Chapter 9: Chapter 9 – Labyrinthine Nest

“To the left!”

CLANG!

A vicious blade raked across the air, slicing through the space between itself and my head within a mere second.

I reacted to Shizuka’s cry almost immediately, raising my sword in a hasty parry. Despite my lack of technique, it was enough.

The blade-like implement attached to the creature’s tail clashed against the edge of my sword and then slithered off, producing a brilliant array of sparks.

My breathing was ragged, but I could hardly afford to take a break here. The sounds of combat were still raging behind me and the creatures that we were attempting to defeat simply were not bound by the effects of combat fatigue.

After all, they were simply NPCs with an adapting, but simplistic AI programmed into them. Combat fatigue wasn’t something that the system had cursed them with.

I took two steps backward, disengaging with my attacker for the moment. Right now, Shizuka, Helsa, and I were surrounded by a group of monsters that had the body of a lizard standing upright, but the head of a rooster.

The discrepancy was more than a little jarring, but the worst part was that the tip of their lengthy and flexible tails had some kind of bladed instrument that was melded into the flesh. The attack patterns were wild and unpredictable, forcing us to be pushed back into the tight formation that we were in right now.

Behind me, Helsa trembled in fear, gripping onto her spear tightly. My hit points and Shizuka’s were still relatively high thanks to our incredible reflexes, but we had no idea how Helsa was doing seeing as she was still a part of Rucken’s party.

She hadn’t taken any hits as far as I could remember and Rucken had told us that she was apparently still in the yellow. Either way, she’d been confident enough to participate in the encounters before this, standing behind us and using her spear to poke the enemies from a distance.

Right now, that probably would’ve been helpful seeing as we were getting overwhelmed by multiple opponents, but based on the terror in her eyes, I doubted she’d be very receptive to such a suggestion.

Alright... Two to the right, one to the left. Just three shouldn’t be too bad.

I shuffled forward slightly, hoping to cause one of the monsters to attack. One of them immediately took the bait and shot its tail out in a vicious thrust, allowing me to step to the side and unleash a Sword Skill that followed an upwards arc.

Thunk!

The creature’s tail fell to the ground and soon disappeared in a flash of brilliant polygons.

I attempted to cancel the Sword Skill before it could put me in Post-Motion, but I still wasn’t good enough to do so yet. My entire body locked up for a split second as the other two monsters flicked their tails toward me.

If the Post-Motion had taken even a fraction of a second longer to expire, I probably would’ve been dropped to red by now. Luckily, I managed to throw myself to the side just in time to see two bladed tails cut straight through the air where I was standing a mere second ago.

As the two monsters pulled their tails back, I was tempted to leap forward and finish off the one that I’d “de-tailed” earlier, but I pulled back instead and played it safe. Taking advantage of the brief pause in combat, I sneaked a look at Shizuka before quickly turning back to my assailants.

So Shizuka’s dealing with only two on her side now, huh? They look like they’re about to drop, so I should probably pick up the pace.

I readied myself as the two prepared to attack again while the de-tailed monster hung in the back, waiting for its tail to regenerate. This was a rare instance of teamwork that I’d seen programmed into the monsters.

Normally, they just attacked you without any heed for their allies, but according to Jin, some of the mobs had been rather intelligent during the beta test.

The two lizard-roosters’ tails shot out toward me once more.

I paid them no mind. Instead, I ducked low and dashed forward.

When their tails were whirling around in unpredictable patterns, they were deadly. It felt as if I was facing multiple swordsmen at once. However, when they were simply thrusting, the tails were little more than a minor inconvenience.

Really, they were more like spears that couldn’t be thrust rapidly, allowing me to close the gap easily so long as I was willing to get trapped in the middle of the three of them after I did so.

Within seconds, I had already accelerated past my two assailants and reached my target. It attempted to fight me off with its claws, but I dodged easily and unleashed several Sword Skills in rapid succession.

My latest Sword Skill cleaved through the creature harmlessly as it froze in mid-motion. It was like time had stopped for it in that moment, just before it shattered into countless prismatic shards.

One down.

I whirled around and raised my sword in preparation for the battle’s continuation. There were still two enemies on my side that I had to take care of and my reckless maneuver had opened up the path for the two remaining monsters to attack Helsa since I was the only one standing in their way.

I wasn’t too worried though. Thanks to my bold advance, the two monsters had their full attention focused on me.

This way, I can see how Shizuka’s doing too. She’s only got one left to deal with, huh? We should be wrapping up pretty quickly then.

“Alright. Come at me, you bastards!”

As if reacting to my taunt, one of the monsters screeched loudly and leapt towards me, its tail flailing in the air in front of it as it did so. My sword danced through the air rapidly as I parried each of its attacks with relative ease, slipping in a few of my attacks and chipping away at its health slowly.

I still had to watch out for the occasional thrusting attacks that the other monster was performing, but it honestly didn’t worry me too much. It seemed like the duo had relegated one another to roles, with one of them launching an all-out assault against me while the other provided support from the back like a spear-wielder would.

Since one of them was focusing solely on thrusting attacks, as long as I kept the frontal assailant between us, it’d essentially be a one-on-one duel. Thank god for stupid AI.

After a few more exchanges, I managed to catch the monster off-guard and slice through its tail, removing its main method of attack. Not long after, it fell to the rapid storm of Sword Skills that I unleashed upon it.

With only one monster left standing, we were pretty much guaranteed a victory, especially now that Shizuka had finished taking care of her side of the fight. She leapt high in the air, her greatsword glowing bright red as she activated a Sword Skill.

“Together!” Shizuka shouted as she started descending.

The lizard-rooster was still focused on me, completely neglecting Shizuka’s incoming attack. I dashed forward, reading a Sword Skill of my own. Doing so would ensure that the creature remained in the same spot, meaning that Shizuka’s attack would definitely hit.

Normally, a popular tactic when fighting monsters was to «Switch», allowing one of the party members to recover hit points and confuse the learning capabilities of the monster’s AI after the two party members swapped positions.

Another benefit from doing this was coordination. By switching places and having only one person in the party engage the monster, it’d reduce the chances of interfering with one another.

However, something like that wasn’t necessary for Shizuka and I. I didn’t know what it was, but somehow I always knew what she’d do next when we fought together and I had a feeling that she was the same when it came to me.

Besides, our hit points were still in the green and this particular monster hadn’t been exposed to Shizuka’s greatsword at all. Not that it mattered, honestly. It wasn’t even paying any attention to her until it was too late.

Shizuka’s massive greatsword descended like a falling mountain on the monster’s unprotected head, cleaving straight through its center in a vertical cut. At the same time, my Sword Skill connected with it: a fast and vicious horizontal slash that bisected the creature at the abdomen.

The monster shattered immediately after receiving our attacks. At last, I allowed the point of my sword to drop to the ground.

“Whew! We sure were in a pinch, weren’t we?” Shizuka grinned as she held out her hand for a high five.

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Even though I couldn’t share the same mirth that she had, I couldn’t leave her hanging so I nodded and slapped my palm against hers.

“You alright, Helsa?” I turned to the still-shaking girl.

Helsa nodded, her knees buckling. “I... I thought w-we were gonna die... They just... They just c-came out of nowhere a-and...!”

I frowned. We’d encountered several other ambushes already while traversing the dungeon, but this was the first time she’d reacted so strongly. I mean, sure, the monsters this time looked pretty weird, but I didn’t think she’d be this upset.

“You got hit, didn’t you?” Shizuka asked bluntly.

My eyes flickered over to her in surprise before returning to Helsa, who nodded hesitantly.

“I... I’m in the red now... B-But...” She hesitated again.

I didn’t know what she was trying to hide, but she should’ve told us in the first place if she was hit. When the monsters first surrounded us, they’d dropped down from hidden compartments in the ceiling after we ended up triggering a trap by disturbing what looked like a bird’s nest.

Could it have been from back then...? Wait!

My eyes widened in realization. There were six in the beginning, and all of them had immediately slashed downward at us as they fell from the ceiling. Both Shizuka and I had managed to parry the attacks directed to ourselves, but it was certainly possible that Helsa was hit.

At the moment, we were distracted by the sudden attack and simply thought that Helsa would’ve been protected since she was in the center of the formation.

Damn it! I can’t believe we were so careless!

I mentally punched myself. The whole point of this entire operation was to save Helsa. If she died here, then getting trapped in this dungeon was pretty much pointless.

“...I’m sorry, Helsa. We should’ve noticed earlier.”

Helsa shook her head. “I-I-It’s okay! Let’s just hurry up and get out of here, ahaha!”

“Here. Use this.” Shizuka had gone through her inventory and retrieved a «Healing Crystal». Both her and I only had one since they were pretty expensive for us right now, so giving one out for free was pretty much throwing away a small fortune.

“N-No! It’s fine!” Helsa quickly shoved Shizuka’s hand back. “I... I don’t wanna be a burden!”

In response, Shizuka just smiled easily. “You’re a journalist for MMO Today, yeah? Just consider this as a gift for all the help you’ve given me through the years.”

“A-Ah...”

I placed a hand on Helsa’s still-trembling shoulder, giving her a gentle nudge. “She’s right, y’know. Besides, we came down here to save you anyway. Just have faith in us. You won’t drop to yellow, will you, Shizuka?”

“Of course not,” Shizuka replied. “And if you let a measly monster drop you to yellow, I’ll drop you to red myself.”

I shuddered. Although she’d said that jokingly with a grin, I was pretty sure that in the world of SAO, she probably could overwhelm me like that. I felt a chill run down my spine, but her next words made my heart skip a beat.

“I mean, you’re not allowed to go dying on me without my permission, y’know!”

“Uh... Y-Yeah.” I cleared my throat rather noisily and then quickly diverted the topic to progressing through the dungeon.

I had no idea how long we’d been down here, but it must’ve been at least over two days by now. We’d made camp twice already, and as far as we knew, the dungeon was massive. Not only that, but there were quite a few groups of mobs that were interspersed throughout its labyrinthine halls.

Since the mobs were balanced around players who were around five or even ten levels higher than us, the damage that we could deal to them was minimal at best, forcing us to rest for lengthy periods of time after every encounter either due to the fatigue or to recover hit points.

Jin and Rucken were probably worried as hell at this point, but Jin hadn’t left our party and it seemed like Rucken and Helsa were still in their own party too, meaning that they hadn’t given up yet.

Hopefully, we’d be out of here before too long. Even the food we’d bought for the three day journey to Tolbana was starting to dwindle.

“Alright, let’s make camp here for today!” Shizuka announced.

It was probably a good idea to take a break now. We’d been walking through various corridors for the past few hours or so and ran into a few clumps of mobs. They were pretty much trash tier and we had no trouble taking care of them, especially now that Helsa had rejoined the fight after using the crystal, but there was a strange feeling that I couldn’t shake off.

I mean, this dungeon was positively massive as far as I knew. Even compared to other MMOs that I’d played before, there was nothing on the size of this thing. It seemed like the more we traversed, the more there was to the dungeon.

Almost as if it was procedurally generated.

“Hey, Shizuka. Helsa. You mind if we have a little group chat?”

The three of us ended up discussing the possibility of such a dungeon, but it was quickly ruled out due to one thing: storage. SAO was a VRMMO, which already required massive amounts of computing power to even maintain. Not only that, but thanks to the large number of players that were connected, a large amount of data was required to be constantly updated and stored by the servers.

Something like a procedurally generated dungeon inside this game would be incredibly taxing on the already-taxed system. Instead, it was more likely that the dungeon was indeed just massive, or we were walking in some sort of loop.

To that end, we decided to start marking the walls using chalk after we finished resting. Shizuka had purchased a few pieces back in Horunka Village due to how cheap they were. Originally, she was planning on using them to draw whenever she got bored, but they turned out to be a pretty good investment now.

“Hold on...” I pointed to the wall ahead of us as we turned a corner, my finger trembling slightly.

A large chalk-white “X” was drawn right in the center of the wall. It told us that we’d been down here before, but that should’ve been impossible. The configuration of the hallway in front of us was completely different to what we’d passed through so far.

“The dungeon shifts!” Shizuka and I exclaimed simultaneously. We’d connected the dots at the exact same time.

“W-What!? What’s that supposed to mean!?” Helsa asked.

“The dungeon isn’t procedurally generated or a loop. It looks like it just shifts the hallways and parts around to make it continue endlessly. There’s probably some sort of proximity detector or something for the dungeon to know which parts should be shifted so that we won’t find out.” I explained.

“S-So... T-There’s no way out...?”

I struggled to come up with an answer. I wasn’t the best at puzzles, and at the moment, it really didn’t seem like there was going to be a way out.

However, as Helsa began to lose hope, there was a sudden unnatural beep that filled the air. A system message appeared above our heads:

[Warning: The secret of «The Rooster’s Nest» has been uncovered. Please stand by for transportation to «The Rooster’s Nest — Center».]

Oh. Shit.

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