KeotsuEclipse
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I wasn’t quite sure what to make of my surroundings: I could definitely tell we were going downwards, down into the mountain itself – the path we walked seemed to be constructed of chiseled stone, but the light from our torches found no walls to illuminate, other than the one to my right. And though the mounting pressure of an increasing weight could be felt above me, I also felt as if I was moving into an ever expanding space.
Simply put, the path we were walking on was most likely a stairway with no guards. If we stepped off it, we would likely fall to our death.
“Oi, you okay up there? I can hear you breathing all the way back here.”
As Gin’s voice pierced my consciousness, I took a deep breath. I didn’t realize I had been rasping. “Yeah…Yeah, sorry. I’m scared of heights.” It sounded ridiculous coming out of my mouth. We were in a game of life or death, were we fought regularly with swords that cut away at our life-forces. And I was afraid of heights, of all things.
“Why?”
The question caught me off guard, and I leaned my body to the right, in order to catch myself against the wall as I stumbled for a moment.
“There’s no way to fight it.” I had rationalized my fear to myself before in efforts to conquer it. While I had made progress from my almost phobic state in my youth, I still became short of breath when high up.
“..when against a mugger, or a killer, or something like that, there is always the chance to fight. You can defend yourself. But, you can’t fight gravity.”
Gin let out a small grunt as I finished, as if what I had just said made perfect sense. “Need me to lead?” he asked.
I shook my head, and simply continued down the stairway. The point was not to have no fear. The point was for me to gather the courage to overcome that fear.
As we descended the stairwell, I could feel the pressure mounting overhead as more stone began to loom over the top of us. Though we had been descending for nearly five minutes and had not reached the bottom, neither were we moving at a fast pace; we could barely see past the scope of our torches, and if an enemy spawned on the stairwell, we’d need to carefully fight it.
…more than likely, though, the plan was to simply knock it off, and have it die from fall damage…
Getting rather frustrated, I stopped, and edged my left foot over to the edge of the stair well.
“What’re you doing?” asked Gin, who was unaware of why we stopped – I answered by simply lifting my hand, to stop him.
Holding my torch out in front of me, I extended it over the dark abyss, and then released it.
Items in SAO had a durability rating, and once they rating hit zero, they exploded into polygons. Luckily, “falling” itself didn’t cause the durability to drop. So, by figuring out how long it took the torch to hit the ground, I could calculate how far up we were from the bottom.
I watched as the golden light dropped downward, twinkling like a star, counting off consecutive ticks of second in my head. Then, suddenly, there was a clanging noise, and the unmistakable sound of an object breaking.
“Seven seconds.”
“Seven seconds?” Gin repeated, not quite sure of what I was doing.
“Yeah. One-half g t squared. The gravity equation. I can get a good guess of how much further we have to go till we get to the bottom. Um…seven seconds…gravity is roughly ten meters per second squared… So, about two hundred and fifty meters till the bottom. If we hug the wall, we can probably reach the bottom within five minutes. Up for it?” I asked, as I pulled my last torch from my inventory.
“Is Hell hot?”
Smiling, I took off down the stairs in a mad dash, my comrade not far behind.
The bottom of the massive pit was rather…unremarkable. Simply black stone, it stretched towards the edges of this massive room, and the only noticeable feature seemed to be the very small grooves carved into the ground. Unfortunately, in the low light level, making them out was nearly impossible.
What seemed to be prayer tags also seemed to be spaced in regular intervals on the perimeter of the wall, and a single, larger tag was in the center of the floor, where all the grooves seemed to intersect.
Finding nothing that seemed to queue what would happen next in the quest, I again accessed my inventory, retrieving the musty tome.
That, however, was probably a mistake.
No sooner than the book had materialized in my hands, did it burst into violet flames. Instinctually, I released my grip on the tome, causing it to fall to the floor.
The purple flames licked about, spreading about from the floor and filling the grooves as if it was some sort of liquid. As it crossed over the large tag in the center of the room, smaller, indigo sparks where spit about, igniting the tags on the walls as well.
The flames climbed robes of white cloth, which I could not previously see, trailing down like ivory tentacles, their massive length spanning all the way to the ceiling.
“Oi…” said Gin, brandishing his scimitar in an odd stance as he took several steps backwards away from the center of the floor, as the flames became more intense.
I dropped my torch and quickly maneuvered through my inventory, reequipping my shield in a little less than seven seconds, as I watch the flame lick into the air, higher, and higher.
A brutal roar came about, as the maelstrom of fire in the center of the room died down, leaving only the flames on the wall to illuminate the large field we were standing in. The diameter of this large stone disk was about 100m, and I could tell we would need it.
As the shadows danced about in this dim lighting, I could see a behemoth of a creature standing before me, nearly twice my height, and about three times as wide as I was. A large creature that stood on two legs, but with the head of a boar – it wore a black breast plate, with a cape of violet flames. In one hand, it held a large bladed spear – a Naginata.
Two, glowing health bars appeared near the monster’s head, along with its distinct title, <<The Nightseeker>>.
“The”. That article had only been attached to bosses thus far. If Gin and I had unknowingly stumbled upon the boss of the floor, then there was much glory to be had, if the two of us could handle the fight.
What surprised me even more was the fact that it spoke.
“Muuuhuwfaaa….Finally free from that prison….Oh…? Tis not my followers who have freed me, but some maggots? HA! All the better. I will feast on the souls before me, before I extend my reach, and begin my conquest anew!”
Then, with a quick flourish, the boss spun the naginata about, creating great air currents that causes the illuminating flames to dim and flare. Though I had originally been worried about being able to see, the vibrant cape the creature wore would ensure that we would have ample vision of the creature.
“Get ready, Gin!” I shouted as I brandished <<White Rose>>, the blade’s weight sitting comfortable in my hand as I tightened my grip around its hilt; its white sheen looked a sick shade of pink, in this purple den.
With a might shout “Uooo-ah!” Gin charged forward at a speed I would be unable to replicate. Not letting him take all the glory, though, I rushed forward as well.
With the boss quickly stepping backwards, it swung the Naginata about in an arc, coming from my left, aiming to cut us both with the blade. Bracing myself, I lifted my shield, and blocked the blow, the force of which sent me sprawling several meters.
Even with my shield, the contact had shaven off a large ten percent or so of my HP. With my obviously higher defenses…if Gin was hit by that, it would likely mean death.
However, my blocking of the blow had momentarily staggered the monster, and allowed Gin the window he needed to use a <<Multi-Hit Sword Skill.>>
The damage…was barely even visible on the HP gauge of the beast, though.
This time, taking aim at the silver swordsman specifically, the boar-headed creature drew back his lance it thrust it forward. Gin, though, deftly as ever, simply stepped to his left while swinging his sword to his right, deflecting the giant staff.
“Go!” he yelled, and I wasted not a moment more. Activating the <<Horizontal>> Sword Skill, I rushed forward and struck the underside of the creature’s outstretched arm, as I combat rolled underneath it.
Leaping backwards, to regroup with Gin, I noticed that while the damage our combined strikes did was minimal…it was definitely enough to tell that the mob had lost health.
“Gin…”
“Huh?”
“We’re going to need to figure out this things battle patterns if we’re going to stand a chance against this thing…”
No sooner had I said that, then did The Nightseeker suddenly leap forward, thrusting the blade of its naginata at us in a sideways manner, causing Gin and I to both leap to our respective sides, to avoid the nasty blade.
“You don’t have the defense to take that thing!” yelled Gin, probably seeing through my intentions.
“No, but with Potions, I do!” I countered. Gin, seeing my suddenly sheathe my sword and draw forth a potion from my inventory, knew my intention.
He looked at me from across the room, and the look in his eyes said everything. “Don’t die.”
For the next one and half hours, Gin and I poked at the boss to figure out its attack patterns. As Gin held all of the “Hate” from the monster, due to constantly doing damage, we first figured out how it would attack a closely held group.
Then, backing away, with me standing in front of Gin, my shield raised, we discerned what it would do if we retreated…
Then, finally, we approached the beast from opposite corners of the room. All said in done, the monster had very simple attack patterns. Gin’s constant poking had depleted nearly twenty-five percent of the monster’s health, but I had burned through over half of my reserve of potions in an attempt to keep my health in the safe zone.
Now, with my sword brandished, Gin and I had all the knowledge we needed to continue our fight.
It would take us another two hours to fight safely, the two of us combining our Sword Skills to take out large chunks of the beast’s HP without leaving the other open.
It wasn’t until the Nightseeker’s HP reached 20% that things started to change…
With a resounding crash, the Nightseeker broke his Naginata, and then got on all fours, in the process extinguishing his illustrious cape.
The result was a drastic drop in the light level, and thus I could only barely make out the shape of the beast amidst the darkness.
Gin, taking advantage of the slight delay from when the system changed AI patterns, quickly ran towards the beast, and leapt on to its back.
“Gin, don’t let go!” I said, as I saw him plunge his blade into the beast’s back, creating a small red light that I could use to discern the beast’s position.
“Didn’t plan on it! Knock him down!” yelled Gin, implying that it was now my job to fight the beast for a bit.
Quickly formulating a plan, I backed up against the wall, and raised my shield. The AI obviously wouldn’t pass up that opportunity, and the feral boss charged forward, aiming to smash me between its wicked, ivory tusks and the black stone of our coliseum.
“Switch!” I yelled, as I quickly pushed against the wall, leaping upwards as the beast collided with the unyielding earth. I was sent airborne, sailing over the creatures head, and thus landed on its back, impaling my blade into the beast.
Gin, understanding my plan, watching as nearly 10% of our enemy’s HP vanished, quickly jumped off, and used his amazing speed to deliver a Sword Skill before blitzing to the opposite corner of the room.
The continuous damage of having our blade impaled into the boss generated an extreme amount of “Hate” for the player on the Mob’s back. However, being unable to dispose of the player in its rage, what the AI saw was one player standing in front of another, one close and one at a distance. For a feral type boss…it was easy to predict that the reaction would be a charging type attack.
However, just as how you could take fall damage, if you didn’t control your momentum correctly, you could also take collision damage in SAO. This included enemy monsters. And so, using advantage of his large mass to build momentum, we were going to have the Nightseeker whittle his HP down to nearly zero in his rage, before we delivered the final blow.
After the second collision with the wall, I dismounted quickly, and stood next to Gin, as we crossed our swords behind ourselves, forming an “X”.
While a blue light started to form from my blade, so too, did a red one form from Gin’s.
Starting the assault, I stepped forward, and raised my shield over my head – taking the point, Gin leapt forward, and used my shield as a spring forward, and came raining down in an unbelievable, corkscrewing slash unto the beast.
At the same moment as he came raining down vertically, I delivered a powerful <<Horizontal>>, resulting in the two of us quartering the massive beast.
With a brutish howl that turned into a pained gurgling, the beast exploded into a vibrant rain of polygons, and we became congratulated on our victory with the obligatory message window.
Powerful golden auras surrounded both Gin and I, indicating that we had leveled up…twice, actually.
Collapsing with a gasp for air, my mind suddenly felt the exhaustion of our nearly four and a half our fight with the boss. Gin, too, was holding himself up with his arms.
Slowly, the light level rose, as the purple flames burned the ropes away, and a soft golden light began to fill the chamber.
Then, a rather…”holy” piece of background music began playing, and Gin and I turned our attention to the center of the room.
There, clothed in only golden light to obscure her figure, was a beautiful woman with long, golden hair, and wings of ivory feathers sprouting from her back.
“Oh, brave heroes…You have slain <<The Nightseeker>>. Once a handsome knight, be began devouring souls and took on the hideous form you saw before you, reflecting the nature of his soul. In his rage, he attempted to devour the pure soul of an Angel, to both restore his true form, and further his power. However, I managed to seal him away.
His followers, however, created a spell book that would allow him to be freed back into the world. However, you have stopped him from stealing the soul of life itself, and have slain him, while also releasing me from myself imposed prison. I cannot offer you much…but, brave heroes, please accept this as my thanks…Farewell, brave heroes…”
With a burst of golden light, the Angel dissolved, and two golden orbs floated away from where she was, forming items at both mine and Gin’s feet. It was a rather simple, but beautiful, thing.
A container make of blue crystal, carved to resemble ivy climbing up the sides, was filled with a clear liquid that seemed to have certain radiance about it. It was corked with an actual stopper, unlike most potions or poisons, which had a nozzle on the end.
“Angel’s Tears,” I said allowed, as I looked at the item as I added it to my inventory, “Restores 2500 HP. Effects strengthen over time…”
My voice trailed off at the end. While 2500 HP was a rather generous healing potion, it seemed like a rather lack-luster reward for the strength of the boss we had just fought. Even if I had leveled up, the horrible fighting…
“Well, that was tasty,” said Gin, having downed the potion, before patting me on the back.
“Sorry I dragged you all this way for such a horrible quest reward,” I said, apologetically sheathing <<White Rose.>>
Gin shook his head dismissing it, and then extended his hand out to me. “I had fun.”
Those simple words…were true. I had made a friend, and despite the horrible circumstances, we had grown closer through combat.
I took his hand, and shook it firmly. Wordlessly, we made our way out of the cavern, and stood a few feet apart on the mountain top, looking through the gap between the plates of Aincrad, out to the stars in the cosmos beyond.
“Well…what now?” I asked. I guess the only thing left to do was to continue training…I doubted the floor boss would be as difficult as the boss Gin and I had just defeated, but I also doubted anyone would learn of what we did here today. So, we would simply, and silently, use our experience to help clear the floor, and thus, move another step closer to regaining our freedom.
“Dunno. But, do we really ever know what do to? I’m not too concerned; though…Everyone seems to see this as a death game…But…if we die…Why not live beautifully until the end?” Gin’s words struck me hard.
He was right. There was s till a deep seated fear inside me, but I had spent my days trying to enjoy this “New Life” so I didn’t worry about my “Old Life.” But….It was all the same life. “Keotsu” or “Blake.” I only had once chance to live.
With a wordless goodbye, we waved, and used teleporting crystals to return to our respective homes. We had both been at the boss battles for the previous floors, and so I felt I would see him again…
Later that night, as I was leaning against the bedpost in my favorite inn on this floor…
A window appeared before me with the chiming of bells.
“Gintoki has accepted your Friendship Request.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
Simply put, the path we were walking on was most likely a stairway with no guards. If we stepped off it, we would likely fall to our death.
“Oi, you okay up there? I can hear you breathing all the way back here.”
As Gin’s voice pierced my consciousness, I took a deep breath. I didn’t realize I had been rasping. “Yeah…Yeah, sorry. I’m scared of heights.” It sounded ridiculous coming out of my mouth. We were in a game of life or death, were we fought regularly with swords that cut away at our life-forces. And I was afraid of heights, of all things.
“Why?”
The question caught me off guard, and I leaned my body to the right, in order to catch myself against the wall as I stumbled for a moment.
“There’s no way to fight it.” I had rationalized my fear to myself before in efforts to conquer it. While I had made progress from my almost phobic state in my youth, I still became short of breath when high up.
“..when against a mugger, or a killer, or something like that, there is always the chance to fight. You can defend yourself. But, you can’t fight gravity.”
Gin let out a small grunt as I finished, as if what I had just said made perfect sense. “Need me to lead?” he asked.
I shook my head, and simply continued down the stairway. The point was not to have no fear. The point was for me to gather the courage to overcome that fear.
As we descended the stairwell, I could feel the pressure mounting overhead as more stone began to loom over the top of us. Though we had been descending for nearly five minutes and had not reached the bottom, neither were we moving at a fast pace; we could barely see past the scope of our torches, and if an enemy spawned on the stairwell, we’d need to carefully fight it.
…more than likely, though, the plan was to simply knock it off, and have it die from fall damage…
Getting rather frustrated, I stopped, and edged my left foot over to the edge of the stair well.
“What’re you doing?” asked Gin, who was unaware of why we stopped – I answered by simply lifting my hand, to stop him.
Holding my torch out in front of me, I extended it over the dark abyss, and then released it.
Items in SAO had a durability rating, and once they rating hit zero, they exploded into polygons. Luckily, “falling” itself didn’t cause the durability to drop. So, by figuring out how long it took the torch to hit the ground, I could calculate how far up we were from the bottom.
I watched as the golden light dropped downward, twinkling like a star, counting off consecutive ticks of second in my head. Then, suddenly, there was a clanging noise, and the unmistakable sound of an object breaking.
“Seven seconds.”
“Seven seconds?” Gin repeated, not quite sure of what I was doing.
“Yeah. One-half g t squared. The gravity equation. I can get a good guess of how much further we have to go till we get to the bottom. Um…seven seconds…gravity is roughly ten meters per second squared… So, about two hundred and fifty meters till the bottom. If we hug the wall, we can probably reach the bottom within five minutes. Up for it?” I asked, as I pulled my last torch from my inventory.
“Is Hell hot?”
Smiling, I took off down the stairs in a mad dash, my comrade not far behind.
The bottom of the massive pit was rather…unremarkable. Simply black stone, it stretched towards the edges of this massive room, and the only noticeable feature seemed to be the very small grooves carved into the ground. Unfortunately, in the low light level, making them out was nearly impossible.
What seemed to be prayer tags also seemed to be spaced in regular intervals on the perimeter of the wall, and a single, larger tag was in the center of the floor, where all the grooves seemed to intersect.
Finding nothing that seemed to queue what would happen next in the quest, I again accessed my inventory, retrieving the musty tome.
That, however, was probably a mistake.
No sooner than the book had materialized in my hands, did it burst into violet flames. Instinctually, I released my grip on the tome, causing it to fall to the floor.
The purple flames licked about, spreading about from the floor and filling the grooves as if it was some sort of liquid. As it crossed over the large tag in the center of the room, smaller, indigo sparks where spit about, igniting the tags on the walls as well.
The flames climbed robes of white cloth, which I could not previously see, trailing down like ivory tentacles, their massive length spanning all the way to the ceiling.
“Oi…” said Gin, brandishing his scimitar in an odd stance as he took several steps backwards away from the center of the floor, as the flames became more intense.
I dropped my torch and quickly maneuvered through my inventory, reequipping my shield in a little less than seven seconds, as I watch the flame lick into the air, higher, and higher.
A brutal roar came about, as the maelstrom of fire in the center of the room died down, leaving only the flames on the wall to illuminate the large field we were standing in. The diameter of this large stone disk was about 100m, and I could tell we would need it.
As the shadows danced about in this dim lighting, I could see a behemoth of a creature standing before me, nearly twice my height, and about three times as wide as I was. A large creature that stood on two legs, but with the head of a boar – it wore a black breast plate, with a cape of violet flames. In one hand, it held a large bladed spear – a Naginata.
Two, glowing health bars appeared near the monster’s head, along with its distinct title, <<The Nightseeker>>.
“The”. That article had only been attached to bosses thus far. If Gin and I had unknowingly stumbled upon the boss of the floor, then there was much glory to be had, if the two of us could handle the fight.
What surprised me even more was the fact that it spoke.
“Muuuhuwfaaa….Finally free from that prison….Oh…? Tis not my followers who have freed me, but some maggots? HA! All the better. I will feast on the souls before me, before I extend my reach, and begin my conquest anew!”
Then, with a quick flourish, the boss spun the naginata about, creating great air currents that causes the illuminating flames to dim and flare. Though I had originally been worried about being able to see, the vibrant cape the creature wore would ensure that we would have ample vision of the creature.
“Get ready, Gin!” I shouted as I brandished <<White Rose>>, the blade’s weight sitting comfortable in my hand as I tightened my grip around its hilt; its white sheen looked a sick shade of pink, in this purple den.
With a might shout “Uooo-ah!” Gin charged forward at a speed I would be unable to replicate. Not letting him take all the glory, though, I rushed forward as well.
With the boss quickly stepping backwards, it swung the Naginata about in an arc, coming from my left, aiming to cut us both with the blade. Bracing myself, I lifted my shield, and blocked the blow, the force of which sent me sprawling several meters.
Even with my shield, the contact had shaven off a large ten percent or so of my HP. With my obviously higher defenses…if Gin was hit by that, it would likely mean death.
However, my blocking of the blow had momentarily staggered the monster, and allowed Gin the window he needed to use a <<Multi-Hit Sword Skill.>>
The damage…was barely even visible on the HP gauge of the beast, though.
This time, taking aim at the silver swordsman specifically, the boar-headed creature drew back his lance it thrust it forward. Gin, though, deftly as ever, simply stepped to his left while swinging his sword to his right, deflecting the giant staff.
“Go!” he yelled, and I wasted not a moment more. Activating the <<Horizontal>> Sword Skill, I rushed forward and struck the underside of the creature’s outstretched arm, as I combat rolled underneath it.
Leaping backwards, to regroup with Gin, I noticed that while the damage our combined strikes did was minimal…it was definitely enough to tell that the mob had lost health.
“Gin…”
“Huh?”
“We’re going to need to figure out this things battle patterns if we’re going to stand a chance against this thing…”
No sooner had I said that, then did The Nightseeker suddenly leap forward, thrusting the blade of its naginata at us in a sideways manner, causing Gin and I to both leap to our respective sides, to avoid the nasty blade.
“You don’t have the defense to take that thing!” yelled Gin, probably seeing through my intentions.
“No, but with Potions, I do!” I countered. Gin, seeing my suddenly sheathe my sword and draw forth a potion from my inventory, knew my intention.
He looked at me from across the room, and the look in his eyes said everything. “Don’t die.”
For the next one and half hours, Gin and I poked at the boss to figure out its attack patterns. As Gin held all of the “Hate” from the monster, due to constantly doing damage, we first figured out how it would attack a closely held group.
Then, backing away, with me standing in front of Gin, my shield raised, we discerned what it would do if we retreated…
Then, finally, we approached the beast from opposite corners of the room. All said in done, the monster had very simple attack patterns. Gin’s constant poking had depleted nearly twenty-five percent of the monster’s health, but I had burned through over half of my reserve of potions in an attempt to keep my health in the safe zone.
Now, with my sword brandished, Gin and I had all the knowledge we needed to continue our fight.
It would take us another two hours to fight safely, the two of us combining our Sword Skills to take out large chunks of the beast’s HP without leaving the other open.
It wasn’t until the Nightseeker’s HP reached 20% that things started to change…
With a resounding crash, the Nightseeker broke his Naginata, and then got on all fours, in the process extinguishing his illustrious cape.
The result was a drastic drop in the light level, and thus I could only barely make out the shape of the beast amidst the darkness.
Gin, taking advantage of the slight delay from when the system changed AI patterns, quickly ran towards the beast, and leapt on to its back.
“Gin, don’t let go!” I said, as I saw him plunge his blade into the beast’s back, creating a small red light that I could use to discern the beast’s position.
“Didn’t plan on it! Knock him down!” yelled Gin, implying that it was now my job to fight the beast for a bit.
Quickly formulating a plan, I backed up against the wall, and raised my shield. The AI obviously wouldn’t pass up that opportunity, and the feral boss charged forward, aiming to smash me between its wicked, ivory tusks and the black stone of our coliseum.
“Switch!” I yelled, as I quickly pushed against the wall, leaping upwards as the beast collided with the unyielding earth. I was sent airborne, sailing over the creatures head, and thus landed on its back, impaling my blade into the beast.
Gin, understanding my plan, watching as nearly 10% of our enemy’s HP vanished, quickly jumped off, and used his amazing speed to deliver a Sword Skill before blitzing to the opposite corner of the room.
The continuous damage of having our blade impaled into the boss generated an extreme amount of “Hate” for the player on the Mob’s back. However, being unable to dispose of the player in its rage, what the AI saw was one player standing in front of another, one close and one at a distance. For a feral type boss…it was easy to predict that the reaction would be a charging type attack.
However, just as how you could take fall damage, if you didn’t control your momentum correctly, you could also take collision damage in SAO. This included enemy monsters. And so, using advantage of his large mass to build momentum, we were going to have the Nightseeker whittle his HP down to nearly zero in his rage, before we delivered the final blow.
After the second collision with the wall, I dismounted quickly, and stood next to Gin, as we crossed our swords behind ourselves, forming an “X”.
While a blue light started to form from my blade, so too, did a red one form from Gin’s.
Starting the assault, I stepped forward, and raised my shield over my head – taking the point, Gin leapt forward, and used my shield as a spring forward, and came raining down in an unbelievable, corkscrewing slash unto the beast.
At the same moment as he came raining down vertically, I delivered a powerful <<Horizontal>>, resulting in the two of us quartering the massive beast.
With a brutish howl that turned into a pained gurgling, the beast exploded into a vibrant rain of polygons, and we became congratulated on our victory with the obligatory message window.
Powerful golden auras surrounded both Gin and I, indicating that we had leveled up…twice, actually.
Collapsing with a gasp for air, my mind suddenly felt the exhaustion of our nearly four and a half our fight with the boss. Gin, too, was holding himself up with his arms.
Slowly, the light level rose, as the purple flames burned the ropes away, and a soft golden light began to fill the chamber.
Then, a rather…”holy” piece of background music began playing, and Gin and I turned our attention to the center of the room.
There, clothed in only golden light to obscure her figure, was a beautiful woman with long, golden hair, and wings of ivory feathers sprouting from her back.
“Oh, brave heroes…You have slain <<The Nightseeker>>. Once a handsome knight, be began devouring souls and took on the hideous form you saw before you, reflecting the nature of his soul. In his rage, he attempted to devour the pure soul of an Angel, to both restore his true form, and further his power. However, I managed to seal him away.
His followers, however, created a spell book that would allow him to be freed back into the world. However, you have stopped him from stealing the soul of life itself, and have slain him, while also releasing me from myself imposed prison. I cannot offer you much…but, brave heroes, please accept this as my thanks…Farewell, brave heroes…”
With a burst of golden light, the Angel dissolved, and two golden orbs floated away from where she was, forming items at both mine and Gin’s feet. It was a rather simple, but beautiful, thing.
A container make of blue crystal, carved to resemble ivy climbing up the sides, was filled with a clear liquid that seemed to have certain radiance about it. It was corked with an actual stopper, unlike most potions or poisons, which had a nozzle on the end.
“Angel’s Tears,” I said allowed, as I looked at the item as I added it to my inventory, “Restores 2500 HP. Effects strengthen over time…”
My voice trailed off at the end. While 2500 HP was a rather generous healing potion, it seemed like a rather lack-luster reward for the strength of the boss we had just fought. Even if I had leveled up, the horrible fighting…
“Well, that was tasty,” said Gin, having downed the potion, before patting me on the back.
“Sorry I dragged you all this way for such a horrible quest reward,” I said, apologetically sheathing <<White Rose.>>
Gin shook his head dismissing it, and then extended his hand out to me. “I had fun.”
Those simple words…were true. I had made a friend, and despite the horrible circumstances, we had grown closer through combat.
I took his hand, and shook it firmly. Wordlessly, we made our way out of the cavern, and stood a few feet apart on the mountain top, looking through the gap between the plates of Aincrad, out to the stars in the cosmos beyond.
“Well…what now?” I asked. I guess the only thing left to do was to continue training…I doubted the floor boss would be as difficult as the boss Gin and I had just defeated, but I also doubted anyone would learn of what we did here today. So, we would simply, and silently, use our experience to help clear the floor, and thus, move another step closer to regaining our freedom.
“Dunno. But, do we really ever know what do to? I’m not too concerned; though…Everyone seems to see this as a death game…But…if we die…Why not live beautifully until the end?” Gin’s words struck me hard.
He was right. There was s till a deep seated fear inside me, but I had spent my days trying to enjoy this “New Life” so I didn’t worry about my “Old Life.” But….It was all the same life. “Keotsu” or “Blake.” I only had once chance to live.
With a wordless goodbye, we waved, and used teleporting crystals to return to our respective homes. We had both been at the boss battles for the previous floors, and so I felt I would see him again…
Later that night, as I was leaning against the bedpost in my favorite inn on this floor…
A window appeared before me with the chiming of bells.
“Gintoki has accepted your Friendship Request.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
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