Calibur Part 2

"Based on the construction of the dungeon, we'll probably be

heading right into the final boss's chamber once we're down those

stairs. He's going to be tougher than the others, but we have no

choice but to face him without any tricks. At first we'll focus on

defense, until we get a hang of the boss's attack patterns, and I'll

give the signal to fight back. And be careful, because his attacks

are bound to change when his gauge goes yellow, and then again

in the red."

With a look at the rest of the group to make sure they were all

on board, I raised my voice and called out, "Let's blaze our way

through this final battle!"

"Yeah!"

The third group cheer of this quest was joined in by Yui, Silica's pet Pina, and our blond bombshell NPC, Freyja.

The staircase downward widened partway through, giving way

to pillars and decorative sculptures. The old Aincrad adage that

the more complex the map data became, the closer you were to

the boss chamber, still rang true.

At the very end stood doors of thick ice, carved with two

wolves. It was the royal chamber of the king of the frost giants, no

doubt. Once we were sure there were no tricks or traps around,

we approached, still feeling cautious.

Once we got within fifteen feet of the doors, they automatically

swung open. An even deeper chill and indescribable sense of

pressure emanated. Asuna began to rebuff the party, and Freyja

joined in, including a previously unknown buff that greatly

boosted our HP.

When the spot under our HP/MP gauges was lined with buff

icons, we all made eye contact. With a nod of purpose, we rushed

in together.

The interior of the chamber was vast in both width and height.

As before, the walls and floor were blue ice. Candleholders of ice

featured eerie, rippling purple flames. A line of chandeliers hung

from the distant ceiling. But the first thing to catch our eyes was

the brilliant shine of countless lights reflecting along both walls.

Gold. Coins, accessories, swords, armor, shields, sculptures,

even furniture, every last piece of it made of gold, piled high in

countless amounts. The rear of the chamber was shrouded in

darkness, making it impossible to estimate the total amount of

treasure present.

"…How many yrd would all of this equal?" murmured Lisbeth,

the only player present who actually ran a shop. As for me, all I

could think was, Why didn't I completely clear out my entire inventory for extra space first?!

At the far right of our stunned group, Klein was driven by his

samurai code (I assumed) to take a few uneasy steps toward the

mountain of treasure. But before he got more than a few steps—

"…Little bugs, flitting about."

A deep, floor-rumbling voice emerged from the darkness in

the back of the chamber.

"I can hear the buzzing of their obnoxious wings. I must crush

them before they can get into trouble."

Thud. The floor shook. Thud, thud. As the vibrations came

closer, I was almost afraid they were going to shatter the ice floor

with their power.

Eventually, a shadow emerged into the light's range.

"Giant" wasn't enough to describe it. It was at least twice as

tall as the humanoid Deviant Gods prowling the cave floor below,

as well as the boss-level Deviant Gods here in the castle. The head

was looming so far above us that I didn't even want to guess its

height. Even my strongest jump would be lucky to reach the knee

of this monster.

His skin was a dull blue, like lead. His arms and legs were covered in black and brown furs from some impossibly large animal.

Around his waist was sheet-metal plated armor, each piece the

size of a small boat. His torso was bare, but those rippling muscles looked strong enough to deflect any weapon.

A long blue beard draped over his bulging chest. The head sitting atop it all was unclear, shrouded in shadow. But the gold of

his crown and the freezing blue of his eyes shone brilliantly in the

darkness.

In the old Aincrad, a single floor was capped at just over three

hundred feet high, and the boss chambers of each labyrinth tower

weren't very tall, so every boss monster had a fairly hard height

limit. In other words, I couldn't remember ever looking up this

far to see an enemy. How could we fight this monster without

being able to fly? The best we could do was prick his shins with

our swords.

Meanwhile, the gigantic giant—a redundant description, but

the only applicable one—took a step forward and laughed, his

voice like a gong.

"Hah…hah…Insects of Alfheim, summoned here by Urd's

pleas. Little ones, if you tell me where she is, you may take all you

can carry of my gold. What say you?"

From his off-the-charts size, golden crown, and nature of his

offer, there was no room to doubt that this was Thrym, king of the

frost giants.

As we faced off against the giant, a fellow AI like Urd and

Freyja, it was Klein who responded first.

"…Heh! A samurai would rather go hungry than give in to

temptation! If you think I'd jump at a pitiful offer like that, you've

got another think coming!"

He drew his beloved katana boldly, while the rest of the group

sighed behind his back. But as if on signal, the other six of us

brandished our weapons.

Although none of them were legendary weapons, they were all

either unique-named ancient weapons or masterpieces crafted by

Lisbeth herself, a master blacksmith. But the sight of them did

not remove the grin from King Thrym's whiskered mouth. Of

course, to him we might as well have been carrying toothpicks.

With a glare from his dark eyes far above, the king eventually

settled upon the barehanded eighth member of our group.

"…Oho. Is that you there, Freyja? Since you are out of your

cage, I suspect you must have agreed to be my bride at last?" his

cracked bell of a voice tolled.

"B-bride?!" Klein yelped.

"Indeed. This girl was brought into the palace to be my bride,

but on the night before the ceremony, I caught her sniffing

around my treasure. I placed her in an icy cell for punishment.

Hah! Hah!"

Things are getting a bit more complicated; I gotta figure this

out…

The blond beauty named Freyja claimed earlier that she had

snuck into this castle to take back a treasure that he had stolen

from her people. But thinking realistically, it would be nearly impossible to sneak into a floating palace with only one entrance. So

she pretended she would be Thrym's bride and passed right

through the entrance, then snuck into the royal chamber at night

in an attempt to steal the treasure. The guards then spotted her

and chained her to that prison cell.

If this was true, it lowered the chance that she would backstab

us in the middle of the fight. But something still didn't add up

with the story. It was too complex and tricky for an optional subroute. And which of the nine fairy races in Alfheim was her "people"? What was the stolen treasure?

I noted that we should have asked these questions when we recruited her to join us, then remembered that we hadn't had the

time for that to start with. Meanwhile, at the front left of the

group, Leafa pulled my sleeve and whispered, "Big Brother, I

think I read about this in a book…The story of Thrym and

Freyja…and a stolen treasure. Let's see, how did it go…"

But before Leafa could recall the details, Freyja herself stood

up and shouted, "Who would ever be your wife?! Instead, I shall

battle you with Sir Swordsman and his companions and take back

what was stolen!"

"Nwah-hah-hah. How bold you are. There is good reason your

beauty and valor have reached all nine realms, Freyja. But it is

the proudest flowers that are most tempting to pick…Once I have

crushed these flies, I will enjoy showering you with the love you

deserve, nwah-hah-hah-hah," King Thrym intoned, stroking his

beard with massive fingers. His threat was toeing the line of acceptable dialogue for an all-ages game, which made me wonder if

the quest generator really came up with this scenario.

While all the women present grimaced, Klein stood in front,

waving his fist.

"H-h-how dare you! You'll never have her! The great Klein will

ensure that you never lay a stinking finger on Freyja!!"

"I hear the buzzing of little wings. Perhaps I shall flatten you

as a pre-celebration to my conquest of all of Jotunheim…"

The giant king took one rumbling step forward as a tremendously large HP gauge appeared in the upper right of my view.

And it was a three-stack. It would take an incredible effort to

grind that down.

But the menacing floor bosses of New Aincrad didn't even display HP bars, to break the spirit of those players who challenged

them. At least here we could tell how quickly we were grinding

him down.

"Here he comes! Listen for Yui's orders, and remember:

dodge-only for this first part!" I shouted. Thrym lifted a fist like a

giant boulder up to the ceiling—then brought it down swiftly, his

skin wreathed in a storm of frost.

The final battle (I hoped) of Castle Thrymheim was, as expected, a fiercer fight than I could ever remember.

King Thrym's first round of attacks comprised of downward

punches with both fists, a three-part stomp attack with his right

foot, a straight line of ice breath, and a summon of ice dwarf

adds, twelve at a time, rising from the floor.

The most troublesome of these were the dwarves, but the stunning accuracy of Sinon's arrows in finding the weak points from

the back row cleaned them up in no time. As for the direct attacks, they could be dodged entirely as long as you paid close attention, so with the help of Yui's countdown, the three of us in

front were able to continually evade damage.

Once we had our defense down, it was time to go on the attack,

but if anything, this was the hard part. As I feared, our swords

could reach no higher than Thrym's shins, and thanks to his thick

fur leggings, they had significant damage resistance, if not as high

as the golden Minotaur. I could do a three-part sword skill with

perfect timing to get as much HP down as possible, but without

going into attacks with longer delays, the damage was piddling. It

felt wrong, like I was whacking away fruitlessly at an indestructible game object.

Under these circumstances, Freyja's lightning attacks were a

wonderful boon. I needed to apologize to Klein afterward. As an

NPC, her ability to coordinate with us was clumsy, but each time

the purple bolt of light rained down, Thrym's HP took noticeable

damage.

After more than ten minutes of battle, the first gauge was finally depleted, and the king of the giants let out a vicious roar.

"Watch out! His pattern's going to change!" I shouted.

From the side, I could hear Leafa's worried voice whisper,

"This is bad, Big Brother. There are only three lights left on the

medallion. We've probably got only fifteen minutes."

"…"

Thrym had three bars. But it took us over ten minutes to eliminate one of them. It was going to be a monumental task to knock

out the other two within fifteen minutes.

And worse, spamming the Skill Connection trick I used against

the golden Minotaur was not likely to work. Afflicting a monster

with knock-back required high-damage blows within a combo.

Thrym was not weak to either swords or magic, so putting four

sword skills together in a row was not going to do major damage,

given his vast total of HP.

As if sensing my moment of panic, Thrym suddenly puffed out

his chest like a bellows and sucked in a tremendous breath.

The powerful pull of wind dragged the five of us in the front

and middle rows toward the giant. This had to be the precursor to

a major wide-area attack. The first trick to evading would be to

neutralize the suction with wind magic. Realizing this, Leafa held

up her left hand and began chanting a spell.

But I had a feeling that it wouldn't be in time unless she

started from the moment his tell began.

"Leafa, everyone, defensive positions!"

At my command, Leafa canceled the spell, crossed her arms in

front of her, and bent her legs. Everyone else assumed the same

position.

Right then, Thrym's mouth emitted a diamond dust across a

wide range, not at all like the linear breath attack he'd been using

before.

We were enveloped in pale, glowing light. The chill pierced

Asuna's buff and seemed to slice my skin. With sharp tingling

noises, our five avatars began to freeze solid. I tried to escape, but

the thick sheet of ice kept me in place. Leafa, Klein, Liz, Silica

(with Pina held tight in her arms), and I were all turned to blue

ice sculptures.

At this stage, my HP bar was still full. But that was little relief.

The longer an attack like this took, the worse the damage we

would suffer.

Up front, Thrym was gradually lifting his enormous right foot.

Oh no, oh crap, oh shoot, I screamed to myself.

"Nrrrn!"

He slammed his foot onto the floor with a bellow. The shock

wave swallowed up the ice sculptures, rattling tremendously.

With a stomach-dropping craaash! the ice that covered my body

split apart. The shock nearly blinded me. I was thrown to the

floor, visual damage effects flashing past.

At the top of my view, five of the eight HP bars shot down into

the red at once.

Of course, the three in the back outside the range of Thrym's

massive attack were not standing by as the rest of us were immobilized.

Just after we lost about 80 percent of our HP, a gentle blue

light shone down, healing our wounds. It was Asuna's high-level

full-party healing spell. The spell was perfectly timed, pre-cast so

that it went off right after we took damage.

But most of the major healing spells in this game were healsover-time, meaning they only healed a portion of the total each

second and not all at once. If we took another attack now, it could

easily wipe us out, even as the heal spell was working on us.

Thrym proceeded forward, ready to deliver the finishing blow

as we got to our feet. Suddenly, a series of burning red arrows

shot up at the beard covering his throat. They stuck in and burst.

That was Exploding Arrows, Sinon's Two-Handed Longbow skill.

The one-part physical, nine-parts flame-damage attack was to the

frost giant's weakness, and his HP loss was visible.

"Mrrrn!" Thrym roared, changing directions. He was targeting

Sinon now. It was usually an elementary mistake when low-de-

fense, high-power attackers in the back earned too much hate

with a major attack and pulled a boss's aggro away from the tanks

in front, but that was not the case here. Sinon had used herself as

bait to give us time to regroup and recover.

"Give us thirty seconds, Sinon!" I shouted, grabbing a healing

potion out of my pouch. Nearby, the others were already pouring

the red liquid into their mouths. Pina had just barely survived,

thanks to her master's guarding skill. Unlike in Aincrad, there

were pet resurrection spells here, but they took so long to cast,

they were almost useless in battle.

I looked back and forth between the agonizingly slow refueling

of my HP and the light blue cait sith barely evading Thrym's ferocious attacks. Sinon was new to ALO, but her reflexes were incredible. Since she played a sniper with no defensive skills in

GGO, she must have built up a lot of experience darting out of the

way when close-range attackers honed in on her.

"…Prepare to attack," I commanded my partners, seeing that

my HP gauge was finally up to 80 percent. But just as I brandished my swords again and started a countdown, I was interrupted by a surprising voice.

"Sir Swordsman."

It was the eighth member of our party, Freyja, whom I'd assumed was still next to Asuna.

The AI-controlled NPC stared at me with her odd goldenbrown eyes and said, "At this rate, we cannot defeat Thrym. Our

only hope is the treasure of our people, buried somewhere in this

chamber. If I get that back, my true power will return, and I can

defeat Thrym."

"T-true power…"

For the span of an entire breath, I couldn't decide what to do.

Then my mind was made. There was no point in being afraid

of Freyja using her regained power to join Thrym's side and wipe

us out. At this rate, we would enter a battle of attrition and the

quest would run out of time, if we didn't get destroyed first. We

had to make use of any possibility we could.

"All right. What's the treasure?" I said, just slow enough so the

NPC would recognize my speech. Freyja spread her hands about a

foot apart.

"It is a golden hammer, about this size."

"…Huh? A h-hammer?"

"A hammer," she repeated. I stared at her for half a second.

Then I noticed that Sinon, trapped in the back right corner of the

chamber, finally took some splash damage from one of Thrym's

attacks, losing nearly a fifth of her health. I couldn't force her to

hold his aggro any longer. I turned to Klein, Leafa, and the rest.

"Go and back her up! I'll catch up with you in no time!"

"You bet!" the samurai responded, then raced off shouting. In

seconds, the sound of group battle resumed, and I looked desperately around the vast treasure chamber.

There were piles and piles of shining golden items against the

walls of blue ice. And I was supposed to find one little hammer?

Sure, finding the hidden item was a classic quest type, but this

was like finding a needle in a haystack!

The quest had to have been designed for a raid party of at least

thirty members. There was no way to find a single item out of all

these without an excess of members like that.

"…Yui," I said, turning a wishful eye to the navigation pixie,

but all she did was shake her head.

"It won't work, Papa. Map data don't include the locations of

key items. I believe it was probably randomly generated when we

entered the room. The only way to determine which one is the key

is to give it to Freyja!"

"Great…uhhh…"

I wrung out my brain so hard, steam might as well have shot

out of my ears. But this time, no idea was forthcoming. It seemed

as though my only hope was to start digging through a nearby

pile and hope I hit the jackpot…

Just then, Leafa looked over and shouted from the distant battle.

"Big Brother! Use a lightning-type skill!"

"L-light…?"

I was taken aback for a moment, but the next instant, I swung

the sword in my right hand up high.

Since I had only learned the very basics of illusion magic, there

was only one way for me to produce lightning damage.

"Seyaaa!"

I launched forward, doing a front flip in the air, and plunged

the sword downward as I fell, holding it backhand. It was Lightning Fall, one of the few heavy-hitting area attacks in the OneHanded Sword category: three parts physical, seven parts lightning.

My blade plunged deep into the ground, accompanied by the

dry crack of thunder. Purplish sparks raced in every direction

from that point. I rose at once and did a quick spin, cutting across

all the piles of objects with my eyes…

"…!"

I saw it. Deep in the mountain of gold, a quickly pulsing purple

light, answering the call of my blast. I clenched my teeth and

raced for the top left corner of the room. With Thrym's massive

throne to my right, I dove completely into the mountain of treasure, ripping aside priceless items and hurling them behind me as

I went.

"…Is this it?!"

A few seconds later, I reached out to what was one of the less

impressive items in the treasure chamber. It was a small hammer

with a golden hilt and a platinum head embedded with jewels.

The moment I grabbed and lifted it, my avatar sank with a phenomenal weight. I roared and hoisted it up, turning to shout,

"Freyja, here!"

And with that built-up momentum, I hurled it overhand. Then

I panicked. What if this was interpreted as my attacking a friendly

NPC? Fortunately, the curvaceous blonde simply held up a slender hand and caught the deadly heavy hammer with ease.

But the next moment, she crouched down into a ball, most

likely due to the weight. Her long, wavy hair fanned out, and the

exposed white skin of her back trembled.

…Wait, was that bad? Did I give her the wrong thing?

At that point, I heard Freyja's low-pitched murmur.

"…wing…"

There was a little crackle of electricity in the air.

"…flowing…I am overflowing…"

It struck me as an odd thing for a young, beautiful witch to

say. Maybe the Cardinal System's language module made mistakes sometimes? But her voice was off, too. The glazed, husky

voice from before was now deeper, cracking.

Bzzp, zapp. The sparks were growing fiercer. Her goldenbrown hair rose up into the air, the hem of the thin white dress

flapping upward.

"I am overflowing…with POWERRRRR!!"

The third scream no longer belonged to the old Freyja in any

way. I was beyond a "fishy feeling" at this point and in full-on

open-mouthed shock as the muscles of the beautiful woman's

limbs and back bulged like ropes. Her white dress exploded into

shreds and vanished.

No doubt making use of his secret ability Hyper-Senses, Klein

turned away from the battle on the other side of the room at that

very moment. When he caught sight of his beloved Freyja's utterly nude form, his eyes bulged. Then his jaw dropped.

I couldn't blame him. As the lightning crackled all over Freyja,

she began to grow. Ten feet…fifteen…It wouldn't stop. Now her

arms and legs were the size of tree trunks, her bust even brawnier

than Thrym's. The hammer in her right hand had grown to match

the size of its owner. It was already too large for even a heavy

gnome warrior to wield, and it sprayed lightning in all directions.

And then, Klein and I spotted the detail that delivered the

greatest, nastiest shock yet.

From the downturned face's rugged cheeks and chin fell a

long, very long, golden—beard.

"She's…"

"A dude!"

Two male screams echoed on opposite ends of the room.

The captive beauty who had spurred Klein's samurai code into

motion was nowhere to be seen now. The new giant with the

stunning, rippling muscles looked like nothing other than a bodybuilder in his forties.

"Raaaaahhhhh!"

The giant dude unleashed a roar that rattled the entire chamber. He took a rumbling step toward the distant King Thrym with

a thick leather boot that had appeared out of nowhere.

With dread, I looked over to the left to check the eighth name

at the bottom of the list of party members, below all the HP and

MP bars.

While it had read Freyja less than a minute ago, there was

now a different name in its place.

Our new companion's name: Thor.

5

Even I, with my total lack of mythological knowledge, had heard

that name before.

One of the most famous of Norse gods, alongside Odin and the

trickster Loki, was Thor, god of thunder. The sight of him swinging a hammer that caused lightning to strike down giants was a

visual motif found often enough in movies and games.

From what Leafa told me later, there was indeed a story in

Norse mythology about Thor going to take his hammer back from

King Thrym of the giants. In the story, Thor is disguised as the

goddess Freyja and offers to be Thrym's wife. At the celebration,

despite losing his cover several times, his true identity stays hidden through Loki's clever explanations, and when he finally gets

his hammer back, he crushes Thrym and all of his giants one by

one, a story as comedic as it was brutal. So it was most likely that

Cardinal had collected that myth and rearranged it a bit to attach

it to the quest as an optional sub-story.

In other words, if someone present actually knew the story,

they would have realized as soon as the name appeared that

Freyja was not a secret agent of Thrym's. I was still grateful to

Klein's honest instincts and samurai code for saving her at the

cell—regardless of how he felt after learning of Freyja's true identity.

"Rrrgh…Cowardly giant! You shall now pay for the theft of my

precious Mjolnir!"

Thor the god of thunder held up the massive golden hammer

in his right hand and charged across the thick floor so hard he

seemed likely to break through it.

Thrym the frost king blew into his hands, producing a battleax of ice. He swung the weapon and shot back, "Treacherous god,

you will rue this deviant lie! I will cut off your beard and send it

back to Asgard when I'm done with you!"

Now that I thought about it, Thrym believed that Freyja was a

real goddess and was looking forward to their marriage. He

might've been the villain, but he had a right to be angry.

In the center of the chamber, the two bearded giants of gold

and blue met, golden hammer and icy battle-ax clashing. The impact caused the entire castle to shudder. Meanwhile, the rest of us

were still grappling with the shock of Freyja's growth—and sex

change. At the back of the room, Sinon finished up her healing

and called out to the group.

"Let's all attack while Thor's holding his attention!"

She was absolutely right. There was no guarantee that Thor

would be helping us to the very end of the battle. I swung my

swords and shouted, "All-out attack! Use all the sword skills you

can!"

The seven of us leaped as one, bearing down on Thrym from

every direction.

"Nraaaah!"

I felt as though something was sparkling from the ends of

Klein's eyes as he charged with his katana overhead and a particularly fierce battle cry, but my warrior's mercy made me pretend

not to see it. Ignoring the skill delay, we assaulted Thrym's legs

with every sword skill of three or more hits we could. Asuna had

switched out her wand for a rapier and was tattooing his Achilles

tendon. Next to her, Lisbeth was beating the tip of a toe with her

mace.

"Gr…rrgh…!"

Thrym grunted in pain, wobbled, and fell to a knee. A yellow

effect was spinning around his crown—he was stunned.

"That's it!" I cried, and we all unleashed our biggest combos.

Brilliant flashes of light enveloped his naked torso. From overhead fell a furious rain of orange arrows.

"Hrrng! Return to the depths from which you came, giant

king!" roared Thor, bringing down his hammer right onto

Thrym's head. The crown cracked and flew off, and the boss who

had seemed completely untouchable fell face-first onto the

ground.

His HP gauge was already gone. His massive limbs and the tip

of his beard began to crackle and turn into ice.

The blue light that sparkled in his black eye sockets faded,

vanishing. Just then, his tangled whiskers parted and emitted a

deep voice.

"Nwa-hah-hah…Enjoy your triumph, little bugs. But you will

see…You will regret trusting the Aesir…for they are the true pl—"

Zumm! Thor stomped down powerfully, his foot breaking

through the ice giant. An End Flame animation of extraordinary

scale erupted, and the frost giant blasted into countless shards of

ice. We held our hands up against the pressure of the effect, taking a few steps back. From the heights above, Thor cast us a look

with his golden eyes.

"…You have my thanks, fairy warriors. Now I have regained

my honor after the shame of losing my treasure. You must have a

reward."

He lifted his left hand to brush the hilt of the massive, beautiful hammer in his other hand. One of the gemstones embedded in

it came loose, began to glow, and turned into a hammer sized for

a human to use.

Thor tossed this golden hammer, a shrunken-down version of

the original, to Klein.

"Use Mjolnir, Hammer of Lightning, for your righteous battles. And now—farewell."

The god waved his right hand, and a bolt of pale lightning

erupted throughout the chamber. We reflexively shut our eyes,

and when they opened, no one was there. A small dialog box announced that a member had left, and the eighth set of HP/MP

bars was gone.

On the spot where Thrym fell, a veritable waterfall of items

was dropping and vanishing as they were automatically stored in

the party's temporary inventory.

When the rain of loot abated, the light shone brighter in the

boss chamber, driving away the darkness. Sadly, the mountain

range of golden treasure lining the walls also vanished. On the

other hand, I had a feeling that we were all packed to the limit

with items and wouldn't have been able to take any of it with us

anyway.

"…Phew…"

I walked over to Klein with a little sigh and placed a hand on

his shoulder. "Congrats on the legendary weapon."

"…And here I am, without a single point in Hammer skills,"

the katana swordsman replied, face halfway between laughing

and crying, holding the hammer as it glowed with a dazzling aura

effect. I gave him a big smile.

"Well, I'm sure Liz would be delighted to have it. Oh, wait,

she'll probably melt it down for ingots…"

"Hey! Even I wouldn't be that wasteful!" Lisbeth retorted.

With a straight face, Asuna pointed out, "But Liz, I hear you

get an incredible number of orichalcum ingots if you melt down a

legendary."

"What, really?"

"H-hey, I haven't said I'm giving it to her yet!" Klein wailed,

clutching the hammer. A wave of laughs broke out from the

group.

But at that very instant, a roar broke out that shook me to the

core, the ice floor rattling and swaying.

"Aaaah!" Silica screamed, her triangle ears down.

Next to her, tail twisted into an S-shape, Sinon shouted,

"We're…moving?! No, floating!"

I came to a belated realization.

The palace of Thrymheim was rising bit by bit, shuddering like

a living being. But why—No—Unless—

Leafa looked at the medallion around her neck and yelped, "BBig Brother! The quest is still going!!"

"Wh-what?!" wailed Klein. I shared his feeling. I assumed that

beating Thrym, head of the frost giants, would be the end of the

quest—but then I recalled the exact words of Urd, queen of the

lake, when she gave us the mission.

Infiltrate Thrymheim and draw Excalibur from the plinth. Not

"beat Thrym." In other words, that horrendous boss was only a

single hurdle along the way…

"The last light is blinking!" Leafa nearly screamed.

Yui responded, "Papa, there's a downward staircase being generated behind the throne!"

"…!!"

No time for a response. I took off running for the royal throne.

It looked like a chair, but as Thrym's personal seat, it was really more like a shack. If it weren't such an emergency, we might

have fun trying to see who could climb onto the seat portion, but

on this occasion, I just ran around the left side.

Around the back, as Yui said, there was a small staircase leading downward in the ice floor. It was much too small for a frost

giant but just large enough for a single human—er, fairy—to pass

through. I plunged into the dark opening as the footsteps of my

companions drew closer.

My mind worked furiously as I dove down the stairs, skipping

three steps at a time. If we failed Urd's quest—meaning that the

players down on the ground below succeeded in their slaughter

quest—the ice palace of Thrymheim would rise up to the city of

Alne above. But Thrym, the very king who sought to invade

Alfheim, was no longer around. Maybe he would just come back

to life as if nothing had ever happened. But given the Cardinal

System's fixation on details, I couldn't imagine it going ahead

with such a forceful story progression.

Meanwhile, as if she were reading my mind, Leafa's voice

came over my shoulder as we ran down the stairs.

"…Listen, Big Brother. I only remember a few vague details…

but I'm pretty sure that in the original Norse myth, Thrym wasn't

actually the master of Thrymheim."

"Wait…what?! But the name…"

"Yeah, I know. But in the myth, it was Th…Th…"

While Leafa tried to pronounce the name, Yui must have connected to the outer Net and run a search, because she filled in,

"Thjazi. In the myth, it was not actually Thrym who desired the

golden apple Urd mentioned, but Thjazi. And within ALO, it

seems that the NPC actually offering the slaughter quest in question is one Archduke Thjazi, found in the largest castle in Jotunheim."

"…Meaning the replacement was already there from the

start…"

So if Thrymheim ascended to Alne, this Thjazi guy would

probably come up and assume the throne above as the true last

boss. I couldn't help but feel that Cardinal was actually trying to

have the city destroyed and the Alne Highlands conquered, but I

had no intention of giving up now. Not because I wanted Excalibur that badly but because I owed it to our friend Tonky. And if I

happened to get a legendary sword out of the deal, I wasn't going

to complain…

Meanwhile, the vibrations running through the castle were

getting fiercer. At times there was a palpable shift in speed, making it clear that the palace was carving its way through the soil of

Jotunheim. I held my breath and practically fell down the spiral

staircase, I was running so fast.

"Papa, the exit is in five seconds!"

"Okay!" I shouted, racing pell-mell for the bright light coming

into view.

It was an octahedral space carved into the ice—in other words,

like two pyramids placed base to base. Essentially, it was a burial

chamber.

The walls were very thin, such that the lower parts of them offered a clear view of the map of Jotunheim below. Around us was

a fall of rocks and crystals coming loose from the ceiling of the

cave. The spiral staircase went through the center of the burial

chamber and down to the deepest point.

And at the end, a deep, pure gleam of golden light.

It was the very same light I'd seen with Leafa when we first

rode Tonky up to escape from Jotunheim, twinkling away at the

base of the inverted pyramid of ice. After an entire year, I'd finally

come to it.

The staircase ended at last, and the seven of us filed down to

form a semicircle around it.

At the center of the circular floor was an ice pedestal about

twenty inches to a side. Something small seemed to be trapped in

the middle. When I looked closer, I realized it was a fine, softlooking tree root. Countless delicate little fibers wound around

each other, forming one thick root.

But after a point, the two-inch-wide root was cleanly severed.

The cause of the cut was a thin, sharp blade detailed with delicate

runes—a sword. The shining golden sword stretched straight upward, such that half of it was exposed out of the ice pedestal. It

had a finely shaped knuckle guard and a hilt of smooth black

leather. A large rainbow gemstone shone on the pommel.

I had once seen a sword exactly like this. In fact, I had held it

myself.

The man who treated ALO like a tool for his own ambitions

had tried to generate it using GM privileges to cut me apart. But

those privileges had already transferred to me, so I created the

sword instead and tossed it to him so we could finish our fight.

At the time, creating the world's strongest sword with a single

command filled me with revulsion. I felt like I could never undo

that action unless I someday sought that blade through the

proper means. Yes, it might largely have been through coincidence, but the time had finally come.

…Sorry about the wait, I silently told the sword, and took a

step forward to grab the hilt of the legendary blade, the Holy

Sword Excalibur.

"…!!"

I tugged at it with all of my strength.

But the sword was totally immobile, as if fused with the

pedestal—with the very pyramid castle itself. I got a two-handed

grip, braced my feet against the ground, and heaved with all of

my body.

"Hrng…gah…!!"

The result was the same. A nasty chill trickled down my back.

Unlike SAO and GGO, numerical stats like strength and agility

weren't displayed in ALO. The requirements for equipping any

weapon or armor were vague, no more detailed than ambiguous

stages like "easy to use," to "a little tricky," to "not really under

control," to "difficult even to lift." So more than a few players

wound up with great weapons that were clearly too heavy for

them but, too stubborn to give up, they kept using their over-

weight gear and ultimately suffered as a result.

But given that it was a game and there had to be numbers underpinning everything, that meant they were simply hidden stats.

Basic values determined by race and body size could be affected

and pushed in different directions by skill boosts, magical gear

bonuses, support magic, and so on. Looking just at base stats, a

salamander like Klein would be a bit higher than a spriggan like

me.

But as he used a katana and relied on sharpness and accuracy

in his cuts, he leaned toward agility effects with his skills and

gear. And since I liked using heavy swords, most of my adjustments affected my strength. As a result, out of the seven of us, I

most certainly had the highest strength. Meaning that if I couldn't

get the sword to budge, no one else would be able to pull it free. It

was so obvious that nobody even offered to try.

Instead there came a voice from behind.

"Keep trying, Kirito!"

It was Asuna. Liz piped up with a "You're almost there!" Instantly, Leafa, Silica, and Klein joined in with their own cheers.

Sinon yelled, "Show me your spirit!" Yui cried, "Come on,

Papa," with as much volume as she could muster, and Pina

howled, "Krurururu!"

As I was the one who recruited this party in the first place, I

wasn't going to stop now. I had as much statistical buff as I could

get, so the rest was down to enthusiasm and willpower. I had to

believe that my stats weren't numerically insufficient; I just had

to unlock the right amount with force and timing. The only answer was to pull with all of my muscle—all of my mental force of

will.

My vision began to fade into white, lights flashed in front of

my eyes, and I started to wonder if I'd soon cause the AmuSphere

to auto-disconnect me due to abnormal brain patterns, when—

Something cracked. I felt a faint vibration in my hands.

"Ah!" someone shouted.

A powerful light began surging through the pedestal at my

feet, blotting out my vision with gold.

Next, a crashing deeper and more tremendous than any sound

effect I'd ever heard pierced my ears. My body stretched backward, and amid shards of ice that shot in all directions, the sword

in my right hand traced a brilliant golden arc in the air.

My six companions reached out to steady me as my body flew

backward. I looked up, struggling with the tremendous weight of

the sword, and met their downward glances. Their mouths

twisted and broke into smiles, ready to unleash raucous cheers—

if it weren't for what happened an instant later.

The little tree root was freed from the ice pedestal. It rose up

into the air and began to stretch, to grow. The fine little hairs

spread downward before my eyes. A fresh growth emerged from

the severed end of the root, racing directly upward.

A powerful roar was approaching from above. I looked up to

see that something was rushing down through the hole we'd come

from, disintegrating the spiral staircase as it went. It was more

roots. The roots of the World Tree that were holding Thrymheim

in place.

The thick roots tore through the chamber to touch the much

smaller one freed from the pedestal. They wound together and

fused.

Then, as if all the shaking we'd felt so far was just a precursor,

a true shock wave rippled through Thrymheim.

"Wh-whoa! It…it's gonna split apart!" Klein roared, and we all

grabbed hold of one another as a million tiny cracks spread

through the ice walls around us.

There was a series of earsplitting explosions. Pieces of the

thick ice walls as large as a horse carriage broke free left and

right, plummeting downward toward the Great Void below.

"Thrymheim itself is collapsing! We must escape, Papa!" Yui

bleated overhead. I looked to my right at Asuna, and she looked

back.

Together we chorused, "But there's no staircase!"

The spiral staircase we descended into the chamber had just

been destroyed without a trace by the onslaught of the massive

roots of the World Tree. And even if we raced at top speed back

the way we came, the best we could do was return to that open

terrace.

"What about clinging to the roots?" Sinon asked, keeping cool

despite the chaos. She looked up and shrugged. "Actually…never

mind."

The roots affixed into the soil above stretched down halfway

through the chamber, but even the little capillary roots closest to

the circular disc we were standing on were a good thirty feet

away. We couldn't jump that far.

"Hey, World Tree! This isn't very thoughtful of you!" Lisbeth

shouted, brandishing a fist upward, but she was talking to a tree.

What was it going to do, say sorry?

"Awwright…Time to check out the great Klein's Olympic

medal–winning high-jumping skills!"

The samurai hopped to his feet and got a running start—but

the circular platform wasn't even twenty feet across.

"No, you idiot, don't—"

But I couldn't stop him. Klein launched himself into a beautiful Fosbury flop of about seven feet high. Given the meager running start he had, it was actually quite impressive, but still far

short of the roots. He traced a hard parabola in the air and

crashed into the center of the floor.

The shock of that impact—or so we all believed—caused a

fresh series of cracks to spider through the walls. The bottom of

the chamber, the very bottom tip of Thrymheim, separated from

the rest of the palace at last.

"K-Klein, you idiot!" cursed Silica, who hated roller coasters,

and seven players, one pixie, and one pet entered free fall atop a

small circular cylinder of ice.

If it were a slapstick manga, we could all sit down and enjoy a

cup of tea during the scene.

But falling from heights in a VRMMO was actually quite terrifying. Sure, we got to fly among the clouds in Alfheim, but that

was thanks to our trusty wings. A player in a flightless situation,

such as a dungeon, would get quite the scare from a jump of even

fifteen feet. Even I didn't like to do them.

So the seven of us all clung to the circle of ice, screaming for

all we were worth.

In the air around us, other massive chunks of ice that came

loose at the same time as us were colliding violently and bursting

into smaller pieces. Up above, massive Thrymheim seemed to be

breaking into pieces, each crack freeing more of the World Tree's

roots to swing loose.

At last, I hesitantly peered over the edge of the circle to what

lay below.

Three thousand feet below—less than that by now—loomed the

surface of Jotunheim, the Great Void yawning wide. The disc we

were riding on was heading straight for the center of the hole.

"I wonder what's down there," Sinon wondered.

"M-m-maybe it's like Urd said, and it g-g-goes down to N-Niflheim!" I managed to respond.

"I hope it's not too cold…"

"I-I-I bet it's absolutely f-freezing! It's the h-home of the f-ffrost giants!"

The conversation gave me a bit of willpower at last, so with Excalibur still clutched in my hands, I turned left to ask Leafa, "H-hhow goes the slaughter q-quest?"

The sylph girl, her ponytail sticking straight upward with the

acceleration of the fall, instantly stopped screaming—I suspected

she might have been shrieking with delight—and glanced at the

medallion around her neck.

"Oh…w-we made it in time, Big Brother! There's still one light

left! Oh, good…"

She beamed wholeheartedly, spreading her arms wide to hug

me, and I rubbed her head.

Since the World Tree was regaining its former state, that

meant that Queen Urd and her kindred would be regaining their

power, and the humanoid Deviant Gods would no longer hunt

them. That would mean that even if we fell into the Great Void

and died partway or plunged all the way down to Niflheim, our

sacrifice wouldn't be in vain.

The only worry on my mind was Excalibur, held tight in my

hands. The big question was if I could actually earn the right to

own the sword if I hadn't yet completed the quest. I probably

needed to meet up with Urd alive and ensure that the quest completion switch was flipped.

Behind Leafa's back, I tried to open my window and stash Excalibur inside anyway. As I suspected, the sword resisted my attempt to stick it into the menu.

Hey, I got the sword in my hands legitimately. That's all that

matters. If I don't get to keep it, well, this gaudy, golden legendary look isn't really my style to begin with, I told myself, a

weak sour-grapes defense.

Suddenly, Leafa pulled back from her grip around my neck.

"…I heard something."

"Huh…?"

I put all of my concentration into listening, but all I heard was

the rushing of the wind. The ground level was much closer now.

We had maybe sixty seconds at best before we smashed—er,

plummeted—into the Void.

"There it was again!" she cried, and managed to carefully

stand up on the falling disc.

"H-hey, be caref…" I started to shout, when I heard it.

It sounded like a distant wailing: Kwooo…

I looked around with a start. Beyond the falling chunks of ice

around us, in the distant southern sky, a small white light was approaching. As it swung closer, I made out a fishlike body, four

pairs of wings, and a long nose.

"Tonkyyyyy!" Leafa called, her hands around her mouth. It

wailed in response again. That sealed it. It was Tonky, the flying

Deviant God who delivered us to the entrance of Thrymheim.

Now it seemed all too obvious: He gave us a ride there, so it made

sense he would pick us up. If only he would hurry…

"Th-this way, this way!" Liz cried, and Asuna waved, too. Silica

timidly looked up from Pina's feathers, where her face had been

buried, and Sinon swung her tail in annoyance.

Still sprawled out in the same position that he had landed

from his ultra-high-jump, Klein finally looked up, grinned, and

gave a thumbs-up.

"Heh heh…I knew this would happen…Knew that guy would

come and save us at the last second…"

Liar! I thought furiously, and I suspected everyone else joined

me on that one. In fact, we'd all forgotten about him. The dutiful,

heroic Deviant God glided closer and closer, with plenty of time

to scoop all of us up before we crashed.

Because of all the falling ice around the disc, Tonky couldn't

sidle up directly next to us; instead, he pulled into a hover about

five yards away. But even a heavily weighted player could make

that jump.

Leafa was the first to effortlessly leap over onto Tonky's back,

practically humming as she did so. She held out both hands toward us and shouted, "Silica!"

Silica nodded, clutched Pina's legs with both hands, and made

an awkward running start before she jumped. Pina was left essentially dangling Silica below her, and she flapped her wings to

boost the airborne time. That was a privilege only a tamer with a

flying pet could boast. She flew over and landed safely in Leafa's

arms.

Next to leap was Lisbeth, with a bold "Traaah!" and Asuna following with a graceful long jump. Sinon even showed off with a

double spin before landing near Tonky's tail.

Klein looked at me nervously and I waved him onward.

"Awwright, get ready to see my beautiful—" he started, preparing his timing. I whacked him on the back. The jump at the end of

his flailing head start was coming up a bit short, but Tonky

reached out his trunk and caught Klein in midair.

"Wh-whoaaaa?! Ohmygod!!" he screamed.

I ignored him and looked down below. Beyond the translucent

disc of ice, the Great Void threatened to swallow my entire view. I

looked forward, started a quick run—then came to a horrifying

realization.

I couldn't jump.

Or to be precise, I couldn't jump five yards with the tremendous weight of the Holy Sword Excalibur clenched in my arms. It

felt like my boots were biting into the ice just standing here.

Over on Tonky's back, everyone else seemed to pick up on my

concern.

"Kirito!" came their impassioned cries. My head downcast, I

grappled with a powerful, momentary doubt.

I had two choices—fall to my death holding Excalibur or dis-

card it and live. Was this five-yard gap a test of my greed and fixation as a player, really just a coincidence? Or was it a trap laid by

the Cardinal System…?

"Papa…" Yui murmured worriedly above my head. I nodded

back.

"…Damn you, Cardinal!" I swore, grimacing.

The next moment, I cast aside the sword in my hand.

Suddenly, my body felt light as a feather. The golden shine

glittered as it spun out of my field of view.

I took a short lead, tensed, and leaped, turning around in

midair. For all of its weight, Excalibur fell slowly, like a feather

fallen from a phoenix's wing, glittering into the endless hole.

The moment I landed backward on Tonky, his eight wings

spread wide. I felt myself pressing into his back with deceleration.

The creature had been falling with the disc so we would remain

level, and now it switched to a hover, stopping our fall.

Asuna came over and patted me on the shoulder. "We can go

back and get it sometime."

"I will get a lock on its coordinates!" Yui reassured me.

"Yeah…good idea. I'm sure it'll be waiting for me somewhere

in Niflheim," I muttered, ready to say a silent farewell to the

world's strongest sword, which I had once held in my hands.

But that was cut short by the blue-haired cait sith who stepped

in front of me, pulling her enormous longbow off of her shoulder

and nocking a narrow silver arrow.

"Two hundred meters," she muttered, chanting a quick spell.

White light wreathed the arrow.

As we watched in disbelief, the archer/sniper Sinon drew her

arrow back.

At a forty-five-degree angle, far below the plummeting Excalibur, she let it fly. The arrow shot off, leaving a strange silver line

in the air behind it—Retrieving Arrow, a spell common to archers

of any race. It essentially stuck an extremely elastic, sticky thread

to the arrow. It was a useful spell, allowing you to retrieve arrows

that would normally be lost and pulling distant objects within

reach, but the thread threw off the arrow's arc, and there was no

homing ability, so it was only accurate at close range.

Finally realizing what Sinon was intending, I couldn't help but

think, Even you couldn't…

Even she couldn't do this. That distance was twice the effective

range of the bow Liz crafted for her. And even within range, there

were plenty of negative factors: unsteady footing, falling ice, a

moving target.

But—but, but, but.

The falling point of golden light and the descending silver

thread, as if pulling toward the other, grew closer, closer…

And collided with a little thack.

"Hah!"

Sinon yanked on the magic thread connected to her right

hand. The golden light abruptly slowed, then came to a stop and

began to ascend. The little point of light steadily grew larger and

longer, until it resembled a sword again.

Two seconds later, the legendary weapon that I had just given

an eternal farewell stuck right into Sinon's palm.

"Wow, it's heavy," the cait sith grunted, using both hands to

secure it before turning to the group.

"S…S…S…"

Seven voices chimed in perfect unison.

"Sinon's so freakin' cool!"

She responded to the group's adulation with a twitch of her

triangular ears, as her hands were full with the sword, then

looked at me last and gave a slight shrug.

"Don't look so pathetic. You can have it."

Apparently I'd had a giant message reading Give it to me! in

magic marker on my forehead. I looked off in an attempt at innocence, but Sinon grunted, holding out the sword.

I felt a slight bit of déjà vu. Two weeks earlier, Sinon had given

me something with the exact same gesture at the end of the battle-royale final round of the Bullet of Bullets tournament in GGO.

I had taken it automatically, a plasma grenade that would wipe

out all of my HP in one blast, and the two of us had held it between us so we could die together—a bit of an ominous end, I had

to admit. I was too scared to look up how the rest of the Net had

reacted to that scene.

But this time, the sword wasn't going to explode. I hoped.

"Th…thanks," I said, holding out my hands to accept the sword

—which was pulled back at the last second.

"But promise me one thing first."

And with a dazzling smile, the biggest she'd worn since coming

to ALO, the blue-haired cait sith dropped a bomb ten times more

destructive than that plasma grenade.

"Every time you draw this sword, think of me."

Crackle.

The air went icy cold, and the golden blade Excalibur passed

from Sinon's hands to mine. But the virtual sweat running down

my back was so vivid, I didn't even feel its unearthly weight.

"Ooh, it's tough being a real playe—"

Klein started to say unhelpfully, but I cut him off with a stomp

on his foot and tried to keep my voice as calm as possible.

"…Yes, I will think of you, and be grateful. Thank you. Your

aim was simply superb."

"You're welcome," Sinon replied with a saucy wink, then

turned and moved in the direction of Tonky's tail. She pulled out

a peppermint stem from her quiver, stuck it in her mouth, and

sucked on it. Sinon was trying to pull off the super-cool, hotshot

sniper aloofness, but I didn't miss the trembling in the tip of her

tail. That was the sign she was holding in belly laughter. She got

one over on me! I groaned, but there was nothing to be done

about the suspicious glances from the women now.

To my surprise, the first one to come to my aid this time was

Tonky.

"Kwoooo…" he trumpeted, drawing out the sound and powerfully flapping his eight wings to ascend. I looked up and saw what

was probably the last and biggest spectacle of the entire quest

commencing before my eyes.

Thrymheim palace, jammed deep into the ceiling of the cavernous realm of Jotunheim, was beginning to fall.

The bottom part had crumbled without a trace, but the rest of

the structure was still intact. We'd always assumed it was an upside-down pyramid, but there had been an identical mass of the

same size hidden above it. In total, Thrymheim was a pyramidal

octahedron, just like the chamber that contained Excalibur.

The length of each side was exactly three hundred meters.

Which meant the distance from top point to bottom point was the

same as the diagonal of a square: 300 times √2 made 424.26 meters. The special viewing deck of the Tokyo Skytree was 450 meters high, so it was nearly that size. I was glad that we didn't need

to travel up through the dungeon before going back down.

As my brain was busy with those pointless calculations, the

palace of ice began to fall with a cracking like thunder. As the

wind pressure hit it, the ice began to crumble faster. Glacier-size

crevasses began to form up and down the structure, breaking it

into several large chunks.

"…So we got to go on one little adventure in that dungeon, and

now it's gone forever…" Liz murmured. Silica clutched Pina in her

arms and chimed in.

"It's a bit of a shame, isn't it? There were plenty of rooms we

didn't even go in…"

"Our mapping percentage was only 37.2 percent," Yui added

sadly from atop my head.

"Yeah, it's a real waste…But I had a lotta fun," Klein said

gravely, hands on his hips. Then he thought of something and

swiveled around, and in an odd voice, he asked, "Hey, Leafa. So,

erm…that Freyja's still a real goddess somewhere, right? One that

ain't that Thor guy in disguise?"

"Yeah, that's right," Leafa said.

He smirked. "Ah, great. So if I go around lookin', I might just

meet her someday."

"…Maybe you will."

It was an act of kindness on Leafa's part that she didn't point

out that Asgard, realm of the gods, did not exist in ALO. I thought

back to King Thrym's final words before Thor finished him off for

good. He seemed to be saying something about the Aesir being

the true…something. What was it?

But that fragment of memory was wiped out by the dying wail

of Thrymheim, the deafening crash of its utter annihilation at

last.

The tremendous icebergs falling through the sky passed so

near to Tonky that I practically could have reached out to touch

them. They tumbled down into the Great Void below and vanished into endless darkness.

…Actually, that wasn't quite right.

I could see some kind of light at the bottom of the hole. A flash

of wavering blue, glimmering just like…water. It was the surface

of water.

From the depths of the seemingly endless pit came a different

kind of rumbling as a mass of water swelled up higher and higher.

The tremendous deluge of ice was swallowed by the liquid, melting and adding to the water level.

"Oh…up above!" Sinon motioned, mint stem still poking out of

the corner of her mouth.

Following her lead, I looked upward, to be met by yet another

astonishing sight.

With the collapse of Thrymheim, the roots of the World Tree

shriveled into the ceiling of Jotunheim were freed at last, thickening and writhing like massive animals. They tangled together and

stretched downward, in search of something. It was like a giant

had just dropped a mass of wooden stakes. As we watched in silence, the roots reached down into the pure water surface that

filled the former Great Void, sending huge concentric waves rippling outward. They spread across the vast lake like a net, until

they splashed against its shores.

It was the same sight as Queen Urd had shown us. The roots of

the World Tree, now thick enough that they looked like an extension of its massive trunk, finally stopped moving and seemed to

be emitting powerful waves of some kind. They felt like pure adulation, the rejoicing of a desert wanderer who arrives at the oasis

at last.

"Look…there are buds coming from the roots," Asuna whispered. Indeed, all over the sprawling roots, tiny buds were popping up and sprouting green leaves—though from this distance, it

was clear that each were in fact huge trees of their own.

A breeze picked up.

Not the bone-chilling rattle that had always swept through Jotunheim. A warm, gentle wafting of spring. At the same time, the

light filling the realm grew several times brighter. I looked up

again to see that the dim crystals embedded into the ceiling of the

cave were each shining as powerfully as a tiny sun.

Kissed by the breeze and the light, the snow choking the

ground and thick ice covering the brooks and rivers began to melt

before our eyes, replaced by fresh green buds on the damp black

earth. The Deviant God fortresses and castles here and there were

quickly covered in greenery and turned into ruins.

"Kwoooooh…"

Tonky suddenly spread his eight wings and wide ears, lifting

his lengthy nose for a long, loud trumpeting.

Seconds later, similar responses echoed back from every direction. Emerging from the springs, rivers, and the massive lake in

the center of the world were more jellyphants, like giant

dumplings with tentacles. And that wasn't all. Many-legged crocodiles, two-headed leopards—a variety of animal-type Deviant

Gods were emerging from the ground and water to roam the land

again.

In fact, amid the beautiful greenery, they were no longer "Deviant Gods" at all. They were simply pleasant, gentle inhabitants

of the land, soaking in the breeze, the flora, and the sunlight.

Even if they were a bit…bigger than most. No matter how hard I

looked, there was no sign of any humanoid Deviant Gods to torment them.

Tonky had lowered himself enough that here and there were

tiny raid parties visible below, standing still in shock. They had to

be absolutely stunned. After hours of frantic work for Archduke

Thjazi on his slaughter quest, just before they were about to succeed, their ally giants vanished and the environment around

them underwent a dramatic change. No wonder they were

shocked.

As Klein had said before we started, we might need to explain

what exactly happened to an MMO Tomorrow reporter for anyone to understand the full story, but he could fulfill that role and

soak in the glory, I decided.

Leafa sat down promptly and began to brush the silky white

fur on Tonky's broad back, whispering, "…I'm glad. I'm so glad

for you, Tonky. Look at all of those friends. There…and there…

and there…All around us."

Even antisocial me had trouble keeping down a rise of emotion

at seeing the large tears dripping down her cheeks. Silica joined

in and embraced Leafa, heaving with sobs, as Asuna and Liz

wiped their eyes. Klein, arms folded, turned away so that no one

could see his face, and even Sinon seemed to be blinking rapidly.

Lastly, Yui leaped off of my head and landed on Asuna's shoulder to bury her face into the long blue hair. For some reason, she

didn't like my seeing her cry recently. I wondered whom she got

that habit from…

And then I heard a voice.

"You have succeeded gloriously."

I faced forward with a start.

Beyond Tonky's large head was a floating figure amid a backdrop of golden light.

It hadn't even been two hours since I last saw it, but the sight

was practically nostalgic for me. It was none other than the tenfoot-tall blond bombshell, Urd, queen of the lake, the source of

our quest.

But unlike last time, where she was faint and translucent, now

she was clearly full-bodied and real. She must have escaped from

the spring that she'd been hiding in to keep away from Thrym's

grasp. The pearly scales on her limbs, the golden hair that ended

in tentacle tips, and the light green robe that covered her body

were all glittering in the fresh new light.

Her mysterious turquoise eyes narrowed serenely, Urd spoke

again.

"With the removal of Excalibur, blade that cuts all steel and

wood, the spirit root severed from Yggdrasil has returned to its

mother tree. The tree's blessing fills the land again, and Jotunheim has regained its proper form. This is all thanks to you."

"Aww…shucks. If it weren't for Thor, I doubt we'd have ever

beaten Thrym," I mumbled, and Urd nodded.

"I felt the lightning god's power as well. But…be cautious,

fairies. The Aesir may be the enemies of the frost giants, but that

does not make them your friends…"

"Um…Thrym was trying to say something like that himself.

What does that…?" Leafa asked, wiping her tears away as she got

to her feet. But the Cardinal System didn't seem to understand

the vague question, and Urd silently ignored it, rising slightly.

"My sisters wish to thank you as well."

Urd's right side rippled like water, and a figure emerged.

It was slightly smaller than her older sister—but still tall

enough to tower over us. Her hair was blond as well, but a bit

shorter than Urd's. Her robe was a deep blue. If Urd's features

were "regal," hers were "refined."

"My name is Verdandi. Thank you, fairy warriors. It is like a

dream to witness Jotunheim green and verdant once again…" she

whispered blissfully. Verdandi waved a willowy hand, and a wave

of items and sacks of yrd fell before our eyes, flowing into our

temporary item storage. As a party of seven, we had plenty of

room, but I was starting to worry about hitting even that limit.

Then, on Urd's left side, a little whirlwind burst into life,

bringing with it a third silhouette.

This one was in full armor. Long wings stretched from either

side of her helmet and boots. Her blond hair was tied tight, hanging on either side of her beautiful, bold face.

And this third sister had a very striking feature of her own. She

was human—er, fairy—sized. Compared to Urd, the eldest, she

was not even half as large. Klein's throat made a strange glumph

sound.

"My name is Skuld! You have my thanks, warriors!"

Her clear, clipped voice rang out, and she swung her arm in

turn. There was another treasure-fall of loot. A warning about imminent space shortage began to blink in my message area on the

right side of my view.

The two younger sisters backed away, and Urd strode forward

again. If she gave us a similar windfall, we would absolutely run

out of space. If that happened, the leftover items would be materialized as objects, to pile up on Tonky's back. But, for better or

for worse, Urd merely smiled at us.

"And I shall grant you that blade. Be careful not to hurl it into

Urd's Spring."

"N-no, I won't," I replied, all childlike obedience.

The legendary blade Excalibur, which I'd been clutching in my

hands all this time, vanished. It was now in my inventory, of

course. I wasn't childish enough to scream and holler in joy, so I

kept my exultation to a single pump of a fist.

The three women floated to a distance and intoned in unison.

"Thank you, fairies. May we meet again."

In the center of my vision, a system message in an exotic font

appeared. When the notice that we had completed the quest

faded, the three spun around and made to leave.

Before they could go, Klein raced up front and screamed, "S-SSkuld! How can I get in touch with you?!"

What happened to you and Freyja?! An NPC isn't going to

give you her e-mail address!!

Unable to decide whether to hit him with the former or the latter, I froze in place. Only…

My goodness.

The two elder sisters vanished abruptly, but the youngest,

Skuld, turned around with what almost looked like an expression

of amusement and waved. Something shining flew through the

air and landed in Klein's hand.

Then the warrior goddess did indeed disappear, leaving only

silence and a faint breeze behind.

Eventually Liz shook her head and muttered, "Klein, at this

very moment, you have my utmost respect."

I agreed. I just had to agree.

In any case…

Our grand quest, starting spontaneously on the morning of

December 28th, 2025, ended just like that, shortly after noon.

"…Hey, you feel like having a party-slash-year-end celebration?" I suggested.

Looking tired, Asuna smiled back at me and said, "I'm in."

"Me, too!" said Yui on her shoulder, thrusting her tiny hand

into the air.

6

I wasn't sure whether to hold our spontaneous celebration in the

forest cabin on the twenty-second floor of New Aincrad or in a

real-life location.

In ALO, we had the absolute participation of Yui, who played a

huge role in our success. But for a week starting from the 29th of

December, Asuna would be at her family's Kyoto home, so if we

missed today, I wouldn't see her again until next year.

Recognizing this, our "daughter," Yui, suggested it be held

IRL, and so our year-end party was slated for Dicey Café at three

o'clock in the Okachimachi neighborhood. After we waved

farewell to Tonky at the landing of the hanging staircase, we

raced up the long stairway to the city of Alne, which was still as

lively as when we started the quest—they'd apparently felt some

shaking when Thrymheim began ascending. A quick trip to the

inn, and we all logged out.

As soon as I woke up on my bed, I called Agil with the story.

He grumbled about not having enough food on short notice, but

he said he would have his famous spare ribs and baked beans

ready by then in ample supply. The man was a model business

owner.

The forecast called for snow in the evening, so Suguha and I

took the train into the city rather than my motorcycle. We had big

luggage to bring this time, so my rickety old 125cc and its

cramped trunk wouldn't do.

Tokyo residents like Klein often treated Kawagoe in Saitama

Prefecture like the ends of the earth, but if you got on an express

train, it took less than an hour to reach Okachimachi. By the time

we opened the doors of Dicey Café just after two, only Sinon was

there, and she lived practically down the street.

After greeting the owner, who was busy cooking the meal, I got

out the hard case I'd brought along. It contained four cameras

with moving lenses and a notepad PC control station.

"What is that?" Sinon asked curiously. She and Suguha helped

me set up the cameras in four different locations around the

room. They were ordinary webcams with onboard mics that we'd

upgraded with high-capacity batteries and Wi-Fi connections, so

four of them were enough to cover just about all of the small

room.

Once all the cameras were talking to the notepad and working

properly, I connected to my high-spec desktop back home over

the Internet and put on a small headset.

"How is it, Yui?"

"…I can see. I can see and hear everything, Papa!" came Yui's

clear voice through both the earbud in my ear and the notepad's

speaker.

"Okay, try some slow movement."

"Sure!" she piped up, and the nearest camera's small lens

began to move.

Yui would have a makeshift 3D model of Dicey Café in real

time now, which she could fly inside like a pixie. The picture

quality was poor and the system slow to react, but compared to

the passive view she'd gotten from my cell phone camera before,

this was a much more liberating glimpse into the real world for

her.

"…I see. So those cameras and mics are kind of like Yui's own

inputs…her sensory organs," Sinon said.

It was Suguha, not me, who responded. "Yes. At school, Big

Brother's in the mecha…mechaton…"

"Mechatronics," I corrected.

"That-nics elective course. He says he built them for class

credit, but it's really just for Yui."

"I keep ordering more features from him!"

The three of us laughed. I took a sip of caustic ginger ale and

argued, "Th-that's not all! If I can shrink the camera down and

mount it on a shoulder or head, then we can take the machine

anywhere…"

"Yeah, and that's for Yui, too, I'm saying!"

I had no rebuttal to that.

But the "AV Interactive Communications Probe," as we temporarily called it, was far from complete. For Yui to be able to

sense the real world just like the virtual world, we needed total

autonomous movement of cameras and mics, and we were way

short on sensors. Ideally, this automatic terminal would be humanoid in shape. But that was impossible with a mere high

school's resources, so I was hoping that some highly aggressive

tech company built a beautiful girl robot soon…

While I was lost in my purely altruistic daydreams, Asuna,

Klein, Liz, and Silica joined the group, and two tables were

pushed together to hold all the food and drink. Last came an

enormous plate of glistening spare ribs, to thunderous applause

for the cook. Agil took off his apron to sit down, and we poured

glasses of champagne both real and nonalcoholic.

"To earning Excalibur and Mjolnir! So long, 2025! Cheers!" I

toasted briefly, and everyone joined in.

"…You know, I've been wondering," Sinon prompted, sitting in

the seat to my right. It was an hour and a half later, and the feast

had been totally picked clean. "Why is it Excalibur?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked, not understanding her

question. Sinon spun her fork in her fingers and explained.

"Normally in fantasy novels and manga and stuff, we Japanese

usually pronounce it more like 'caliber.' Excaliber. But in the

game, it's pronounced Excalibur."

"Oh, that's what you're talking about."

"Oooh. You read those books, Sinon?" Suguha asked, perking

up.

Sinon smiled shyly. "I practically owned the library in middle

school. I read a couple books about the legend of King Arthur, but

I'm pretty sure they all phoneticized it 'caliber.'"

"Hmm. Maybe the designer who put the item into ALO just

called it that out of personal taste or a whim…" I offered without

any real proof. At my left, Asuna smirked.

"I'm pretty sure that there were several more names in the

original legend. Remember how in the quest, there was a fake

version called Caliburn? Well, that was one of the real names in

that list, I'm pretty sure."

The speaker on the table suddenly piped up with Yui's officious voice.

"The main variations seen most often are Caledfwlch, Caliburnus, Calesvol, Collbrande, Caliburn, and Escalibor, depend-

ing on the language."

"Sheesh, there are that many?" I marveled. In that case, the

phonetic difference between "caliber" and "calibur" seemed like

simple margin of error.

Sinon continued. "Well, it doesn't mean much…It just struck

me as interesting, since 'caliber' has a very specific meaning to

me."

"Huh? What's that?"

"Caliber is the English word for a bullet's size. My Hecate II is

a 'fifty caliber' because its rounds are .50 inches wide. I think the

English spelling is different from Excalibur, though."

She paused momentarily, then looked at me.

"…It can also refer to a person's quality of character. That's the

source of the saying, 'a man of high caliber.'"

"Ooh, I need to remember that," Suguha noted. Sinon chuckled and said it probably wouldn't come up on any tests.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Lisbeth spoke up at

last with a smirk and said, "Then I guess they needed to make

sure whoever owned Excalibur had the proper caliber. From what

I've heard on the grapevine, a certain someone made quite a

killing with a short-term job recently…"

"Urk…"

It was just yesterday that Kikuoka wired me the payment for

assisting in the investigation of the Death Gun incident. But I'd

already set aside most of it for better parts for Yui's desktop machine and a nanocarbon-fiber shinai for Suguha's kendo, so the

remaining amount was already quite depressing.

But if I backed down now, that would only bring my caliber

into question. I puffed out my chest and announced, "I-I intended

to pay for today's party all along, of course."

Cheers erupted from all around, and Klein emitted an earsplitting whistle. As I raised my hand in response to the crowd, I considered something.

If there was one thing I'd learned about human potential

throughout my experiences in the three worlds of SAO, ALO, and

GGO, it was that "a single man cannot support anything on his

own."

In each world, I'd been brought to my knees on many occasions and had only been able to continue walking thanks to the

help of others. Today's spontaneous adventure was the perfect example of that.

So I was certain that my caliber—our caliber—was only as

wide as when the entire group held hands in a circle and

stretched as far as we could.

I would not use that golden sword for just my own gain.

With that oath in mind, I reached down for my glass on the

table to lead another toast.