Mother's Rosary

by Reki Kawahara

  Yuuki shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, Asuna. It’s a shame to put you in the back, when you’re so good with the sword.”

  “No, it’s fine. I wouldn’t be good as a shield, anyway. Instead, Jun and Tecchi will have to get whacked a lot, so be prepared!”

  She looked at the two heavy warriors with a smirk. The salamander and gnome looked at each other, their sizes incredibly mismatched, then smacked their breastplates in unison.

  “Y-yeah! We’re on top of it!” Jun said enthusiastically, if a bit awkwardly. Everyone laughed.

  The date was Thursday, January 8th, 2026.

  At one o’clock on the last day of winter vacation, Asuna had shown up at the same inn in Rombal, main town of the twenty-seventh floor, to rejoin the Sleeping Knights as promised. They were ready to test out the boss monster that presided over the top floor of the labyrinth tower.

  Asuna understood that her role here was less to boost their numerical strength and more to provide strategic advice that would make the most of everyone’s abilities. In terms of sheer power, every one of the Sleeping Knights was probably Asuna’s superior. The one thing she had that they didn’t was knowledge and experience of this game.

  The first step was examining everyone’s build and gear to establish a basic party archetype.

  Now that she knew she’d be in the back line, Asuna opened her inventory and dropped her rapier inside, replacing it with her wand. It was a cheap-looking item, not much more than a branch with a single leaf at the end, but in reality, it was taken from the very top of the World Tree. She had to evade the furious attacks of a mammoth guardian dragon to get it.

  “Now,” Asuna started, twirling the wand in her fingertips, “let’s go check out that boss chamber!”

  The group of seven left the inn and flew into the eternal night sky.

  As she would have expected, they were all expert flyers without the need of flight-stick assistance. Asuna marveled at the smoothness of their ascent; they didn’t seem to be freshly converted to ALO in the least. But that wasn’t so much caused by a familiarity with the genre as it was an intimate understanding of the full-dive tech that made VRMMOs possible. True, a scant handful of players were like this, but in her long history, Asuna could count those she knew on one hand, led by Kirito.

  So having six of them together at once made her wonder how such a guild got formed. In a logical sense, being January 8th, this was the time most people in society were getting back to work or school. Asuna’s school was confident enough in its curriculum that she didn’t have to start the third term until tomorrow. However, getting all six of them available in the middle of the day at once would normally be very difficult to schedule.

  Given their absurd strength, among other things, the most likely answer was that they were all extremely hardcore players. But Asuna felt that was not the case. Asuna did not get that sense of bristling pride from the Sleeping Knights that was exuded by most guilds consisting of such members. It seemed that they were all purely enjoying the game on its own merits.

  Asuna almost never gave any thought to the real players behind the avatars in-game, but she couldn’t help but wonder now. Meanwhile, up ahead, Yuuki shouted, “I can see the labyrinth!”

  She looked up with a start and caught sight of a huge tower beyond the line of rocky mountains. The circular structure ran from the ground straight up to the bottom of the floor above. A number of hexagonal crystal pillars, each the size of a small house, jutted from the base, their faint blue glow dimly illuminating the tower in the darkness. The entrance yawned black and forbidding at the foot of the building.

  They hovered outside to make sure there were no monsters or parties loitering around the entrance. She had already announced the plan for today’s spontaneous boss attempt to Lisbeth and the others, of course. They were surprised by the Absolute Sword’s sudden request, but she was relieved to hear them all pledge to chip in. Of course, the point of all this was to make one last big memory for Yuuki and her guild, so they couldn’t turn it into too big of a thing. Asuna’s friends decided to give them all the healing potions they could carry and wished them well.

  Ever since the start, Kirito had maintained a knowing, meaningful silence about the other girl. While he did seem to temporarily fall into a meditative state, he still saw her off with a smile, and he convinced Yui that it was better to remain behind with him. In a sense, helping another guild was a form of betrayal, so Asuna was grateful that her friends were so understanding. This thought warmed her heart as she trailed in the back row of the team during their descent to the tower.

  They landed on dark soil and stared up at the massive edifice. She’d looked up these pillars dozens of times since starting the old SAO, always tipping her head back to inevitably gaze at the floor above, but when up close at ground level—rather than observing from the air—their tremendous size never failed to make her feel insignificant.

  “So…as we decided, we’ll try to avoid combat with ordinary monsters as much as possible on the way,” Asuna declared. Yuuki and the others nodded back, their faces grim. The party theatrically drew its weapons from waist and back alike.

  Siune, the magically inclined undine, raised her silver rod and began to chant a series of buffing spells. Various visual effects surrounded the seven party members, and a number of status icons popped into life beneath their HP bars, at the upper left of their view. Next, Nori the spriggan cast a spell that gave everyone night vision. Asuna knew a few status spells, too, but Siune’s skill levels were higher.

  Once the preparations were complete, they all indicated their readiness with a nod, and Yuuki set foot inside the labyrinth.

  It started off as a natural cave, but once the walls and floor switched to manmade paving stones, the temperature of the air dropped, and dampness clung to their skin. As she remembered from the SAO days, the interior of the labyrinth was vexingly large, and the monsters were much tougher than those found outside. Plus, like those dungeons down in Alfheim below, there was no flying allowed inside. They’d bought map data ahead of time from an info dealer, but even then, it would take a good three hours to reach the boss chamber.

  Or so I’d expected.

  Instead, just an hour into the journey, they stood in a massive corridor that led to a set of enormous chamber doors at its end. Asuna could only marvel at the strength of Yuuki and her companions. She had an idea of their strengths individually, but what made them even better was the precision of their teamwork. They didn’t need words; just a tiny bit of body language would send the signal to stop or proceed as necessary. Asuna was fine just tagging along in the back row. They only got into three battles on the way, and they followed her instructions by dispatching the leader first, throwing the others into confusion, and allowing the party to slip past and evade further trouble.

  As they headed down the corridor to the chamber doors, Asuna couldn’t resist the urge to lean over and mutter into Siune’s ear. “I dunno…was my presence really necessary? It almost seems like there’s nothing I can do to make you guys any better…”

  Siune went wide-eyed and shook her head dramatically. “No, don’t say that. It was thanks to you that we didn’t fall into a single trap and avoided so much combat. The last two attempts, we took on every battle, so we were quite drained by the time we got this far…”

  “W-well, that’s an incredible feat in and of itself…Oh, wait, Yuuki,” Asuna called out. The three at the front came to a halt. They’d already covered half of the long hallway to the door, close enough for the gruesome reliefs carved into the doors to be visible. There were pillars at regular intervals on either side of the hallway, but there were no monsters in sight, not even hiding in the shadows.

  Yuuki and Jun looked back at her questioningly. Asuna put a finger to her lips to hush them, then stared beyond the last pillar on the left side of the massive doors. The only illumination in the corridor came from pale flames glowing from niches set high on the pillars. Even with the hel
p of Nori’s night-vision magic, it was hard to sense the fine movement of the shadows flickering against the stone walls. But something in Asuna’s instincts said there was an anomaly in her vision.

  She waved the others back and raised her wand, chanting long spell-words as quickly as she could and holding her free hand up in front of her. When the chant was done, five little fish appeared above her hand, their pectoral fins as long as wings. She leaned over the transparent blue fish and blew softly in the direction of the wall.

  The fish leaped off of her hand and began to swim straight through the air. She had summoned “searchers” that would undo the effects of concealing magic. The five swam in a narrowly splayed wave, until two of them eventually plunged into the wavering of the air that Asuna had sensed.

  Blue light spread at once. The searchers vanished, and the veil of green air that they had revealed began to dissolve.

  “Ah!” Yuuki exclaimed in surprise. On the other side of the pillar, where there had been nothing before, three players suddenly appeared.

  Asuna’s eyes quickly scanned the three. Two imps and one sylph, all equipped with light daggers. But their equipment grade was high. She didn’t recognize their faces, but she did recognize the guild tag on their cursors: a side-facing horse on a shield. It was the symbol of a major guild that had been tackling the labyrinth towers since the twenty-third floor.

  It was a bad sign that they were hiding in a stretch of labyrinth without any monsters. That was a PK tactic. Asuna raised her wand, preparing for long-range attacks from afar, while the rest of the party brandished their weapons in turn.

  But to their surprise, one of the trio raised a hand in panic and shrieked, “Stop, stop! We don’t mean to fight!”

  The pressing note in the voice didn’t sound faked, but Asuna wasn’t going to let her guard down yet. She shouted back, “Then put away your weapons!”

  The three shared a look and returned their daggers to their sheaths. Asuna glanced briefly toward Siune and whispered, “If they start to draw again, cast Aqua Bind on them.”

  “All right. Oh my gosh, it’s my first PvP fight in ALO. I’m so nervous.”

  To Asuna, it looked more like excitement than nerves in her eyes. She smirked, then turned back to the trio and took a few steps closer.

  “If you weren’t trying to PK us…then why were you hiding?”

  The imp, who seemed to be the leader, glanced at his companions again, then answered: “We’re waiting for a meet-up. We didn’t want to get tagged by mobs while waiting for our friends, so we were hiding.”

  “…”

  It was a likely answer, but somehow suspicious. Hiding spells had a considerable mana cost while active, so they would need to be drinking an expensive potion a few times a minute to keep it up. And if they were able to get all the way to the end of this labyrinth, they shouldn’t need to go to such lengths to avoid monsters.

  But she didn’t seem likely to spot any other cracks in their story. If pressed to it, they could dispatch the trio via PK themselves, but causing trouble with a major guild would be nothing but headaches down the road.

  Asuna swallowed her doubts and nodded. “All right. We’re here to tackle the boss, but if you’re not ready yet, I assume you don’t mind if we go first.”

  “Yes, of course,” the skinny imp answered immediately, to her surprise. She had expected them to use more obsequious flattery to interfere with their attempt at the boss. He waved his two companions back and retreated to the side of the massive doors.

  “We’ll be waiting for our friends here. So, um, good luck,” he said with a faint smile, then motioned to the sylph with his chin. The sylph raised his hands and began to chant spell words with practiced ease.

  Soon, a vortex of green air swirled up from the caster’s feet, covering the three of them. Eventually the color flickered and faded, leaving nothing behind but the wall.

  “…”

  Asuna stared in the direction of their hiding place with a frown on her lips, but eventually shrugged and turned to Yuuki. She seemed to have found nothing wrong with that suspicious interaction; her purple eyes glittered with expectation as she stared at Asuna.

  “…At any rate, let’s go ahead and test the waters as planned,” Asuna said, and the other girl grinned and nodded.

  “Yeah, it’s finally time! Let’s do our best, Asuna!”

  “Let’s not test the waters, but go in expecting to beat it on the first try,” Jun cajoled, to which Asuna could only smile.

  “Well, that’s the ideal. But you don’t have to waste the expensive items to heal. Just let Siune and me do our best to cast healing spells. Agreed?”

  “Yes, Sensei!” Jun chirped mischievously. She poked the visor of his helmet and looked to the other five in turn.

  “If you die, don’t return to town immediately. Stick around and watch the boss’s attacks. If we get wiped, we’ll all go back to Rombal’s save point. Jun and Tecchi will stay at the front and guard, using taunt skills to pull aggro. Talken and Nori will attack from the wings, being careful not to draw too much attention. Yuuki will be a free attacker, preferably from behind the boss. Siune and I will be at the back providing support.”

  “Got it,” Tecchi boomed for the rest of the group.

  Once Siune was done re-upping the team’s buff effects, the two front members proceeded forward. Tecchi, who had a tower shield held up in his left hand and his heavy mace in the right, turned back to Asuna when he reached the doors.

  Asuna gave him a nod, and Jun used the hand not holding his greatsword to touch the door. He tensed and pushed.

  The black, gleaming rock doors creaked in protest, then split, rumbling the entire corridor with the sound of thunder as they opened. The interior was pure darkness.

  Almost instantly, two pale fires lit themselves just beyond the door. Two more started to the left and right. At brief intervals, countless flames popped into being to eventually form a circle. It was an effect that happened on every floor, a countdown of sorts that allowed the challengers time to prepare before the boss finally appeared.

  The boss chamber was a perfect circle. The floor was polished black stone, and vast. On the wall in the back was a door that led to the staircase going up to the next floor.

  “Let’s go!” Asuna cried, and Jun and Tecchi burst into the room. The other five followed.

  Everyone took their spots in formation and raised their weapons just as a rough-hewn mass of polygons began to pop into existence in the center of the chamber. The little black cubes combined into a humanoid form with bursting noises, forming edges and gaining information and profile before their eyes.

  At the end, it exploded into little tiny shards, revealing the full extent of the boss.

  It was a dark giant standing a good thirteen feet tall. Its burly, muscled trunk sprouted two heads and four arms, each holding a menacing, ugly bludgeon.

  The giant took a step forward, sending an earthquake rumble through the room. The extra volume of its upper half was not matched by the lower half, and it tipped forward perilously, but the two heads were still held high over Asuna and the others.

  Four glowing red eyes glared at the intruders. The giant let out a deep bellow. The two upper arms raised hammers the size of battering rams, and the lower arms slammed massive, anchor-ready chains against the ground.

  6

  “Daaah, we lost!!”

  Nori was the last to teleport, slapping Talken on the back as he gleefully lamented their defeat.

  They were inside a domed building facing the central plaza of Rombal. The group had appeared around the save crystal set into a lowered depression in the middle of the room. They had, of course, been quickly crushed by the dark giant that was boss of the twenty-seventh floor.

  “Darn, we tried so hard,” Yuuki grumbled, until Asuna grabbed her by the collar. “Fwuh?”

  The undine fencer dragged the imp girl off to the corner of the room. “Over here, everyone!”

 
Jun and the others followed, widemouthed with surprise. They had just been suggesting a return to the inn for a break and a rundown of their attempt.

  There was no one else inside the dome, where the deceased respawned, but Asuna made sure they were gathered in a spot where their voices would not carry outside so she could address the group in privacy.

  “We don’t have time to hang around. Remember the three outside the boss chamber?” she asked quickly.

  “Oh, yes,” Siune said, nodding.

  “Those were scouts from one of the major boss-beating guilds. They were watching for players outside of their guild attempting to challenge the boss. I’m guessing that on the floor before this, and the one before that, they were watching you go in just like that.”

  “I…I had no idea…”

  “I’m guessing their intention isn’t to interfere with your attempt, but to gain information for themselves. They see the attempts of small guilds like the Sleeping Knights as a test case to learn the boss’s attack patterns and weak points. That way, they don’t have to suffer the death penalty or potion cost themselves,” Asuna explained.

  Talken, the one with the round glasses, raised a hand, his fingers fully extended. “B-but, after we walked into the boss chamber, the door closed instantly. H-how could they have collected information if they couldn’t even s-see our fight?”

  “Well, this is my fault for not being careful…but toward the end, I noticed a little gray lizard slithering around Jun’s feet. That’s a Peeping spell—dark magic. It sends a familiar to track a target player and latch onto his or her sight to show the caster. It should have showed a debuff icon when the spell was cast on you, but only for a second…”

  “Oh, dang. I never noticed it!” Jun exclaimed, looking guilty. Asuna patted him on the back.

  “No, it’s my fault for not warning you ahead of time. They must have slipped the spell onto you while Siune was rebuffing us just before we went inside. It would be really hard to notice a single momentary icon when there are a ton of them popping up.”