Sword Art Online - Volume 1 - Aincrad

by Reki Kawahara

  As sparks flew off the two blades, the demon’s sword hit the floor only a few centimeters away from Asuna. It dug a huge hole into the ground with an explosion-like sound effect.

  “Get back!”

  I shouted and prepared for the demon’s attacks. Its sword came at me repeatedly with a crushing might that felt like it could take my life with one hit. There wasn’t any room for me to even attempt a counterattack.

  The Gleameyes’ techniques were basically two-handed sword skills. But they were slightly customized, which made them impossible to read. I concentrated fully on defending with sidesteps and parries. But its attacks were monstrously powerful and chipped away at my HP with every passing swing.

  “Argh!!”

  Eventually, one of its strikes accurately hit my body. I felt its stunning impact, and my HP decreased immensely.

  My equipment and skills were far from those of a tank. If I kept this up, it would only lead to my death. The fear of dying sent a chill down my body. I couldn’t even try to escape anymore.

  There was only one thing that I could do. I would have to go against it with everything I had as a damage dealer.

  “Asuna! Cline! Give me ten seconds!”

  I shouted and swung my sword hard to block the demon’s blow and make a break point. Then, I flung myself to the ground and rolled away. Cline immediately took my place and kept the demon back with his katana.

  But Cline’s katana and Asuna’s rapier were weapons that relied on speed and therefore lacked in weight. I figured that it wouldn’t be easy for them to block the demon’s zanbato. As I laid on the ground, I opened the menu with my left hand.

  I couldn’t afford to make a single mistake now. With my heart pounding against my chest, I began moving the fingers of my right hand. I scrolled down my item list, picked something from it, and equipped it in the blank space on my equipment profile. Then I opened the skill window and changed my weapon skill.

  After finishing all this, I touched the OK button and closed the window. I confirmed the additional weight on my back, then raised my head and shouted:

  “I’m done!!”

  I saw Cline get hit once, and his HP decreased as he stepped back. Normally, he should have used a crystal to heal himself, but that wasn’t possible in this room. Now, Asuna was fighting with the demon, and within just a few seconds her HP had already gone below the halfway mark and turned yellow.

  After she heard me, Asuna nodded with her back towards me and gave a short shout before executing a piercing skill.

  “Yaaaa!”

  A white streak of light flew through the air and struck The Gleameyes’ weapon, causing sparks to spray out. As a loud noise resounded, the distance between Asuna and the demon widened.

  “Switch!!”

  I didn’t miss the opportunity and charged straight at the enemy. The demon quickly recovered from the short stunning effect and raised its sword high up into the air. With the sword in my right hand, I blocked the demon’s blade as it came down from a flame-like trajectory. Then, I reached behind my back with my left hand and grabbed the handle of the new sword. I drew it and struck in one smooth movement. The demon’s HP reduced noticeably as the first clean hit registered.

  “Kwuaaaaa!”

  The demon roared with rage and attempted another downward strike. This time, I crossed my two swords and blocked it completely. As its stance became unbalanced, I decided to break free from my defending streak and launched a combo attack.

  My right sword slashed horizontally towards the demon’s midsection. My left sword followed immediately to cut vertically into its body. Right, left, then right again. I swung my swords as if the nerves in my brain were going into overdrive. The sounds of metal clashing resounded loudly one after another as white lights flared through the air.

  This was the extra skill that I had been hiding, «Dual Blades», and the technique I was using was its high-class sword skill «Starburst Stream», a sixteen-hit combo attack.

  “Ahhhhh!!”

  Paying no attention to the few hits that the demon’s sword managed to block, I kept on screaming as I hacked away relentlessly with my swords. My eyes heated up, and my vision saw only the demon. Although the demon’s sword still struck my body every so often, its impact felt like it was happening in some faraway world. Meanwhile, adrenaline continued to rush through my body, and my brain waves spiked every time my swords hit their mark.

  Faster, faster. The rhythm of my swings already exceeded twice the normal speed, but it still felt slow to my heightened senses. I continued my attack at a pace that seemed to overtake even the system’s assistance.

  “…ahhhhhhhhh!!”

  With this shout I launched the last of my sixteen strikes, which penetrated The Gleameyes’ chest.

  “Kkaaaaaaahh!!”

  When my senses returned, I realized that I wasn’t the only one screaming. The huge demon was roaring towards the ceiling as massive breaths streamed out of its mouth and nose.

  Then its body froze, and as soon as I noticed that-

  The Gleameyes shattered into countless blue shards. Fragments of blue light rained down across the room.

  It’s…finished…?

  Feeling dizzy from the aftereffects of the battle, I habitually swung both of my swords once more before simultaneously sheathing them into the scabbards that lay crossed on my back. I immediately checked my HP. There was a red line with only a few dots left. As I stared at my HP without care, I suddenly felt strength leave my body and collapsed onto the floor without a sound.

  My vision faded out into blackness.

  Chapter 12

  “…to! Kirito!”

  Asuna’s calls, which were almost like screams, forced me awake. As I sat up, pain spiked through my head and caused my face to distort.

  “Owww…”

  I looked around and saw that we were still in the boss room. Blue light fragments were still floating around the room. It seemed like I had only lost consciousness for a few seconds.

  Asuna was kneeling on the ground, her face right before my eyes. Her eyebrows were tightened, and she was biting her lip. It looked like she was going to cry.

  “You idiot…! Why…!?”

  She shouted, and then jumped into my arms and hugged me. It shocked me enough to make me forget my pain for a moment. I could only blink in surprise.

  “…Don’t hug me so tightly. You’re going to make my HP disappear.”

  I said in a joking tone, but Asuna responded with a really angry expression. She shoved a small bottle into my mouth. The liquid which flowed in was a high-quality potion that tasted like a combination of lemon juice and green tea. It should fully heal my HP within five minutes, but my fatigue was going to last a while.

  Asuna checked to confirm that I had drunk all of it. Then, as her face began to scrunch up, she put her forehead on my shoulder to hide it.

  I raised my head at the sound of footsteps and saw Cline approach. He seemed a little apologetic for disturbing us, but started speaking nevertheless.

  “We’ve finished healing all the remaining Army members, but Cobert and two of his men had already died…”

  “…yeah. It’s the first time since the sixty-seventh floor that someone died during a boss fight…”

  “That wasn’t even a fight. That idiot Cobert… You can’t do anything if you’re dead…”

  Cline spat out. Then he took a deep breath, shook his head, and asked me in an attempt to change the mood.

  “But back to the topic, what the hell was that just then!?”

  “…I really have to explain it to you ?”

  “Of course! I’ve never seen something like that before!”

  I suddenly noticed that aside from Asuna, everyone in the room was looking at me, waiting for my reply.

  “…it’s an extra skill: «Dual Blades».”

  Expressions of amazement rose throughout Cline’s party and the survivors from the Army.

  All weapon skills had to be
learned in a certain order depending on their type. Take swords for an example, you had to train the one-handed straight sword skill quite a bit before «Rapier» and «Two-Handed Sword» appeared on the list.

  Naturally, Cline was interested, and he urged me to tell the rest.

  “The conditions that have to be met are?”

  “I’d have told everyone if I knew that.”

  As I shook my head, Cline sighed and muttered.

  “You’re right…”

  Weapon skills that didn’t have clear conditions for appearing are called extra skills. They were sometimes even called random conditions. An example would be Cline’s «Katana». But «Katana» wasn’t all that rare and appeared quite often as long as you kept training the Curved Sword skill.

  Most of the ten-plus extra skills that had been found up until now, «Katana» included, had at least ten people who used each of them. The only exceptions were my «Dual Blades» and one other man’s extra skill.

  These two were most likely limited to only one person, so they should be called «Unique Skill». I had hidden the existence of my unique skill up until now. But from today, the news that I was the second unique skill user would spread throughout the world. There was no way I could hide it after using it in front of so many people.

  “I’m disappointed Kirito. You didn’t even tell me that you had such an awesome skill.”

  “I would have told you if I knew the conditions for its appearance. But I really couldn’t figure out how it happened.”

  I answered Cline’s complaint with a shrug.

  There wasn’t a shred of lie in what I said. About a year ago, I opened my skills window one day and found the name «Dual Blades» just sitting there. I really had no clue on what conditions made it appear.

  Since then, I only trained it when there was nobody around. Even after I nearly mastered it, I rarely used it against monsters unless it was an emergency. Aside from using it to protect myself in a crisis, I simply didn’t like this kind of skill due to the attention it draws.

  I even thought that it would be better if another Dual Blades user appeared-

  I scratched the area around my ear and muttered.

  “…if it became known that I had such a rare skill, not only would people pester me for information…it might attract other kinds of problems too…”

  Cline nodded.

  “Online gamers get jealous easily. I wouldn’t since I’m an understanding guy, but there sure are plenty of envious people. Not to mention…”

  Cline suddenly stopped talking and looked at Asuna, who was still tightly hugging me, and smiled meaningfully.

  “…well, just consider suffering as another way of training yourself, young Kirito.”

  “So, to you it’s just someone else’s problem…?”

  Cline bent over and thumped me on the shoulder, then turned around and walked towards the survivors of «The Army».

  “Hey, you guys, do you think you’ll be able to make it back to HQ by yourselves?”

  One of them nodded at Cline’s question. He was a boy who looked like he was in his teens.

  “OK. Tell your superiors what happened here today and that they shouldn’t do something this stupid again.”

  “Yes. …and, err…thank you.”

  “Thank him over there.”

  Cline pointed my way with his thumb. The players from the army stood up shakily, turned towards Asuna and I, who were still on the floor, and bowed deeply before walking out of the room. Once they reached the passageway, they used their crystals to teleport out one after another.

  After the blue lights faded, Cline put his hands on his hips and started speaking.

  “Well, let’s see… We’re going to continue onto the seventy-fifth floor and open the gate there. How ‘bout you? You’re the man of the day, so do you want to do it?”

  “No, I’ll leave it to you. I’m totally wiped.”

  “If that’s the case… be careful on your way back.”

  Cline nodded and then signaled to his teammates. The six walked over to the huge door in the corner of the room. Behind it should be the stairs to the next floor. The katana-wielder stopped in front of the door and turned around.

  “Hey… Kirito. Y’know when you jumped in to save those Army members…”

  “…what about it?”

  “I was…well, really glad. That’s all I have to say. See ya around sometime.”

  I don’t get what he was trying to say. As I cocked my head, Cline gave me a thumbs-up, then opened the door and disappeared through it with his party.

  Only Asuna and I were left in the huge boss room. The blue flames that had been flaring up from the floor had disappeared some time ago, and the sinister atmosphere that once filled the room had vanished without a trace. The soft light that filled the passageway now flooded this room as well. Not a single sign of the battle remained.

  I said something to Asuna, who still had her head against my shoulder.

  “Hey…Asuna…”

  “…I was so scared… I didn’t know what I’d do… If you had died.”

  Her shaking voice was weaker than I had ever heard it.

  “…what are you talking about? You were the one who charged in first.”

  I said this as I softly placed my hand on Asuna’s shoulder. A manner infraction flag would come up if I grabbed her too blatantly, but this really wasn’t a situation where I should worry about that.

  As I gently pulled her towards me, my ears had almost missed her small voice.

  “I’m going to take a short break from the guild.”

  “T-Take a break… Why?”

  “…I said that I was going to party with you for a while… Did you forget already?”

  As soon as I heard that…

  Somewhere deep within my heart, a feeling that could only be described as a strong longing reached out. It surprised even me.

  I—solo player Kirito—was a person who had abandoned every other player in order to keep myself alive in this world. I was the coward who had turned his back on his only friend and ran away two years ago, on the day that all of this had started.

  A person like me, who didn’t even have any right to wish for a comrade—let alone something more than that.

  I had already realized this in a painful and unforgettable way. I had sworn never to wish again, never to yearn for the care of others.

  But-

  My left hand, which had turned rigid, didn’t want to let go of Asuna’s shoulder. I just couldn’t pull myself away from the virtual warmth of her body.

  I buried this huge contradicting conflict inside me with an inexplicable emotion, and then answered with a short reply.

  “…okay.”

  After hearing my response, Asuna’s head nodded slightly on my shoulder.

  The next day.

  I had been hiding on the second floor of Egil’s shop since this morning. I was sitting on a rocking chair with my legs crossed and was drinking a strangely flavored tea, which I figured was probably a defective product. I was also in a rather foul mood.

  All of Algate—no, most probably all of Aincrad was busy discussing the events of yesterday.

  Floor clearing, which meant the opening of a new city, was already enough to start an exorbitant amount of gossiping. But this time, various other rumors had also been mixed in, like «The demon that wiped out a whole Army battalion» and «The Twin Blade swordsman that killed the demon by himself with fifty hits»… There should be a limit on how much they can exaggerate these things by.

  Somehow they had found out about where I lived. As a result, swordsmen and information dealers had crowded around my house since early morning. I ended up having to go through the trouble of using a teleport crystal to escape.

  “I’m going to move… To some super-rural floor, to some village where they’ll never be able to find me….”

  As I endlessly muttered my complaints, Egil walked over to me with a smile.

  “Hey,
don’t be like that. It’s good to become famous for once in your life. Why don’t you host a presentation? I’ll take care of the tickets and the venue…”

  “No way!”

  I shouted and threw the cup in my right hand, aiming for the area about fifty centimeters to the right of Egil’s head. But I habitually made the motion which activated my Throw Weapon skill and hurled the cup towards the wall at a high speed. The cup left a trail of light before it smashed into the wall with a loud noise. Thankfully, the room was an indestructible object, so nothing else happened other than the appearance of the «Immortal Object» system tag. If I had hit a piece of furniture, it would have been destroyed for sure.

  “Ah, are you trying to kill me here!?”

  At the shopkeeper’s exaggerated shout, I raised my right hand as a sign of apology and leaned back against the chair once more.

  Egil was currently examining the treasure I had received from yesterday’s fight. Every once in a while he would make a strange noise, which most probably meant that there were some pretty valuable goods in there.

  I had planned to equally share with Asuna the money I would get from selling the loot, but it was already past the promised meeting time and she still hadn’t arrived. I had already sent her a friend message, so she should know where I was…

  We parted at the main street teleport gate of the seventy-fourth floor yesterday. She said that she was going to apply for a break and went to the KoB HQ in Grandum on the fifty-fifth floor. I asked her if I should go with her, given the trouble with Cradil and all. But she said it was fine with a smile on her face, so I abandoned the thought.

  It was already two hours past the promised time. If she was this late, did it mean that something had happened? Should I have gone with her? I downed the cup of tea in a single gulp in order to calm my anxieties.

  Just as I had drained the tea pot before me, and Egil had finished his examination of my items, I heard the sound of footsteps running up the stairs. Then, the door quickly crashed open.

  “Hey, Asuna…”

  I had almost said “you’re late” but stopped myself. Asuna was in her uniform as usual, but her face was white and worry shone through her eyes. She held both her hands in front of her chest, bit her lip twice or trice, and then said: