Sword Art Online - Volume 2 - Aincrad (Side Stories)

by Reki Kawahara

  “Amongst all the circulating theories, one of them claims that ‘the party must include a blacksmith’, because there aren’t many blacksmiths who properly trained their combat skills.”

  “So that’s why; actually that does sound kind of right– if that’s the case, then we should get going soon.”

  “……”

  I stared angrily at Kirito’s face.

  “I’m surprised you’ve managed to live till today with such a lack of common sense. This isn’t goblin hunting! We have to form a good party and…”

  “But if we do that, then even if the material drops, there’s a chance we won’t get it right? What floor is that white dragon on?”

  “…55th floor.”

  “Heh– Then I should be fine even by myself; you don’t even need to help.”

  “…Are you insanely strong, or just insanely stupid? Whatever, I don’t care, the sight of you crying while teleporting away also sounds pretty interesting.”

  Kirito simply chuckled, finished his tea without answering, and placed the cup back down on the table.

  “I’m ready to leave anytime; what about you, Lizbet?”

  “Ah– never mind, since you’re not going to add an honorific anyway, just call me Liz… the white dragon’s mountain isn’t very big, so we should be able to return today. Let me just make a few simple preparations.”

  After opening a console window, I first put on some simple armor over my skirt, then confirmed that my mace was in my inventory and made sure that I had enough potions and crystals.

  I closed the window and said ok, then Kirito stood back up. Luckily, there were no customers in sight as we went from the workshop to the shop entrance. I quickly flipped the sign on the door.

  I raised my head and looked out; the sunlight passing through was still bright, so there was still quite some time before it gets dark. Whether we retrieve the metal or not– the latter being more likely no matter how I thought about it– I wouldn’t want to come back too late.

  That being said.

  –How did I wind up in this strange situation…

  After leaving the store, I walked towards the gate plaza while thinking deeply.

  I definitely had a bad impression of the black-dressed man leisurely walking besides me– as it should be. Not only did everything he say make me angry, he was also some arrogant megalomaniac, and most of all, he broke my masterpiece.

  But still, I was walking alongside a man whom I just met. We even formed a party and prepared to hunt monsters on another floor; it was just like– like a da…

  Arriving at this, I immediately forced a stop to that thought. I had never experienced anything like this until now. Although I was pretty close to several male players, I’ve always made excuses to avoid going out with them with just two people. I wanted to make sure that the first person I paired up with would be someone I really liked, or so I thought.

  But when I came to my senses, I was already with this weird man… how did it end up like this!

  Completely oblivious of my inner turmoil, Kirito saw a food vendor near the gate of the plaza and rushed over. By the time he turned around, a huge hot dog was already in his mouth.

  “Doo yu van son duu?”

  …My inner thoughts were instantly filled with a sense of helplessness and I felt like an idiot for being the only one worrying over it. So I yelled back:

  “Yeah!”

  The crisp taste of the hot dog– more precisely, a mysterious food that looked like a hot dog– still lingered in my mouth when we reached the rumored hamlet on the 55th floor.

  We also didn’t have any trouble with the monsters in the field.

  Considering that the front line was on the 63rd floor right now, the monsters here were pretty strong. But my level was about 65, and that braggart Kirito should be just as strong, so we went through quite a few battles almost completely unscathed.

  The only mistake was that the theme of this floor involved fields of snow and ice–

  “Achoo!”

  I sneezed loudly as soon as we entered the small village and relaxed. Because all the other floors were in an early summer season, I became too careless. Not only was there a layer of snow on the ground here, but every building still had huge icicles hanging from the roofs.

  This bone-chilling winter cold made my entire body shiver like crazy. Kirito, who stood beside me, put on an exasperated expression and said:

  “…You didn’t bring any other clothes?”

  “…No.”

  Then, the seemingly lightly-dressed Kirito operated his window. A black leather cape materialized, which he placed over my head.

  “…Are you alright yourself?”

  “It’s all a matter of willpower.”

  Every line this man said gets on my nerves. But the fur-lined cape looked pretty warm, so I couldn’t resist it and quickly put it on. I let out a sigh of relief as the cold bite of the wind immediately disappeared.

  “Umm… which one do you think is the elder’s house?”

  As Kirito said this, I looked around the tiny village, and found an especially large house across from the central plaza.

  “It should be that one right?”

  “Right.”

  We both nodded and started walking.

  –Several minutes later.

  As we predicted, we found the white-bearded elder NPC and successfully initiated a conversation. His story was full of useless details that started from his long and boring childhood, into his teenage years, past his difficult days in adulthood, and then abruptly mentioned a white dragon in the mountains to the west. By the time he finally finished, the orange light of the setting sun had already covered the entire village.

  We left the village elder’s house feeling completely wiped out. The snow that covered the houses were stained orange by the setting sun. It was an image beautiful beyond comparison, yet–

  “…I never expected just receiving the quest would waste that much time…”

  “Unbelievable… well, what now? Should we wait until tomorrow?”

  I turned my head and looked at Kirito.

  “Hmmm– but I’ve heard the white dragon is nocturnal though. Is that the mountain?”

  Looking towards the direction Kirito pointed at, I saw a white peak reaching into the sky. Although I say that, the structural limitations of Aincrad meant the height couldn’t possibly exceed 100 meters, so climbing the mountain shouldn’t be difficult.

  “Alright, let’s go then. I want to see your crying face early anyway.”

  “Just don’t become overwhelmed by my magnificent sword skills.”

  We both turned our faces away from each other with a ‘hmph’. But somehow, how should I put it, even though I was arguing with Kirito, my heart began to feel a little shaky–

  I forcibly shook my head to get rid of these stupid thoughts and then began to crunch my way through the snow.

  Although the white dragon’s mountain looked dangerously steep from far away, we discovered that it was actually very easy to climb.

  When I thought about it, many impromptu teams managed to accomplish this without any trouble, so there was no way it could be hard.

  Even though it was already evening, which affects the strength of spawned monsters, the strongest that would appear right now were ice skeletons called «Frost Bone». Furthermore, bone-type monsters were no match for my mace. I simply continued to smash them apart with clear crunching sounds.

  After walking up the snow-covered roads for several dozen minutes and turning towards the plunging icy cliffs, we had already reached the mountaintop.

  The bottom of the next floor was extremely close. Huge columns of broken crystal pillars stood out from the thick layer of snow. The purple light of the setting sun refracted through these columns and scattered into the rainbow colors of the spectrum, painting a scene that can only be portrayed in dreams.

  “Whaa…!”

  Just as I cheered without restraint and was abo
ut to dash over, Kirito grabbed onto my collar to stop me.

  “Oi… What are you doing!”

  “Hey, get ready to use the crystals first.”

  Against his extremely serious expression, I could only meekly nod. I materialized the crystals and then put them into my apron pockets.

  “Also, it’ll get dangerous from here on out, so it would be best if I continued on alone. Once the white dragon appears, just hide behind that crystal pillar over there and absolutely do not come out.”

  “…Why? My level is pretty high too! I wanna help too!”

  “No!”

  Kirito’s black pupils stared directly into my eyes. The moment our eyes met, I understood that this person was truly worried for my safety from the bottom of his heart, so I let out a huge sigh and backed off. I didn’t say anything and simply nodded lightly.

  A smile spread across Kirito’s face as he patted my head and said “alright, let’s go.” I could only keep on nodding.

  It felt like the atmosphere suddenly changed entirely.

  After travelling all the way here with Kirito, could it be that my feelings had changed? Or did I get caught up in the mood– either way, I completely did not recognize this as a life-threatening encounter.

  Over half of my experience came from forging weapons, so I had never entered any merciless battlefields.

  But I felt that this person was different. He had a gaze that only one who fought every day in the most dangerous places could have.

  I continued to walk with my scrambled emotions before we soon arrived at the center of the peak.

  We quickly looked around, but found no sign of the white dragon. However, we saw an area sealed by crystal pillars–

  “Wow…”

  There was a gigantic cave opening of at least ten meters in diameter. The light reflected off the walls reached down the deep hole, while an impermeable darkness covered even the deeper regions.

  “That’s really deep…”

  Kirito kicked a small chunk of crystal into the hole. The falling crystal glittered briefly before completely disappearing without even a sound.

  “Don’t fall down.”

  “As if I would!”

  Not long after I replied, a sharp feral screech pierced out from the cave and spread across the entire mountain through the air that was stained blue by the sunset.

  “Hide behind there!”

  Kirito pointed towards a gigantic crystal pillar nearby and spoke in a commanding tone. I hurriedly followed his instructions while waving exaggeratedly at Kirito’s shadow and yelling:

  “Hey… the white dragon’s attacks are slashes using both claws, freezing breath, and blizzard assault… b- be careful!”

  After quickly adding that last phrase, I saw Kirito, who kept his back towards me pretending to be cool, gave a thumbs-up with his left fist. The space in front of him began to shake, and a huge shape exploded outwards from the hole.

  Various large, strangely-shaped polygons appeared in a continuous stream. As those polygons appeared– they began connecting with one another and the identity of the huge shape grew more evident. The shriek that made people quiver uncontrollably resounded once again. Countless shards scattered outwards in every direction before disappearing into the light rays.

  A white dragon covered in scale-like shards of ice had appeared. It slowly beat its gigantic wings while hovering in the skies. The situation was frightening– or it could be more appropriate described as extremely beautiful. It stared with large, ruby-colored eyes, casting a contemptuous look down upon the two of us.

  Kirito calmly reached his hand towards his back and unsheathed his jet-black one-handed sword with a perfect chime. Then, as if the sound had sent off a signal, the white dragon opened his huge jaw– and with a hardened sound, sprayed out a wave of white gas.

  “It’s the breath! Get out of the way!”

  Even though I screamed, Kirito didn’t budge a single inch. He stood perfectly still and thrusted upwards with the sword in his right hand.

  There was no way such a thin weapon could block a breath attack–

  As soon as I thought this, the sword began to spin like a windmill centered in Kirito’s hand. Based on the light green color of the effect, it must be a sword skill. In just a second, the sword reached speeds invisible to the human eye and looked like it had become a shield of light.

  The icy breath streamed directly towards the light shield while emitting a dizzying white light, which forced me to avert my eyes. But, when the cold air slammed into Kirito’s sword-shield, it dispersed as if it had evaporated.

  I quickly focused on Kirito’s body to confirm his HP.

  Maybe it was impossible to completely block the breath, because his life bar was slowly draining. But the shocking part was, the damage taken was recovering within just a few seconds. This must be the really high level battle skill «Battle Healing»– but to raise this skill, one must sustain enormous amount of battle damage. Considering the current floors, that was impossible to do so without endangering oneself.

  Kirito– just who is he…?

  Only now did I begin to seriously wonder about the identity of this black swordsman. His absurd power made him seem like a key strategic player. But his name wasn’t amongst the list of KOB-dominated top guild players.

  At this moment, Kirito, who accurately predicted the end of the icy onslaught, made his move. He burst through the snowy mist and leapt towards the dragon hovering in midair.

  Normally, when fighting a flying enemy, one should first attack with a halberd or some sort of throwing weapon; only after long-range weapons knocked the enemy down to ground-level first did the short-ranged weapon users join the fray. But shockingly, Kirito flew upwards until he almost touched the white dragon’s head, where he began to initiate consecutive sword combination techniques in midair.

  With a sharp ring, Kirito’s onslaught pummeled the white dragon’s torso at a speed faster than the human eye could follow. Even though the white dragon retaliated with both of its claws, the difference in their capabilities was simply too much.

  By the time Kirito slowly descended back down to the ground, the white dragon’s HP bar was already down by over a third.

  –It was single-handed slaughter. Watching this unbelievable battle made my spine shiver endlessly.

  Suddenly the white dragon aimed at the grounded Kirito and blasted its icy breath, but this time he sprinted to dodge the attack and then leapt back up into the air. With a deep and heavy sound, a single powerful attack struck the target, and the white dragon’s health dropped significantly.

  The HP bar immediately changed from yellow to red, and the battle should conclude with just one or two more attacks. I decided that this time I would honestly praise Kirito’s skill and took one step out from behind the crystal pillar.

  At that moment, as if he had eyes on the back of his head, Kirito suddenly shouted:

  “Idiot! Don’t come out yet!”

  “What? It’s obviously about to finish right? Just hurry up and end it…”

  As I replied in a loud voice–

  The dragon, flying even higher than before, fully expanded its wings. As its wings beat forward, the snow directly below the dragon went flying with a bang.

  “……?”

  As I stood frozen in shock by the scene before me. Kirito stabbed his sword into the ground several meters in front of me and moved his mouth like he wanted to tell me something, but his profile was immediately blocked by the snow. A moment later an incredible pressure, like a wall of wind, hit and easily blew me into the air.

  Crap… the blizzard attack!

  As I tumbled across the air, I finally remembered what I myself had just said about the white dragon’s attacks. Thankfully, this skill didn’t have much attack power, so I took virtually no damage. I spread open both my arms and took a posture for landing.

  But as the snow dispersed– there was no ground in the clearing up ahead.

  It was the
gigantic hole atop the mountain peak. I had been blown into the air directly overhead this huge pit.

  My thoughts immediately stopped; my entire body completely froze.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

  With my mind completely paralyzed, I could only utter these words, while my right hand reached towards the air in vain–

  –A hand covered in only a black-leather glove suddenly grasped my fingers.

  My unfocused eyes suddenly sprang open.

  …!

  Kirito, who had been confronting the white dragon far away, sprinted over here at a frightening speed and leapt into the air without hesitation. He extended his right hand to grab onto mine and then pulled me into his embrace. After that he loosened his right arm to wrap around my back and hugged me tightly.

  “Hold on tight!”

  As I heard Kirito’s voice reverberating beside my ear, I forgot myself and tightly hugged his body with both of my arms. We began to descend only an instant later.

  In the center of the cave opening, the two of us fell straight down while holding onto each other. The wind howled in our ears and our coats flailed about wildly.

  If this hole extended down to the surface of the floor, then falling from this height meant certain death. This thought suddenly passed through my mind, but I just didn’t feel like this was actually happening right now. All I could do was to keep staring dumbly at the disappearing circle of white light.

  Suddenly, Kirito’s sword-wielding right arm began to move. He raised the sword forcibly and then swung it forward. A flash of light burst out, accompanied by the loud echoing ‘clang’ of metal striking one another.

  The strong counterforce changed our fall trajectory, pushing us towards the cave walls. The blue icy walls gradually approached, and I couldn’t help but bite down my teeth. We were going to crash–!

  Just as we were about to collide with the wall, Kirito raised the sword in his right hand once again and stabbed it into the wall at full power. Fiery sparks exploded outwards as if the weapon had struck a whetstone. The sudden attack slowed our falling speed, but it was unable to completely stop our descent.