“Y-yeah, I see…”
Meanwhile, all of the water that had filled the boss chamber had drained away. Nearly forty players wearing inner tubes were piled up in the front hall, groaning and moaning.
I peered around the door into the chamber, still holding onto the door ring.
It was very spacious. The rectangular room was at least fifty yards deep. There were no windows, and the floor and walls were gray granite. The only light was the blue tips of an eerie series of pillars.
In the center of the soggy floor was an enormous silhouette.
Just as Yofilis had told us, its front half was a horse, and its back half was a fish. But instead of hooves on its front legs, the beast had clawed flippers, and its mane was a mass of wriggling tentacles. The color cursor told me its name was WYTHEGE THE HIPPOCAMPUS.
The six-part HP bar of the wetly snickering boss was almost at the end of its first bar. So even as they dealt with the unexpected flooding, the raid party had managed to keep up some offense on the beast.
Just as I began wondering how to start tackling the boss, a loud, crude voice erupted from the mass of players behind me.
“Well, if you were gonna show up, ya might as well have done it on time!”
Next came a pained voice at the bottom of the pile. “Get these people off of me, Kibaou! Everyone off the pile, start taking potions!”
“Y-you don’t mean ta keep goin’, Lind!”
“Of course I do! We know its attack patterns, and we’ve already taken down one gauge; no use wasting that hard work!”
“Don’t act like yer in charge! If it weren’t for my inner-tube fruit, y’all would be drowned by now!”
“You were simply hogging community resources for yourself! Don’t act like you were being generous!”
Either way, if you don’t make up your mind now, we’ll lose the boss’s aggro and his HP will recover, I thought.
I was about to speak up and try to get the guild leaders on the same page, but—perhaps fortunately—I didn’t need to. The moment they saw Kizmel and Yofilis walk up, the entire raid party went silent, not just Kibaou and Lind.
To them, the Dark Elf viscount’s cursor must have gone beyond black into the color of pure darkness. The nobleman spun around to view the group as a whole.
“Warriors of humankind, if you intend to fight, then stand at once. If not, be quiet. In either case, through my pact with Kirito and Asuna, I will dispatch the summon beast.”
And Yofilis drew his rapier and held it forward, the metal ringing.
“In my name, Yofilis, knight of Lyusula, I command all who can stand to follow my lead!”
A conical aura emerged from the tip of his weapon, and upon touching it, the four buff icons blinked into existence above my HP bar again.
It wasn’t long until all the raid members were on their feet, raising their weapons and roaring mightily.
At 2:32 PM on Tuesday, December 27, 2022, Wythege the Hippocampus was defeated by a seven-party, forty-man raid, plus one extra party.
The boss’s special ability, Water Inflow, deluged the entire chamber with water, but the means of counteracting it was quite simple. The boss’s power caused the door of the chamber to shut, making it impossible to open from within, but if it was pulled from the outside when a certain level of water pressure was pushing against it, the door would swing open like a charm. We had Argo wait outside with simple instructions to open the door if water started trickling out through the crack. That essentially nullified the special ability.
Then again, Viscount Yofilis might not have needed such a specialized strategy to begin with. Through his magical charm, he was able to run about on the surface of the water and continue to attack the boss, even when the room was flooded.
9
“SO, I WAS THINKING,” ASUNA BEGAN TO MUMBLE as we climbed the spiral staircase to the fifth floor, “Kizmel and the viscount took that black gondola back to the castle, right? And we left the Tilnel moored at the castle pier. So how will we return to the castle?”
“Hmmm…”
I considered several options. “Once we activate the fifth-floor teleport gate, we can use that to return to Rovia and then travel to Yofel Castle again…I guess…”
“But we don’t have a boat in town. Are you suggesting we swim with the inner tubes all the way there?”
“No, we can make another one. It’ll be a snap, as long as we don’t focus on high-quality materials this time.”
“Well, sure…but you’re naming the next one.”
Whatever I was going to say got stuck in my throat. I was well aware of my own inability to come up with a good name.
I hemmed and hawed as I trotted up the steps, my arms crossed. Meanwhile, Asuna spoke up again.
“…So, are you just going to keep using that sword?”
“Eh? Uh, no…”
I undid my arms and brushed the hilt extending over my right shoulder. Its leather grip was well used, it stayed true during the battle with the floor boss, and its stats were not far off from my Anneal Blade +8, but it was still someone else’s sword. Some other NPC’s sword.
Perhaps I might one day again fight that Forest Elven inferior knight. It wasn’t impossible, but I couldn’t escape the thought.
“When we get back to Yofel Castle, I’ll take a one-handed sword with my quest rewards and use that for my next main weapon. You should think hard about what you’ll pick, Asuna. We get two, remember.”
“Were you that excited about getting two items?” she asked, groaning. “That lord was a very strange person, wasn’t he? Spending years of his life locked into a pitch-black room, even pretending that he was sick…”
“Yeah, it’s odd. I wonder if Kizmel will tell us how he got that scar, if we ask…”
“No, don’t go prying into that.”
“H-hey, you were the one who started wondering about him.”
We kept climbing the dim stairway, chattering all the while.
Upon further reflection, this was the third time I’d climbed these stairs from the boss chamber to the next floor with Asuna—fourth, if you counted the first time when she was just a few minutes behind. Each time, we were the first up because the two guilds were busy squabbling over their rewards after beating the boss and demanded that we do the busy work of activating the gate. It couldn’t be easy to make everyone satisfied with their share between so many people.
Technically, Asuna and I had the right to participate in their dice-rolling tournament, but we’d refused every time. For one, it was a long, boring slog. For another…
“No matter how he got his scar, the viscount is a very nice person,” Asuna muttered, reading my thoughts perfectly.
“Of course he is. He helped us beat the boss.”
“Not just that. I think he eased up on his final attack so that you could get the Last Attack bonus, Kirito.”
“…M-maybe he did,” I mumbled, coughing uncomfortably.
I looked up to see that beyond the gloom, the double doors that were at the end of our climb were in sight. But would the relief carved into them be the same scene from the beta or different?
Suddenly I realized the footsteps to the right and behind me had stopped. I turned around and saw the hooded fencer looking up at me like she had something to say.
“…Wh-what? Did you want the LA bonus that bad?”
“No!”
She puffed her cheeks out for a moment, then took on a serious, hesitant look. The question she eventually came out with had to do with the future she’d been trying so hard not to think about, in a way.
“…Hey. How long are you planning to work with me?”
“…”
I stared back into the unblinking, hazel-brown eyes.
“Until you’re strong enough that you don’t need me.”
“…Hmm,” Asuna muttered, putting on a smile as brief and fragile as tiny bubbles rising from deep water. She hopped up to the next step.
I quickly tur
ned, looking up at the doors leading to the fifth floor of Aincrad, and resumed racing up the steps.
AFTERWORD
It’s been a full year, but thanks for reading the third volume of Sword Art Online Progressive! Well, I’m relieved that we at least climbed one floor this year. If I can just keep this pace up next year…Okay, I’ll admit, I hope to pick up the game’s pace…
Now, then. The subtitle of this book is “Barcarolle of Froth,” which I ought to explain, since it didn’t come up in the text. A barcarolle is a type of classical piece that translates to “boat song.” The reason I put it in the title is because Kirito and Asuna ride in boats on the fourth floor…simple as that!
I’ve always wanted to write a story about traveling across the map on a boat. It’s a classic vehicle in RPGs (though there are very few MMORPGs in which players can own boats), and I like boats in real life. But the only kind I’ve rode in recently are car ferries. A few years ago there was a big boom in fishing interest, and I bought an inflatable rubber boat, which was quite fun to ride down the Arakawa River. But it was quite a pain to set up and store, so I got tired of it quickly…and on the other hand, a proper pleasure boat is dangerously expensive, not to mention the marina docking fees and fuel costs. If I ever get the time, I’d like to earn a boating license, though.
Excuse me, I got off topic. Anyway, the theme of the third volume is boats…or should I say, the scenery of Aincrad. Until this point, I’ve spent very little time on describing the scenery, but I tried to put more effort into that this time. I hope that you were able to imagine the sights of Rovia, the city of water, and the looming Yofel Castle on the lake. Of course, because of that, I had to provide an extremely brief and abridged version of the boss fight again…
But if there’s not going to be great danger in the boss fight, there’s not much to write about, and I’m not sure I really want for every floor to be like the second, where everyone was nearly wiped out. Up next is the fifth floor, a nice milestone number, so I feel a tougher boss coming up!
As for my usual acknowledgments, I feel that this time is less out of thanks than personal apology…To abec for her even more wonderful illustrations despite the boundary-pushing schedule, and to my always courteous and helpful editor, Mr. Miki, I’m sorry and thank you! And to all of my readers, I hope to see you again next year!
Reki Kawahara—November 2014
Sword Art Online Progressive 3 Page 23
