Chapter 8

The sight of the pale moonlight shining down upon the white, ice-crusted

plains was so beautiful that I was left speechless, even knowing it was all just a

virtual rendering. It was our newest party member, Kuro, the lapispine dark

panther, who brought me back to reality with a headbutt to my waist.

"Rrrr…," it purred, telling me to get going. I gave its neck a scratch and replied

"Good idea. We're almost to the Bashin village."

In fact, the village wasn't our final destination. We were going to ask them for

information about the birdpeople Sinon had met, and then we'd have to

continue from there. If we could meet up with Sinon by midnight, that was

probably the best outcome we could hope for.

Thanks to the hailstorm, the little monsters were out of the way, so it was

best if we ran as far as we could while the coast was clear. I was about to give

the signal to launch when Lisbeth cut me off.

"About that, Kirito."

"About what…the Bashin?"

"Yeah. Remember how I said Silica, Yui, and I had a meal in the Bashin's big

tent? Well…they had a bunch of fur rugs on the ground in there."

"And…?"

"I'm pretty sure I saw one of them that was a mixture of black and blue…"

"…"

I looked away from Liz to Kuro's back. The shining black fur had a streak of

brilliant blue running down its spine, just as the species name described.

Yui was already enamored with Kuro. She patted its back and added, "Yes,

there was a rug in the corner of the tent with this color arrangement on it. It

was a ninety-nine percent match with Kuro's fur."

If Yui said it, then mistaken memory wasn't a factor. That left no doubt that

the Bashin hunted lapispine dark panthers on the savanna.

True or not, in a normal game, an NPC would never attack a player's tamed

monster. Still, there was no guarantee it would work the same way in Unital

Ring.

"Hmm. In that case, what if we have you wait with Kuro outside the village so

that we can go and collect information inside?" Leafa suggested. That was a

logical idea, and I was going to add that they should get some food for me, too,

if they got fed.

But then Yui spoke again. "Actually, Papa, we might not need to go into the

village at all."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"The earlier storm was of considerable scope. If Sinon encountered the same

storm, it's possible she could be on the opposite side of the savanna."

"…I see. That's true…But how will we make contact with Sinon, then? She's

not a registered friend or party member, so we can't send messages," I said.

Yui beamed. "Why do you need to contact her in Unital Ring? Why not in the

real world?"

Following my daughter's advice, I logged out and sat upright. Going from the

icy white plains to my man-made room gave me a bout of momentary dizziness

until I looked to my side. On the left side of the bed was Suguha, wearing her

AmuSphere and looking defenseless in her sleep…but of course, she wasn't

sleeping. Suguha was currently in a far-off virtual world, protecting my avatar.

We knew there were no enemies in visible range, but there was always the

possibility of a dangerous monster popping into existence, so I needed to hurry.

I lifted the AmuSphere visor and grabbed my phone. With the introduction of

the Augma, it was quickly becoming an obsolete bit of gadgetry, but I used it to

call Sinon anyway.

She was probably in the midst of a UR dive, too, but the AmuSphere had a

linking feature to your smartphone that allowed you to receive calls there.

Assuming she had it turned on—and that she wasn't in the midst of battle or

something else just as important—she should answer. I waited patiently for

thirty seconds, listening to the ring signal.

"Make it quick!" came her response, getting right to the point. That was

Sinon's voice, so I obliged her request by launching into the topic at hand.

"Did you get stuck in the ice storm?!"

"Nearly froze to death about twenty minutes ago."

"So you're in the Giyoru Savanna, too?"

"Yes, I'm heading southeast from the northwest."

"Got it. We'll head northwest from the southeast! Is there any terrain near

you that makes for a good landmark?"

"You bet there is. There's a gigantic natural wall running north to south,

probably through the middle of the savanna. I went into a cave through the

wall. That's where I am right now."

"Cave in the wall…? Any monsters?"

"Tons. I logged out in a safe-ish place, but they could pop up at any time, so I

can't stick around."

She was doing the exact same thing I was, but while I had my teammates and

pet to protect me, Sinon was all alone. If she got attacked while she was loggedout, she'd die in moments.

"All right. We'll go into the wall from the east side. Just hang in there."

"Got it. Thanks."

She hung up. I took a quick sip of water, then lay down on the bed again and

lowered the AmuSphere visor.

Back on the moonlit plains, the ice had begun to melt in the few minutes I'd

been logged-out. The girls scooped up the remaining ice and drained it into the

water jugs. No monsters had appeared in the area yet.

"I'm back!" I called out, rising to my feet. Kuro rubbed its head on me again.

Despite its fierce appearance, it seemed to be very cuddly once it took to you.

After feeding it all the bear jerky, we'd need to find some more food soon.

Lisbeth, Leafa, and Yui gathered around to listen to Sinon's message.

"A natural wall…?" Leafa murmured, staring to the northwest. I did the same,

but there was nothing visible beyond the darkness of the horizon. I started to

worry that there was some huge misunderstanding afoot. But Sinon had risked

her character's life to pass on that information, so I just had to trust it.

"Let's hurry," I said. The girls nodded, and Kuro issued a quick chuff.

We ran across the plains, encountering two packs of the familiar hyenas and

one bison-like monster. The bison was a bit of a handful, but with Kuro

distracting the beast and performing acrobatic feats, we were free to use

enough sword skills to whittle down its HP. The rest of the girls each earned a

level from that fight.

The bison also dropped a ton of raw meat, which Kuro was very happy to eat,

thankfully. Now I wouldn't have to worry for a while about the tamed effect

wearing off due to hunger.

There were no more encounters after that point. Thirty minutes of travel

later, Yui pointed ahead and shouted, "I can see a wall!"

I stopped and squinted until a surface rising directly above the plains was

visible to me. The massive cliff ran from north to south, and its scale reminded

me of the Everlasting Walls from the Underworld.

"And somewhere in there is a cave where Sinon's waiting?" asked Lisbeth.

That was correct, but the more I thought about it, the tougher it was going to

be to find one little cave mouth on a surface that was miles long. Plus, there

was no guarantee that there'd be only one of them. I thought hard, trying not to

panic about the task ahead.

"…Papa, this might not be fair, but I'm going to enhance my eyesight to look

for the cave," Yui announced, her eyes wide.

Of the four of us, Lisbeth, Leafa, and I were using our brains to "see" the

visual information the AmuSphere provided, but as an AI, Yui could process the

brightness and contrast of those details all she wanted. I didn't want to treat

her like some kind of convenient software tool, but we had to meet up with

Sinon. Besides, if we'd proceeded to the Bashin village like we'd originally

planned, I'd be asking her to interpret for us there anyway. One way or another,

I needed Yui's help.

"I'd appreciate that," I murmured. Yui briefly looked at me, smiled, then

turned back to concentrate. A few seconds later, she pointed at a spot ahead of

us.

"I've found it! There's a staircase and a cave entrance in this direction!"

"Thanks, Yui!" said Leafa, hugging the little girl. Liz rubbed her head, too.

From here, there was no way to tell how thick across the cliff wall was, but I

couldn't imagine it being miles long. Even if the cave made a dungeon, it

wouldn't be that big.

Hang in there just a bit longer, Sinon! I told her silently and started running in

the direction that Yui pointed.

The faint cliff off in the distance grew more and more substantial as we

approached, and once we were at its foot, the size of it left us speechless. The

cliff was about 150 feet tall, and though there were wider elevation gaps in

Alfheim, the distance this wall covered was vast. A single line of vertical cliff

that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other was the sort of thing

that typically looked like lazy level-design in a game, but for some reason, in the

world of Unital Ring, it felt like a true natural wonder.

The dark rock face was hard and smooth; there was no way to climb it by

hand. Perhaps it might be possible to craft a ladder to place against it, but there

were no trees or vines nearby to harvest for material. We'd have to use the

stairs Yui'd spotted.

Those stairs were carved out of just a foot of space along the cliff face, with

nothing to hold on to. It was close to a hundred feet to get to the cave

entrance, so one bad misstep would mean certain death. I wanted to place a

guide rope on the wall, but over an hour had passed since I contacted Sinon,

and we couldn't keep her waiting any longer.

"Kuro, can you get up these stairs?" I asked. The black panther growled, then

hopped ten feet up the steps without fear. It even wagged its tail with

excitement.

Well, it wouldn't do for its master to be afraid of the challenge now.

"Okay…here I go," I announced. Behind me, Lisbeth huffed "Come on—hurry

up already."

Thankfully, we reached the top without any accidents, but we didn't dare

relax until we were all inside the open mouth of the cave at the end. The stairs

were man-made, so I figured the cave was, too, but it seemed to be natural.

Meaning someone had carved out the steps from the cliff in order to reach the

hole yawning in the middle of the wall. That would have been an NPC, not a

player, of course. But was it these Bashin people or someone else? There was

no way to know.

In any case, this was the first proper dungeon to explore since our forced

conversion yesterday. I doubted any players had been in here before us, so any

materials or treasure chests—if they existed—would be there for the taking.

That made me want to chart out every step of the place, but meeting up with

Sinon was our top priority.

We'd run a long way to get here, so my SP bar was below 60 percent, and my

TP was below 50. We had plenty of drinking water, but the only food was raw

bison meat. For now, I decided to drink some fluids and feed Kuro the meat and

water, and we could eat something after finding Sinon.

"This is kind of an unorthodox party, so how are you thinking we'll take

formation?" asked Leafa once she had put away her water jug.

I considered that and replied, "Me and Kuro in the front, Liz and Yui in the

middle, and you take the rear, Leafa. Yui and I can hold the torches."

Lisbeth made a face like she wanted to say something. She was the only one

with a shield, so she probably wanted to stand up front to play a tank, but I

wanted her to focus more on protecting Yui. Thankfully, she took my point and

didn't argue.

"Fine, just switch out as soon as things get hairy."

"Thanks. I'm counting on you."

And with that, we had our 2-2-1 formation.

Among VRMMO players, there was a tendency to think that there was plenty

of time to assume formation once battle started, and lining up while you were

only on the move was dumb and uncool. I'd probably agree with that ninetynine times out of a hundred, but in Aincrad, it took only one moment of

carelessness to lead to tragedy—especially in a dungeon, where things were

cramped and chaotic. Even now that we weren't in a death game anymore, I

tended to be thorough about battle formation.

"Tell me if you notice any monsters," I whispered to Kuro, scratching its neck.

The panther answered "Graar."

Sinon said there were "tons" of monsters over the phone, and that did not

turn out to be an exaggeration. There were plenty of slimy amphibian-type

monsters in the dank cave, and they had us constantly on our heels.

Fortunately, Kuro's advanced searching capabilities enabled it to growl a

warning before we saw our enemies, and we were able to fight back all of them

easily. Even Yui showed off the fruits of her training with Alice. She fought

bravely with her short sword, proving that I was a little too worried about her.

Onward we went through the cave, slaying giant newts, legless caecilians, and

axolotls. Unfortunately, we didn't come across any treasure chests, but there

were more than a few veins of iron and bronze ore, so we stocked up on

everything we could find.

After twenty minutes, I was getting worried about my SP, but I didn't want to

chow down on raw newt, either. From the rear, Leafa said, "It's kind of weird,

don't you think?"

"What's weird?"

"We're dealing with all of these amphibians, and there are so many newts and

salamanders, yet there hasn't been a single—"

Blaaaam!

There was a dry, distant echoing sound that came from farther in, causing

Leafa to stop in the middle of her sentence.

I hadn't heard that particular sound once in this dungeon—or in Unital Ring at

all. Kuro paused, twitching, and began to growl. That had to be a gunpowder

explosion: a gunshot.

"It's Sinon!" I shouted, trying not to make too much noise, and looked over

my shoulder. "Yui, can you tell which direction that came from?"

"I'm analyzing the echoes…It came from a hallway ahead and to the right!"

she stated. I thanked her and picked up my pace. At the next fork, we went

right and followed the tunnel as it curved and descended somewhat.

Suddenly, the cave widened ahead. We were near the top of a huge domed

hollow. It had to be nearly fifty yards across. That was much farther than the

torches were capable of illuminating, but I could see the overall size of the

dome because of some kind of luminescent moss growing on the walls.

A narrow sloped path ran from our location along the wall to the floor of the

dome. The floor was split between damp rocks and dark water, and atop a

boulder in the middle was a human silhouette.

It wore a tight-fitting suit of armor and a white muffler. In its arms was

something like a long stick—a gun. There couldn't be another gunner here by

coincidence. We'd finally found her.

"Si—," I started to call out but swallowed the sound.

Behind the gunner were more humanoid shapes. But though they were

upright, they were not human. Pointed snouts, big round ears…Their heads

were clearly those of mice. They carried weapons that looked like pitchforks.

Their narrow tails swayed as they advanced upon the gunner. There were two…

no, three of them.

"Sinon, behind you!!" I called out, descending the steps on the side of the

dome as fast as I could. Kuro and the others followed close behind me.

The gunner, Sinon, looked up and then behind her. There was no more than

fifteen feet separating her from the ratmen. She could shoot one of them, but

the other two would skewer her with their weapons.

"Ryaaa!"

I leaped halfway down the path into a shallow pool. The jump created a huge

splash and took a few of my HP, but I didn't care. I pulled back, preparing to

throw my torch at the closest ratman to Sinon.

"No, Kirito! They're not enemies!" I heard her shout, and I hastily adjusted my

grip on the torch. The panther was about to leap on another one of them, so I

told it, "Kuro, stop!"

The panther hit the brakes, and the three ratmen shrieked " !" and backed

away toward the wall. There was another hallway mouth there, a different one

from the way we'd come inside.

My eyes met Sinon's as she stood atop the boulder. She had light-blue hair

that was slightly pointed at the ends, and sharp, catlike eyes—it was

undoubtedly Sinon. But the rifle she was holding looked really old-fashioned

and wasn't all that similar to her usual weapon, the PGM Ultima Ratio Hecate II.

Assuming that the Hecate was over her Equip Weight limit, much like my

Blárkveld and Excalibur, where did she get this gun? But it wasn't like that

mattered now.

"If these ratmen aren't the enemy, then who are you fighting, Sinon?!" I

demanded as Lisbeth, Yui, and Leafa reached the floor of the dome. Sinon's

expression softened when she saw them splashing through the puddles, but it

didn't last long.

"Get up out of the water, everyone!" she shouted. "Preferably atop tall

rocks!"

Her tone brooked no argument, so I held my questions for later and started to

clamber up a nearby boulder. But before I could get up, I heard a splash nearby.

Something was approaching under the water at tremendous speed. There

was no time to avoid it; something hit my right ankle. I'd been bitten—no,

grabbed?

Suddenly, my foot got wrenched aside, and I fell into the water. The torch

flew out of my hand and fizzled out. With the sword in my right hand, I tried to

sever the ropelike thing wrapped around my ankle, but I couldn't reach. It was

going to drag me into the depths—

"Growwr!" Kuro snarled and plunged headfirst into the water, then emerged

holding the thing that was pulling me in its fangs.

It was not a rope. It was some kind of slimy, pink tentacle thing.

"Big Brother!"

Leafa lifted her katana and activated Sonic Leap. Shwa! She split the surface

of the water in two. It was a perfectly boosted attack, performed with great skill

by her real-life expert swordsmanship. The glowing green blade struck the

tentacle Kuro was pulling—but did not sever it.

Lisbeth's steel katana sank a few inches into the pink tentacle but stopped

there. The rubbery appendage twanged and bounced back.

"Aaaah!" "Grrarp?!"

It threw Leafa and Kuro back together with a massive splash. But their attack

paid off, because the tentacle let go of my ankle and sank back into the deeper

water.

I helped Leafa up and got atop the rock for good this time. Yui and Lisbeth

retreated to different rocks, and Kuro leaped up next to me in a single bound.

"What was that, Sinon?!" I gasped.

The gunner brandished her old-fashioned rifle and replied, "It'll pop out of the

water soon! Keep your eyes peeled. It moves fast!"

No sooner had the words left her mouth than there was a loud splash, and a

dark shape leaped out of the water on the distant side of the pool. It was large,

about six feet long…and if its extremely long and powerful legs stretched out, it

could uncurl to twice that length. The front legs, meanwhile, were weak and

small, and its head was a part of its torso.

The gigantic creature leaped from puddle to puddle with dizzying speed, then

landed and stuck to the wall of the dome. Lisbeth, Yui, Leafa, and I all cried the

same word at the same time.

"Frog!!"

Aside from the size of it, everything about the monster was perfectly froggish.

It had large, bulging eyes and a diamond-shaped torso. Its legs folded in the

middle and ended in long, flared fingers that looked like suckers.

At last, I understood what Leafa was trying to say before we heard the

gunshot. We had seen lots of newts and salamanders—but no frogs.

"Hey, lucky you. Here's the frog you wanted," I said, staring up at the

signature amphibian stuck to the wall.

"I didn't want there to be frogs." Leafa pouted. "Especially gigantic ones…"

"That's got to be the boss of this cave…"

I wasn't just guessing about that. I'd taken a tentacle attack to my right leg, so

I could see the ring cursor over the giant frog's head. Its individual name was

Goliath Rana. All of the previous monsters we'd met, including Kuro, had

descriptive Japanese names, but this one was in English, which I assumed had to

mean something. Assuming it was actually English, of course.

"…Goliath means 'giant,' right? What's rana?" I murmured.

Yui replied, "I believe it's the name of the family of true frogs. In Japan,

they're labeled as red frogs."

Sure enough, the body of the giant frog was dark red, and its eyes flickered

like flames.

The Goliath Rana's bulging eyes blinked, and it began to climb the wall at a

relaxed pace. The more it climbed and the steeper the negative angle became,

the more eerily weightless it seemed, a cow-sized shape refusing to fall.

"Wouldn't this be the time to shoot it, Sinon?" I asked, realizing my

suggestion was probably unwanted.

The gunner kept the rifle at her side without budging. She stared up at the

frog and spat, "I've shot it several times already. But its back is too tough for

these musket bullets to pierce."

Thanks to The Three Musketeers and such, I knew that muskets were an oldfashioned kind of gun. But you couldn't call them "rifles," because there wasn't

any rifling on the inside of the barrels. This made me wonder where she'd

gotten such a thing, but this wasn't the time to be asking irrelevant questions.

"…Can you manage to shoot the Hecate with extra help?" I wondered.

She shot me down at once. "Nope. We can't get the angle while it's on the

ceiling, and when it's on the ground, it's moving too fast to aim at."

"Good point…"

I was still curious about the ratpeople behind us, but as long as they weren't

hostile, I could find out the answer later. This was the time to figure out how to

beat the Goliath Rana.

"Remember, Kirito, for most of the frog-type monsters in Aincrad, the weak

point was the stomach," noted Lisbeth, holding her mace.

"Good point. Let's get it to expose its belly before attacking."

"But how?" asked Leafa.

"Ummm…"

Just then, the giant frog reached the very top of the hundred-foot-tall dome

and looked down at us with its creepy eyes, completely upside-down.

"Here it comes!" Sinon shouted right as the frog's powerful legs launched it

off the rock and straight at me with blinding speed.

"Aaaah!"

I did a backflip out of pure instinctual reaction to avoid the hit, but the rock I

was standing on got obliterated, pelting my body with stone shards. I lost only 3

percent of my HP, but it would have been much worse if not for my metal

armor. And without a single potion to use, any accumulation of damage would

eventually prove fatal.

The others hadn't lost any HP, fortunately. But then I realized I was forgetting

something important. I backed farther away, called up the ring menu, and hit

the INVITE icon in the communication tab, then slid down to Sinon's name. She

immediately accepted, adding a new abbreviated bar to the list in the upper left

corner of my vision.

The Goliath Rana remained in place for about three seconds after its meteoric

crash, then began to move again. It jumped into a nearby pool of water and

vanished.

"On top of the rocks!" Sinon instructed, so we jumped onto nearby boulders

again. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Yui and Kuro climbing up,

then asked Sinon, "So its attack patterns are a dive into the water, followed by a

tentacle attack, then climbing to the ceiling and diving down? Just those two?"

"For now. And that's its tongue, not a tentacle."

"Oh…that makes more sense."

So when the Goliath Rana grabbed my ankle, it wasn't trying to drown me but

eat me. If I had only one life to live in Unital Ring, I was going to do everything

in my power to avoid going out like that.

After enough time waiting atop the rocks, we lured the frog out of the water

again, where it began to climb the wall. We didn't have an avenue to attack yet,

but if we avoided the dive attack, at least we wouldn't take major damage…But

that wasn't the right line of thought. Each one of its dives was destroying a safe

rock to stand on, so we would eventually lose our defense against its tongue

attack.

"Liz, Leafa, once we avoid the dive, we've got to use sword skills before it

moves again. Try to aim for the underside of its body to flip it over."

"Okay." "Got it."

"Sinon, Yui," I continued, "follow up when the frog's stomach is exposed.

Kuro, protect Yui."

"Roger that!" "Yes, Papa!" "Grawr!"

I felt sure that the two girls understood my point but wasn't as positive about

the panther. Here was hoping, though.

The giant frog's suckered limbs made their way up the rock wall with ease.

Another ten seconds until it reached the top again. Could we use the materials

on hand to fashion a kind of trap where it was going to land? Like making a line

of spiked logs—assuming such a thing existed in the Woodworking skill…

"Kirito!" Sinon shouted, startling me out of my thoughts. The Goliath Rana

wasn't yet to the top of the dome, but its legs were bulging with tensed power.

"Kwah!"

I jumped backward desperately, right as the frog kicked off the wall. It

obliterated the boulder before my eyes like a cannonball. Fist-sized chunks of

rock struck my shoulder and leg. They dented my iron armor and caused

notable HP loss.

Bastard!

I entered the stance for Rage Spike—a low thrusting skill—before I landed.

You usually had to lean forward as far as possible right over the ground, so

executing the proper motion while in the air was a very high-level technique.

My sword took on a pale-blue sheen as soon as my feet hit a shallow puddle.

The instant the skill activated, I leaped forward, boosting the action. Water

frothed to the sides as I charged at the throat of the briefly stunned frog.

Without missing a beat, Leafa came in from the right and Lisbeth from the

left. They were using skills that targeted low, according to the plan. With this

many attacks happening at once, there was no way we could fail to flip over the

frog, no matter how big it was.

And in less than a second, my confidence turned to horror.

The Goliath Rana, which looked like a tiny mountain up close, suddenly

flattened, as though all of its bones had vanished. It squashed itself absolutely

horizontal against the ground, hiding its neck and belly. But I couldn't stop the

sword skill. My sword hit the frog's snout, Leafa's katana and Lisbeth's mace hit

its shoulders, and the dark-red skin dented inward.

It felt like slicing a huge blob of rubber. The tip of my sword sank into it, but I

didn't feel like I was cutting anything. Then there was a huge resistance pushing

back until it overpowered the thrust of the sword skill.

All at once, the three of us yelped as we were hurtled backward. There was

no way to defend when your body was thrown into the air. The frog's mouth

opened. Its vicious pink tongue withdrew, tensing, ready to spring forward like

a fleshy spear.

Blaaaam!

A huge roar assaulted my eardrums. Sinon had fired her musket. The bullet

split the frog's tongue, sending crimson damage effects spilling everywhere. It

lost less than 10 percent of its HP, but the frog croaked and fell backward,

exposing its soft-looking throat.

"Yaaaa!" "Raaaar!"

Yui executed the sword skill Vertical, and Kuro charged, its huge fangs

exposed. Sword and teeth cut at the frog's throat from either side. There went

another 10 percent of its HP.

Yui's and Kuro's simultaneous attacks might have done modest damage, but

the real benefit was that they extended the toppling effects of our offensive.

The frog landed on its back in the water, still exposed.

We have to add on! But Liz, Leafa, and I were still struggling from the

knockback effect. The frog's short front legs and massive back legs flopped and

flailed, as though it were going to leap upright again soon. Sinon was reloading

and couldn't fire again yet.

This combination was largely a product of coincidence and probably couldn't

be recreated a second time. If we missed out on the chance to extend this rally,

our hopes of winning got smaller. I clenched my teeth, desperately trying to

right myself. I reached out with my left hand, scratching at the empty air with

my fingers, but my avatar cruelly continued to topple…

"Keeee!"

A high-pitched screech filled the air.

It wasn't the frog, and it couldn't have been any of us. Was it a fresh add—a

new monster joining the fight? But what I saw leaping forward into the fray was

not amphibian in nature. It was small, clad in simple clothes, and holding a rusty

pitchfork in both hands—the trio of ratmen who had completely vanished from

my mind.

They rushed to the flipped-over Goliath Rana and stabbed its pale belly deep

with their pitchforks.

"Errrbit!" the frog roared furiously, jerking and contracting its entire body and

bounding upright again like a spring-wound toy. The ratmen yelled " !" and

retreated to the edge of the dome.

They didn't seem to be consistent participants in the battle, so having this

brief bit of extra damage inflicted was a huge help. The HP bar of the frog was

down 40 percent and had gone from white to a much yellower shade.

The Goliath Rana, now upright, leaped with a splash toward the wall, where it

began to climb. Liz, Leafa, and I scrambled to our feet to prepare for one of its

dive attacks.

After that sequence of events, it seemed clear that the Goliath Rana battle

was one where it was difficult to hit its weak point, but once you did, there was

a ton of damage to inflict. We could beat it after just two more times of flipping

it over—maybe once, if we were lucky. But to do that, we needed to inflict

damage on its mouth.

"Sinon, aim for the mouth!" I shouted. Sinon finished up reloading and said,

"Got it."

To Lisbeth, I instructed, "When it dives for us, whack its head with your mace!

It'll knock you back, but it'll give us a chance to attack its tongue…I think!"

"You thiiink?!" she howled but recovered quickly, squeezing the handle of her

mace. "Fine, then! Let's do this!"

In tense fights that required great concentration, having a moodmaker like

Lisbeth was a major help. That was a personal skill I could never replicate, I

knew.

"Leafa, Yui, Kuro," I continued, "use your strongest sword skills when the frog

flips over! Just watch out for its rear leg kick!"

"You got it!" "Yes, Papa!" "Grar!"

The three of them were ready. I glanced back toward the wall behind us for

one final instruction.

"You folks, be ready to do that again, too!"

I was speaking to the trio of ratpeople. They did not respond. I had no choice

but to trust they understood, because I had to focus on the top of the dome.

The Goliath Rana was already 70 percent of the way up the wall. It could dive at

us at any moment.

Next time, I'll dodge it right, I told myself, staring at the frog. Its limbs stopped

moving. Those bulging eyes turned red.

But the next moment, something happened that I did not see coming.

Five or six warty bulges on the Goliath Rana's back protruded farther outward

and shot deep-red flames. They diminished quickly but maintained their

strength from that point on, flickering in place. I had no time to wonder what

was going on before the frog opened its mouth and pointed at the floor of the

dome.

It was over seventy-five feet away. The frog's tongue was long but not that

long…

…Right?

What appeared in its gaping mouth was a glowing red circle. There were

complex symbols inside the figure.

"A magic circle…?!" I gasped.

Leafa drowned me out, crying, "Look out, everybody!"

Before the words had left her mouth, an enormous ball of fire belched from

the frog's mouth. I jumped to the right on sheer instinct, grabbed Yui, and dived

into the nearby water.

There was a roar, and red filled my vision. Waves of heat broiled my back,

lowering my HP bit by bit.

Once the explosion subsided, I stood up with Yui in my arms. "Is everyone all

right?!"

Sinon, Lisbeth, and Leafa called back in the affirmative, and Kuro growled

fiercely. The frog's fireball had evaporated one of the pools where it hit the

floor, but nobody had been hit directly by the projectile. The ratpeople against

the wall were fine, if clearly shaken by the event.

Up above, the Goliath Rana was still in the same spot, bulging and retracting

its throat. It didn't seem likely to descend for the time being.

"A frog that shoots fire? It's like a slug with salt attacks…," I griped. Lisbeth

retorted "You can't just make up sayings like they're…Actually, that does make

sense." So my language skill retained its dignity, but the state of the battle was

worse than before. The only long-range attack we had was Sinon's musket, so if

the monster kept shooting fireballs from the ceiling, the fight would slip further

out of our grasp.

It wasn't like we had to defeat this frog. As long as we escaped to the eastern

side of the Giyoru Savanna with Sinon, we were fine. But that would mean

climbing the sloped path around the wall up to the tunnel mouth, high up in the

dome. The frog was unlikely to let us pass.

The sloped path…

"…Guys, I'm going to rush up the side of the wall and use a leaping skill to

knock the frog down. You follow up the same way we said earlier!" I said,

seizing on the idea I'd just had. My companions looked nervous, though.

"But then you're going to fall down with it, Big Brother. You might die if you

fall from that height…," Leafa worried.

"I'll be fine," I reassured her. "I won't take any damage if I fall where the

water's deep. This is the only way."

"…"

She closed her mouth, but the concern in her green eyes did not go away.

Truth be told, I wasn't positive I could manage to fall into a spot of water deep

enough to save me.

It was a desperate gamble, but as I lowered Yui to the ground to prepare, she

abruptly announced, "No, Papa! I'll do that part!"

Shocked, I stammered, "N-no, you don't need to…"

"You have the highest attack of the party, so you should perform the followup on the vulnerable spot, not the first strike."

"But, Yui, you can't use Sonic Leap…"

"If I head back into the tunnel and get a running start, I can reach it with

Vertical!"

"But…"

It seemed like the only thing I could do was offer rebuttals. Yui looked me in

the eyes and said, "Papa, I don't want to spend my whole life being protected."

"…"

The earnest look in her eyes struck me as being very similar to Asuna's. And

though I couldn't say for sure, I guessed it was probably similar to mine, as well.

"…All right. Go ahead," I told her and set her down.

A fair distance away, Sinon shouted, "It's moving again!"

I looked up at the dome and saw the giant frog plodding along horizontally. It

was probably going to shoot another fireball. Perhaps it might aim at Yui as she

was trying to climb the slope.

Lisbeth broke through my contemplation. "I'll pull its aggro! Just let her go!"

She struck her round shield with her mace. Little ripple effects appeared from

her shield, which meant she must have acquired some kind of taunting skill at

some point.

The Goliath Rana stopped moving and began to pivot.

"Here I go!" Yui cried and took off running with her short sword in hand. Even

I was stunned at the speed with which she leaped over rocks and puddles. She

turned at the wall and sped up the path to the tunnel mouth.

The frog twisted its upper half backward and opened its mouth wide. The

direction made it clear it was targeting Lisbeth.

"Get back, everybody!" she instructed.

I dutifully retreated, shouting, "Make sure you dodge it, Liz!"

"Trust in the quality of my shield!"

Does that mean what I think it does? I wondered, right at the moment that

another red magic circle appeared in the Goliath Rana's mouth, shining brightly.

With an air-shaking roar, the beast shot a flaming projectile from its mouth.

But Lisbeth stood her ground. She held the round shield up with her left arm

and held her mace behind her.

The shield was made with the premium steel ingots she'd made from melting

down Blárkveld. In keeping with the high Blacksmithing proficiency of its

creator, the shield had to have a high defensive quality. But it couldn't possibly

defend against a fire attack from a dungeon boss without damage.

My right foot tensed, ready to push me forward into action. But I grabbed my

knee with my hand, holding it in place. If I jumped forward and got caught in

the blast, I might not be ready to attack the frog after it fell. I had to trust in Liz

and Yui and let them do what they were determined to do.

The eighteen-inch flaming ball struck the shield directly. It flashed, warping,

billowing out red flames and black smoke that hid Liz from view. I shielded my

face with my arms to protect against the explosion.

In the upper left, I saw Lisbeth's HP bar dropping. Down it went…70, 60, until

it was below 50 in a blink…then stopped at around 40 percent.

"Liz!" I shouted, looking up.

Curled up in the center of the blast radius, Lisbeth lifted her thumb to

reassure me. She could have darted out of the way and probably defended

against it more successfully, but she took the hit to ensure it couldn't possibly

be redirected toward Yui.

As for Yui, she was nearly to the top of the slope winding around the edge of

the dome. Even I would have a hard time sprinting up the narrow ledge without

a handhold of any kind. But Yui was pulling it off with aplomb—not because she

was an AI but because we had raised her to have a real heart and real courage.

Once she reached the top of the path, she darted into the tunnel to give

herself some running space to make the leap toward the frog.

"Rrrbit…," the Goliath Rana croaked, turning around so it could face the

tunnel. That was bad…If it attacked with its tongue, it might knock Yui out of the

air when she jumped.

"This way!" shouted Sinon. She pointed her loaded musket at the frog stuck

to the ceiling of the dome and promptly pulled the trigger. The striker sent up

sparks, and a moment later, the gun bellowed.

The bullet struck the Goliath Rana directly in the eye.

"Gribbaaaw!" the frog shrieked, turning once again.

Then a figure in white burst out of the tunnel.

She had a short sword readied at her right shoulder, her long black hair

streaming behind her. The weapon was glowing blue, but the light was

flickering. Executing a sword skill in midair when your stance wasn't solid was

going to be very difficult for Yui, who hadn't practiced doing that, but she was

managing to keep the effect glowing so far.

"Yaaaa!"

Her fierce war cry reached us down at the bottom. Once her right foot was

out into the air, Yui activated Vertical. The game system boosted her small

body, shooting her forward and leaving a brilliant slice in the air. The tip of the

sword homed in on the frog's side. While it did not cut through the skin, the

shock of the attack pulled the suckers from the frog's toes off the wall.

The frog's rubbery, resilient skin bounced Yui backward. The frog then

followed her, falling off the ceiling and waving its limbs wildly in the air.

If she landed in the water, all was fine. But if she hit a rock, she would die. If I

rushed to catch her, I wouldn't be there to attack the frog in time.

It was the biggest dilemma since the battle started. But then I heard an

unfamiliar—but strangely familiar—voice.

"I got Yuippe!"

Thanks, whoever you are! I thought and made the motion for Sharp Nail, a

three-part attack that was the strongest I could execute right now. Beside me,

Leafa readied the same move, and Lisbeth recovered from the force of the

fireball with her mace in hand. Sinon was holding a small laser gun rather than

the musket, and Kuro bared its sharp fangs.

The Goliath Rana fell, belly up, onto one of the rock pillars and bounced high.

When it landed a second time, I shouted, "Now!"

Leafa, Lisbeth, Kuro, and I struck the defenseless frog's stomach from all sides

with swords, mace, and teeth. Its HP bar instantly took a huge drop, going

under 20 percent. The four of us pulled back, and the ratpeople shrieked as

they charged in, stabbing it with their pitchforks.

Ten percent left.

I struggled against the sword skill's delay, trying to give it just a normal swing

to beat the frog for good. But a moment before I could, the frog opened its

mouth, still on its back.

"Grrrrrrrg-gooooooo!" it roared with fury, forming another big magic circle. If

it spit a fireball this close, there was no way to dodge…

"I don't think so!"

Sinon leaped forward with great courage, jabbed her laser gun directly

through the magic circle, and pulled the trigger.

It made a volley of sci-fi pew-pew-pew-pew! sounds, shooting light-green

energy bolts into the Goliath Rana's open mouth and whittling down its HP bar.

The magic circle around Sinon's arm flashed. Flames flickered in the frog's

mouth, swirling into a tornado, rather than a fireball…

And then its HP was gone.

"Gre-gurk!" the frog croaked, and the crimson magic circle turned into black

smoke that floated away. It looked very similar to the effect of a magic spell

being fumbled in ALO.

The beast's massive body twitched a few times, getting steadily weaker…until

it stopped moving altogether.

In SAO and ALO, a dead monster would promptly burst into blue particles, but

here, the bodies stayed put—meaning you couldn't be sure it was dead yet. I

was worried about Yui, but more important was making sure the frog had

croaked its last. I took a step forward, sword at the ready.

Then something strange happened.

From the middle of the still, flipped-over frog, around the position of its heart,

a red light appeared, rising silently in the darkness. We'd defeated many

monsters by now, including the thornspike cave bear that was just as strong,

but I hadn't seen this happen with any of them.

"Kirito, look…!"

Urged on by Sinon's voice, I took two steps, then jumped as high as I could,

reaching for the red light. But the instant my fingertips grazed it, the light

popped and vanished, just like a bubble. As I landed, I checked my hand, but

there was nothing on my palm.

Suddenly, all of the party members were surrounded by blue rings of light. For

an instant I panicked, thinking it was some kind of trap, but soon realized it was

just the level-up effect. The frog was good and dead. A message appeared

telling me I was now level-16, but I hastily got it out of the way and looked up.

Even in the darkness, Yui's white dress was easily noticeable. She hung in the

air just below the tunnel exit, her skinny left arm clutched by the extended arm

of someone else hanging upside down. That player had a rope tied around their

ankle, which a different player was holding tight from the tunnel entrance.

Yui and the mysterious player were swaying on the rope, drifting left and

right, while a faint creaking sound made it clear that the rope was not strong

enough to hold the weight of two people and was steadily fraying.

The large man standing in the cave entrance steadily pulled the rope upward.

I darted forward to the position beneath Yui and called up, "Hey, easy, easy!"

The man pulling the rope bellowed down, "I don't have enough rope to lower

them down there, and the durability's going to wear out in less than twenty

seconds!"

The other player—the man holding up Yui by the hand—replied, "Don't let

that happen to me, Boss! Not after comin' as far as we did! You gotta pull me

up!"

Strange, I thought, feeling a sense of déjà vu. I could swear I've heard both of

those voices before.

I dug in my heels to stop. Waiting below them wouldn't help if I couldn't

actually catch both Yui and the man together. I needed a cushion instead. If I set

out all the hyena pelts in my inventory, that probably wouldn't be enough to

absorb the damage from a fall that high.

There was only one thing that could work here. I turned around, raced back,

and shouted to the others, "Help me carry this over, guys!"

Then I grabbed the leg of the dead Goliath Rana. Instantly, everyone else

understood my meaning. Sinon jumped ahead of me, and Lisbeth and Leafa

grabbed the left leg. The four of us began to drag the huge corpse.

With a quick yowl, Kuro bit the frog's side to help us push, and even the three

ratpeople set down their pitchforks and assisted with the head. Once we got

going, the body slid faster than I thought it would over the rocky ground. I

checked over my shoulder as we pulled and saw that Yui was halfway up the

thirty feet or so to the tunnel mouth, but the rope was visibly wearing out.

We were almost to the spot beneath the two of them when there was a

heartless snap!

"Sorry, Kirito! Do something!" shouted the large man who'd been pulling the

rope. I didn't have time to wonder how he knew my name.

"Aaaieeee!" wailed the other man. But it was admirable the way that he

managed to pull Yui close to him and make sure she'd land on top of him, rather

than the other way around. We had to make that gesture pay off.

"Yaaaa!" I bellowed, wringing out the last of my strength. A new message

appeared, reading Physique skill proficiency has risen to 4, and the frog's body

rose a tiny bit into the air. It landed in a puddle and stopped.

A second later, Yui and the man disappeared into the Goliath Rana's stomach.

Even dead, the body retained its resilience, and they bounced back over three

feet up into the air before landing again safely.

"Papa!" cried Yui, who hadn't made a sound while she was hanging or falling.

She jumped onto me with arms spread wide. I grabbed her and hugged her little

body tight, careful not to crush her against the metal armor.

"You did great," I whispered. "The way you pulled off Vertical in midair was

masterful."

For the first time since the battle against the Goliath Rana started, Yui's voice

trembled. "Yes…I tried really hard!"

Yui had never been in a battle herself. Having her first experience be against a

terrible boss had to be overwhelming and terrifying in a way I couldn't imagine.

And it wasn't some carefully modeled imitation of human emotion in typical AI

fashion. At this point, Yui had surpassed the limits of top-down artificial

intelligence and gained true emotions—in my opinion. It was the only

explanation for her self-sacrifice, I thought, stroking her hair.

Just then, the man resting with his limbs splayed out on the frog's stomach

sat up, grumbling, "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I'd have died right

there…"

His short brown hair was pushed upward by a dark-red bandana. His face was

long and thin, and scraggly hair dotted his chin. His armor was leather, and a

curved blade rested on his left side.

When I first heard that voice, there were two arguing opinions in the back of

my mind: Could be and No way. It seemed that the winner was, indeed, Could

be.

"Klein…what are you doing here?" I wondered in awe.

The katana warrior (now a scimitar warrior?) I'd known since the SAO days

spread his hands and complained, "Whoa, whoa, is that gonna be the first thing

out of your mouth, Kiri, my man? We rushed over here thinkin' you were in

trouble and needed help!"

"Yeah, and we appreciate it," Lisbeth interjected. "But how did you know we

were here? Nobody contacted you on the other side, did they?"

"I'll answer that one," said another voice from above, causing us all to look

upward.

Carefully descending the path around the side of the dome was an imposinglooking man, big and bald and barrel-chested. This was another familiar face,

the ax warrior and merchant Agil. But on his back wasn't the trademark twohanded ax but a double-edged ax that was noticeably smaller—though still

much bigger than my sword. Like Klein, he wore leather armor.

"Hiya, Agil," I said, bumping knuckles with him as he reached the floor. Then I

greeted Klein the same way and asked, "So…how did you get here? Did you

start in the ruins to the south like the other ALO players?"

"Yeah. And me and Klein were a day late. We finally got a chance to dive in

tonight, and the grace period was long over, plus the map all around us had

been picked clean. Somehow, I managed to meet up with Klein, and we figured

we'd head for your log cabin…"

"Huh? How did you know where it was?"

"Asuna drew us a map by hand."

"Oh, really…" For a brief moment, I stopped to consider my girlfriend, the

former vice commander of the Knights of the Blood, and her penchant for

detail.

"Kiri, fess up. You completely forgot about us, didn't you?" Klein grunted

reproachfully from the frog's stomach. He was absolutely right, but I wasn't

going to let him know that.

"N-no…that's not true. I mean, you and Agil have to work on weekdays…so I

was going to get in touch when things settled down…"

Agil crossed his arms and said, "Our place is closed today."

Klein followed up with, "And I took a half day and left after lunch."

"Dicey Café has irregular hours, and I can't read your mind to know when

you'll take vacation days, Klein!" I argued.

Sinon stopped loading her musket to clear her throat. She grumbled, "Can you

get on with it? We've got things to do."

"Oh, sorry, sorry." Agil got back to the topic at hand. "Anyway, we scraped

together some gear and left the ruins for the forest, then got attacked by a trio

of PKers. We had stone weapons, and they had iron, plus more armor, so I

thought we were in big trouble."

"That's when you shoulda seen our combination work," Klein continued. "We

chopped those PKers to pieces, one after the—"

Agil's deep voice cut him off. "You just hid behind me the entire time."

"Well, what was I supposed to do? My carryover skill was…"

Klein stopped himself there rather suspiciously. I assumed it was probably

something about how his maxed-out Katana skill didn't apply to the scimitar he

had equipped right now.

"So you took out the PKers?" I asked, looking to Agil.

"Yeah…they were an impromptu group, it seemed like, and their teamwork

was horrid. So we managed to get through it. But I forgot we were after a grace

period, and without thinking, I used an area-attack skill that took out all three of

them," he said, scowling. Agil was a gentle giant of a player, and if the PKers had

tried to run, he would have let them.

Leafa approached and patted his burly arm. "Don't let it bother you, Agil. If

they were PKing, they must have known they were likely to get killed by one of

their targets. We were attacked by a gang of them yesterday, and Kirito

absolutely destroyed them all!"

"H-hey, it's not like I did it all on my own," I clarified hastily, then gestured to

Agil. "And then what?"

He grinned and patted his gleaming leather armor. "The PKers helpfully

dropped some leather armor as well as an iron ax and a scimitar. With that

upgrade and the help of the map, we made it to the log cabin, where Asuna said

she was worried about you guys and asked us to go help you."

"Oh, I see," I said, thanking my partner for her keen thinking. "But wait…How

would she know which route we took? How did you two get to this cave…?"

Agil grinned once again, then jutted his chin toward Klein. The scimitar

warrior scratched the bandana around his forehead, then inhaled, preparing

himself to speak.

"That was through the use of the skill I brought over…"

"Huh? Your skill is Katana, right? What would that have to do with this?"

Lisbeth said, speaking for my thought process, too. Leafa, Sinon, and Yui

probably wondered the same thing. Everyone looked at Klein, who wore an

expression that was impossible to classify.

"It ain't Katana."

"Huh?"

"I inherited Pursuit."

"Huh?!" we shouted together.

In ALO, the Pursuit skill was a useful one, highlighting the footprints of players

and monsters and making it easier to find the materials you wanted, but it took

great patience to power up, and very few players specifically worked at it. But

Klein had worked his main weapon skill of Katana up to the maximum

proficiency of 1,000, if I remembered correctly. If he didn't carry over Katana,

then he must have also maxed out Pursuit…

"Why would you be so advanced in a skill like that?" Lisbeth asked,

exasperated. Then she realized something and cried, "Oh! Unless you were

using it to track and follow cute girls! You creep!"

"N-no! It's not that! I just worked at it in order to complete the chase quest

that Skuld gave to me…"

"...Huh?" everyone but Agil muttered.

Skuld was the name of an NPC we met in the realm of Jotunheim, underneath

Alfheim. She was a graceful beauty reminiscent of depictions of Norse Valkyries.

Thinking back on it, I recalled that she had given Klein something when we

parted ways. So it was an item that started a new quest…and that was the

impetus for Klein to work the Pursuit skill up to the max?

"So…did you beat the quest?" I asked.

Klein shook his head sadly. "I was almost finished with it…and then this

happened. I hope Skuld's all right…"

I decided not to ask him what would have happened if he'd managed to finish

his Pursuit quest. Better to get back to the matter at hand.

"So you managed to catch up to us thanks to the Pursuit skill you carried over.

But the proficiency would have gone down to 100, right? I'm amazed you were

able to track us this far."

"Yeah, well…you can't actually choose to track a specific player's footprints at

100, but there was just one party's worth of prints on the plains. So I figured it

must be you guys and followed them here."

"Ah, I see," I murmured, satisfied at last. I bowed to Agil and Klein. "You really

saved our bacon. If you hadn't caught her, Yui would have fallen to the ground

with the frog."

"Agil, Klein, thank you!" Yui added, bowing. Both of the big, burly men smiled

with embarrassment.

"If only we could have made it in time for the battle," Agil said.

"I dunno. I'm not a fan of those slimy monsters," Klein muttered in a tone of

voice that suggested he was not at all joking. I pointed at the object he was

using as a seat cushion.

"You know that's the frog's carcass, right?"

"Huh…? Ueowaaaah!!" he shrieked, bouncing vertically into the air with his

legs still crossed. Even Sinon laughed at that.