Caenor was awoken by a stinging pain in his arms. As his senses returned, the pain grew until it occupied the entirety of his thoughts. His eyes watered as it overwhelmed his senses, every muscle in his body twitching violently as he sought to rid himself of the agony.

"Good to see you're awake," said a voice.

Caenor peered down to find Max grinning at him. The sight of Max's face brought his memories crashing back into his beleaguered mind. He saw Ferramo fall, his life draining until its last vestiges were spent, his form shattering into infinitesimal pieces, borne away by the wind, never to be seen again. He saw Max striking Seki across the head with the handle of his scimitar, sending Seki crumpling into a heap. He saw Max doing him the same favor before the world span around him and he lost all consciousness.

It was then that Caenor realized that he was unable to move. He turned his head and saw what was restraining his movement.

A large, rusty nail had been driven deep into each of his palms. He could not lift his head, as his entire body had been pressed – nailed, rather – against a wooden board, but he could see his health bar whittling away slowly near the top of his UI.

The shock of his current predicament could only find its escape through one outlet. The bile surged upwards through his esophagus until, in a fit of coughs, he spewed a stream of vomit all over Max's face.

"Hey!" snarled Max, who jumped back and wiped the sick from his eyes. "You fucking shithead!" He picked up a knife from a nearby table and thrust it into Caenor's ribs.

Caenor spluttered, and a frothing red ichor joined the liquid that had been expelled from his gaping mouth. He was getting drowsier, the ground beneath him seeming to open and close simultaneously as he struggled to maintain his focus. He knew that fainting here would most certainly spell death for him, even if there was little else he could do to prevent that conclusion from being reached.

A faint grunting and groaning entered his ears. Caenor attempted to hear what it was, but the ringing in his ears and the pumping of his heart as it strained to keep him awake rendered him unable to take in much else.

"Let's patch you up, shall we?" Max lifted a health potion to Caenor's lips and forced the concoction down his throat, pressing the neck of the flask against his teeth. Caenor writhed as the liquid made its way down whichever hole it cared to find, which included the airway that led to his lungs. As his chest burned, he could see his wounds healing from the corner of his eye, but the nails that remained in his palms prevented the lacerations from sealing up in full, causing even more pain as the skin closed around them. Caenor gritted his teeth, a show of discomfort which seemed to delight Max, his lips curling into a crooked smile.

The ringing subsided, and the grunting and groaning grew clearer. It was then that Caenor realized what the sound was coming from.

He could not see much, relying on the flickering of the single candle situated some distance away for vision, but at the back of the room Caenor could glimpse the outlines of two figures. One lay motionless and prone on the floor; another was pinning them to the ground and oscillating in a sickeningly rhythmic fashion. As Caenor realized the identities of the two silhouettes and what was currently happening to them, a rage bubbled in him that seemed to numb even the searing pain that had overtaken his senses. His wrath burned in his veins until all that filled his view was a white incandescence, a blinding light that imbued him with a strength he did not ever know he could have mustered.

Taking advantage of his now mostly-filled health bar, which he presumed had been replenished to ensure he felt as much pain as possible before he was killed, he grabbed the heads of the nails with his fingers and ripped his hands from the board, roaring with a mixture of agony and anger as he dislodged himself and lunged towards Max, who stumbled backwards, obviously surprised by Caenor's newfound vigor. The two of them crashed onto the floor, and Caenor, now armed with the nails protruding from the backs of his hands, curled his fingers into fists and repeatedly slammed the tips of the nails into Max's neck and chest.

Max began to choke as holes were opened in his throat, sputtering as his health bar shone as red as the blood that now pooled in his mouth. Caenor gripped the nail in his right arm tight for one final jab, and shoved it into the middle of Max's ribs. The health bar became completely transparent, and Max's body glowed momentarily before exploding into tiny pieces.

"You little-" The other man, who had clearly been engaged in some form of debauchery given the lack of covering on his body, grabbed a dagger and advanced towards Caenor, who lifted both his fists and swung them – and the nails embedded in them – wildly at the man. The man ducked underneath his inaccurate punches and tackled Caenor to the ground, pressing the dagger against his neck. Caenor resisted and tried to push the dagger away, but the nails in his palms were depriving his hands of their usual strength, and the man was much stronger physically than he was.

As the blade brushed against his flesh, Caenor closed his eyes and let his arms fall, his energy having been totally spent from fighting Max. If he should perish here, he reasoned to himself, at least he had managed to take his enemy with him.

Yet the moment Caenor resigned himself to his end, the pressure stopped, and the dagger fell onto his chest. He opened his eyes to see Seki standing behind the man, and as the man groaned and fell limply beside him, Caenor found the knife that Max had used to stab him now buried so deeply into the man's back that only the handle remained visible. The man's corpse followed Max into the afterlife, bursting into a million shards of red and white, then dissipating into the air.

Whatever hell awaited them, Caenor thought, would not be enough punishment for what they had done.

He yanked the nails from his hands, wincing as he did so, and rose to his feet, stumbling across to the table behind Seki. A rack of health potions had been installed into the wall next to the table, and he handed one to Seki before taking one for himself, gulping down the fluorescent liquid until his health bar reverted to a healthy green state.

Caenor averted his gaze as Seki's unclothed form filled his vision. "You know where your armor is?" he asked as he looked away.

"Yeah. It's on the table. I see it." Seki seemed so shaken by the ordeal that every single syllable seemed as though it had to be forced out from the back of her throat. A brief rustling followed, and once Seki was fully armored again, the two of them started to take stock of their surroundings.

They were in a dungeon of sorts, a rectangular, boxy room assembled from jagged stone. Spears and swords lined the walls, and on the tables were laid out what could only be described as instruments of torture, from tongs and nail pullers to the knives whose cold steel Caenor could still feel sliding into his ribcage. Little else decorated the room aside from a symbol that had been crudely carved into the wall. It was a sneering face with a skeletal arm hanging by its side, a design that Caenor knew all too well from the repeated warnings and information tablets issued by his superiors.

"Laughing Coffin," Caenor muttered.

"Not… not surprised." Seki's trembling eyes looked to be on the verge of tears at any given moment. "They're… they're the only ones capable of such… depravity. Awful. Awful fucking people. I can't believe… Ferramo…" She capitulated to her emotions and wept loudly, burying her face into her hands and sobbing. Caenor wrapped an arm around her and held her heaving shoulders close, rubbing her back in an attempt to comfort her.

He looked up at the Laughing Coffin insignia again. The malicious grin on the face seemed to grow ever wider the more he stared. Unable to bear any more witness to its mocking form, he took a spear from a nearby shelf and struck the symbol until it was so marred with pockmarks as to be essentially unrecognizable; he gripped the spear so tightly that his knuckles, which had only just healed, went white and taut.

Something hidden beneath one of the tables briefly distracted Caenor from his reverie. A small parchment was nestled in the gap between the table and the nearby shelf. Caenor surmised that it had rolled off the table during their fight.

He picked it up and unrolled it. On it was a numbered list from 1 to 100, with strings of numbers filled in at varying intervals. It didn't take him long to realize that the list represented the floors of the floating castle in which they lived, and the numbers, grouped into pairs, were coordinates that followed the game's location format.

"This could come in handy." He showed the list to Seki, then pocketed the parchment. "Now, let's find a way out."

A stairway at the far end of the room led upwards to the next floor. Caenor strapped the spear to his back and guided Seki up the stairs, peering carefully around the corner once every so often in case there were further enemies, but the only sound he could hear now were their footsteps and the faint whistling of wind from above. The top of the stairway ended in a small antechamber, which was empty save for a torch on the wall and a door at the side opposite from the stairs.

Caenor pulled the door open slowly and peeked through. There was no light outside except for that which pooled from inside the antechamber, and the reddish-brown dirt near his feet suggested that they were still on the 60th floor. It would likely be one hell of a walk to the teleport gate, assuming they made it without any golems spotting them.

"You got a weapon?" he whispered to Seki. Seki waved the dagger in her hand and nodded.

"Good. Let's find the teleport gate." Caenor opened the door wide and slipped into the waiting night. Some of the fog had cleared, leaving only the starlight to show them the way. Caenor recalled something that one of his commanders had told him: that the largest star in the night sky pointed north, similar to the star of Polaris that inhabited the real world's constellations. Given that the 60th floor's teleport gate was also located in the north, all they really had to do was move towards the star, and eventually they would find themselves at the gate.

Easier said than done, of course. The next thirty minutes were spent tiptoeing forwards in trepidation, their ears prickling every time the breeze passed by, as if the golems that lurked in the dark might somehow be carried via the air to their location. It seemed, however, that escaping under the cover of night worked to some degree, and the teleport gate's torches eventually loomed close. Caenor, who held onto Seki's hand for the entire duration, had never been so happy to see the teleport gate; he silently swore to never take teleportation for granted ever again.

Caenor punched in the command to take him to Granzam, and as they materialized in Granzam's teleport plaza, returning to the seemingly blinding light of mid-afternoon once again, a pair of Knights of the Blood members rushed to greet them and prop them up on their shoulders.

"We were waiting for you," explained one of the members as they hobbled back to their headquarters. "You were gone for an hour and a half, and Asuna got worried, so she sent a search party to the 11th floor. They're probably on the 60th floor right now, looking for you."

"Well, I'm glad to know we're so well-valued," Caenor laughed weakly.

"Of course you are. The guild would never abandon one of her own. Speaking of which… Where's Ferramo?"

Caenor glanced over at Seki, whose brow furrowed upon hearing Ferramo's name.

"That can probably wait," Caenor replied quietly.

Caenor lay in his bed, his eyes glued to the pattern engraved into the ceiling. He wondered if he would ever truly rest again. Every time his head touched the pillow, he was reminded of the cold wooden board that had propped his head up in the Laughing Coffin dungeon. Every time he breathed, he could feel the liquid filling his lungs, drowning him from the inside, and the icy blade of the knife puncturing his lungs, eviscerating him with ruthless efficiency. Sleep only came when his mind, exhausted from torturing itself without pause, allowed his consciousness to slip into slumber. Then, as he woke again, the cycle would resume, and the horrors would return in all their glory.

It had been three days since the incident. Caenor had been waiting for the sheer weight of the trauma to overwhelm him, but at this point he seemed numb even to the death of one of his closest in-game comrades. He had known Ferramo – along with Seki – since they had first met on the second floor of Aincrad. They had joined the Knights of the Blood together, and sworn to make it out of the game alive, just as all those who entered the guild had done.

Of course, circumstance cared little for oaths that could not be backed up with action. A cynical and cruel part of him, a part that Caenor did not know existed until now, whispered to him that Ferramo had been weak, little more than a meat shield, and that his deficiencies had cost him his life. Caenor quashed such thoughts as soon as they arrived, but their specter lingered long after in the corner of his mind.

Seki, on the other hand, had not left her room for the past three days. Food and drink had been left at her door, but it seemed that she could not bear to consume anything other than water. In many ways, Seki had it worse than Caenor. If Caenor had died, he would have passed on in the knowledge that the internal integrity of his body had not been violated, as players' bodies were removed as soon as their lives had been snuffed out. Seki would never be able to say the same – her life was now a constant, incessant reminder of that day, a film that played over and over again in the theater of her head. She would not entertain any visitors, not even Caenor himself, and so she was left to her own devices until she was ready to emerge from her self-imposed imprisonment.

Could time truly heal all wounds? For the moment, it was hard to say.

A knock on the door jolted Caenor.

"Yes?" he called.

The door swung open, and his superior entered.

"Are you well?" asked Asuna, taking a seat at the chair beside his bed.

"As well as can be expected. How's Seki?"

"She's… alive." Asuna smiled bitterly. "None of us are allowed in, so I unfortunately cannot say much more than that."

Caenor shrugged. "That's good enough for now, I think. She needs time."

"We'll give her as long as she needs," Asuna assured him. "But what about yourself? Are you feeling any ill-effects? Nightmares? Seizures?"

"Not that I know of, though the memories themselves will probably never fade. I have to admit, I'm surprised myself. I don't feel anywhere near as horrible as I expected."

"That's a good thing, I would say. You don't want to be bedridden for that long. Not in these trying times." She leaned forward and stared into his eyes, her features suddenly turning solemn. "Also because I may require your help in the future."

"Help with what?"

Asuna produced the parchment Caenor had found in the dungeon, and held it up to his face. "This list that you found will change everything. Our strategies, our operations, perhaps even the fate of Aincrad as a whole."

"That's a pretty dramatic way to put it."

"It's no joke." Asuna unfurled the parchment and pointed at a coordinate under the entry labeled "55". "This is the floor we're on. You realize what this means, right?"

"Not particularly."

"These are locations of Laughing Coffin hideouts. We've confirmed a couple of these coordinates with safehouses that we've cleared in the past, but we'd never found a list like this before. This piece of parchment will be key to our efforts." She underlined the coordinate under "55" with her finger. "There is a hideout here. Near Granzam. Right in the vicinity of our headquarters."

"Have you pinpointed where exactly the coordinates are?"

"They're centered around a hut just outside the city walls, a place not covered by the Anti-Criminal Area effect."

"Then I suppose you could march in there with a squad and smoke them out. Wouldn't be difficult, given the degree of clout our guild has in this city."

"You're not wrong, but that's something we can only get away with in Granzam. What about the other locations?" Asuna ran her finger down the page. "We'd have to send squads all over the realm. And with the numbers we're needing on the front lines at the upper floors, we can't really spare that many to manage our affairs down here. It would take a very long time to get anything done if we kept rotating people in and out of the front lines."

"So, what do you propose?"

"After some consultation with the other vice-commanders, we've decided to create a brand-new team. As you know, the members of the guild are grouped into major teams, with a vice-commander leading each team. I'm the leader of Team B, of course."

"And this new team will be dedicated to rooting out Laughing Coffin hideouts?"

"Precisely. I'm glad you're catching on. There is a bit of a hitch, though." Asuna sighed. "None of the existing vice-commanders want to help lead this new team. All of them want to be out on the front lines, fighting bosses and so on. In all fairness, I'm sort of the same."

"None of these commanders think saving players' lives is more important than fighting bosses?" Caenor asked incredulously. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he could feel emotion washing over him. And it wasn't positive emotion. Not one bit.

"We're trying to look at the bigger picture here," Asuna replied softly, though her eyes hardened as she scrutinized the changes in Caenor's demeanor. "Clearing floors faster means we might be able to free everyone in this game a bit faster, as opposed to protecting a few players who may or may not be targeted."

"You know they'll be targeted. Please, Asuna." Caenor shook his head and glared at her. "I may be pretty on edge, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. I'm ready to fight these bastards, and I'm sure many others feel the same."

"That's the attitude I wanted to see." Asuna leaned back in her chair and smiled triumphantly. "How would you like to become a vice-commander?"

"I… what?"

"I have Heathcliff's approval to promote you to the position. You'll lead the new team. You have the experience of fighting 'those bastards', after all, something that few others in the guild have. Most other players would shy away from the thought of killing another human, regardless of how evil those humans were. But you're prepared to kill if it's necessary, because you've done it before. Once the shackles are off," Asuna mimicked the snapping of a chain with her hands, "there's no stopping the train."

"Have you ever killed someone in-game?" asked Caenor.

Asuna froze.

"Why do you ask?"

"It's not as easy as you make it seem. The first time you kill… Unless you're blinded by raw emotion, like I was, it's incredibly difficult to push the knife deep enough to end another person's life. Sure, it may be a little easier after that. But if you haven't experienced it, you really shouldn't make light of it."

"I'm not underestimating your resolve; I apologize if that's how it sounded to you. And no, I've never killed anyone before. Not even orange cursors. I don't think any of the vice-commanders have, either."

"Then I can see why none of the vice-commanders want to take charge, if that's the case." Caenor rose from the bed and made to leave, stopping in front of the open door and looking back at Asuna, who returned his gaze with obvious unease. "None of them have ever killed before. And they're afraid of trying."

Caenor snapped the door shut, leaving Asuna alone in his room.