Silica situa-"
"Oh, I would!" cried Elise. Without even being invited, she dashed over to Silica and Hinoka, smiling broadly. "I wanna see Pina in action, please let me go! There's still time before the croc hunt anyways!"
Hinoka exchanged a slightly annoyed glance with Razler. There was no way they were going to contain Elise's exuberance that time.
"You know this isn't about watching Pina smash things, right?" she asked.
"Yeah, but we'll get there eventually, I'm sure!"
Rolling her eyes, Hinoka turned back to the others. Flashy, Samson, and Lyle agreed to come along, while Seriyuha and the rest of the guild departed to continue mapping out the floor. Once they were alone, the smaller group went to a secluded part of the village to sit down and plan their day. Almost as soon as they were seated Hinoka launched into questions for Silica, asking what Pina could and couldn't do while transformed and whether Silica had done this or that or the other thing with her yet. Razler tried to pay attention throughout, as did Lyle, Samson, and Flashy, but Elise seemed to lose interest fairly quickly into the talk.
At one point Hinoka suddenly slouched on her bench, arms crossed. "Well it seems like Pina's best used as a tank for the rest of the guild since she can't fly."
"Were you expecting something else?" asked Flashy.
"No, but if she could fly that might-"
"You're not going to let her get hurt, are you?" Silica asked sharply her eyes narrowed.
Hinoka immediately sat straight, her eyes firmly on Silica. "Of course not. I take the safety of everyone in our parties as my personal responsibility, and that would include Pina."
Silica and Hinoka locked gaze for several seconds, neither blinking. Razler watched on, curious what the two women might read in one another, until finally Silica nodded. "So when do we start?"
Hinoka gave her a rueful smile. "Right away. I don't have time to do this right since we've still gotta clear the floor, so we'll have to make this into a crash course and hope for the best."
"That's hardly the Hinoka way," Samson said, smirking.
"I'm sorry," said Silica, "this must be annoying, huh?"
"Not in the way you're thinking," said Hinoka. "The time spent doesn't bother me, I'm just upset we won't have time to do things as thoroughly as I'd like."
"Well," she added loudly, glancing toward the others, "anybody got a good idea for where we can put Pina and Silica through their paces?"
"We can take on-," Elise said instantly.
"No."
"But it'd be great-"
"We're not taking on the giant crocs!" snapped Hinoka. "Any ideas that don't involve us being stranded once Pina's thirty minute transformation ends?"
"We can keep fighting after she's shrunk back down," muttered Elise.
"What if we tried that mantis man swarm on the sixty-ninth floor?" said Flashy. "That's not too hard and we'd definitely need to work together with just us here."
Hinoka nodded, smiling at Flashy. "That can work, any disagreements?"
"I still wanna fight the 'gators..."
"I'll take that as a no."
But Silica looked around wildly. "'Mantis Men'?"
Samson strode forward and gave Silica a light pat on the back, smiling. "Don't worry, they're small fry!"
Silica looked around at the others. Razler guessed she was trying to read something off of them, so he stepped forward as well. "We've all done this raid a few times, so it won't be any trouble for us."
"Let's fight the Mantis Men, then!" Silica said, though Razler could just barely see her arms shake as they held Pina. "I've never seen the sixty-ninth floor, so this could be fun!"
"Oh, you're in for a treat," said Lyle.
Having reached an agreement, the small party made a short walk to the teleport gate, Pina moving to perch atop Silica's head. Razler paused to glance at the tiny dragon, which could comfortable fit her entire body on her master's head. Even after seeing it for himself, it was hard to believe how large Pina could become.
They teleported onto the sixty-ninth floor of Aincrad, a familiar fog obscuring their vision from the moment they arrived. The central village of this floor was a small huddle of tents, its npcs dressed in faded rags. The player homes were rusting metal containers rigged to serve as livable spaces, all largely identical on the inside from what Razler had heard. He didn't particularly believe the rumors, as he'd never seen any sign that anybody actually lived on the floor. The central village was bluntly depressing, and the rest, if anything, was worse.
The sixty-ninth floor of Aincrad was similar to the sixty-seventh in that it the central theme of the floor was 'ruins', but while the sixty-seventh were the ruins of a medieval culture that was being reclaimed, the sixty-ninth was the remnants of a much more advanced one that was lost for all of time. Overgrown and rusted skyscrapers dotted the landscape, and broken-down robots consumed by rampant plantlife were common sights on the floor, but it wasn't plantlife of any sort Razler could identify. The greenery of the floor seemed fond of growing grasping vines that tended to be either to fleshy or too chitinous for his liking, and even the grass seemed reluctant to let rising feet go.
The only still-active machinery on the floor were the few robots that survived long enough to go rogue, attacking everything in sight. However, they were the less dangerous of the two main enemy types for the floor. It was one such group - or swarm, rather - of those more deadly beasts that they'd come to find.
Sililca dashed out from the teleport gate, as she had at on the sixty-seventh floor, but this time her face immediately fell, and she hugged Pina close. She swept her gaze across the horizon, then turned back to her companions.
"We're not going to be here long, are we?" she asked.
"No, we're only here to run a specific field quest and then we can go," said Hinoka.
"That's good."
"This floor is truly depressing," rumbled Samson. "I hated almost every moment we were clearing this place."
"It's unique, but," said Flashy. Then she paused, shook her head, and frowned. "Yeah..."
"Let's get this over with then," Hinoka said firmly, moving with purpose toward the southwest.
The party followed behind her, but she stopped after only a few steps and rounded on Silica, who took a step back.
"Uhh, I just realized..." Hinoka said, her eyes gaze screwed up on the little dragon nestled in Silica's arms.
She watched Pina a moment, a hand on her chin and an uncertain expression on her face. "So. Hi, Pina."
"Pretty sure she won't have much to say," Elise said, smiling at Hinoka.
But Hinoka ignored her, and Pina cocked her head and chirped.
"She knows her name?" asked Hinoka.
"Yeah, she responds to it. Her AI must have recorded it," said Silica.
"Uhh," Hinoka said slowly, and she pointed her finger to a location a few yards to Pina's right. "Fly over there, Pina."
Pina just stared at Hinoka with her little round eyes, and Silica burst into a peal of clear laughter. "Pina doesn't follow orders like that!" she cried. "And besides, I can ride on her back when she transforms and steer her around, so just tell me where to send her!"
"About that," Hinoka said slowly. She was silent for a moment, frowned, and threw her arms up slightly. "Just going to be honest here, you're going to be with Pina whenever we do any serious fighting. You understand, right? If she's not transformed, you get the hell away from the enemies and let us take care of them."
"Oh! Erm, yes. I know," Silica said, frowning. "I am just a mid-level player, after all..."
Razler patted her on the shoulder and smiled down at her. "We just want to make sure you'll be safe, the enemies on the last floors are probably going to be brutal. Don't worry, directing Pina for us in fights is going to be important. Nobody's going to say you weren't useful to our groups."
Silica gave him a feeble smile, and he had to stop himself from chuckling.
"Anyways, please follow me," said Hinoka.
She began walking into the fields, the others following her. Silica remained almost right on her heels, bobbing around and trying to look at every little thing she could, but the others scanned their surroundings more warily, Razler no less carefully than the others. Silica was too interested in the new - if sad - sights to realize the risks of the floor, but once they were far enough onto the field that they encountered their first rogue robot, she paused and reached for her knife.
"That's the first one, huh," she said softly.
The robots moved around in set patrols, but their limbs moved slowly, their servos and gears grating loudly, and their heads rotated only a few degrees before suddenly resetting to their starting point, and exposed wires sparked with electricity. No enemy the players had encountered on Aincrad so far were quite like those automatons. But for all the robots' dilapidation their edged, blunted, or pointed tools grafted onto the ends of their forelimbs were in good working order - Razler knew that from experience.
"Those things are creepy," whispered Silica. "I'm not sure I would have explored this place with just me and Pina..."
"This high up it's pretty dangerous for anyone to go alone," said Elise.
Lyle planted his rapier end-down into the ground and leaned against it. "Yeah, the creatures on the top floors we've managed to reach are starting to get annoying. Way too many of them attack in groups or use really sneaky tricks to catch people off guard."
Hinoka - hoping to avoid exposing Silica to unnecessary danger - blazed a trail that took them around the guard robots where they could, but their path soon took them into the lower hills of the south-western plains of the floor, where the lost skyscrapers and residential buildings gave way to abandoned military buildings. In the distance they could see shapes crawling amongst the ruins. Silica paused a moment to get a better look, but hurried on when the rest continued past her. Razler already knew what to expect, but when Silica finally drew close enough to see them in their terrible glory she stopped again, her mouth agape.
The beasts seemed human at first, but they were bizarre and mishapen, with some having clawed hands, others avian wings, and still more possessing multi-jointed arms.
"Who could have thought of making these?" gasped Silica.
"The same bastard that thought of trapping us in this prison," muttered Hinoka.
"Keep behind the rest of us, Silica," said Lyle. "These mutants have a habit of catching you by surprise."
"Are they the ones we're looking for?"
"Not these, but they're no less freaky," said Elise.
Hinoka led them on paths through a winding but narrow canyon, like a deep crack in the mountains. In that small space they came across some mutants they had no choice but to fight, but they made short work of them. As they came closer to their destination a dense fog began to settle on the canyon around them, and signs urging intruders to turn back began to become commonplace. Silica kept closer and closer to Razler as they went.
After nearly fifteen minutes of navigating the narrow passages of the canyon, a shadow loomed into view ahead. As they came near, the shadow revealed itself to be nothing more than a chainlink fence plastered with warnings to keep out, but there was no mistaking the sign of a barrier dividing the normal parts of the floor from a field quest or dungeon area. Silica stared at it, her expression resolute but her arms that gripped Pina trembling slightly.
Hinoka stepped before it and turned to face the others. "Okay, we're here," she said quietly. She squatted slightly to meet Silica's eye level. "On the other side of this gate is a field quest where we're going to have to fight off an army of praying mantis men."
"Really?" asked Silica. "Even after seeing all those other weird creatures on the way here that sounds crazy."
"It's not that bad, most of them aren't that strong and all they can do is swipe at you with their scythe arms," said Hinoka. "Still!" she added, giving Silica a stern look, "this isn't going to be a picnic, and you're going to have to listen to what I say. That's true any time we fight together, understood?"
Silica narrowed her eyes and gave a vigorous nod. "I'll do my best! But... uhh," she stammered, her determined expression immediately giving way to uncertain glancing about, "shouldn't we maybe start smaller?"
"Ideally, yes," Hinoka said as she rolled her eyes at the sky, "but like I said before, we can't just halt our floor clearing for a month to get you up to speed, and the time limit on Pina's transformation just makes things worse."
"So," she continued, "I already picked up the quest for this area from an npc back in town, so once we go inside it'll trigger."
Hinoka first looked up toward her guildmates. "This exercise is mostly meant to see how well we can have Silica and Pina work together with us. Since none of us are used to having a boss-level monster fighting on our side, I want all of you to take this seriously. There's no telling what could end up happening, so have your teleport crystals ready!"
The knights nodded and began looking through their inventories, as did Razler. There, at the top as they always were, were his trusted teleport crystals. Even with the threat of future labyrinth bosses being anti-crystal traps, they were still a vital lifeline. He retrieved one from his inventory and stored it in one of his waist pouches.
Hinoka knelt down to Silica's level again. "Like I said, the way we're likely to end up using Pina in the future is as a sort of seige engine. That's part of why we're starting with something like this; I want to see how well she does at scattering crowds of weak enemies. We're going to do our absolute best to keep her safe, I promise."
"I understand," Silica said firmly.
"Are you comfortable with my plan? Please tell me if you aren't," said Hinoka.
"No, it's fine," Silica said as she shook her head slowly. "I understand. As long as Pina doesn't get hurt... it's okay."
"We can see her health bar, so that's a good thing," Hinoka said with a glance toward Pina. She stood back up and addressed the knights again, "Pina's going to be leading the way here, the rest of us will follow closely at her sides and make sure she doesn't have to fight too many of them all at once."
"I'll have Intimidating Shout at the ready!" cried Lyle.
"You do that," Hinoka said dryly before looking down at Silica again. "Is there a way to heal Pina during fights?"
"Oh sure, just feed her some nuts, her favorite food!" said Silica. "It works just like health potions for us!"
"If her health starts to drop, lead her to the rear of the group and we'll move in to cover your retreat."
Silica nodded.
"And that goes for every fight we do with Silica in general!" Hinoka said loudly and firmly, to the agreement of the rest of the knights.
"That should cover everything," Hinoka said as she turned toward the gate. "If any of you have any concerns, bring them up now!" she called out.
Nobody said anything. Hinoka glanced back over her shoulder as if to view and confirm the silence, and nodded. "Then we're going in."
She gave a hard shove at the gate with both hands, parting it easily, and strode through the thick fog that lay just on the other side. Razler followed directly behind her, sword in hand. Once they were on the other side of the gate, Hinoka drew her naginata and held it ready. Silica was the next to enter. She gazed uncertainly at the valley, Pina held tight in her arms. It was simpler than one might expect from a quest area on an upper floor, as it was nothing but a valley leading upward at a gentle incline and into a distant fog. Lyle, Samson, Elise, and Flashy brought up the rear, each with weapon in hand.
There was no sign of the impending mantis army, but Razler knew them to be coming. He had participated in this quest a few times, as it provided one of the fastest leveling experiences on the floor. If nothing else, Silica and Pina were likely to come out of this with a level or two under their belts.
"Once we step over a certain threshold ahead of us, the quest starts," said Hinoka. "You'd better have Pina transform," she added quietly to Silica.
"Ah! Right," Silica said as she snapped to attention. She gave Pina the order, and again Pina shrouded herself in a flurry of white feathers as she took on her giant form. Silica moved to Pina's side and patted her, and Pina knelt down, allowing Silica to climb easily onto her back. Silica nestled neatly into a small nook in Pina's shoulders, just behind her wings, and nodded down at Hinoka.
Hinoka gave a few confident steps forward, and suddenly a piercing, warbling shriek filled the canyon, causing Silica to give a fearful cry. Hinoka immediately fell back to Pina's side, and the rest of the knights spread out, leaving Pina at the front of the group.
A rumbling sounded from the far end of the canyon, and Silica looked around wildly.
"They're not going to sneak up on us," said Razler.
She gave him a questioning look, and he pointed toward Pina with his sword. Looking down, Silica saw that her companion wasn't wildly scanning this way and that as she was; Pina was staring straight ahead, crouching low and eyes narrowed. The empowered dragon growled at the air, wisps of vapor billowing from her maw. Nodding, Silica turned her attention forward and patted Pina softly on the neck.
The rumbling and the screaming grew louder, and Razler spun his sword around in-hand. There was nothing to be concerned with, they'd done this before.
Though usually with greater numbers.
And then they appeared. Barreling down the slopes of the canyon ahead was a huge green mass, a disorganized mob of humans covered in greenish scales. Their upper bodies were particularly corrupted and consumed, their arms ending in scythes and rounded insectoid lenses replacing their eyes. Wings sprouted from their shoulders and twitched in agitation. Pina leaned down, stretching her body out long. She gave a roar that shook the canyon, but the thundering of the approaching army was louder still.
Silica cried out and leaned back, and Pina looked up at her briefly before she, too, began taking steps back. The rest of the knights noticed and shared uncertain glances. When it came down to it, Silica's courage was likely to break, which would force them to retreat.
Razler realized he had to do something, and stepped forward. "We've done this before, everyone!" he cried. "And we all know there's nothing to fear as long as we work together. Now let's and fight! Our only way out is through, that's the law of this world!"
"Yeah," Elise said quietly, "that's right, these bugs are just small-fry! Squash 'em all!"
"They come at us by the thousands but we've slain our tens of thousands!" cried Samson.
Silica shot Samson a horrified look, but Flashy quickly said, "He's being dramatic, there's not really thousands of them."
Silica looked down at Razler, and he nodded to her. She narrowed her eyes. "Pina, forward!" she said, resolve straining against fear in her tone.
Growling, Pina took a few slow steps toward the mantis men army. The swarm was wholly visible from the fog and filled the valley so that no gap in the green mass could be seen. And every one of them were headed for the players with no desire but to rend and tear.
And when they finally came near to Pina, they leaped forward, their wings opening and letting them glide the remaining few yards, scythe arms raised. But Pina simply lunged with her open mouth, her teeth shredding them to ribbons. Razler stared for a moment, his body numb and his eyes wide. Pina tore huge jagged chunks out of their pixels, and their bodies shattered. A dozen more came upon her and began slashing at her neck and head with their sickle arms, but all they got for their troubles were small chinks in Pina's scales – and large cracks in their weapons. Pina's health gauge dropped only a sliver, and she lashed out at them with her front paw, scattering a horde of them. A few managed to pick themselves off the ground. Most did not.
But the mantis men kept up the pressure, an unrelenting horde of them bearing down on Pina. She shredded dozens with a single snap of her maw or swipe of her claws, but two more would replace every one that fell. The knights moved in to cover Pina's sides, forming a wall at her shoulders to force the mantis men to remain within her reach. It proved a useful arrangement, with the knights preventing Pina from being surrounded, and Pina preventing the knights from being crushed under sheer numbers. Razler often struck one down and turned to another, only for a light blue blur to shoot past his vision and kill a dozen of the mantis men in a single swoop.
He couldn't help but grin goofily as he saw how quickly she tore into the creatures. Razler had expected Pina to be strong, but these were creatures that could endure a solid blow from him, strong as he was.
They definitely had a chance with her.
Although the mantis men still traded blows with the knights, most of their focus was on Pina, and Razler guessed she was enduring more attacks than she or Silica were used to. Her health depleted slowly but surely through the fight, and eventually it fell below the half-way mark. They'd only been fighting for about ten minutes, and this was a raid that was known to last in the neighborhood of forty. He wasn't quite sure what Hinoka had planned when Pina's thirty minutes was up. He could only imagine that Hinoka was thinking that they'd finish sooner than usual. Hopefully she'd be right.
But either way, Pina was starting to show wear and tear.
"Are you doing okay?" he called up to Silica. He had to repeat himself before she looked down at him.
"Y-yes, I think we're fine, but Pina's health... It's never gotten this low when she was like this..."
"It should be okay!" Hinoka called out as she ran one of the mantis men through. "We're already over halfway through!"
"What!?" cried Lyle.
"Yeah!" replied Hinoka as she killed another. "We've already killed over half of the total mantis men!"
The knights all fell quiet, except for the sounds of their continued fighting against the mantis men. Now, Razler was certain. Having Pina on their side was absolutely a turning point in their strategies. He glanced at Hinoka, to get a read for how she was feeling. She too was grinning. As Hinoka promised, gaps in the waves of mantis men began to open up. The flood started to ebb, until finally he could see no more coming from the other end of the canyon.
Soon it became a matter of cleanup. The knights and their ally dragon charged forward, pushing the remains of the mantis man army backward, until their numbers dwindled to only a few dozen, and those too were slain in short order. The dust finally began to settle, and the fog on the other end of the canyon lifted, letting the sun shine on them - the signal for the end of the event.
Silica slipped off of Pina's back and very nearly stumbled, her legs shaking hard.
"Wow, we did it!" she said, her voice wavering. "I was worried that something would go wrong, but we all pulled through!"
The knights immediately huddled around her, each of them celebrating and thanking her. She looked up, blushing intensely, and stammered a few words of reply to their gratitude.
A little concerned, Razler stepped into the crowd and began pushing them away from Silica. "Okay, okay, give her some room to breathe, everyone!" he said loudly.
She gave him a grateful look, and Pina laid her head low to the ground just behind him and Silica.
"Razler's right, let's not get too excited," Hinoka said as she made her way through the crowd and toward her brother. "But," she said once she was out in front, "that went way better than even I had hoped."
"Pina reacted to our needs pretty well," she continued, looking at Silica, "were you directing her or did she do that on her own?"
A puzzled look on her face, Silica glanced at Pina briefly. "What do you mean? She was just killing the mantises, wasn't she?"
"It might have been a coincidence, but she often attacked where their numbers were starting to get overwhelming," said Hinoka. "We really needed more players for this quest than what we brought, but I was willing to risk that we could manage it with Pina's strength."
"It's not like you to take risks!" said Elise.
Hinoka placed her hands on her hips and grinned smugly at her. "But it paid off," she said. "And it looks like Pina works pretty well with others."
Silica giggled and threw her arms around Pina's head, crying, "Of course she does!"
"So what's next?" asked Razler.
"Well I doubt Pina's transformation will last much longer," Hinoka said, giving Silica a deliberate look.
"Oh yeah," Silica said as she opened her menu, "Pina's transformation is a status buff, so... a little over twelve minutes left."
"That's not long enough to do anything else," Hinoka said instantly, "so we'll have to stop here for now, and Seriyuha will want to hear about how this went. Do you mind if I contact you to meet up for more work in twelve hours?" she asked Silica.
"No, that's fine!" said Silica. "I'll just decide what to do with some of the quest loot I got."
Hinoka smiled at her. "That sounds great. Just be careful about exploring higher floors like we talked about, okay?"
"Don't worry!"
That settled, Hinoka faced the knights. "The rest of us will return to the seventy-sixth floor and link up with the rest of the guild. We've got to find a way to get into the labyrinth."
With their plans set, the knights escorted Silica back to the central village, their journey back being one of the merriest that Razler could remember having in a long time. Upon returning, Silica immediately went off in the direction of the npc blacksmith – a functioning and not-rogue robot.
Razler watched Silica leave, smiling, and Hinoka came up from behind and wrapped her arm around his shoulder.
"It was lucky we ran into her, this is going to do a lot to getting everyone's spirits up," she said quietly.
"Yeah," he said.
With just Pina and Silica, only one of the supposed eight missing unique skills, they'd done something impressive. Razler had already seen Kirito and Heathcliff do amazing things with their own skills. Seriyuha was right: gathering the users of the remaining unique skills was their key to escaping SAO.
Just as Hinoka went to open her menus to send Seriyuha a private message, a window suddenly flashed open in front of her. Razler watched as she read what he imagined was a private message, a worsening frown on her face as she continued on. Finally she swore, drawing the attention of the others.
"Some idiots from one of the smaller guilds decided to take it upon themselves to check the end of the river without talking it over with the rest of us," she announced.
"I take it they didn't have a fun time?" asked Lyle.
"They got attacked by those giant crocs while they were floundering in the river current. Two of them got killed pretty easily, and the third panicked and used a teleport crystal to get to safety."
"Then that's it, those crocodiles must be there to guard the end of the river," said Samson, "they might even be the labyrinth guardian boss."
"Yeah," Hinoka said quietly, her gaze straying toward Silica. "I wonder if Pina isn't up for fighting other reptiles..."
I'm really bad at writing these sort of big swarm battle scenes, but honestly this seems to be the sort of thing that would get old to read OR play about, so I hope you won't hold that one against me :D