Once I confirmed my determination, I also faced the large door. In front of us, Diabel had finished finely arranging the lineup of the seven parties.
Not even the knight-sama dared to shout "Let's win!" in this place.
This was because humanoid monsters would react to loud noises here.
Instead, Diabel lifted his silver longsword up high, and gave a large nod. The forty-three raid members also raised their weapons and nodded in reply.
His long blue hair fluttering as he turned around, the knight placed his left hand in the center of the large doors and— "——Let's go!"
With a short cry, he pushed the doors open with all his might.
Was it this wide?
Looking at the First Floor Boss Room for the first time in around four months, this was the first impression that I had.
It was a rectangular space that extended out far towards the back of the room. Its width from the left to the right wall was about twenty meters, and the distance from the entrance to the back was about one hundred meters. Since the 20th floor had already been mostly mapped except for the boss room, its area could be estimated by looking at the blank area on the map, but even so, actually seeing it with our own eyes made it feel a lot larger than the numerical digits.
This room was spacious in order to contain the gigantic monsters here.
In Aincrad's boss rooms, the doors would not close even after the battle against the boss began. Thus, even if the events took a turn for the worse, we could retreat without having to wait for total annihilation. However, if we merely turned and dashed way, the enemy's long ranged sword skills would hit us and cause a delay effect, or in the worst case stun us. Therefore, we would have to retreat while facing the boss, but in that situation, the hundred meters needed to escape would feel infinitely long. Rather, if it was a boss battle on the upper floors, where it was possible to obtain «Teleport Crystals» that allowed instantaneous teleportation, retreat might actually be easier then. Well, since crystals were absurdly expensive, our money deficits would undoubtedly rapidly increase after retreating, though.
While I was contemplating such thoughts, a series of igniting sounds rang through the boss room that was almost completely sunk in darkness, and crude torches blazed to life along the walls on either side. As the sound of flames popping into existence continued, the lit torches increased in number one after another further towards the back of the room.
As the sources of light were generated, the internal Gamma11
brightness also rose. The stone floor and walls were filled with cracks. Skulls of all sizes decorated the room everywhere. In the deepest part of the room stood a huge and crude throne, and upon it sat a rough silhouette of something large— The knight, Diabel, raised his longsword high, and then swiftly swung it down in front of him.
With that as the signal, the forty-four members of the Boss Monster Capture Forces raised a battle cry as they all rushed into the large room like an avalanche at once.
The ones to rush in first in the front row were Group A, led by a hammer-user brandishing an iron heater shield12. They were followed by Group B diagonally to their left, led by the axe-warrior Agil. To their right was Group C composed of Diabel and his five friends, and Group D with a tall man wielding a two-handed sword as their leader. Behind these three groups were the search-and-kill Group E led by Kibaou, the polearm-equipped Group F and Group G running alongside each other.
And still further behind them, there were two extra people— When the distance between the advancing Group A and the throne was about 20 meters, the gigantic silhouette that had been still until now suddenly jumped fiercely into the air. It somersaulted once before landing on the ground, causing the earth to rumble.
After that, it opened its wolf-like jaws wide, and howled.
"Gurururaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
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11 Computer display brightness: Gamma correction 12 A Heater Shield is a form of European medieval shield, developed from the early medieval Kite Shield
The Demi-Human King, «Illfang the Kobold Lord», looked exactly as I remembered. Its muscular body was easily over two meters tall and was covered in blue-gray fur. Its eyes blazed a bloodthirsty copper red. Its right hand wielded an axe made of bone, while its left carried a leather buckler. Behind its waist, a meter and a half long Talwar13 protruded.
The Kobold Lord raised the Bone Axe in its right hand up high, and struck with all its strength at Group A's leader. The thick heater shield received the blow, causing a dazzling light effect and a loud impact sound to reverberate throughout the hall.
As if that sound were a cue, three heavily armed monsters jumped down from various alcoves high up on the walls on either side.
These were the guards, the «Ruin Kobold Sentinels». Group E led by Kibaou and the support Group G quickly moved towards the three monsters, locking onto their target. Asuna and I glanced at each other, and then dashed to the nearest Sentinels.
Thus, on the 4th of December at 2:40 PM, the first Boss Monster Battle finally began.
«Illfang»'s HP gauge had four bars. During the first three bars, it would fight with its Bone Axe in its right hand and its leather buckler in its left, but when it reached the fourth, it would discard them and remove the Talwar from its waist. The fact that its attack pattern would drastically change at that point was the biggest hurdle for us, but Argo’s strategy guide had also included details on that without sparing anything. Of course, the kinds of sword skills it used after changing its weapons from the Bone Axe to the Talwar and the ways to deal with that had been completely confirmed amongst us during yesterday’s meeting.
____________________________________________________________________________
13 A «Talwar» is a sword or saber with a curved blade. The word talwar literally means sword or dagger in the majority of the languages of the South Asian Subcontinent, where the «Talwar» is from.
While I fought against the «Sentinel» that had slipped past Group E and Group G, I continued watching the situation on the front lines from the edge of my vision, but there was no sign of our tactics collapsing.
The switch replacements between «Tank» forces and the «Attacker» forces and the POT rotations were done with sufficient margin for error, and the average remaining HP of each raid party member that was displayed in a small window at the left corner of my vision was also stable at 80%.
Please, like this—just let it keep going like this.
It wasn’t something I did at all when fighting solo, but now I prayed like this with all my body and soul for someone else.
12
Since the time he had (through some unknown means) rescued her unconscious self from within the almost deepest part of the dungeon tower, Asuna had thought that the black-haired swordsman was probably a considerably strong person.
However, after seeing his way of fighting for the first time, Asuna could tell that her assessment fell far short.
—Strong.
No, there was something in his fighting that could not accurately be described by the word “strong”. Something that transcended measuring scales like power or speed, and left like it went into a «further dimension».
As a beginner who had never played a net game or been in a FullDive environment before, Asuna couldn’t put that something into words. But if she had to express them, it would probably be as a feeling that everything was optimized. Excessiveness was eliminated from all his movements, hence his techniques were quick and his sword was heavy. With an instant slash, he would repel the dreadful-looking halberd wielded by a heavily armed Kobold guard into the sky above, and then casually retreat while calling out "Switch!". In his place, Asuna would quickly jump in front of the Kobold, but it was very easy for her to fire a «Linear»
into the weak point at its unprotected throat while the Kobold was bent over from the recoil.
Asuna now recalled the words that he had
spoken the first time they met. In response to how he had pointed out "Overkill has no demerit or penalty from the system, but it's bad for efficiency", Asuna had answered with "Is there any problem with it?". Now, she had no choice but to admit that it was a huge problem. If you could remove useless movement, it would produce a margin of time and space to spare, and that margin would widen one’s view.
These «Sentinels» were much stronger in comparison with the «Trooper» she had fought back then, yet Asuna could see each move it made quite clearly— The Kobold guard's HP gauge that she had just attacked with a «Linear» to its throat’s vital point had a little left in its bar. If it were the old Asuna, she would have waited for the enemy’s counterattack, dodged it at the last minute, and then fired off another «Linear». But that was pointless «Overkill». As soon as the delay from the sword skill ended, Asuna once again jabbed at the throat with minimal movement. With that, the enemy's HP gauge reached zero, and disintegrated into blue fragments.
"GJ.14"
Behind her, the black haired swordsman whispered that softly.
Although she didn't know what the abbreviation stood for, she still replied with "You too".
At that time, the first bar of the Boss Kobold's HP gauge had disappeared. In the front row, Diabel shouted "We're on the second bar!", as additional «Sentinels» jumped down from the holes in the wall.
Forgetting that they were the extra forces, Asuna and her partner dashed towards the nearby monsters. The sword in her right hand, despite only having been bought just yesterday, had already perfectly adapted to her palm, and the response from the sword was clear when she fired off her techniques as well. It was as if the sword was a part of her arm, from the leather wrapped hilt to the tip of its sharp, glittering blade.
—If this is what a «battle» is like in this world, then everything I did up until yesterday was like a false imitation.
____________________________________________________________________________
14 GJ means Good Job
—I’m sure there will still be many more battles «ahead» of us. The swordsman running next to me had always been heading forward down that path. This world is a virtual illusion, and all our actions are imitations…but…but I’m sure, this feeling is real. This feeling of wanting to see what he sees as well.
A Sentinel's axe swung down, and the swordsman countered it with a high blow. The next instant, Asuna herself shouted "Switch!", and jumped towards the enemy with her beloved sword.
13
The battle between the Kobold King with its guards and the 44
players proceeded far better than I expected.
Diabel and the rest of Group C had taken out the first HP gauge layer, Group D had gotten rid of the second layer, and now Group F and G had reduced the third layer by half. Until this point, the members of Group A and B, the «Tank» teams, had their HP
reduced to the yellow «Half» region several times, but none of them ever entered the dangerous red region. Since the heavy-armored guards could be taken care of with ease by Group E and the two of us, Group G changed roles to supporting the main battlefield midway through.
What was truly remarkable was the intense fighting from the rapier user Asuna. The «Linear» sword skill that had amazed me when we first met, with the stronger and sharper rapier she had obtained, accurately pierced the Kobold guards' throats, their weak point. The time from the first motion of the skill until the damage occurred was close to half of when the attack was launched while relying the System Assist on its own. Looking at that pure speed, I doubted that even I, who had been practicing deliberately boosting the sword skill since the beta testing period, could achieve that much acceleration.
She was just a beginner that knew only one skill. Just imagining how far she could go if she increased her knowledge and honed her senses made my spine tingle.
If this truly occurs, I'd like to see the progression by her side— was the thought that came to my mind, but I forced it back into my chest. On that day one month ago, I had decided to survive in this world as a selfish solo player, so I had no right to want to be together with other players. Because Klein, my first friend in this world, should still be around the Starting City, carefully and safely leveling up in order to make sure he and all his friends survive…
As I looked on while recalling those unpleasant memories, Asuna had already struck down her second prey. The «Ruin Kobold Sentinel» was a rare monster on account of the fact that it only spawned here, so although it did not give as much experience and col as the boss, it still dropped an item. Only money was automatically distributed evenly among members in a raid party, while the experience was split between those who defeated it, which were Asuna and me. The item drop had a higher probability of going to Asuna because she made the final blow.
That was probably the real reason why Group E's leader Kibaou, whose party was also fighting similar Sentinels, wanted only his group members to take the monsters down. However, the extra pair of Asuna and I defeated our targets much faster than the full six-member party of Group E. This way, even he couldn't complain— Just as I thought that, Kibaou’s voice resounded loudly from right behind me.
"I know what you're up to. Feels good, doesn’t it?"
"……What did you say?"
Not knowing what he meant, I turned around to ask that. Since the last two of the three Sentinels that had spawned in the third wave were just about taken care of now, there was spare time to talk until the next wave spawned. The cactus-headed swordsman glared at me as I frowned, and then raised his voice and spat out, "Don't pretend. I already know your motive for slipping into this boss raid."
"My…motive? Aside from beating the boss, is there anything else?"
"What, playing innocent, are we? I know exactly what you're aiming for!"
The premise behind this conversation didn’t seem to be connecting for me. As I unconsciously grinded my teeth out of a strange frustration, Kibaou finally told me the heart of the matter.
"I know about it. I heard a little about you…in the past, you did the dishonorable act of LA on the boss!"
"Wha………"
——LA. Last Attack.
It was true that, in past battles against bosses, I had prided myself on having a good grasp of the boss's remaining HP gauge to determine the best time to use my strongest sword skill on the boss and get the LA bonus. However, that was not in this world, but in another floating castle that existed for merely a single month—in the «Sword Art Online Closed Beta Test».
Kibaou not only knew I was a former beta tester, but he even knew my play-style from back then. But, wait a minute. This man had just said "I heard it", if I recall right. In other words, it was hearsay information. But, who did he hear it from……
At that moment, a second insight ran electrifyingly through my body.
Last week, Kibaou used the informant Argo the Rat to attempt to buy my «Anneal Blade +6» with a large sum of money. Yesterday, he had even raised his offer beyond the market price to forty thousand col, but even though I gave a final refusal, he did not spend that money.
No. It was not that he did not spend it. In fact, he didn't have that kind of money in the first place.
It was not just Argo, Kibaou himself was also a mediator. Because even the day after I refused his offer, he still talked to me calmly.
The real buyer was someone else. The source of the forty thousand col was that person.
If another person was put between that person and Argo, no matter how much I paid for information, I could not have found out who the original buyer was.
That mastermind gave Kibaou information about the beta period and manipulated him to stir up trouble. If it is like this, that person's aim was not to get the «Anneal Blade +6» to increase their own battle power. No, that may also be a part of it, but his main aim was different. It was to decrease my—Kirito’s battle power. To make me weak and prevent me from doing my old signature move, obtaining the LA bonus�
� "……Kibaou. That guy who told you that, how did he manage to gain information on me from the beta test period?"
"It’s obvious. He used ridiculously large amounts of money and bought the information about the beta period from the «Rat». In order to deduce the identity of the hyena that snuck into the raid party."
——Liar. Argo, even if she would sell information on herself, would never sell information on other beta testers.
As I clenched my teeth, the front row gave a loud cheer. The boss's long HP gauge had finally reached the fourth and final layer.
My attention was drawn to the front lines. It looked like Groups F
and G were retreating after taking out the third HP gauge, and in their place the fully recovered Group C was rushing towards the boss. The party leader was the commander of the raid itself, the blue haired knight Diabel. Even in the dim light of the dungeon, his blue hair glittered brilliantly.
"Uguruooooooooooooo——!!"
«Illfang the Kobold Lord» gave out a particularly ferocious roar. At the same time, the final wave of three «Ruin Kobold Sentinels»
jumped out of their holes in the walls.
"…More small fry Kob, this time I won't let even one go. I won't let you LA them."
His voice dripping with hatred, Kibaou returned to his comrades in Group E.
While still feeling lingering shock and confusion, I reluctantly turned away and went to regroup with Asuna who was not far away.
"……What did you talk about?"
As she asked quietly, I just shook my head.
"No…—First, let's defeat our opponents."
"……Yes."
After our brief exchange, I plunged forward and aimed my sword at a Sentinel.
At that moment—
Sword Art Online Progressive - Volume 01 Page 9
