Chapter 1
There were many boss monsters lurking in the floating castle of Aincrad, the
setting of the VRMMORPG Sword Art Online.
They could be broadly split into two groups: field bosses, who guarded certain
choke points in the wilderness of each floor, and floor bosses, who waited on
the top floor of the labyrinth tower that led to each consecutive floor. The
particularly dangerous bosses were given unique enemy names, which used the
in the title. Therefore, despite the potential confusion, players ended up calling
them The Bosses.
Fewer players knew, however, that there was an even higher rank to be found
among those unique bosses.
There was, for example, the field boss of the fifty-fifth floor, X'rphan the
White Wyrm, that knocked Lisbeth and me down a deep pit. The floor boss of
the seventy-fourth floor that I fought with Asuna and Klein, however, was the
Gleameyes. The former had a proper name before its epithet, but the latter was
just a composite descriptive name. So all The Bosses could be divided into those
with proper names and without.
You would assume that the ones with proper names would be the more
powerful of the two, but in fact, it was the reverse. This was because the bosses
without proper names were actually so feared, the story went, that their proper
names were never spoken—and lost to time.
As a matter of fact, nearly all the boss monsters that made me think "I might
die right now" were in that category. That included the blue-eyed demon, the
Gleameyes; the Fatal Scythe, underground on the first floor; and the floor boss
that laid waste to the best players in the game on the seventy-fifth floor.
That boss's name: the Skullreaper.
The title of that dreaded foe came to mind now, still wreathed in the fear and
sweat of the past. "Asuna…," I murmured, "does it look like what I think it
does…?"
Still on the ground, she whispered back, "Yes…It's not a skeleton, and it's
about twice as big…But that's the boss of the seventy-fifth floor…"
If we both had the same reaction, then it couldn't be a mere coincidence.
The monstrous beast staring down at us from across the stormy night plain
was a modified version of the Skullreaper.
It was a sixty-foot-long centipede with the face of a man. From the body,
sheathed in gleaming black carapace and rippling muscle, sprang countless legs.
The tail was as sharp as a spear, and the two front legs were huge, curved
scythes. Its elongated head featured four shining red eyes and a gaping mouth
that opened in all four directions.
The spindle-shaped cursor hanging over the man-faced centipede featured
three HP bars with a name written in English: the Life Harvester. If you tore off
the shell and muscle from this creature, it would indeed look exactly like the
Skullreaper—although as Asuna said, the size was very different.
"Is this supposed to mean it fell out of the seventy-fifth floor when Aincrad
crashed to earth…?" I gaped.
Asuna shook her head. "Remember? Argo said that thing was chasing her for
at least fifteen miles. That's way too far, and it also doesn't explain why that
one has flesh and armor."
"Yeah…I guess that's true," I replied. "Plus, all the floor bosses in New Aincrad
have been altered from their SAO forms."
As I spoke, there came a hideous, screeching roar, like boulders grinding
against one another.
"Jyashuaaaa!"
As though drawn by the Life Harvester's call, purple lightning darted across
the black sky, revealing the monster with scythes raised. A deep, cracking
rumble arrived moments later. The rain had stopped falling at some point, but
the lightning wasn't finished, it seemed.
"Kirito, what should we do?!" shouted Alice, who had fallen back a short
distance away. Our other companions—Lisbeth, Leafa, Silica, Sinon, Argo, Yui,
Klein, Agil, his wife, Hyme, the nineteen other Insectsite players with her, Misha
the thornspike cave bear, and Kuro the lapispine dark panther—were all waiting
for my decision.
Fight or flight?
It didn't seem like a foe that could be beaten, to be honest. Alongside me,
Alice, Lisbeth, and the rhinoceros and stag beetles from Insectsite had all
guarded against the Life Harvester's right scythe swing, and all five of us were
easily smashed off our feet. My iron breastplate and left gauntlet were brutally
cracked, and I had lost nearly 60 percent of my hit points. The others were
similarly damaged.
The scythe swing did not have any shining light effects—it was an ordinary
attack. Five of us were unable to block a mere basic attack, which suggested
that there was a massive statistical abyss between us, one that player skill could
not make up. If we challenged it again and again and perfectly learned its
patterns, we might be able to beat it—but that was not how Unital Ring
worked. If we died even once, we would be forever banished from this world.
We ought to flee. Assuming that was even possible.
But even that would be difficult. If it was true that Argo had been running for
nearly twenty miles, the Life Harvester was gifted with an almost impossibly
stubborn pursuit algorithm for a video game monster. There would only be two
ways to throw off a monster like this: flee to a location it couldn't reach or foist
it off on another player.
To do the former, we'd need to get on top of a sheer cliff or head into a cave,
or perhaps a system-protected town, but we were surrounded by forest and
plains for miles, plus Kirito Town—Ruis na Ríg, I had to remind myself—was a
town we'd built ourselves, meaning there were no system barriers to keep the
monsters out. We couldn't choose the latter option because there was no one
else around, not that I would want to make such a choice in the first place.
The Life Harvester lowered its scythes and began to move this way, its many
legs rhythmically undulating. There was no time to mull it over. If I didn't
choose between fight or flight now, we'd all be wiped out.
The mental mention of the word wiped sent a horrid chill through me. It felt
as though the insides of my avatar had turned to ice.
If only I knew the monster's attack patterns. If only.
This voiceless cry raced through my mind, flashing into white sparks that burst
like fireworks.
Wait a minute. Should I know them already? If the Life Harvester was just the
Skullreaper with flesh and armor on top, then Asuna and I had fought it once
before. It was nearly two years ago, but tangible memories of battling on the
brink of death did not fade quickly.
"Asuna!" I shouted, grabbing her fragile shoulder. "Do you remember the
Skullreaper's attack patterns?!"
Her hazel-brown eyes opened wide. Just as quickly, the light of determination
filled them.
"Yes, I do," she stated.
I squeezed her shoulder again. "Good. Then you and I can deal with all the
scythe attacks. If we hit them with synchronized sword skills, we should be able
to neutralize their power."
She must have largely anticipated this comment already. Her face, a pale orb
in the dark of night, looked more tense and resolved than before. She
whispered, "But opposite the Skullreaper, the commander guarded against the
other scythe all on his own."
Asuna was speaking of the Knights of the Blood's leader, Heathcliff the Holy
Sword. It was because he had the greatest defense of any player in the frontline
group that he was able to take on one of the scythes all on his own, helping
Asuna and me last to the end. I didn't deny that fact, but if my memory was
correct…
"The Skullreaper never attacked with both scythes at once. I remember that it
always folded one scythe against its chest when it was about to swing the other.
As long as we're watching for that, we should be capable of stopping the
scythes with just the two of us."
"…All right," she said quickly. Asuna understood just as well as I did that
running was not possible. Fighting was our only choice. We nodded together,
then reached into our waist sacks to retrieve not healing herbs, but healing tea,
and drained the bottles together. The icon for gradual HP recovery appeared,
and I got to my feet.
"We're going to fight!" I shouted to the group. The others lifted themselves
up from the grass. "That Life Harvester is the same as the Skullreaper boss from
the seventy-fifth floor of Aincrad! Asuna and I will deal with the scythe attacks
from the front! Klein, you lead the assault on the left side! Agil, you join the
Insectsite folks on the right! Yui, use magic to attack—Misha and Kuro, protect
her!"
As veterans of the Skullreaper battle, Agil and Klein replied to my rapid orders
with a hearty "You got it!" They relayed orders of their own to Alice and Hyme's
group, arranging formations on either side, while Yui and the two pets formed a
roaming unit.
The Life Harvester came to a stop, seeming to sense our resolve. Its four eyes
narrowed.
"Jyashuuu…," it hissed, mocking the tiny creatures that dared to challenge it.
Then it charged, racing forward with incredible speed that tore the grass
under its many feet. Feeling the pressure of it bearing down on us, I shouted to
Asuna, "Here we go!"
"I'm ready!"
It felt like we were back in SAO again. We charged, too, the gap between both
sides rapidly shrinking. Once we were under thirty feet apart, the Life
Harvester's right scythe tucked itself against its chest, while the left scythe
pulled back sideways.
We had learned, quite painfully, that blocking the scythe with our weapons
would not work. Instead, the only way to neutralize the scythe attack was for
both of us to hit it with sword skills together.
This concept of "synced sword skills," which we'd developed in SAO and still
existed among ALO players as a kind of unofficial practice, sounded simple—just
strike the target with simultaneous sword skills—but required significant
technique. The reason was that the time needed for each starting motion
among the many, many sword skills was varied, as was the skill speed. So
activating your skills at the same time would not make them land at the same
time. And that would not produce the desired effect.
If you could perfectly align the moment of impact, however, the power of one
plus one would instead jump to three or four. And because sword skills had a
powerful knockback ability that normal attacks didn't, the two of us should be
able to defend against the same scythe attack that had knocked over five
people just moments earlier. It had worked against the Skullreaper, at least.
I activated the single-slice One-Handed Sword skill Vertical, and Asuna
activated the single-thrust rapier skill Linear about two-tenths of a second later.
The other reason that synced sword skills were so hard was that your skill
could not overlap the skill or body of your partner. If I had used Horizontal
instead of Vertical, it would have hit Asuna directly on my right before it struck
the Life Harvester's scythe. You had to be aware of your enemy's location,
partner's location, and partner's posture, then select the best skill for the
situation.
"Jyaaaaa!" the monster roared, its massive hooked scythe howling as it cut
through air.
My longsword and Asuna's rapier took on different shades of blue light that
split the darkness. Two edges collided with the curve of the scythe.
Kwaaannng! A tremendous crash buffeted my ears.
The staggering recoil of the sword traveled back through my right hand,
elbow, and shoulder, until it burst through my spine.
But I held firm. I hadn't been tossed backward yet. The enemy's scythe didn't
budge, however. It was just an infinitesimally short moment of pause. I reached
for everything I could, even the Incarnation power that didn't exist in this world,
searching for the strength to push the scythe back.
I felt a sudden burst in the center of my head. It almost felt like I could feel
the pressure not just against my own sword, but Asuna's rapier as well. Our
wills overlapped, requiring neither words nor glances to communicate.
"Ohhhh!"
"Haaaah!"
Our cries overlapping as well, we wrung out every last drop of power that our
sword skills could produce.
The glowing light of our weapons flashed brighter, then went out. Our
weapons were deflected, and we lost our balance.
But more importantly, the Life Harvester's left scythe was also pushed
backward.
We blocked it!
Asuna and I shared this single triumphant thought in a moment of eye contact
during the resulting skill delay. All we had to do was keep repeating that
synchronized skill. Until our companions could work down all three HP bars.
When the delay wore off, and we could move again, the man-faced centipede
was also getting back to its many feet.
This time, it folded up its left scythe and raised its right arm high. This would
be a downward swing, not a sideswipe. There was no need to deflect it with
sword skills, but a direct hit would be instant death, and even if you dodged it,
the splash damage could cause us to fall over.
"Not yet, Kirito," Asuna murmured, staring up at the Life Harvester's scythe.
"I know," I whispered back.
The blackened tip of the scythe began to waver, trying to lure us into a stupor
—and then it struck downward with blinding speed. Its target was Asuna.
"That way!" I shouted, but she was already jumping. I landed in front of her,
hunching over into a defensive position to protect against the shock.
The scythe smashed into the ground with an explosive sound. The impact
ripped up a wave of grass, and a shock wave rushed toward us. I felt a
tremendous impact when it passed over us, but I managed to stay on my feet.
There was no damage.
"Kirito, you don't need to protect me!" Asuna shouted over my shoulder.
But as I rose to my feet, I shot back, "Your leather armor can't fully protect
you from that kind of area damage!"
"…That's true," she admitted with chagrin; one of Asuna's steadfast strengths
was that she always admitted the truth as soon as she saw it. I was wearing Fine
Steel in every piece of armor, but Asuna only had thin chest armor, arm guards,
and shin guards. If she guarded adequately, she'd be able to avoid falling over,
but we needed to minimize all the scratch damage, too.
The Life Harvester wrenched its scythe out of the ground with some effort; it
was stuck into the soil over three feet deep. Watching carefully, I instructed, "If
that downward swing attack comes again, try to get behind me!"
"Got it! Here it comes!"
The man-faced centipede pulled its newly freed arm back. It was going to
swipe again.
As I prepped my sword skill, I glanced at the sides of the centipede to
determine how the battle was going.
To my right, Klein's group, which included Alice and Lisbeth, was furiously
attacking the over twenty legs on the creature's flank. On the left, Agil and the
Insectsite team were busy dealing damage the same way. A number of legs had
already been severed, but the Life Harvester occasionally whipped its tail spear
around fiercely, causing huge damage if you didn't detect the tell and drop to
the ground first. I could only trust that Klein and Agil were watching for it
without fail, so I focused on the scythe again.
It was another sideswipe—except, no. The backswing was too shallow. This
was…
"A feint!" Asuna cried as I turned to the right. The left scythe was already on
the move. This feint motion had nearly killed me in the fight on the seventy-fifth
floor. I'd been grateful to Heathcliff when he'd warned me just in time—which
was ironic, because it was he, Akihiko Kayaba, who had created the Skullreaper
in the first place.
The Life Harvester quickly returned the right scythe, which it pretended to
attack with, to its body, and swung the left scythe forward on a level. The path
was slightly higher than the first attack. I used the diagonal Slant skill, while
Asuna met it with the thrusting Streak.
Once again, I felt a moment of shared sensory information with Asuna. Our
breathing aligned; we deflected the scythe again.
This was what happened against the Skullreaper, too. We shared thoughts
without using words and maintained perfect synchronization without a single
mistake. Much time had passed since that fight—we were in a different world,
with different weapons and different stats—but the link that connected us was
still alive. We could surely win this fight, as we won before.
On the right, Kirito!
Let's block it here!
We aligned ourselves with communication so smooth that I couldn't even tell
if it was spoken or psychic. With each successful counter, the distractions faded
away. The fear that even a single failure would lead to our deaths evaporated,
as did the impatience of wondering how long we'd have to do this in order to
win—leaving only one sensation: the pleasure of becoming one with Asuna,
optimizing our movements into the ideal.
And it was this trance state that swept our feet out from under us at the very
last moment.
"Shagyuoooooo!!"
I couldn't count how many times the beast had roared by now. The Life
Harvester retracted both scythes as far as they could go along the ground. That
was a motion we had never seen before, even back in SAO.
If Asuna and I were in a normal state, we would have detected that an
unknown attack was coming and attempted to retreat outside of the scythes'
swing range.
But having countered so many attacks in a row in an almost-automatic state,
it took an extra half a second to snap out of the trance state and regain my
usual decision-making ability.
The withdrawn scythes began to issue a crimson glow. This was a special
attack the Skullreaper didn't have. There was no time to evade, and there was
no way that Asuna and I could each block a scythe that was boosted with extra
power.
"Kirito—," Asuna rasped at the same time that the screams of our
companions filled the air.
We'd just have to hit the ground and pray—but no, I had a better option.
"Forward!!" I shouted, pushing her from behind. We leaped forward together.
Burning red scythes rushed toward us from the left and right. I could feel the
premonition of fatal damage prickling on my skin as I raced for all I was worth.
The Life Harvester's forelegs were about ten feet of upper arms, attached to
fifteen feet of giant scythes. When swinging just one scythe, it pulled the other
against its chest to keep from smashing them together. Now it was swinging
both of them, however. While the blades themselves were thin enough that
they could cross each other without touching, the thick arms would collide.
That should leave a narrow gap, right in front of its body.
If it didn't, Asuna and I were going to die.
The blades rushed inward. I could hear the kshaa! of the two scythes scraping
against each other already behind us. Before us was the massive body, covered
in blue-black carapace. With the Skullreaper, there had been enough of a gap to
slip underneath the body if necessary, but the Life Harvester's loins featured
four protuberances like spikes that blocked any gap.
"Right up against it!" I cried, leaping to the side of one of the spikes. Asuna
did the same, pressing against me. The scythes continued to rush toward us
from behind…
Clank! They met dully.
I turned around to see the joint areas of both forelegs, smashed together and
locking the two of us inside a small triangle of space.
"Jyaaaaa!!" it roared with fury. I looked up to see it glaring down at us,
freakish mouth opened as far as it could go. The HP readout over its head was
down to the final bar, with barely 20 percent left. Our companions had been
faithfully grinding down its HP. We had to finish this encounter strong, so that
their efforts paid off.
"Jyashuuuu!!" it hissed again. The Life Harvester's foreleg joints clacked as
they collided, again and again. Its mouth opened and closed furiously above our
heads. But the monster's thick armor narrowed its range of motion, so that it
couldn't do anything while we clung to its torso. If it started charging forward,
we'd have to move as well, but it seemed to be having enough trouble just
staying upright; the others must have removed most of its legs by now.
"This is our chance, Kirito!" Asuna cried, readying her rapier. Sensing her plan,
I lifted my longsword to my right shoulder.
"Jyaaaaa!!" it roared for the third time.
My jumping skill Sonic Leap and Asuna's charging skill Shooting Star activated,
aimed directly upward—and aided by the boost of leaping. The combination of
avatar jump strength and system assistance carried us upward with momentum
that would be impossible in real life.
Longsword and rapier, trailing two colors of light, burst through the huge
open mouth, and its jaw opened up, down, left, and right.
The pale flash bulged, extending into a pillar of light that passed through the
inside of its four eyes. Light also shone from cracks in the shell and joints, then
pulsed—and exploded.
The Life Harvester writhed backward, spraying pale flames from its head. We
jumped away from the creature, doing backflips in the air. Once we'd landed, I
checked the HP bar: just under 10 percent left.
Sensing that we could finish it off with an all-out assault, I breathed in to give
the order to the group.
But before I could, the Life Harvester bellowed with more rage than any it had
expressed to this point.
"Jyaggrrraaaaaahh!!"
Filthy red flames rose in the four damaged eye sockets after our attack
damage faded. The massive body trembled and shuddered, trapped in place
with over 80 percent of its legs lost. The spear on its tail smacked the ground a
few times. It looked like the warning signs of a frantic state, when a nearly dead
boss tossed out its usual attack patterns for one final burst of desperate
thrashing.
If everyone here committed to a total offensive plan with no thought for
defense, we could probably grind out the last few percent of its HP bar. But if
even a tiny bit was still left at the end, its counterattack could possibly wipe us
all out. Should we pull back for a little distance and take our time with a safer
strategy?
There was no guarantee that Asuna and I could avoid that previous doublescythe attack again, however. Our strategy had worked specifically because the
two of us were keeping the Life Harvester entirely occupied. If it turned its
attention on the people around its flanks, it might cause our formation to
crumble.
After coming so far, are we stuck without a winning option? I lamented.
" !"
A familiar screeching voice issued from the forest to the west of the
battlefield.
From among the trees leaped a number of figures, much smaller than a
human. But this was not some new group of monsters. It was the rodent-type
humanoid NPCs we'd left behind in Ruis na Ríg, the Patter. There were ten of
them in total. Each one held an iron pitchfork in its left hand and a crude spear
whittled from wood in its right.
The one in the lead, whom I took to be female, shouted again.
" !!"
On that cue, the ten of them released their wooden spears as one. The
projectiles flew with unimaginable force from such small bodies and struck the
Life Harvester's head one after the other. Half just bounced off the carapace,
but the others sank into muscle, taking down another 3 percent. Just 5 percent
left.
"Jyaaaa!"
The Life Harvester roared and stuck its few remaining legs into the ground,
managing to turn its body. It was clearly targeting the Patter now. But the small
mice men gripped their pitchforks with both hands and stood firm.
Then a new voice entered the fray.
" !!"
More silhouettes were rushing out of the woods now. This time they were
human—but not players. It was the other NPC group that had moved into Ruis
na Ríg, the Bashin tribespeople. When their leader, the stout warrior Yzelma,
saw me, she shouted, " !"
I didn't have the skills for either the Patter or the Bashin language, but I
understood instinctually what she had said. It was some form of "Are you afraid
or something?" or "Let's do this!"
Withdrawal was no longer an option. We would press a total offensive
assault, and we would either emerge victorious or perish as a group.
Drawing a breath and holding it in my gut, I raised my sword and yelled, "Allout attack!!"
The roars of my companions matched the roar of the Life Harvester.