Sword Art Online - Volume 8 - Early and Late Page 16

  However, in MMORPGs, it is impossible for items to never be found. The details were still unclear, but since the location of the sword appeared on the news site like that at last, a lot of players would be rushing to Jötunheimr, some of which might have already entered the aerial dungeon.

  “…What are you going to do, Onii-chan?”

  Suguha asked, lifting her glass of milk with both hands after she finished off her second toast.

  Against that, I cleared my throat to respond.

  “Sugu, pursuing rare items isn’t the only pleasures of VRMMOs.”

  “…Yeah, that’s true. Even if the weapon specs are strong…”

  “However, I think we must answer the feelings of Tonkii, who showed us the sword. As for that fellow, surely he hopes we will break through the dungeon. Because to us, Tonkii is a friend, right.”

  “…Earlier, you said he was disgusting…”

  I asked my younger sister with damp eyes, and the biggest possible smile.

  “So, Sugu, are you free today?”

  “…Well, my club is on break.”

  Good! I punched my right fist into my left palm. And changing the gears of my thoughts, I started talking about the capture strategy really quickly.

  “The maximum number of people Tonkii could reliably carry is seven. So, with Sugu and me, Asuna, Klein, Silica, and Lis… that leaves one more person. Agil is busy with his shop… Chrysheight is unreliable, Recon is at the Sylph capital…”

  “…How about try to invite Sinon-san.”

  “That’s it!”

  I snapped my fingers and immediately took out my cell phone, scrolling through the phone book.

  Earlier this month, I was involved in a certain case in GGO - «Gun Gale Online», and converted Kirito, I met a female player named Sinon there. After solving the case, Sinon became friends with Lis and Asuna, who invited her to make a character in ALO.

  But since it is a new character that has only been used for two weeks since it was made, for an all skill system like ALO, the average of many of her numerical stats was still low. But with Sinon’s senses, she should be able to stand tall even in very difficult dungeons.

  Opposite me, who was sending e-mails at maximum speed, Suguha quickly stacked the plates and glasses, and took them to the kitchen. It might be just my imagination, but her footsteps had a bounce to them. Perhaps, no matter what she says, she was planning it to turn out like this when she showed me the news.

  Diving into the other world with my companions, challenging a difficult and thrilling mission. Something more fun than this would be hard to find.

  Once I had finished sending an invitation to five people, including Sinon, via e-mail, I did a short run to the kitchen to help Suguha.

  Even though it’s a Sunday, to so easily gather a seven people party in the year-end morning, it must by the inviter’s natural virtue—no, it must be the result of the «Holy Sword Excaliber» strongly calling out to their gamer souls. Compared to half a year ago when Asuna, Lyfa, Yui, and I challenged it, this time we have more people and our individual stats are far higher.

  Our meeting place was at Yggdrasil City’s main street, where a signboard stating «Lisbeth’s Arms Shop» was. The Leprechaun storekeeper was sharpening everyone’s weapons in order on a whetstone wheel. Before a large-scale quest, it was common sense to revive the durability of our equipment to the max.

  To that Salamander katana user, Klein, who was sitting on the bench next the wall with legs crossed, with the excuse of «cheering up», and tilting a wine bottle back in the morning—of course, even so not one milliliter of alcohol entered his real body—the Cait Sith Beastmaster Silica, who had the fluffy blue dragon on her head, asked him.

  “Klein-san, are you already on New Year vacation?”

  “As of yesterday. There are no loads at this time even if I want to work. Our president is proud of our super white company having a week of vacation before and after year-end!”

  Even looking like that, Klein is a proper member-of-society employee that works at a small import company. He always speaks ill of his company President, but he was taken good care of during his two years of imprisonment in SAO, and after Klein returned alive, he was immediately able to return to work, so it must be a good company. Klein also seems to feel indebted to him, and recently developed a long distance presentation system using a mobile camera and «the seed» package. For me who helped a lot in modifying that camera, only treating me to all-you-can-eat roasted meat once was a bit hard to swallow, but I will call it even for him helping me with today’s quest—.

  Leaning against the wall while I thought, the object of my thought, Klein, looked at me and said.

  “Hey Kirito, if we succeed today in getting «Holy Sword Excaliber», next time you can help me get «Spirit Katana Kagutsuchi».”

  “What… that dungeon is damn hot…”

  “If you say that then Jötunheimr we are going to today is damn cold!”

  While we were having our low-level argument, a subdued voice came from the left.

  “Ah, then I want that «Light Bow Shekhinah».”

  I looked at the person who stopped talking. Leaning on the wall with her back same as me, standing with arms crossed, from short light blue hair, grew sharp triangle shaped ears, was a female Cait Sith player. If Silica was a friendly munchkin type, then this was a cool Siamese cat—no, she would be a ferocious wildcat.

  “You only made your character two weeks ago, and you already desire a legendary weapon?”

  In response to my question, the wildcat’s slim long tail moved in a waving motion and answered.

  “The bow Lis made is wonderfully constructed, but I would like it to have a little more range if possible…”

  At that moment, from the workbench deep in her workshop, Lisbeth who was just then changing the string on that bow turned around and replied with a forced smile.

  “You there, the bows in this world, are a weapon with more range than a spear but less range than magic! Aiming at more than 100 meters away is just not normal!”

  In contrast, the wildcat just shrugged, and put on an unruffled smiled.

  “What I would really like is double that range.”

  At her home base in GGO, she was an over 2000 meters ultra long-range sniper, knowing that, I could not help but make a stiff smile. If she really got that bow, in duels without area range limit, before you can bring a sword into range, you would be shot with arrows like a hedgehog and that would be the END.

  The water color haired wildcat—is a new friend, Sinon that came to ALO two weeks ago, with just one day of practice, she fully mastered the hard to use bow. Speaking of archers in ALO, it can be mobile Sylphs with short bows, or Gnomes who excel in endurance and strength using a heavy ballista as a mobile battery, she totally ignored those theories and instead focused on range with a longbow, choosing to be a Cait Sith, the race with the best eyesight out of the nine for her build. Thinking of letting her do what she wants at the beginning and other things, but seeing her arrows hitting in longer range than fire-attribute magic, and killing monsters before they can approach her, I ended up kneeling to her inside my heart.

  The arrow from bows in this world, under normal distance, has system assist like magic attacks for target hit support, beyond that distance, wind and gravity influence will make the arrow miss the target. However, GGO used a common engine to simulate «the effects of wind and gravity», so it was like Sinon had been training on manual correction for years. It’s the same as when I went to GGO and used «view detection» skill that is not in the system, this means the similarities for VRMMO made using The Seed, still has things in it that I did not think of—.

  While I was thinking about various things, the workshop door to my right was flung open forcefully.

  “I am back!” “Sorry for the wait.”

  The owners of those voices were Lyfa and Asuna, who had gone potion shopping. It seems they did not put the objects into their item slots,
but carried them back from the market in the baskets they carried, they dumped various small bottles and nuts onto the table in the center of the room.

  A little fairy flew from Asuna’s shoulder—she was a Navigation Pixie named Yui, landed on my head and sat down. My Avatar, the Spriggan «Kirito», had long pointed hair, at Yui’s request now I have my old hairstyle. The reason was it was «hard to sit on».

  On my head, Yui started speaking in a voice like a bell.

  “I gathered some information while we were shopping, there was not any player or party that have reached that aerial dungeon, papa.”

  “Oh… Then, why is «Excaliber»‘s location known?”

  “Apparently, a different quest than the Tonkii one we discovered was found. That quest’s reward seems to be the NPC showing Excaliber’s location.”

  Hearing Yui’s words, Asuna, who was organizing the potions, turned around with her Undine’s only long blue hair waving, made a small frown and nodded.

  MMORPG game term, POP: Contraction of Repopulation, often used as a shortened term for the re-spawn of monsters where some of the respawned monsters are more profitable or opportune for players to kill first.

  “And apparently, it wasn’t a peaceful quest either. Rather than errand or guard type, it was a slaughter type. Now, thanks to that, it is a brutal fight to claim re-pop monsters in Jötunheimr.”

  “…That surely won’t be calm…”

  I twisted my lips, too.

  PvP stands for Player vs Player (ie: battles where players are pitted against one another)

  Slaughter type, as the name indicates, «Defeat over xx number of xx type monster» or «Gather xx number of drop items from xx type monster», that kind of quest. Naturally, because it is a quest that requires a party to keep hunting a certain type of monster in a certain area, when other parties on the same quest is in the same small area, the scramble for the best re-pops, that is the re-spawned monsters inevitably leads to PvP battles.

  “But, isn’t that strange?”

  Klein who finished his bottle of brandy, wiped his lips and opened his mouth.

  “«Holy Sword Excaliber» is sealed in the deepest chamber in an aerial dungeon guarded by powerful evil-gods right? What does it mean to have a quest reward from an NPC reveal it?”

  “Now that you say it, it does seem so.”

  Silica too, while hugging Fina who came down from her head to her chest, tilted her head.

  “If it’s a reward for transportation to the dungeon, that’s understandable…”

  “—Well, we’ll understand once we get there, I’m sure.”

  Next to me, the comment from Sinon was as cool as ever, and Lisbeth cried out from deep in her workshop just after that.

  “Great! All weapons, full recovery!”

  “Thanks for your hard work!!”

  Everyone sang a chorus in appreciation. Then took their shining like new, loving sword, katana, bow and other weapons back and equipped them. Next, from the table, Asuna divided the potions into seven portions by inherent command capability, we took them and put them in the belt pouch at our waists. Then stored the items we couldn’t carry in our item slots.

  Taking a quick glance at the real world time display in the lower right hand corner of my view, I saw it was just 11:00 AM. We would take a lunch and restroom break at some time, but probably can make it to the first safety zone in the aerial dungeon.

  Looking around, I saw that preparations were complete by all seven + one + one dragon, and cleared my throat to get everyone’s attention.

  “Everyone, thank you for coming today in response to my urgent call! I’ll repay you for this one day, in spirit! Well then—let’s do our best!”

  Ooo! It might have been my imagination, but there seemed to be slightly wry smiles mixed into that chorus. Turning around and opening the door of the workshop, I aimed for the secret tunnel which led from Aarun that is below Yggdrasil to the underworld, Jötunheimr, and started my boots forward.

  Part 2

  The narrow alley, which wasn’t shown on the map of Aarun’s back streets, split left and right, the stairs went up and down until it reached a door at the garden of a private house we passed previously.

  It was an unremarkable rounded wooden door, it actually lead people to think of it as a decorative object, which could not be opened. Lyfa put a small copper key from her pouch into the key hole, and turned it, causing a clear Clink unlocking sound. The key was added to our storage without my knowledge when Tonkii carried us through the tunnel for the first time. So it could be said that it was impossible to open the door from the Aarun side.

  I grabbed the iron hoops and pulled, the wooden door slid open in the middle to the left and right, revealing the interior descending stairs. Once the line of all seven people went past, and Klein, who was at the end of the line, closed the door, it automatically locked itself again.

  “Uwahh……What are these steps for?”

  the capacity of an optical system to resolve point objects as separate images.

  Lisbeth, who came here for the first time, couldn’t help but exclaim loudly. The descending stairs which was the floor of the tunnel had a diameter of around two meters, it was illuminated by the small lamps on the wall, emitting a pallid phosphorescent light, and the length of the stairs seemed to continue into the limit of resolution.

  “Hmm, it is like part of the Aincrad’s labyrinth tower zone.”

  The answer came from Asuna who was at the start of the line and had already stepped down the stairs; Lis, Silica, and Klein’s faces showed surprise at the same time. I made a wry smile, then stressed my gratitude toward this tunnel.

  “Well, if you think about going to Jötunheimr using the normal route, first you have to find the stairway dungeon, which is located on the unknown location on the Aarun plateau, advance inside while fighting the monsters, and lastly, defeat the boss guarding the place. One party would still require at least two hours to do that, but this route only takes five minutes! If I was Lyfa, I’d start a business here collecting toll of a thousand Yurudo per entry.”

  “Hey, Onii-chan, exiting here without Tonkii will drop you to an unavoidable death at the large underground hollow in the middle of Jötunheimr though.”

  Lyfa said while making a tired face, she was always too straight.

  At the very center of the large underground world, Jötunheimr was a big bottomless hole with a diameter of around 1.5 kilometers, it had been given names like «Deep Central Hollow» or «Great Void». The holy sword Excaliber was sealed within the air maze inside the upside down pyramid, which protruded from the canopy right above that void. The exit of the stairs we were running down was close to the air maze, and was also located high up in the sky over the void, jumping over will certainly result in going down that bottomless pit and to our deaths, returning to the save point above the ground with no question asked.

  Ahem, I cleared my throat and said with a strict face.

  “Well, for that reason, let’s take each step with appreciation and without complaining, gentlemen.”

  “It wasn’t you who made this though”

  Sinon who was walking in front of me immediately responded. Still as cool and straight as ever, I should express the gratitude for this Tsukkon properly.

  A traditional style of stand-up comedy in Japanese culture, which usually involves two performers —a straight man (tsukkomi) and a funny man (boke)—trading jokes at great speed.

  “Thanks for the Tsukkomi.”

  Saying thanks, and at the same time grabbing hold of the light blue tail swaying in front of me to substitute a hand shake.

  “Fugyaa!!”

  Suddenly, the wildcat archer made a loud scream and jumped. She turned around, and skillfully ran back up, but I pulled my face back with ease before both her claws could make a scratch.

  The triangular ears and tail unique to the Cait Sith race were of course organs human don’t have, however, they could sense the feeling using an unk
nown mechanism. Being grabbed hard by a player who wasn’t aware of the fact would cause a «super weird feeling»——Silica’s explanation——for that reason, the reaction was always very amusing.

  “You, the next time you do this I’ll shoot a fire arrow straight up your nostril!”

  Hmph! In front of Sinon who turned around quickly; Lyfa, Lis, Silica, Asuna, with Yui sitting on her shoulder all shook their heads in a flawlessly synchronized motion. Klein who was behind them groaned in admiration, “You just don’t know fear, huh.”

  Just under the expected five minutes, as the party was passing through the outer crust of Alfheim via the tunnel stairs, a dim white light could be seen at the end of the tunnel.

  At the same time, the coldness of the virtual atmosphere increased with each step. The sparkling ice crystals started glittering in front of their faces.

  After a few seconds, we were finally out of the crust, our vision caught sight of the bird’s eye view of Jötunheimr. The stairs which were carved into the thick tree root continued on in midair for about fifteen more meters before it ended.

  “Uu……waah……!!”

  “Wow……”

  Sinon and Silica, the two cats who saw Jötunheimr for the first time raised their voices at the same time. Even the small dragon Pina on Silica’s head flapped its wings energetically.

  Spread below the eyes and covered in the massive amount of snow and ice was the beautiful and harsh world of eternal night. Illumination came from the huge ice crystals protruding from the canopy surrounding us, which refracted a small amount of light from the ground above. Other light sources were from the yellow-green or purple-blue burning bonfires at the castle and fortress of the evil-god tribes scattered here and there on the surface. The height from the ground to the center of the canopy could reach one kilometer, the countless numbers of evil-gods on the field couldn’t be seen from this height. And right below was the huge bottomless pit, inhaling all light, the «Void».