AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK AM, WE REACHED THE LABYRINTH.
At twelve thirty, we were on the top floor.
I was secretly relieved that we at least hadn’t lost anyone so far. After all, the majority of our group’s members were no doubt experiencing their very first raid at near-full capacity. And in this world, every “first” experience was fraught with the possibility of accidents.
I did get the chills on three separate occasions. Teams F and G, who were equipped with long weapons like spears and halberds, were ambushed along their flanks by kobolds in narrow corridors. During close battle in SAO, accidentally grazing another player with a swing caused no damage (and hence no crime), but it acted as a blocking obstacle that canceled out any low-level sword skills. It happened more often to spears, given their long reach, making surprise attacks by close-range enemies quite dangerous.
Diavel made excellent use of his leadership qualities in the face of this predicament. He boldly commanded the other members aside from a single team leader to stand down, used a heavy sword skill to knock the monsters off-balance, then switched out for close-range fighters. It was the kind of strategy that only someone familiar with leading a party could employ so quickly and assuredly.
In that sense, perhaps it was presumptuous for a solo player to be concerned about “too much excitement” before we’d left. Diavel had his own philosophy on how to lead, and as a member of this raid who’d come this far, it was now my duty to put my full trust in him.
Finally, the massive doors were visible ahead. I stood up on tiptoes to see over the rest of the group.
The gray stone surface was adorned with reliefs of terrible humanoids with the heads of beasts. In most MMOs, the kobold was nothing more than a typical starting monster, but in SAO they were fearsome demihumans. They brandished swords and axes, which meant they could use sword skills of their own. Because skills were far faster, stronger and more accurate than simple swinging attacks, even a low-level skill could deal astonishing damage if it landed a critical hit on a defenseless target. The fact that Asuna had made it to the top level of the labyrinth using nothing more than the simple Linear attack proved just how powerful sword skills could be in the right hands.
“Listen up for a sec,” I murmured to Asuna, leaning close. “The Ruin Kobold Sentinels we’re supposed to fight are only like bodyguards for the actual boss, but they’re plenty tough. Like I explained yesterday, their heads and chests are armored, so just hurling Linear at them over and over isn’t going to work.”
The fencer’s glare shot back at me from under her hood. “I know that. I have to hit them straight in the throat.”
“That’s right. I’ll use my sword skills to knock back their poleaxes, and then you switch in and finish them off.”
She nodded and turned to the giant doors. I stared at her profile for a few more seconds.
The only difference is when and where you die, sooner or later, she’d claimed on our first encounter. I couldn’t let her prove that statement. Asuna’s Linear suggested an incredible talent, and she had no idea. Not all shooting stars burned up in the atmosphere. Some of them withstood the fires and made their way to earth.
If she survived today’s battle, I was certain that she would be known all throughout Aincrad as the fastest and most beautiful swordsman in the game. Countless players crushed by fear and desperation could look to her guiding light. I was certain of it. That role was something I could never fulfill myself, with my beta testing past.
I swallowed my determination and faced forward. Diavel had just arranged the seven other parties into perfect formation.
Even our charismatic leader couldn’t simply lead a lighthearted cheer now. Humanoid monsters would detect the shouts and come running.
Instead, Diavel raised his longsword and gave a hearty nod. Forty-three others brandished their weapons and signaled back.
His blue hair waving, the knight put his other hand on the center of the door.
“Let’s go!” he shouted, and pushed hard.
Was it always this vast?
My first thought upon setting foot in the first-floor boss chamber after four months was skepticism.
It was a rectangular room that stretched away from us. It had to be roughly sixty feet from side to side, and closer to three hundred from the far wall to the door. Given that the rest of the floor had been mapped out, the empty space remaining on the map was a good indication of the size of the room, but it seemed much larger in person than it did on the page.
That distance was actually rather troublesome.
The giant doors on Aincrad’s boss chambers did not close during a battle. If all seemed lost, there was always the option of running back to the door to avoid total defeat. However, turning your back to the opponent left a player defenseless against long-distance sword skills that could cause movement delay, if not a total stun effect. Therefore, it was better to retreat backward while still facing the boss. In a vast room like this, that distance might seem endless. Retreat would be easier in the higher-floor boss battles, after players had earned the teleport crystals that allowed instantaneous escape. On the other hand, they were extremely expensive, so using them would be a very costly retreat, indeed.
As I pondered the various scenarios for withdrawal, a crude torch on the right wall of the dark chamber audibly burst into life. One after another, torches lit themselves down the walls.
With each successive source of light, the gamma level in the room increased. Cracked paving stones and walls. Countless skulls of various sizes. An ugly but massive throne at the far end of the chamber, and a silhouette seated upon it …
Diavel brought down his sword in its direction. At that signal, forty-four warriors raised a valiant roar and raced through the chamber.
First down the chamber was a hammer-wielding fighter with a large heater shield like a metal plate, the leader of team A. Just behind them and to the left were Agil the axe warrior and his team B. On the right were team C, made of Diavel and his five party mates, and team D, led by a man with a very tall greatsword. Behind that line were Kibaou’s team E and the two polearm teams, F and G.
And last of all, two forgotten stragglers.
Just as the leader at the head of team A reached sixty feet from the throne, the previously immobile figure leapt up ferociously. It did a flip in midair and landed with an earth-shaking crash, then opened a wolflike jaw and roared.
“Grruaaah!!”
The appearance of Illfang the Kobold Lord, king of the beastmen, was exactly as I remembered it. His burly body was covered in grayish hair and easily over six feet tall. His reddish-gold eyes glinted menacingly, thirsty for blood. In his right hand was an axe fashioned from bone, and in his left, a buckler of skins and leather. Hanging off the back of his waist was a massive talwar that had to be nearly five feet long.
The kobold lord raised his bone axe and swung it down upon the leader of team A with all of his strength. The thick heater shield took the brunt head-on, and a bright flash and fierce shudder filled the room.
As though that sound was a signal, three heavily armed monsters leapt down from holes high on the side walls. These were the Ruin Kobold Sentinels that accompanied their leader. Kibaou’s team E and their backup team G descended on the three to draw their attention. Asuna and I shared a look and dashed over to the nearest kobold.
And so it was that at 12:40 on December 4, the first boss monster in Aincrad was finally challenged.
Illfang’s HP gauge had four bars. He fought with his axe and shield through the third bar, but at the final stage, he would throw them aside and produce his giant talwar. The change in his attacking patterns was the biggest challenge in his fight, but this transition was detailed fully in Argo’s guide. At yesterday’s meeting, we’d spent plenty of time studying the change in his sword skills once switching to the talwar, and how to counteract them.
As I dealt with the sentinels that slipped away from teams E and G, I kept an eye on the state of the front line. It seemed like the strategy would hold strong. The switches and pot rotation of the tanks and attackers were working smoothly, and the average HP readouts of all the individual parties listed on the left side of my vision showed a solid 80 percent across the board.
Please, please let this hold up, I prayed with all my being—something I never did as a solo player.