After making sure that they had gone out of range on the map, Asuna and I let out a sigh of relief.

"...the rumor, it's true..."

I whispered to Asuna with my coat still over her.

"Rumor?"

"Yeah. I heard at the guild meeting that "The Army" was changing how they worked and have started appearing on the higher floors. They were once a group that was trying to clear the game, right? But after the damage they received while fighting the boss on the twenty-fifth floor, they began focusing on strengthening their group and stopped fighting on the front lines. aSo, rather than going into the labyrinth in enormous numbers like they used to and causing a huge stir, they've decided to send smaller, more elite units in and try to show that they're still endeavoring to clear the game. The report guessed that the first unit would appear soon."

"So they're advertising their skill. But are they really okay just charging into an unexplored area...? They looked like they have pretty high levels but..."

"Maybe...they're going to try to beat the boss..."

Within every labyrinth, there was a boss that guarded the stairs to the next floor. They didn't regenerate and they were really strong, but the reputation and popularity gained for beating them would be huge. It would be very effective as an advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"So they gathered those people...? But that's still stupid. n.o.body has even seen the boss of the seventy-fourth floor yet. Usually, people keep sending in reconnaissance groups to a.n.a.lyze the boss' strength and fighting patterns."

"Well, even guilds work together to beat bosses. Maybe they're doing the same...?"

"I don't know... Well, they should know as well that going up against a boss like this is meaningless. We should hurry. I hope that we won't cross paths with them in there."

I got up and was a little disappointed that I had to let Asuna go. Asuna shivered as she got out.

"It's almost winter now... I should buy a coat too. Which shop did you buy that from?"

"Hmm...it was most probably a player shop in the western area of Algade."

"Then take me there when we're done exploring."

With that said, Asuna jumped down lightly onto the lane. I followed. Because of the system, this height wasn't a problem for me.

The sun was almost at its highest point. Asuna and I made our way down the lane quickly while paying attention to our surroundings.

Luckily, we got out of the forest without meeting even a single monster, and a meadow full of blue flowers appeared before us. The lane went straight through the meadow, and at its end the Labyrinth Area stood proudly.

At the highest part of this tower, there would be a huge room and a boss would be guarding the stairs to the next floor-the seventy-fifth floor in this case. If the boss was defeated and someone arrived at the living area of the next floor and activated the teleport gate, then this floor would be cleared.

The "City Opening" would be celebrated by a huge crowd of people from the lower floors that came to see the new city, and the whole place would become alive as if there was a festival. Right now, it had been nine days since people had begun actively exploring the seventy-fourth floor. It was about time that somebody discovered the boss.

The tower was a cylindrical building made out of reddish-brown limestone. It was a place that both Asuna and I had been in numerous times, but you couldn't help feeling intimidated by its immense size. Yet that size was only one-hundredth of Aincrad. It was a hopeless wish, but, secretly, I wanted to see the colossal floating castle from outside.

We couldn't see the unit from "The Army". They'd most likely already made it in. We walked towards the entrance, quickening our pace unconsciously.

Chapter 9.

More than a year had already pa.s.sed since the Knights of the Blood took the position of the best guild.

Since that time, the leader of the guild, the "Man of Legend", and the sub-leader Asuna the "Flash" both became renowned as two of the best warriors in Aincrad. Now I had a chance to watch Asuna, who had finished training the skills needed as a rapier-sword fencer, fight against a normal monster.

We were currently in the middle of a fight, and the enemy was a skeletal swordsman named "Demonic Servant". It was over two meters tall, surrounded by an eerie blue light, and held a huge straight sword in its right hand with a round metal shield in its left. Of course, it didn't have even a single muscle, yet, despite that, its strength stat was very high, which made it a hard monster to fight.

But Asuna didn't give any ground against it.

"Hrrrrgrrrr!"

With this strange cry, the skeleton swung its sword several times leaving a blue line of light in its wake. It was a four-hit combo skill: "Vertical Square". As I watched anxiously from a few steps back, Asuna stepped left and right, elegantly dodging all the blows.

Even if it was a 2-on-1 situation, we couldn't both fight at once when confronted by a fully armed enemy. It wasn't forbidden by the system, but when two people were too close together in a fight where swords swung to and fro at speeds faster than the eye could follow, it became more of a hindrance than a help. So when partying, a skill that required high levels of teamwork called "switching" was used.

After its full swing, the last blow of the four hits missed, and the Demonic Servant's posture fell slightly off-balance. Asuna didn't miss this chance and went straight into a counter-attack.

The jabs of the silver-white sword landed one after another, all spectacularly hitting their mark, and the skeleton's HP decreased. Each individual blow didn't deliver much damage, but the number of hits was overwhelming.

After getting hit by three short thrusts, the skeleton's guard went slightly up, and Asuna switched her style to slash twice at its legs. Then, with her blade tip shining blindingly white, she sent two strong jabs high and low.

It was an eight hit combo. It was most probably the high-level sword skill named "Star Splash". Striking the skeleton accurately with that thin blade, which was usually ineffective against such enemies, was a show of unbelievable skill.

The strength that had reduced about thirty percent of the skeleton's HP was also amazing, but I was lost within the elegance of the actual player. This must be what they mean by sword dancing.

Asuna shouted at me, who was standing there dumbly, as if she had eyes on the back of her head.

"Kirito-kun, switch!"

"Ah, kay!"

I rushed to raise my sword, and at the same time, Asuna performed a strong stab.

The skeleton deflected the blow with the shield held by its left hand and bright sparks came flying off. But that was an already expected outcome. The enemy was left stunned for a moment after guarding against the strong attack, unable to immediately counter.

Of course, Asuna was stunned as well after having her attack blocked, but the "gap" was what was important.

I immediately rushed in with a charge-type skill. Making a break point on purpose in the middle of a fight and trading places with a teammate was what was called "switching".

After making sure with the corner of my eye that Asuna had gotten out of range, I charged fiercely at the enemy. Unless you were a master like her, normal slashing attacks were most effective against opponents with far more "gaps" than this Demonic Servant. In this scenario, the most effective would be impact-type weapons like maces. But I, and most probably Asuna, didn't have any impact-type skills.

The "Vertical Square" that I used to hit the enemy all four times reduced a lot of its HP. The skeleton reacted slowly. This was because the monsters' AIs have a tendency to delay a moment before responding when the attacker's pattern suddenly changes. Yesterday, I had to invest a lot of time and effort to make this happen with the Lizardman, but when you've got a teammate, one switch was all you needed. This was the biggest advantage of fighting in a party.

I parried the counterattack and started a major skill to end the battle. I delivered a strong, downward strike to the right, then twisted my wrist and swung back up again, retracing the trajectory I went down in with a motion similar to that of a golf swing. Every time the sword hit the enemy's body, which was made completely out of bones, there was the sound of it impacting and a flow of orange light came out.

The skeleton raised its shield to block the blow that it thought was going to come from above, but I went against its expectations and rammed it with my left shoulder. Then I sent a vertical swing at the swaying skeleton, and without pause I rammed it again, with my right shoulder this time. It was a skill that overcame the problem of chaining strong attacks together by combining them with tackles: "Meteor Break". Not meaning to brag, but it was a skill that required unarmed-fighting skills as well as one-hand sword skills.

The enemy's HP took a big hit from all the attacks and was now in the red area. I put all the strength in my body behind the final horizontal left slash of the seven hit combo. The sword flew straight at the skeleton's neck, drawing a shining arc. The bone broke with a snapping sound and as the skull flew up into the air, the body fell to the ground like a puppet that had all its strings cut.

"We won!!"

Asuna slapped my back, where my sword was now.

We pushed the item distribution aside and started walking again.

Until now, we had fought with monsters four times but made it through with almost no damage dealt to us. Since Asuna's style involved throwing short jabs while my style was to chain large skills, it strained the monster's AI-in the sense of algorithms, not the actual CPU's processing abilities-and allowed our skills to match well. There probably is not much of a difference in our levels either.

We walked carefully through the magnificent hallway that was lined with pillars. There was no chance of being ambushed with my scan skill, but the echoing of our footsteps kept bothering me. There weren't any sources of light in the labyrinth, but the surroundings gave off a faint, mysterious glow, so we could see pretty well.

I carefully inspected the hallway, which was reflecting a soft blue light.

The floor below was a labyrinth made out of reddish-brown limestone. But when we got up, the surroundings were made out of some stone that gave off an almost sticky blue light. The pillars were engraved with impressive but eerie pictures, and a shallow waterway ran by our feet, covering the floor. You could say that the overall atmosphere had gotten "heavier". There weren't many empty s.p.a.ces left on the map now. If my guess was right, then the area ahead was most probably- At the end of the hallway, a pair of grey-blue doors stood waiting for us. The carvings on the door were similar to the ones on the pillars. Even if everything was just a world made solely out of data, an inexplicable aura seeped out of those doors.

"...is that...?"

"Most likely...? It's the boss room."

Asuna held the sleeve of my coat tight.

"What should we do...? Just looking should be fine, right?"

In contrast to these bold words, her voice sounded uneasy. Even if she was a top cla.s.s swordswoman, it seemed that she still found these sorts of things scary. Well, it's to be expected really. I was scared as well.

"...well, let's prepare a teleportation item just in case."

"Yeah."

Asuna nodded and took out a blue crystal from her pocket. I prepared my item too.

"Ready...? I'm going to open it..."

With my right arm tightly gripped by Asuna, I touched the iron door with my left hand which held the crystal. If this was the real world, my palms would be flooding with sweat right now.

As I slowly put more strength into my hand, the door, which seemed to be at least twice my height, opened with surprising ease. Once it started moving, the two doors opened so quickly that we became a little bewildered. As Asuna and I stood there holding our breaths, the huge doors finished moving with a final crash and revealed to us what was inside.

-Or so we thought; it was totally dark inside. The light that was filling the hallway we were in didn't seem to reach the end of the room. The thick cold darkness didn't reveal anything no matter how much we stared.

As soon as I opened my mouth, two white-blue fires whooshed to life a little further in, then another pair and another pair.

Whoooooosh... With this continuous sound, a path leading to the center of the room was completed in the blink of an eye. At its end, a bigger pillar of fire blazed upwards, and the rectangular room was filled with blue light. It was quite s.p.a.cious. It seemed that all of the blank s.p.a.ce on the map had been this one room.

Asuna hung onto my right arm as if to keep her nervousness at bay, but I didn't have enough room in my head to enjoy that feeling. This was because, just behind the pillar of fire, a huge shape had begun to appear.

The enormous body was covered with bulging muscles. Its skin was dark blue, and the head resting above its thick chest plates was not a man's, but a mountain goat's.

Two curved horns towered on either side of its head. Its eyes, also burning bright blue, were locked on us. Its lower body was covered in navy-blue fur and couldn't be seen very clearly behind the fire, but it seemed that it was also that of an animal. To put it simply, it was a demon in every sense of the word.

There was a fair distance from the entrance to the middle of the room where it stood. Despite that, we stood frozen in place, unable to move even a muscle. Out of all the monsters we had fought against up until now, this was the first demon-shaped one. It was something that I had gotten used to thanks to the countless RPGs that I had played. But now that I actually saw it, I couldn't hold the fear that rushed up from inside my body.

I hesitantly focused my gaze and read the words that had appeared: "The Gleameyes". It was undoubtedly the boss of this floor. The "The" in front of its name was proof of this. Gleameyes-eyes that gleamed.

When I read this far, the blue demon suddenly started shaking its long snout and began screaming. The blue fires shook violently and vibrations went through the floor of the room. Fiery breaths erupted from its nose and mouth as it raised its sword. Then the blue demon started charging straight for us at an unbelievable speed-causing the ground to shake-without giving us time to even think.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

As we started screaming at the same time, we turned a full one hundred eighty degrees and ran as fast as we could. We knew that in theory, the boss couldn't come out of its room, but we just couldn't stay there. Entrusting our bodies to the dexterity stats that we'd trained up until now, we ran like a gust of wind down the hallway.

Chapter 10.

Without even resting to take a breath, Asuna and I ran to the safe zone that was set up somewhere in the middle of the Labyrinth Area. I had the feeling that we'd been targeted by monsters several times along the way. But to tell the truth, we weren't in the right state of mind to fight them.

We burst into the large room that had been designated as the safe area and slid to the floor with our backs side-by-side, leaning against the wall. After releasing a huge breath, we looked at each other's face and...

"...ha."

Both of us started laughing at the same time. If we had checked the map, we would have known straight away that the boss hadn't come out of its room. But we hadn`t thought of stopping to check.

"Ahahaha, ah-we ran away really fast!"

Asuna laughed in an exhilarated tone.

"It's been a long time since I've run like that, as if my life depended on it. Well, you were even more exaggerated than me!"

I couldn't contradict that. Asuna kept laughing at my sullen face. It took her a lot of effort to stop; and then she said, "...that, looked pretty hard."

Asuna said, her face becoming serious.

"Yeah. It looked like it had only a great-sword as its weapon, but it should have special attacks as well."

"We'll have to gather a lot of forwards with high defense and keep switching."

"We'll need about ten people with shields... Well, for the moment we should just keep jabbing at it and work out how it fights."