Kuradeel seemed to have made his own interpretation of Asuna's consent.

"Please watch, Asuna-sama! I will prove that there is no one better than I to escort you!"

He shouted with an expression that barely concealed his delight, drawing his huge two-handed sword from his waist, and positioning himself with a clanking sound.

I made sure that Asuna had moved further away before I drew my one-handed sword from my back. As one would expect from a member of a famous guild, his sword looked much better than mine. It wasn't just the size difference between a one-handed and a two-handed sword, but that while my sword was a simple and practical weapon, his had been fully decorated by a top cla.s.s craftsman.

As we stood about five meters apart, waiting for the countdown to finish, people started crowding around us. It wasn't all that strange. This was a gate plaza in the middle of a town, and both of us were pretty well-known players.

"Solo Kirito and a KoB member are having a duel!"

As someone shouted that, cheers sounded from here and there. Since duels were usually for comparing your skills with a friend, all of the spectators cheered and whistled, ignorant to the situation that had led up to this.

But as the timer counted down, all of this started to fade away. I felt a cold thread pa.s.s through my body like when I was fighting a monster. I focused in order to read the atmosphere around Kuradeel, who was looking about here and there with glances of annoyance, and examined his stance and the way his feet moved.

Humans were far more liable to show certain habits when they were about to use a skill. Whether it was a charging or defending skill, or if it would start low from the ground or from high up, if their body revealed this kind of information, then it became a critical weakness.

Kuradeel's sword was leaning a bit back from the middle of his body and his lower body was bent down. It was clearly a sign that he was going to use a high aiming charge-type attack. Of course, it could have been a feint. I myself was actually posing with my sword in a low and relaxed posture, giving the impression that my first attack was going to be a weak blow to his lower body. You could only rely on your experience and "feel" when searching for feints.

As the countdown went down to single digits, I closed the window. I couldn't even hear the noise around me anymore.

I saw Kuradeel, who had been rapidly switching his gaze from me to the window and then back, went still while the muscles of his body tensed. The word [DUEL!!] appeared in the s.p.a.ce between us, and I jumped. Sparks flew from the sole of my boot, and the air whistled by as my shoulder cut through it.

Not even a moment had pa.s.sed before Kuradeel's body began to move as well. But there was an expression of surprise on his face, since I had shattered his expectations of a low, defend-type attack skill and charged.

Kuradeel's first attack was, as I had guessed, a high hitting two-handed sword charge skill: "Avalanche". If the guard was too weak, the defender might be able to block the blow but wouldn't be able to counterattack straight away due to the impact; meanwhile, the player who used it would be able to buy time to ready his stance again, since the charge widened the distance between them. It was a very good high level skill. Well, at least against monsters.

I, who had already read what Kuradeel was going to do, chose the charge-type skill "Sonic Leap". If we both kept charging, our skills would collide.

If we were to look at only the strength of the skill, his was stronger, and the game would favor the heavier skill if two attacks collided. In this case my sword would be deflected, and his skill would hit me, weakened but still enough to end the duel. But I wasn't after Kuradeel himself.

The s.p.a.ce between us narrowed quickly. But my perception had been quickened as well, and it felt like time had slowed down. I wasn't sure if this was a result of the system, or if it was an ability that humans naturally had. All I knew was that I could see all of his movements.

The sword, which was leaning backwards, started giving off an orange light and sped towards me. His stats must have been pretty high, as one would expect from the best guild, since the time it took for the skill to start was shorter than I expected. The brightly shining blade rushed in. If I hit that skill straight on, there was no doubt that I'd receive enough damage to end the duel. Kuradeel's face showed his ecstasy at his apparent victory. But- My sword, with its head-start, moved a little quicker, drawing a slanted green trajectory and hitting his sword just before it ended its attack. The game calculated the damage dealt by my sword, producing a huge spark.

Another result of two weapons colliding was "Weapon Break". It only had a chance of happening when a weapon received a heavy blow to a weak part of its structure.

But I was certain that it would break. Weapons with too much decoration had low durability.

As expected-with an ear-wrenching sound-Kuradeel's two-handed blade broke. There was an effect like an explosion.

We pa.s.sed by each other in mid-air and landed at where the other had jumped. The broken half of his sword spun in mid-air, reflecting the sunlight, before it dug itself into the stone ground between us. After that, both the broken half and the half remaining in Kuradeel's hands shattered into countless polygon fragments.

Silence overtook the plaza for a while. All of the spectators were frozen with their mouths wide open. But after I landed, stood up, and habitually swung my sword from left to right, they started cheering.

"Awesome!"

"Was he actually aiming for that!?"

As I heard everyone starting to critique the short fight, I sighed. Even if it was a single skill, revealing even one card from my hand wasn't something to be happy about.

With the sword in my hand, I started walking over to where Kuradeel was sitting with his back turned. That back, covered by the white cape, was shaking violently. After loudly sheathing my sword on purpose, I said in a small voice.

"If you want to come again with a new weapon, I'll fight you again...but this is enough right?"

Kuradeel didn't even try to look at me. He shook with both hands on the ground as if he was sick. But soon, he said with an almost creaky voice, "I resign." He could have just said or in j.a.panese.

Immediately afterwards, a row of purple lines appeared exactly where it had first shown when the fight started, this time proclaiming the end of the duel and the victor. Another cheer resounded, and then Kuradeel stood up shakily and shouted at the spectators.

"What're you looking at!? Get lost!"

Then he turned slowly towards me.

"You... I'm going to kill you... I'll definitely kill you..."

I couldn't deny that I was a little freaked out by those eyes.

Emotions in SAO felt a little overstated, but even with that, the hate that burned in Kuradeel's heavily lidded eyes were scarier than any monster's.

Somebody slid to my side as I stood there in surprise.

"Kuradeel, I order you as the sub-leader of the Knights of the Blood. I relieve you from the position of bodyguard. Go back to HQ and stay there until there are further orders."

Asuna's words and expression were both cold. But I felt the distress behind them and unconsciously put my hand on her shoulder. Asuna leaned her stiffly tensed body a bit.

"...wh...what...this..."

This sound barely reached our ears. The rest, most probably a string of swearing, were lost in his mouth. Kuradeel glared at us. There was no doubt that he was thinking about attacking us with his reserve weapon, even though he knew that the crime prevention code would stop him.

But he just barely managed to restrain himself and took out a teleport crystal from inside his coat. He raised it, gripping it so hard that I thought it was going to break, and he muttered "Teleport...Grandum." He was glaring at us with hate even as his body disappeared in a flurry of blue light.

As the light disappeared, a bitter silence spread across the plaza. The spectators seemed stunned by Kuradeel's rage but soon left in their small groups. Asuna and I were eventually the only ones left.

What should I say? That thought went round and round in my head, but since I'd been living by myself for two years, nothing useful came to mind. I didn't even feel like making sure if I did the right thing.

Then finally, Asuna stepped away and started speaking with a fragile voice.

"...sorry. I got you mixed up in this."

"No...I'm fine, but will you be okay?"

Shaking her head slowly, the sub-leader of the greatest guild gave a spirited but weak smile.

"Yeah, I think that I'm to blame as well for enforcing the rules on everyone so harshly in order to clear the game quicker..."

"I think...that you can't do anything about that. If they didn't have somebody like you, the pace would be much slower. Well, that's not really something a lazy solo like me should be saying...ah, I didn't mean that."

I didn't even know what I was trying to say anymore, so I started saying anything that came off the top of my head.

"...so, n.o.body would be able to say anything about, you...taking a breather with somebody as thoughtless as me."

To this Asuna blinked a few times with a confused expression, then she smiled somewhat bitterly and softened her face.

"...well, I'll say thanks. Then I'll enjoy today as much as I can. I'll entrust you with the position of forward."

She turned energetically and started walking down the road that led out of the town.

"What? Hey! Forward is supposed to be taken in turns!"

Even as I complained, I let out a sigh of relief and followed the softly waving chestnut-brown hair.

Chapter 8.

The air surrounding the path through the forest was warm. It was almost as if the dark feeling that had been present here last night was just an illusion. The morning sun shined through the branches, making golden pillars of light which b.u.t.terflies fluttered through. Sadly, these were only visual effects, so you couldn't catch one even if you chased it down.

As she crunched through the soft undergrowth, Asuna said teasingly.

"You always wear the same things."

Ah.

I looked down at my body: a slack black leather jacket, a pair of pants, and a shirt of the same color. I had virtually no metal armor equipped.

"Well, so what? If you have enough money to spend on clothes, it's better to buy something to eat..."

"Is there a practical reason that you're wearing all black? Or is it just character expression?"

"W-Well, what about you? You're always wearing that white and red thing..."

As I spoke, I started scanning the area by force of habit without even thinking about it. There weren't any monsters around. But- "I can't help it. This is the guild unifo...huh? Why?"

"Wait a bit..."

I raised my right hand slightly and cut Asuna off. There was a player at the edge of my scan area. As I focused on the area behind me, numerous green cursors started flashing, showing that there were a lot of players there.

There was no chance that they were a group of bandits. Bandits always hunted for players that were weaker than them, so they were rarely seen around the front lines, where all the strongest players were. More importantly, whenever a player committed a crime, their cursor would turn orange and wouldn't turn back to green for a long time. What I was worried about was their numbers.

I called the map from the main menu and put it on show mode so that Asuna could see it. The map of the area was enhanced by my scan and showed the green cursors. There were twelve of them.

"That's a lot..."

I nodded at what Asuna said. Usually when there were too many members in a party, it became harder to fight as a group, so five or six was the typical number.

"Look at that size."

The crowd of lights that were fast approaching in this direction marched in neat lines of two. Maybe this would happen in a dangerous dungeon, but it was rare to see such a large uniform group on the field.

If we could see the level of the members, we might have been able to guess what they were doing, but players couldn't even see the names of other players that they'd met for the first time. It was a default system that was put in place to prevent players from PKing-player killing-too freely, but it also left us with no choice but to simply guess at their level by appraising their equipment.

I closed the map and glanced at Asuna.

"We'll have to take a look at them. Let's hide behind the trees until they pa.s.s by."

"Yeah, you're right."

Asuna nodded with a tense expression. We climbed up a small mount and crouched behind a shrub that came up to about our heights. It was a good position to observe the group as they pa.s.sed by.

"Ah..."

Asuna suddenly looked at her clothes. The red and white uniform was pretty noticeable against the green plants.

"What should I do? I don't have any other equipment..."

The dots were pretty close now. They were getting within seeing distance.

"Excuse me for a bit."

I opened my coat and covered Asuna with it as well. Asuna glared at me for a bit but allowed me to cover her. The coat wasn't all that good to look at, but it gave a big hiding bonus. With all this, it would be pretty hard to notice us without a high scanning skill.

"Well, it's not that good to look at, but it's pretty useful right?"

"I don't know! ...shh, they're here!"

Asuna whispered and brought a finger up to her lips. I crouched lower, and the sounds of footsteps reached my ears.

Eventually, we could see the group come up the lane.

They were all warriors. All of them wearing the same black metal armor and green battle garb. Their equipment was all of practical designs, except for a noticeable picture of a castle on each of their shields.

The front six had one-handed swords, and the back six had halberds. They all had their visors down so we couldn't see their expressions. As we watched the twelve players march in perfect order, I even started thinking that they were a group of NPCs.

I was sure now. They were members of the huge group that had made the city on the first floor their HQ: "The Army". I could feel Asuna hold her breath.

They weren't enemies to normal players. In fact, they could be considered the group that put in the most effort to stop crimes on the field.

But their methods were a little rough, and they were said to attack orange players-who were called that because of the color of their cursors-as soon as they found them and without asking any questions. Then they'd strip the orange players of their equipment and encage them in the dungeons of the Black Iron Castle. The rumors about how "The Army" treated people who didn't surrender yet failed to escape were pretty scary.

They were also known for traveling in huge parties and taking control of entire hunting ranges, so it was common knowledge among the players that they "should never go near "The Army"." Well, they usually operated on the fiftieth floor and below, working on strengthening their group and maintaining order, so it was rare to see them on the front lines- As we watched silently, the twelve heavily armed warriors disappeared into the forest amongst the clanking sounds of their armor and their boots.

Seeing as all the players had gotten their hands on the software, you could say that everyone trapped inside SAO were all game maniacs, who were a race that had no connection to the word "Rules" whatsoever. The fact they still showed such orderly movement was amazing. They might even be the strongest unit within "The Army".