CH 24 - The wipe out ?
Appearing at the teleport pad of floor 11, Kirito opened his eyes, taking in the scenery. He noticed he had a new message, clicking on it, he realised it was from keita, the leader, and the message read
"Hey kirito, this is keita. I've been looking for sachi for a while now. I think she ran away. please try to look for her as well".
Reading the message, he became alert. Clicking on sachi's name on his menu, he immediately pressed the trace button.
His eyes lit up in green colour and he saw traces of her footsteps leading to her current location.
Following the trail, he found her under a bridge, sitting by the running water and hugging her knees.
She turned to kirito, a look of melancholy and resignation on her face.
Seeing that look, he already had a bad feeling about this, looking at her position, he sat down as well and spoke to her
" Where have you been sachi, everyone's been looking for you" Kirito asks.
"I'm tired of all this, this nightmare of a game. fighting to survive day in, day out. it's frustrating" She said back, not looking at him.
He couldn't reply to her and just stayed silent.
She looked up at him and said
"Don't you feel tired of it all. Don't you just want it all to end " She looked him in the eyes.
Kirito was caught off guard by her insinuation.
She wanted to end it without clearing the game, which only met one thing !!
Shocked, he quickly asked her
"Are you suggesting double suicide?" He asked her slowly.
she looked at him for a few tense seconds before replying to him with a smile on her face.
"No i wouldn't do that. I don't have the strength to do that" She denied the notion then continues
"I'm just tired that's all"
"but you are not alone. You still have your friends and the guild, we can protect each other"
Kirito reassured her to which she just smiled sadly.
"Let's go back sachi" he offered his hands to her.
Staring at his outstretched hands for a while, she eventually took it, and the returned to the inn where the guild members were.
He assured them that everything was alright as they were worried about her, especially kanada.
after assuaging their worries, they turned in for the night.
Sachi asked to sleep in kirito's room and he accepted. before going to bed, he promised sachi that they will get out of this game, igniting the hope in her heart.
He stared at the ceiling, raising his hands to the sky and grabbing the empty air, making a promise to himself to protect sachi and the rest of the black cats.
JUNE 12th 2023
KIRITO
Level 50
HP: 9,850
Closing his status screen, he looked at the rest of the guild members, estimating their average level.
He determined they are between levels 30 to 35 except yuki who's most likely at his level or higher.
The blackcats were very excited today as they were going to get a house for themselves at the floor of beginnings after months of grinding and saving, they could finally achieve this little dream of theirs as a start.
Keita bade farewell to the rest of the guild at the teleport pad before vanishing in a flurry of lights.
Left alone in their euphoric states, tetsuo suggested going to the higher floors to grind and level faster, he felt they were strong enough and would be able to handle it.
yuki was not okay with the idea and he was backed by kirito because he couldn't guarantee their safety, but they argued that there's been no accident so far.
They finally relented and agreed to their suggestion. Taking the teleport gate to floor 27.
FLOOR 27 LABYRINTH
Michael was moonlighting in his ninja gear again, trying to test himself in the labyrinth by limiting his stats and fighting the monsters with only his superior skills and reflexes as his advantage.
He found that fighting with a handicap, although dangerous, leads to better results, hence here he is.
He has been in the labyrinth for about an hour now and already gotten used to the monsters attack patterns in this section so he quickly decided to end this session and move on.
He vanished from his spot and appeared behind the three remaining golems, stopping them in their tracks and turning them to pixelated fragments after three consecutive slashes appeared around their bodies.
He sheathed his swords, and was about to leave when he noticed a familiar presence at the edge of his vision.
He quickly utilized his stealth skills to become invisible and observed them closely.
His guess turned out to be correct when he saw yuki and kirito with the rest of their little guild.
"The moonlit blackcats" Michael murmured lowly, observing them from a distance with his skill called
He was confused after watching them for a while as he saw from their attack patterns while fighting the monsters on this floor, that they would be easily overwhelmed if they were ambushed in this floor as they were mostly being carried at this point by kirito and yuki and another promising player called kanada.
If he recalled correctly he was yuki's friend in the real world. He looks pretty good with his speed and his stance is not bad for a low levelled player.
They kept moving on despite the occasional protests from yuki for them to leave, kirito at this point just decided to protect them to the best of his abilities but his hubris would soon lead him to regret his actions quickly.
They were on their way out of the labyrinth when one of them noticed a strange metal door at the side of the path.
He felt that he found a treasure room so he alerted the others of it's presence causing a wave of excitement to spread through them except yuki and kirito as they haven't heard of such a thing before.
As tetsuo pushed the door open, he saw a treasure chest sitting in the centre of the room and quickly rushed in while celebrating, followed by the rest.
Kirito on seeing this, tried to warn them but he wasn't fast enough to stop them and yuki went in with them to protect them in case it was a trap.
He quickly followed yuki's example and went in with them but as soon as he did, the door was closed shut as tetsuo already opened the chest.
The walls, ceiling and ground began to blink red, alarms were going off and all the players became alert.
Before they could even react, the walls began to unravel and rows upon rows of golems and gnomes carrying pickaxes could be seen.
The marched out in full force and swarmed towards the players, they would have been overwhelmed if not for their training with yuki.
They quickly got into formation as yuki flashed to the front and stopped an attack to tetsuo's back, returning the strike back to the gnome and killing it.
He found that their hp was low, so he picked up the pace and began flashing from one spot to the other and aiding the players in need.
They were in a back to back formation trying to limit the number of blind spots they had.
(Kirito's Pov)
Kirito was quite a distance away from the group and he was bulldozing his way towards them while screaming.
*HAAAAAAAHHHH*
He screamed out, slashing his blade at the incoming golem.
spinning on his heel, he cut all the surrounding golems and gnomes encircling him. He continued to cut a path through the swarm and head towards the rest.
By the time he could make them out, he found them about to be overrun. He saw kanada struggling against three golems but still managing to keep them back but the same couldn't be said for the others.
Tetsuo and the guys were about to be done in by the approaching golems but sachi was about to be hit by a golem from behind while she was busy dealing with a gnome from in front.
He froze as he couldn't reach her in time, the distance between them was not so far off and he could almost reach them but the number of enemies were too much and he couldn't clear a path fast enough before she would be done in.
He lost all hope and prayed for someone ... anyone to save her. He prayed for a miracle to happen.
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