15

“…What’s going on here?” I muttered to Godfrey.

“I’m well aware of what transpired between the two of you. But now you’re guildmates. So let’s let bygones be bygones, eh?”

He roared with laughter. Meanwhile, Kuradeel slunk forward.

“…”

I tensed up, ready to act whatever came. We were inside the town zone, but there was no telling what he’d do.

Instead, Kuradeel surprised me by bowing his head. He spoke in a murmur that was barely audible through his long bangs.

“I’m sorry…about what happened the other day…”

Now I was truly shocked. My mouth fell open.

“I won’t treat you with such disrespect again…I beg your forgiveness.”

I couldn’t see his face behind the greasy locks.

“Uh…sure…” I brought myself to nod. What could have happened? Had he gotten brain surgery?

“That settles it, then!” Godfrey bellowed with laughter again. I wasn’t just being paranoid—there was clearly something going on here. But I couldn’t read Kuradeel’s expression with his head tilted down. SAO simulated emotional expressions, but it tended on the side of exaggeration, and subtle nuances didn’t always show. I decided to accept his apology for politeness’s sake but made a mental note to stay wary of him.

After a few minutes, one more guild member showed up, and we were ready to leave for the labyrinth. I started to walk, but Godfrey’s heavy voice rang out behind me.

“Not so fast. Today’s training is meant to be as close a simulation of the real thing as possible. I want to see how you handle dangerous circumstances, so that means I’ll need to confiscate all your crystals for the time being.”

“Even our teleport crystals?”

He nodded, as if this was obvious. I did not like this turn of events at all. Crystals—particularly teleportation crystals—were the player’s last line of defense in a game where the stakes were deadly. At no point in my two years in Aincrad had I ever let my stock run out. I was going to protest, but then thought better of it, as I didn’t want to make things worse for Asuna.

When I saw Kuradeel and the other member obediently handing over their items, I reluctantly parted with my own. He meant business, too; I had to turn out my waistpouch before he was satisfied.

“Very good. Let’s depart!”

Godfrey barked out the order, and the four of us began walking from the gates of Grandzam to the labyrinth visible far to the west.

The fifty-fifth floor was a dry wasteland nearly devoid of greenery. I just wanted to get this exercise over with and suggested that we run to the labyrinth, but Godfrey vetoed that with a swing of his arm. Well, he probably dumped all of his points into strength rather than agility, so he can barely run anyway, I thought, and gave up.

We ran into a few monsters, but I was in no mood to follow Godfrey’s orders and dispatched them with a single blow each. Finally, once we’d crested the dozenth rocky hill, the gray stone labyrinth came into full view.

“Let’s take a break here!” Godfrey barked out, and the party came to a halt.

“…”

I wanted to keep going straight through the labyrinth, but I figured they wouldn’t heed my suggestion anyway, so I sat down on a nearby rock. It was just passing noon.

“I’ll distribute rations,” Godfrey said, materializing four small leather parcels and handing them out. I caught mine one-handed and looked in, expecting to be disappointed. It contained a bottle of water and a small toasted bread you could buy from any NPC shop.

Inwardly, I cursed my foul luck. I should be eating Asuna’s homemade sandwiches right about now. I took a swig of the water.

My eye just happened to catch Kuradeel sitting on a rock, slightly removed from the rest of us. He hadn’t touched his bag. He was glaring at us from under his drooping bangs, an oddly dark look on his face.

What was he staring at…?

Suddenly, a freezing shiver bolted through my body. He was waiting for something. Waiting…for…

I threw the bottle away, trying to expel every last bit of the liquid from my mouth.

But it was too late. I could feel the strength draining from my body, and I fell to the ground. My HP bar was in the right-hand corner of my vision, surrounded by a blinking green border.

It was paralysis venom.

Godfrey and the other member of our group were rolling on the ground in agony as well. Instinctively, I forced my left hand, still mobile, down to my waistpouch, but another chill ran down my back. Godfrey had my antidote and teleportation crystals. I did have healing potions, but they wouldn’t cure the venom.

“Heh…heh-heh-heh…”

I heard a high-pitched chuckle. Above the rock, Kuradeel was holding his sides with laughter, doubled over. Those sunken, beady eyes were glinting with a familiar look of madness.

“Ka-ha! Hya-hya! Hya-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

He burst into crazed, unhinged gales of laughter. Godfrey simply looked on in stunned disbelief.

“Wh…what’s going on…? Did you do this…to our water, Kuradeel?”

“Godfrey! Use the antidote crystals!” I called out, and Godfrey finally began to search through his pack, achingly slow.

“Hyaaa!”

Kuradeel gave a triumphant screech, leaped off the rock, and kicked Godfrey’s hand away. A green crystal skittered over the dirt. Kuradeel picked it up, then riffled through Godfrey’s pack and pulled out several more, which he deposited into his own pouch.

We were out of options.

“What is the meaning of this, Kuradeel? Is this…some kind of trial…?”

“You fools!!”

Godfrey was woefully slow on the uptake, and Kuradeel rewarded him with a kick in the mouth.

“Gaah!!”

Godfrey’s HP bar shrank just a bit, and Kuradeel’s cursor turned orange to signify a criminal player. But that would have no effect on our plight. This floor was already cleared. No one would be luckily wandering by this exact stretch of wilderness.

“You know, Godfrey, I always thought you were stupid…I just didn’t appreciate how much!” His shrill voice echoed off the rocks. “I’ve got plenty of things I want to say to you, but there’s no use stuffing yourself on the hors d’oeuvres…”

Kuradeel drew his greatsword. He tilted his thin body backward and took a huge swing, the thick blade glimmering in the sunlight.

“W-wait, Kuradeel! Wh-what are you talking about…? Isn’t this…part of the trial?”

“Shut up and die already,” Kuradeel spat.

He swung the sword down without further ado. I heard a dull thud, and a huge chunk disappeared from Godfrey’s HP bar.

Godfrey had finally realized the severity of the situation and began to scream. It was far too late.

Twice, then thrice, the blade flashed mercilessly. The HP bar lost a chunk each time, and when it reached the red zone, Kuradeel finally stayed his hand.

For an instant, I actually thought he was going to stop short of murder. But Kuradeel only flipped the sword around to a backhand grip, then sank it slowly into Godfrey’s body. His health trickled down. Kuradeel shifted his weight into it.

“Gaaahhhh!!”

“Hya-haaaa!!”

Kuradeel’s high-pitched squeal of delight practically matched Godfrey’s scream. The tip of the sword kept sinking farther, and the HP bar steadily shrank.

As the other member and I watched helplessly, silently, Kuradeel’s sword punctured through and hit the ground at the same moment that Godfrey’s HP reached zero. I don’t think Godfrey ever fully realized what was happening, even up to the moment that he exploded into countless pieces.

Kuradeel slowly pulled his greatsword out of the ground, then swiveled his head at the neck to stare at us like some kind of grotesque automaton.

“Eeeh! Eeeh!!”

The other guildman uttered short shrieks and vainly attempted to escape. Kuradeel hopped over to him with an odd gait.

“I’ve got nothing against you…but in my story, I’ve got to be the only survivor,” he muttered, swinging his sword again.

“Eeeek!!”

“Got that? Our doomed party…”

He struck, ignoring the other man’s screams.

“…was set upon by vagabonds in the wilderness…”

Another blow.

“…and while the other three died valiantly…”

And another.

“…I alone succeeded in breaking the attackers’ spirits to return to the guild alive!”

On the fourth strike, the man’s HP was empty. The sound sent involuntary chills throughout my body. To Kuradeel, it must have sounded like the voice of a goddess. He was trembling with ecstasy in the midst of the shattering polygons, his face a mask of pure bliss.

This isn’t his first time, I realized.

True, before he began this assault, he didn’t have the telltale orange criminal cursor, but there are plenty of trickier ways to cause death without tipping off the system. At any rate, it was too late to realize this now.

Kuradeel finally trained his gaze on me. There was unbridled glee in those eyes. He approached slowly, wincingly scraping the tip of his sword along the ground.

“So, hey,” he murmured, stooping down to hover over me. “Now I’ve killed two innocent men, all for the sake of one kid.”

“By my reckoning, you got quite a kick out of it.”

I talked to keep him busy, but my mind was racing, trying to find a way out of this desperate situation. I could only move my mouth and left hand. Under this paralysis, I couldn’t open my menu, couldn’t send anyone a message. Knowing that it was probably pointless, I tried to move my hand to a position where Kuradeel couldn’t see it, while I kept him occupied with dialogue.

“Why did you join the KoB, anyway? You’d do better in one of the criminal guilds.”

“Isn’t that obvious? It was her,” Kuradeel rasped, licking his lips with a pointed tongue. When I realized he was talking about Asuna, my entire body burned.

“You filthy rat!”

“Oh, don’t look at me that way. It’s just a game, isn’t it? Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of your beloved vice commander. I’ve got plenty of handy items just for that purpose.”

Kuradeel picked up the bottle of poison nearby and sloshed the liquid inside. He gave me a sloppy wink and went on.

“What you said was quite interesting, about my being suited for a criminal guild, though.”

“…It’s true, isn’t it?”

“I’m paying you a compliment, see? Very sharp of you.”

He giggled again, deep in his throat, then suddenly unequipped one of his gauntlets. He pulled back the white sleeve of his robe and showed me the underside of his bare forearm.

“…!!”

I gasped when I saw it.

A tattoo. A caricatured drawing of a black coffin. A leering pair of eyes and mouth were drawn on the shifted lid, and a bony arm was poking out from within the coffin.

“That logo…Is that Laughing Coffin?” I rasped. Kuradeel nodded with an eager grin.

Laughing Coffin was once the largest PK guild in Aincrad. Led by their cruel and clever leader, they devised new and novel ways to kill their targets, and the body count eventually reached triple digits.

Attempts were made to come to a peaceful resolution with them, but the man who volunteered to be the messenger only wound up dead. It was impossible to fathom the motives of those who would kill their fellow players, when that could only diminish the possibility of beating the game. Talking it out was never going to work. Eventually, the clearers arranged a boss-style raiding party and wiped them out in a bloody assault. It wasn’t that long ago.

Asuna and I had both taken part in the raid. Somehow, word of our plan had leaked out, and the murderers were ready for us. I went half mad trying to protect the lives of my fellow players, and by the end of the battle, I’d personally killed two members of Laughing Coffin.

“Is this…vengeance? Are you one of the remnants of LC?” I asked hoarsely, but Kuradeel laughed at the question.

“Hah! Hardly. Like I’d be that pathetic. I was only recently inducted into LC. But only mentally. That’s when they taught me this handy paralysis trick…oopsy!”

He rose to his feet with a mechanical smoothness and loudly re-gripped his sword.

“Better wrap up the chitchat before your poison wears off. Time for the grand finish, I think. Every single night since our duel…I’ve dreamed of this moment…”

Fires of delusion burned in the full circles of his gaping eyes, and a long tongue snickered out of his wide-stretched mouth. Kuradeel stood on tiptoes to brandish his blade.

Just before he could start bringing the sword down, I flicked the throwing pick I’d hidden in my left hand. I could only use the wrist, and although I was aiming for his face, the paralysis lowered my accuracy rating. The pick flew off-line, sinking into Kuradeel’s left arm. The effect on his HP bar was hopelessly insignificant.

“That…hurt…”

He wrinkled his nose and pulled back his lips. Kuradeel poked the tip of his sword into my arm. He twisted twice, then three times, as though screwing it in.

“…!”

I didn’t feel any pain, but I felt the distinctly unpleasant sensation of numbed nerves being directly stimulated. As the sword dug farther into my arm, my HP slowly but surely trickled away.

Isn’t it done yet? Isn’t the poison wearing off?

I gritted my teeth and waited for the moment I would be free. Paralysis normally lasted about five minutes, though it could vary depending on the strength of the venom.

Kuradeel pulled the sword back and jabbed it into my left foot this time. Again, the nerve-deadening sensation shot through me, and the damage numbers mercilessly piled up.

“Well? What’s it like? Knowing that you’re just about to die…Tell me, why don’t you?” he whispered, staring into my face. “Why don’t you say something, boy? Why don’t you cry and wail about how you don’t want to die?”

My HP was under half now, the bar yellow. The paralysis would not dispell. I could feel a chill settling into my body. The specter of death snuck up my legs, clad in a robe of pure cold.

I’d witnessed death firsthand multiple times in Sword Art Online. Every single victim, in the moment that they’d burst into countless shards, held the same expression: Am I really going to die right now?

Somewhere within all of us, there was a lack of belief that the game’s stated rules could actually be true—that death within the game was death, period.

It was almost a sense of hope, an expectation that once our HP hit zero and we disintegrated, we would simply wake up in the real world, safe and sound. There was no way to determine the truth outside of death. In that sense, dying might just be another means of escape from the game…

“Come on, say something. You’re going to die soon, hello?”

Kuradeel pulled the sword out of my foot and stuck it against my belly. My HP sank faster now, reaching into the red danger zone, but even now it still felt like it was happening off in another world. As the agony continued, my thoughts raced down a path without light. A heavy, thick layer of gauze enveloped my mind.

But…suddenly, an unbearable fear seized my heart.

Asuna. I was going to disappear and leave her behind. Asuna would fall into Kuradeel’s clutches, and she would suffer the way I had. This possibility burned with a white pain that shot me to my senses.

“Gaah!!”

My eyes opened wide, and with my left hand, I grabbed the sword Kuradeel was plunging into my stomach. I summoned all my strength and slowly pulled it out. I had just under 10 percent of my health left. Kuradeel murmured, surprised.

“Uh…huh? What’s this? Afraid to die after all?”

“That’s right…I can’t…die yet!”

“Ka! Hya-hya! Is that so? Well, that’s more like it!!”

Kuradeel cackled like some monstrous bird, then put all of his weight into the sword. I tried to push back with my one hand. The system was weighing my strength stat and Kuradeel’s, pitting complex calculations against one another.

The resulting outcome: The tip of the sword slowly but surely began to descend. I was plunged into fear and despair.

Is this really it?

Will I die? Am I leaving Asuna behind in this twisted, insane world?

I fought desperately against the twin perils of the approaching sword point and the fear gripping my heart.

“Now die! Dieeee!!” Kuradeel shrieked.

Inch by inch, my murder approached in the form of a dull gray point of metal. The tip grazed my body…then sank just a bit…

A burst of wind shot through the air.

A wind colored white and red.

“Wha—? Huh…?”

The murderer looked up with a scream of surprise, then went flying through the air with his sword. I stared silently at the figure that had descended in his place.

“…I made it…I made it, God…I made it!”

Her trembling voice was as beautiful as the wing beat of an angel. Asuna nearly crumpled over me, her lips quivering, her eyes wide.

“He’s alive…You’re alive, right, Kirito?”

“Yeah…I’m alive…”

I was surprised to hear how weak and faded my voice was. Asuna gave a big nod, pulled a pink crystal out of her pocket, placed a hand on my chest, and said, “Heal!” The crystal crumbled and my HP immediately shot all the way to full.

“Hang on a sec. I’ll finish this up real quickly,” she said after confirming that I was properly healed. She gracefully unsheathed her rapier and began walking.

Ahead, Kuradeel was finally getting to his feet. When he saw the figure approaching him, his eyes grew wide.

“Ah! L-Lady Asuna…why are you here…? I-I mean, this is just a trial, yes, a trial that went wrong—”

He sprang to his feet and attempted to squeak out an excuse, but he never finished. Asuna’s hand flashed, and the tip of her rapier slashed Kuradeel’s mouth. Because he was already labeled a criminal player, Asuna had free rein to attack him without being branded the same.

“Bwaah!”

He stumbled backward, a hand to his mouth. After a momentary pause, he rose again, a familiar loathing splotched across his face.

“That’s enough from you, bitch…Hah! This is perfect. You’ll be joining them soon enou—”

But this was cut short as well. Asuna readied her weapon and struck again.

“Hrrg…Aaagh!”

He desperately tried to parry with his two-handed sword, but it was woefully slow. Asuna’s sword point slashed back and forth with countless streams of light, tearing across and through Kuradeel’s body with frightful speed. Even being several levels above Asuna, I couldn’t follow her attacks in the slightest. I was entranced by a vision of an angel, dancing with her sword.

It was beautiful. The sight of Asuna, her chestnut hair bouncing, silently devastating her foe while wreathed in righteous anger, was a thing of sheer beauty.

“Aagh! Gaaaah!!”

Fear had finally set in, and Kuradeel’s wild swings weren’t even coming close to landing. His HP bar dropped lower and lower, and when it was about to shift from yellow to red, he finally dropped his sword and raised his hands in surrender.

“A-all right, all right! I’m sorry; it was all my fault!” He cowered on the ground. “I’ll leave the guild! You’ll never see me again, I swear! Just don’t—”

Asuna silently listened to his piteous wails.

Slowly, she raised her rapier, then spun it in the palm of her hand to point downward.

Her slender arm clenched and rose several inches, preparing to thrust it directly into the small of Kuradeel’s back as he hunched prostrate on the ground. The murderer emitted an even, high-pitched scream.

“Eeeek! I don’t wanna die!”

The point stopped as though it had hit an invisible wall. Her body was visibly trembling. Even from here, I could feel the internal battle of Asuna’s hesitation, rage, and fear.

As far as I knew, she had never taken the life of another player. Killing a player in Sword Art Online meant the death of that player in real life, too. PK was a familiar term to online gamers, but it obfuscated the truth—here, it was actual murder.

That’s right, Asuna. Stop. You can’t do this.

But at the same time, a part of me screamed the opposite.

No, don’t hesitate. He’s hoping you’ll stay your hand.

An instant later, my fears came true.

“Hyaaaa!!”

Kuradeel sprang up from his begging position, his sword flashing as he screamed.

With a metallic clang, the rapier flew out of Asuna’s hand.

“Wha—?”

Asuna yelped and lost her balance. The sword glinted over her head.

“Not very smart, Vice Commander!” he screamed, unhinged. Kuradeel swung the sword downward without hesitation, trailing deep red light.

“Raaagh!”

This time the roar was mine. The paralysis finally undone, I leaped up, crossing several yards in an instant, pushing Asuna out of the way, and taking Kuradeel’s sword full on my left arm.

Chunk, it rang unpleasantly. My left forearm flew off, severed at the elbow. Below my HP bar, a limb-damage icon flashed.

Crimson particles meant to resemble blood spurted out of the cut, but I straightened the fingers of my right hand…

And thrust it straight into the gap in his heavy armor. My arm flashed yellow and sank wetly into Kuradeel’s stomach.

I’d hit him with Embracer, a point-blank Martial Arts skill. It took every last bit of Kuradeel’s remaining HP. The skinny body shook violently, then slumped over, powerless.

I heard the greatsword clatter to the ground, then a hoarse whisper in my ear.

“Why…you…murderer.”

A chuckle.

And Kuradeel’s entire existence turned to glass shards. With a cold burst, the polygons exploded outward, knocking me to the ground.

For a while, my consciousness numb, the only sound was the wind blowing across the field.

Eventually, I heard uneven footsteps over the gravel. I looked up and saw a frail figure stumbling toward me, her face empty.

Asuna plodded several steps closer, face downward, then slumped to her knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She extended her hand toward me, then shrank back just before it touched.

“…I’m sorry…It’s my fault…This is all my fault…”

The look on her face was heartbreaking. Tears filled her large eyes, sparkling like jewels, then fell. Finally, I managed to rasp one word out of my parched throat.

“Asuna…”

“I’m sorry. I…I don’t have the right…to even…see you anym…”

I desperately raised myself from the ground, finally in control of my body again. The damage I’d suffered still left an unpleasant numbness, but I could at least extend my right and severed left arm to Asuna. I plugged her beautiful pink lips with my own.

“…!”

She stiffened and tried to use her hands to push me away, but I held tightly to her slender body with all my strength. It was certainly enough to set off the anti-harassment code. At this moment, she would be seeing a system message warning of my actions, and with the push of a button, she could have me instantly teleported to the prison in Blackiron Palace.

But I didn’t let my arms slack an inch, moving from her lips to nuzzle her cheek. I buried my face into her neck and murmured, “My life belongs to you, Asuna. I’m all yours. We’ll be together until the final moment.”

My left arm was still in a severed state and wouldn’t return for three minutes, but I held it around her back anyway. Asuna let out a trembling breath and then whispered back to me.

“I promise…I promise I’ll protect you, too. I’ll be here for you forever. Just don’t leave me…”

She didn’t need to say any more. I held Asuna tightly, listening to her breathing.

Bit by bit, the warmth of her body thawed the ice within me.