After they recovered the two discarded swords, Kirito and Leafa flew back to the landing before the guardian statues at the tree gate. To Leafa’s surprise, Recon had been obediently waiting there. His face ran through a blinding series of emotions upon seeing the black-clad spriggan next to her until, finally, he inquired, “So…how did it go?”
Leafa beamed and said, “We’re going to conquer the World Tree. Me, you, and him.”
“Oh…Wait—what?!”
He faltered backward, face pale. She patted him on the shoulder, wished him luck, and turned to look at the massive stone doors. They seemed to be emitting a freezing chill to intimidate all comers.
However, after having seen a warrior as great as Kirito mercilessly crushed by those guardian knights not long ago, Leafa didn’t think that adding two more to the party would make a difference. She looked over and saw that Kirito was biting his lip, his face tense.
But suddenly he looked up, as though pondering a sudden idea.
“You there, Yui?”
Before the words had finished coming out of his mouth, a light coalesced in midair and the familiar pixie was there. She put her hands on her hips and pouted, clearly furious.
“What took you so long? I can’t appear until you call me, Papa!”
“Sorry, sorry. Things were busy.”
He grinned apologetically and offered his palm to the pixie, who sat down on it. In a flash, Recon craned his neck over to examine her with rabid curiosity.
“W-wow, is this a Private Pixie?! I’ve never seen one before! Holy cow, she’s so cute!!”
Yui pulled back in concern, eyes wide. “Wh-who is this person?!”
“Come on, you’re scaring her,” Leafa scolded Recon, pulling him away by the ear. “You don’t have to worry about him, he’s not dangerous.”
“Um…okay,” Kirito said, blinking in surprise. He turned back to Yui. “So, did you learn anything from that battle?”
“Yes,” she replied, an adorably serious look on her little face. “Those guardian monsters aren’t all that impressive in terms of stats—it’s their appearance patterns that are dangerous. The closer to the gate you got, the faster they spawned. At the closest point, they were appearing twelve per second. I can only assume it was designed to be impossible…”
“Hmm.” Kirito nodded, his face severe. “You wouldn’t notice because each individual guardian goes down in a hit or two, but as a total, they add up to an unbeatable, titanic boss. They’re going to tantalize the player base and make it virtually impossible, but just easy enough to keep them interested. That’ll make this very tough…”
“But, Papa, your skill levels are also off the charts. With your instantaneous bursts of strength, it might be possible.”
“. . .”
Kirito lapsed into silence again, then looked at last to Leafa.
“I’m sorry. Can I ask you to indulge me one last time? I know it would be easier to find more people or search for another way, rather than attempting this madness again. But…I just have a bad feeling. Like we’re running out of time…”
His suggestion gave Leafa the momentary idea to send a message to the Lord’s Mansion in Swilvane. Lady Sakuya might be able to send the highest-level sylphs to assist their battle.
But she bit her lip and quickly abandoned the idea. The image of the undine party down in Jotunheim early that morning flooded into her mind. They’d tried to hunt an unresisting Deviant God against Leafa’s pleas, prioritizing efficiency and safety.
Her friend Sakuya would not think the same way as the undines, of course. But she was the leader of their people and bore great responsibility. Her position demanded commonsense decisions for the sake of the entire race. Even if they did eventually make an attempt on the World Tree, it would only be after ample preparations. They would not fly out en masse, prepped for the slaughter, on Leafa’s request alone.
After a brief silence, she looked up and stated clearly, “All right. Let’s try it one more time. I’ll do anything I can to help…and so will he.”
“Awww…”
She elbowed Recon in the ribs and he exhibited his very best droopy-eyebrowed whimper. But he grudgingly admitted that he and Leafa were of one body and mind, nodding in resignation.
The stone doors opened with a rumbling that seemed to issue from the very center of the earth. Leafa’s wings trembled slightly at the eerie aura that seemed to flow from the space beyond. She’d been in a blind haste when racing after Kirito earlier, but standing in front of it now, she had to admit there was a palpable feeling of pressure exuding from the place.
But on the inside, she was surprisingly calm.
She was in the eye of the storm. Both here and in the real world, everything was loudly and alarmingly changing around her. She had no idea where it was all taking her. All she could do was fly, to the best of her ability, toward the light on the horizon.
Kirito, Leafa, and Recon drew their blades. Along with Yui, four pairs of eyes examined one another. Wings were spread.
Kirito signaled the charge, and they rose as one, flying into the dome.
Their plan called for Kirito to begin racing upward as fast as he could toward the gate in the center of the dome. Leafa and Recon would remain near the floor and ready their healing spells.
She could see the glowing surfaces on the ceiling begin to drip downward into gigantic white shapes. They bore down on Kirito, screeching in that horrible way. When the first wave of knights met the now-tiny spriggan in midair, a rumbling blast of light shook the dome.
Upon seeing several of the giants fall to pieces, split through the torso, Recon murmured, “…Wow.”
The force of his blade was indeed formidable. But the sight of what was happening beyond Kirito’s mad dash sent chills throughout Leafa’s body.
There were just too many of them. The sheer density of the forces pouring out of the latticed ceiling was beyond any scale of game balance. Even the dungeons in Jotunheim, the most diabolical zone in all of ALO, wouldn’t feature spawn rates anywhere near this pace.
The guardian knights bunched up into packs and dashed themselves against Kirito in roiling waves. Each collision resulted in a bright flash, after which the large white bodies would fall to pieces like snow. But for every one vanquished, three more appeared.
When he was halfway to the gate, Kirito had lost about 10 percent of his hit points. Leafa and Recon didn’t miss a beat in unleashing the healing magic they’d kept stored for that moment. Blue light surrounded Kirito’s body, and his gauge began to refill.
But when the spell reached him, something terrible happened.
The lowest-flying pack of guardian knights screeched in unison and turned toward them.
“Aaah…” Recon gasped in panic.
Leafa could feel the gaze behind their mirror masks directed at her. She clenched her teeth.
Leafa and Recon agreed not to target Kirito with anything other than healing spells to minimize the notice they might draw. Normally, monsters didn’t pounce unless a player moved into their response zone, or attacked them with ranged weapons or spells.
But these guardians ran on a different algorithm than the monsters outside, one more dangerous and pernicious. If they could target even players casting support spells, then the orthodox system—attackers in the front, healers in the back—meant nothing.
The half-dozen knights ignored Leafa’s silent plea to buzz off and descended on multiple pairs of wings. They carried enormous swords, each easily taller than her, that glinted with a hungry light.
She turned to Recon and shouted, “I’ll draw them away—just keep healing!”
And without waiting for an answer, she made to rise. But Recon, who had always obeyed her commands in battle, grabbed her hand. When she turned around in shock, his voice was trembling, but his eyes were hard.
“Leafa…I don’t understand everything that’s going on here, but it’s important to you, right?”
“That’s right. This time, it’s not just a game.”
“I don’t think I can match up to that spriggan…but I’ll find a way to deal with those guardians.”
Recon leaped into the air, controller stick in his hand. And as Leafa watched, dumbfounded, he flew off, charging directly into the swarm of knights.
“Y-you idiot…”
They were far beyond his ability, but it was too late for her to make up the distance by now. Meanwhile, across the dome, Kirito’s HP bar was inching back down from its formerly full position. Leafa had no choice but to start chanting a healing spell. Even as she spoke the familiar words, she couldn’t help but keep a nervous eye on Recon.
Recon unleashed the area-effect wind spell he’d been saving directly into the cloud of guardian knights. Multiple green blades fanned out and sliced through the onrushing knights. Their HP bars hardly took a dent, but it did have the effect of drawing all of their attention to him.
The white giants roared with distorted voices and closed in on the tiny green speck that dared to challenge them. Recon swished and darted like a leaf blown in a gale, just barely retreating out of the range of their swings. They raced after him.
Leafa finished casting and hurled her spell at Kirito, who was fighting far above. Again, it drew the notice of several guardians, who descended after her. This fresh group merged with the swarm following Recon, growing the white cloud to twice its size.
Recon had never been an expert at air battles, but he showed considerable concentration in evading the onslaught of swords. The occasional sword tip clipped his body, but no critical blows had swallowed up his HP yet.
“…Recon…”
Leafa was struck by the desperate effort of his flight, but it clearly would not last forever. Each time she cast a healing spell on Kirito, the number of knights descending on them grew.
Eventually, the pursuing guardians split into two groups and prepared to execute a pincer attack on Recon. One among the rain of blows caught him square in the back, smashing him through the air.
“That’s enough, Recon! Flee to the outside!” she screamed, unable to watch anymore. As long as the battle still raged inside, anyone who left the arena could not return. She’d just have to do her best to hold them off. Leafa took to the air, preparing another healing spell.
But at that moment, Recon turned back to her. Leafa’s wings stopped when she saw the purposeful smile on his face.
Despite the many sword blows, Recon began casting a new spell. His body glowed with a deep purple light.
Leafa held her breath, realizing that it was the shine of dark magic. A complex magical sigil began to form in midair, and based on its size, it must have been a high-level spell. Dark magic was so rare around sylph lands that she had no idea what effect this one might have.
The sigil unfolded again and again, growing ever larger, until it finally engulfed all of the attacking knights. For an instant, the complex runes and figures contracted— then shone with an overwhelming light.
“Ah—!!”
Leafa had to turn her face from the blinding glow. An explosion so great it sounded like the earth splitting apart shot through the entire dome.
It took a full second for her eyesight to recover from pure white. Leafa looked toward the center of the explosion with her hands up for shielding, and what she saw left her speechless. The entire pack of tightly clustered knights was gone without a trace. Only a few wisps of purple light remained.
It was an unbelievable blast. There were no wind-magic area spells that powerful—not even any fire spells. Leafa cheered even as she wondered how Recon had acquired this incredible ace up his sleeve. A few more of those, and they might just be able to reach the gate after all. She prepared to cast a healing spell on him—and froze again.
Recon was nowhere to be seen in the last remnants of the explosion. There was only a tiny green Remain Light floating in the air.
“A…self-destruct spell…?” she wondered aloud. But then she remembered once hearing about such a dark magic spell long ago. It was practically a forbidden art—in exchange for its power, the ordinary death penalty was several times worse.
After a few moments of silence, Leafa shut her eyes tight. It was just a game, just experience points, but the effort and intent Recon had expended for their sake was true sacrifice. They could not retreat now. She opened her eyes again and looked up.
What she saw turned her legs to jelly.
The ceiling of the dome was now one entire mass of squirming, teeming white shapes.
The tiny black dot that was Kirito was close, so close to the top. With each flash of his sword, more knights fell to pieces, but it was like trying to dig a hole in a massive sand dune with but a needle. The wall of white flesh would give way for a brief moment, only to be filled just as quickly.
“Raaahhh!!”
Leafa could just barely hear Kirito’s bloodcurdling roar. She raised her hands to cast a healing spell, but let them drop almost immediately.
“We can’t, Big Brother…It’s just too much…”
To be honest, she’d never taken Kirito’s story about Asuna’s soul being trapped in this game at face value. This was a game, a world to be enjoyed. Her brain couldn’t help but reject the idea that this wonderful place shared anything in common with the nightmare of SAO.
But now, for the first time, Leafa began to sense a kind of malice within the system. Some unseen force, which was supposedly keeping everything in a fair balance, was wickedly, cruelly swinging a bloody scythe at the players’ necks within this arena. There was no way to overcome this trap.
A low, twisted sound echoed throughout the dome like a chanted curse. Some of the guardian knights fell still, incanting a spell with their left arms extended. It was the Rain of Arrows spell that had stopped Kirito in his tracks the first time. The arrows caused enough of a stun effect for the sword blows to land next.
Leafa tensed up, imagining the sight of Kirito’s body skewered by countless blades.
Suddenly, a roil of voices swept up from behind Leafa, over her vapid wings.
“Huh…?!”
She turned to see a party of sylph warriors, clad in gleaming new-green metal, pouring through the door in tight formation.
They were outfitted with full sets of what appeared to be ancient weapons, or something similar. Like a storm gust in the spring, they rushed past Leafa and headed straight for the dome’s ceiling. There must have been at least fifty of them.
Stunned into silence, Leafa could only watch closely enough to call up their cursors as they passed. She couldn’t see faces behind the heavy visors, but all the names that appeared on the cursors were the best of the best in sylph territory. Upon hearing their roar, the guardian knights preparing their spells stopped and began to shift tactics.
Leafa’s back crawled with chills somewhere between excitement and overwhelming awe. But they were not the only ones coming to tackle the dome.
A few seconds after the last members of the sylph raid party came through the door, more shouts echoed through, accompanied by the thunderbolt roars of great beasts.
This new group was of much smaller number than the sylphs, perhaps ten in all. Individually, however, they were much larger.
“Dragons!” Leafa exclaimed.
It was a pack of dragons with gray scales, each the size of several players lined up head to foot. As proof that these creatures were not wild, the dragons were outfitted with gleaming golden armor on their foreheads, chests, and the fronts of their wings.
Pairs of silver chains extended from the head armor as reins, which the riders on the beasts’s saddles gripped. These dragon knights had brand-new armor of their own, but there was no missing the triangular ears or the long, sinewy tails extending out the backs of their leggings.
These were dragoons, the ultimate fighting force of the cait siths. The legendary warriors were kept hidden from the public—there wasn’t even a screenshot floating about on the Internet. But here they were, in the flesh.
Leafa’s wings were at full extension, the very blood in her veins seeming to dance with elation. Suddenly, she heard someone call out from behind her.
“Sorry it took so long.”
She turned around to see Lady Sakuya, leader of the sylphs, in her wooden geta sandals and kimono. Next to her was Lady Alicia Rue of the cait siths, whose ears flapped as she said, “So sorry. It took every member of the leprechaun blacksmith’s guild until just now to finish up all the equipment and dragon armor. We spent all the money the spriggan gave us, plus all of our vault savings!”
“Meaning that if this fails, both of our races are bankrupt,” Sakuya noted coolly, arms crossed.
They came. And so fast, knowing that both of them risked losing their prestigious positions. This joint force between two races so transcended the typical MMORPG battle over resources and risk management that surely even the game developers had never expected it to happen.
“Thank you…thank you both,” Leafa said, her voice trembling. There really are things in this world more important than rules and manners, she told herself, heart soaring. There was nothing more to say.
Both leaders told her the time for thanks was later. They turned to survey the ceiling of the dome with severe skepticism. Sakuya loudly snapped her fan shut.
“Let us join the fray!”
All three nodded in agreement and leaped into the air. Above them, several groups of white guardians were dripping down from the ceiling to meet the charging sylph platoon. High in the center, Kirito was still locked in fierce battle, but he seemed to have noticed the cavalry’s arrival, because he stopped attempting to rise for a moment, keeping his distance from the ceiling.
Alicia Rue flew directly to the center of the chamber and raised her hand, shouting in a clear (but precious) voice:
“Dragoons! Prepare breath attack!”
The ten dragon knights formed a wide, hovering circle around the three of them. The dragons spread their wings wide and curved their necks into S shapes, orange flickers of fire visible behind their deadly fangs.