Chapter 8: Chapter 8 – The Rabbit Was a Rooster!?

When my vision cleared, I saw something truly unbelievable. I knew that the game had a durability system, but I never imagined that it would apply to the weapons of monsters too.

Not only that, but I never even considered the possibility of breaking a weapon mid-combat. These things usually had enough durability to last for days, if not weeks on end.

“Alright! Let’s clear the crowd just like that!” Shizuka exclaimed.

“H-How the hell did you just do that!?”

“What do you mean? You just gotta hit their sword in the correct location, right? Jeez, I thought you knew this stuff better than I did!”

She wasn’t wrong. I certainly did know a lot more about weapons and fighting than her, but... The way she could just instinctually determine the weakest point of the Raging Rabbit’s weapon and precisely target it without even knowing that such a mechanic existed in the game was absolutely insane.

I mean, if it wasn’t possible in the first place, then she’d would’ve been sent flying without a doubt.

“I didn’t even know that was possible in the game yet, Shizuka.” I shook my head in amazement at her bladework as she drew the aggro of one of the mobs and replicated her sword-shattering technique yet again.

Her movements were nothing short of flawless.

When her greatsword cleaved through the Raging Rabbit’s scimitar, it would allow her Sword Skill to go straight through to her intended target without interruption, allowing her to deal maximum damage to the Raging Rabbit.

Not only that, but Shizuka had managed to somehow perfectly time her attack so that her weapon would cut in a line that destroyed the weapon while also passing through a point in the monster that would trigger a guaranteed critical hit.

She was well and truly a monster that was nothing short of a genius, and I felt myself falling for her just a little more. 

Maybe in this world I’d be able to admit it. Maybe in this world I’d be able to confront my feelings and tell her the truth, but the moment we got out of the game...

I shook my head, stopping that train of thought.

Don’t start thinking about that crap when you haven’t even confessed yet, idiot! Get yourself together, Akira! I mentally shouted at myself before joining Shizuka in battle. 

It didn’t look like she needed much help since she was able to duel the mobs fairly easily so long as they came at her one at a time, but my added damage would help clear them out quicker.

Even as I fought by her side, I could feel the gulf between us that had started to form. Back in the real world, I was undoubtedly stronger, but here in this world of swords, Shizuka’s prowess was beyond legendary.

I really wondered what sort of heights she’d be able to reach if she started to train her body after we got back. I’m sure she’d become someone capable of standing upon the pinnacle of martial arts.

But right now, I was content. It didn’t matter if she was better than me at the game or if she was stronger than me. I was just happy to be here by her side instead of talking to her through a computer screen like I was usually forced to do.

“And that’s that!” Shizuka happily announced as she sheathed her sword and clapped her hands together in a satisfied expression.

I looked around in surprise. The last of the Raging Rabbits shattered into colorful prisms before my eyes, but I hadn’t even noticed that the battle was already over. During the course of it, I’d lost myself in the heat of combat and my thoughts.

With the two of us combined, the Raging Rabbits really weren’t that great of a threat since we were drawing them out one by one. But now that they’d actually been defeated, the respawn timers would probably start counting down now.

Just in front of us was a small room without a door. In the center of the room was a perfectly rectangular slab of stone made from the same material as the white walls of the room. A blue flame flickered in each corner of the room, held aloft by torches that looked rather out of place compared to the rest of the room’s aesthetic.

In the center of that room was a young girl who was just a head shorter than me, standing at around Shizuka’s height. Her brown hair was styled into long braids that fell down beyond her shoulders. Her face was plain, but I thought she’d look rather cute with glasses.

“U-U-Uwahhh!” She screamed after a good five seconds of staring at us. Talk about being rude. “P-P-Player shaped monsters! T-This dungeon is horrible! Heeeeelp!!!”

“Haaah? Of course we’re not monsters, dumbass. We’re players. P-l-a-y-e-r-s. Okay? Your friend Rucken asked us to come help you out of the dungeon.”

“Y-You’re mean! I don’t wanna talk to you!”

What. The. Fuck. I mentally screamed in frustration as I fought the urge to run into the safe room and deck her across the face.

Sure, maybe I was overreacting a little, but Shizuka and I pretty much just put our lives on the line fighting goddamn humanoid rabbits from the third floor just to save this girl and now she was acting like an entitled bitch.

Like seriously. What gives?

Abruptly, Shizuka bounded into the safe room and gripped the girl by her shoulders.

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“Hey there! I’m Hinotori! What’s yours?”

“E-Eh? Ah...?” The girl stared at her, confused.

Shizuka tilted her head in an equal amount of confusion.

I let out a sigh of exasperation and walked into the safe room, joining the two of them. As I did so, the girl blinked rapidly, her gaze switching between Shizuka and I repeatedly.

“O-Oh my god... Y-You two really are players!” She exclaimed, breathing out a massive sigh of relief.

My eye twitched in annoyance, but I guess I could understand how she felt. She’d been stuck down here for hours and forced to listen to the groans and grunts of the massive crowd of mobs that’d remained outside. In her eyes, anything that hadn’t entered the safe room was probably hostile.

While I messaged Akira and told him that we’d found Rucken’s friend, Shizuka took her time to get acquainted with the girl. Her name was Helsa and she was actually a junior journalist for MMO Today, a popular website for news on MMOs back in the real world.

As it turns out, Helsa’s fall into this hole wasn’t entirely a mistake. She’d spotted it a little earlier even through the tall grass and she probably could’ve avoided falling into it, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she’d ended up stuck down here when she took a risk and peered in.

If SAO wasn’t the death game that it was, I probably would’ve found her story hilarious. As it currently stood, I was really starting to understand how deadly the game was. I already knew that combat was dangerous after my close brush with death against the Swamp Kobold Chieftain, but it was becoming evident that even simple exploration posed a threat.

There was no two ways about it: Aincrad was undoubtedly a world that was out for blood.

The mere fact that Shizuka was able to enjoy herself in this world was really a show of how strong she was, both in-game and mentally.

I turned to the two girls. “Alright. One of our friends is waiting up there with Rucken. He’s got a rope, so we’re gonna retrace our path and get ourselves outta here. Got that, Helsa?”

Helsa nodded energetically. It seemed that Shizuka’s peppiness had rubbed off on her and completely dispelled the horrors that Helsa had suffered for the past few hours. “Yeah! Sorry about earlier, by the way! I was super stressed and it just wasn’t working up there, y’know!”

I smiled and waved the apology aside with a quick joke. Now that the haze of battle had subsided, her reaction was a little entitled and still rude, but it was perfectly reasonable for someone in the situation that she was in.

Humans aren’t perfect after all, especially not when they’re stuck in a death game. I turned on my heel and went to leave, but I couldn’t. Something had stopped me.

A purple barrier had materialized in front of me when I attempted to step out of the safe room, and a system message had popped up.

[Warning: You cannot leave this area at this time. The requisite number of participants for the «Hidden Dungeon» has been reached. Please stand by for transportation to «The Rooster’s Nest».]

I tried to send a message to Jin before we were teleported, but to no avail. The messaging system had been disabled, but I wasn’t sure why.

Can we not send messages in dungeons...? But... I was just messaging Jin mere moments ago! What the hell is going on!?

This was something that I’d have to ask Jin about the moment we got the hell out of whatever this was. As a beta tester, he should’ve known that we wouldn’t be able to send messages in dungeons.

Not only that, but wasn’t this situation way too weird? I mean, who the hell’s heard of a trapped safe room!?

A white flash enveloped the three of us, much like what occurred on the first day of Sword Art Online. My field of vision disappeared into a blank expanse and when I could finally see again, Shizuka was standing beside me with Helsa clutching onto her arm tightly.

We were now standing in a dungeon of steel and stone. The walls around us were ominous and cold to the touch. The sea-green color of the blocks gave off an eerie atmosphere, and the material carried sound rather well. Even the slight rasping noises of the breathing monsters could be heard.

We had well and truly entered a dungeon.

As I stared into the path ahead of us that slowly descended into dimly-lit darkness, I felt a sense of impending doom. I was tempted to give up right here and now. After all, there was no way back and no way that the three of us alone would be able to clear a full-blown dungeon.

I felt a familiar touch on my forearm. Shizuka’s slender fingers were wrapped around it, and the warmth of her hand pulsed throughout my body in waves, washing away the fear that was taking root in my heart.

I looked into her eyes. They were bright and determined. She wasn’t the least bit daunted by this whole sequence of events.

I needed to be just as strong. It was the only way I’d be able to stay by her side as we cleared this game.

“Let’s go, Shizuka.”

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