Break the Code

Chapter 5: In Loving Memory

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Charlotte sat on the steps leading out of the room, her downcast eyes staring firmly at the floor ahead of her. She tugged at the collar of her coat, the prize for her efforts. She really didn't deserve it; it had been that black haired kid who did most of the work. And even more Lera who lead them here, and kept things under control.

But he couldn't claim that victory now.

Diavel made his way from the crowd of chattering players to sit beside her, watching the group tend to injuries. "I'm sorry. It's my fault, if I didn't run out there, then Lera would have..." He told her, not looking directly at her.

"No." She responded. "The information was bad. There was nothing you could have done."

"But-" Diavel tried to protest.

"I said I don't blame you. Lera sacrificed himself to save you. That was his choice."

Diavel sighed, knowing he couldn't get any further.

They sat there a while longer, both of them looking forward. Diavel eventually began to speak again. "I'm going to start a guild. One that will focus on beating this game. We'll be the ones to organize raids, and clear the dungeons first." Diavel turned to Charlotte, and she returned the glance. "I want you to join me. You were the one to beat the boss; I need your help. We can do this for Lera, to make sure that he didn't die for nothing."

She looked down, as if to think it over, but she didn't need to. "Guilds were never my thing." She responded. "It's Lera you would want, not me."

Diavel frowned. "You're obviously a good player. And just having the achievement of beating the first boss will attract players to our cause all on its own."

Charlotte shook her head. "I'm not fit for that kind of role Diavel. I'll help fight the bosses, and beat this game." She stood up, attracting the attention of some of the players closest to them. "But...I'll do it by myself."

Diavel stood too. "Playing this game alone will be next to impossible. Your odds in a group are way higher." He tried to argue.

"I know." She replied. "I don't really care."

She took a few steps toward the door.

"And would you really want to follow some noble Britannian bitch? You were just as racist as we were."

Diavel blinked; the words stung. But not just him, everyone who heard her was surprised by her comment. But it was meant to. It at least offered an excuse to let her go. She made her way through the door, almost every set of eyes in the room on her as she passed through it.

In reality she didn't want anyone to really get to know her. Lera had accepted her for who she was, but she wasn't exactly ready to find what their opinions of her would be. Maybe it was because he was a Britannian too, that he was able to understand why she did what she did. What she sometimes still wanted to do.

But that link was gone. And with him, any association she might have with the other players who would try to beat the game. And she was fine with that.

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Lera ran through the events he last remembered, trying to figure out what had just happened.

Without a doubt, he had died in that boss room. And the next thing he knew, he was back here again. He checked the time, noting it was seconds after the relative time he must have died. Which meant, that in simple terms, he had respawned.

He looked outward, toward the looming pillar a few miles away. His allies were likely still fighting the boss. He had no doubt they would win without him. It wasn't a war that was lost without its leader, no where near that dangerous thankfully. But he wasn't going to be much help all the way out here. He wasn't even so sure why he ha spawned out here in the first place. It occurred to him that it was possible there were no respawn points in the game anymore. And his being alive was clearly thanks to the collective unconscious. Confirmed by the blazing Geass sigil he recalled seeing moments before his death. Maybe there was some correlation, or perhaps God just tossed him wherever he felt like. He could figure that out later. For now...

He broke out into a run, grinning like a maniacal idiot. For the first time in his life, he could afford to be reckless. His own life was not something he had to put into consideration. There would no longer be a need to play it safe, and he could purposely put himself into impossible situations without any need for his own safety. The very thought sent chills through his body. He wasn't really sure why he chose to sacrifice himself for Diavel, that was something he never really thought himself capable of doing. But he certainly wasn't regretting the choice now. He began to think of how he would explain this to the others. His appearance was one thing, but this was somethings else entirely. They were definitely in for a surprise.

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Diavel stood at the front of a table in the middle of the inn closest to the dungeon. The group gathered before him were every one of the players who had agreed to join him in the guild they would eventually create. Thirty in all. As of now, they were only a guild in name. The actual creation of a guild was not possible until the first guild office that would appear on floor five. Until they reached that point-hopefully soon-they were just a group of players working toward one common goal.

"So, as you all might have heard, we have already found the next boss room on this floor." Diavel started, watching the group give a small cheer. "Compared to the first floor, this is definitely a step up, but in case you weren't in the beta, it isn't too bad actually."

In the SAO beta, it took them a couple of months to get as high as floor eight. Whatever reason it was that severely set them back on floor one, clearly wouldn't be an issue anymore. Hopefully, at least. "Now it is a bit fast, especially compared to the first floor, but I'm still confident that we will be able to take the second boss down without much issue. We did so much grinding on floor one, I think we'll be just fine."

"But what about the information we have in this boss?" Someone asked. "The data we had on Illfang was different than how he actually was. Because of that..." He trailed off, the insinuated remark left in the air.

Diavel sighed. He still felt that it was his fault, and Lera paid the price for his mistake. Though he could easily say it was Kayaba at the heart of the problem and he wouldn't be wrong, but that did nothing to alleviate the guilt. "For the most part, the information the beta testers compiled into that book has been completely accurate. Which leads me to believe that Kayaba wanted us to fall onto our prior knowledge of the beta, only to use it against us. Will it be accurate? I don't know. Because now we are forced to either trust it or don't."

In the back of the room, a young black haired boy sat with a frown on his face. He had remembered clearly what it was like the first time Illfang was fought, and then the second time. The changes made in his fighting style were very clearly meant to counter the way the group was tackling Illfang. Almost as if he was a second version, surpassing the first. Hesitantly, he raised his hand, sorting out the thoughts into a clear explanation. "Well, I don't know if anyone noticed this..." He began, and all eyes turned to listen to him. "But the differences between the new Illfang, and the one from the beta...it was almost as if he was specifically buffed right where he needed to be. As in he was an improvement upon the first. I think that Kayaba used the beta to gather information on us, more than we did the game."

Diavel nodded, recalling what experiences he had with the first boss. "What do you guys think then? Should we trust what information we have?" He asked.

"I don't think we should rule out the idea that Kayaba left the next boss alone just to make us think it would be different." Someone suggested.

"Either way, the guide will only last us up till where the beta testers got. In the long run, it won't mean a thing." The same guy from the back of the room stated.

"So we should start to focus on our own abilities rather than using the guide as a crutch?" Diavel asked everyone. "I'll be the one to say that utilizing the information we have can substantially reduce the time it takes to clear the floors we have info on. And right now, especially after floor one, we need something to boost our moral."

The players all nodded, each of them trying to decide what to do. Virtually everyone here was a cut voice the others in terms of ability, or in the least, determination. As a whole, they would be able to make the best decision.

"If the guide is right on this boss, and we studied it well enough, the fight will be an easy one." Agil, of the more intelligent players added. "And if it's wrong, we can spot that pretty quickly too. So either way, we should study up on the boss. If it's different, just throw everything we know out as false."

Everyone liked that idea, and the group made a collective sign of approval. Diavel thought it to be the best way forward as well. This way, they ran the smallest risk of being caught off guard. And there wouldn't be any fatal mistakes like last time. "Does that sound good to everyone?" Diavel asked. And since nobody objected, he took that as a yes. "Study up on the next boss then. If anyone sees even the smallest sign that it could be different, say so immediately."

Diavel slammed his hands down on the table, looking at everyone together. "We'll leave tomorrow. Everyone be prepared on for it. We'll clear this floor in record time." He wasn't nearly as gifted in leadership as Lera was, but he was damn well going to try.

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Lera was not in the best mood.

The last several days had been spent scouring the second floor in search of Diavel and the rest of the raid team. Through some stroke of misfortune, he had learned that he had no way of contacting Diavel. Either the blue haired knight had forgotten to accept Lera's friend request, or his contact list had been deleted, given Charlotte was no longer there either. Though he seriously doubted the latter, mostly because he actually saw Charlotte's name disappear from the list. Like she had deleted the contact. Since he had no other friends, he was left to look for them the old fashioned way. And that was proving to be a frustrating task. He had been through several different towns, meeting players who had made their way up to floor two following the group that beat Illfang; who Lera had seen Charlotte had beaten.

Lera did however make good use of the last few days. Not only had he experimented with the specifications of his respawning, learning there was only one place he would spawn on each floor; but he spent roughly seventy hours doing nothing but monotonous grinding. It made him wonder how anyone ever found that kind of thing entertaining. A VR game was one thing, but doing this in a turn based game would be mind numbing. He certainly knew his choice to avoid playing games was not a bad one, at least. But now, he had no choice but to progress through the game. But it would certainly be worth the effort. He had come to the grim realization that Diavel would be walking into a trap. Perhaps he was giving Kayaba too much credit, to think he would go for option three in this scenario. But to have pulled everything off this far, it left little doubt. That the group was going to find the boss awaiting this floor a lot different they thought.

And as a way to possibly recruit others, Diavel had posters all over the towns stating the second boss room had been located, and when they were planning to fight it.

He sighed, sitting down in the town plaza. This was the closest are to the dungeon, so it was obvious this was where Diavel was. But the town was so damn big he had given up on just finding them now. He would have to intercept them at the boss room. Hopefully things wouldn't be too bad by then.

Besides, he was always a sucker for dramatic entrances.

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With a wide swing of her sword, the three wolves burst into a shower of polygonal shards of glass. And after that, nothing stood between Charlotte and the small tower atop a secluded mountain.

This was one of the few things she did on the beta that didn't involve more shady conduct. It was on this mini dungeon that she and her 'friends', found a collection of weapons that lasted clear up to the seventh floor. She had actually wanted to take Lera up here, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. She really didn't blame Diavel for his death, but that doesn't mean she wasn't angry about it. Lera was something special, that she knew for sure. He had caught on to the inner workings of the game so fast it made her head spin. And he had been the one to not only find the first boss, but unite everyone to go and face it. The jealous part in her wished that Lera never stepped in to save Diavel, but she knew that was a foolish thing to think.

She tried to push him out of her mind, so she deleted his avatar from her friends list shortly after the battle. And now her contacts were completely empty. She would try her best to move on, she knew that people were bound to die, but she refused to give in to that fate. But even more so, she wouldn't allow him to die in vain. He had given her hope, and a reason to make it out of here alive.

And maybe, she would find out who he was in the real world, and tell his family it had been his efforts that spurned them on to beat Sword Art Online.

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Diavel stood before the wide door that stood between them, and the boss waiting inside. He had done his best to memorize everything there was about the two headed Orc called Ruric Thar the Unbowed. From his physical appearance all the way down to the smallest choreographed move patterns. If even the slightest thing was off, he would warn the others. There was nothing the guy could throw at them this time. There would be no more deaths, of that he would make certain. He turned to face the group behind him, slightly larger than it had been during their fight with Illfang. That made him glad. "Everyone ready?"

Thy have a silent compliance, their determination enough to tell him they couldn't be more ready to take him on. And so Diavel pressed his hands against the door, and pushed it open.

Behind the door, they found a long bridge leading to the stone platform surrounded by chasms on all sides. The group cautiously made their way to center, taking note of the obvious absence of a certain boss. Low mutters began to pass through the group. Everyone was even more on edge, especially since nobody remembered the boss room looking like this. Out of the corner of his eye, Diavel saw something move. He tried to make out whatever it was in the distance, weaving between the jagged stones jutting out of the darkness; but in definitely didn't look like an Orc. He opened his mouth to warn everyone when someone else beat him to it.

"Look out!"

He heard the cry moments before something crashed into them, scattering the group all across the platform. Diavel got a good look at the massive serpentine body coiling around them. And when he found its head, it's beady red eyes staring straight at him, he saw the name.

Dalamadur, the Serpent King.

"Well, that answers that question." Diavel muttered. He tried to stay away from the snake's twisting body, which was rather difficult considering it encompassed half the entire platform. The other's were all attempting to group together, all of them understandably hesitant to move against the intimidating monster. However, before they could react, in lunged toward them at blinding speed. Diavel saw the snake's head rushing toward him, it's mouth agape to reveal many very sharp, very deadly fangs. He dove out of the way, narrowly avoiding what would have been a very nasty way to go. And as Dalamadur's seemingly endless body slithered past him, he took a swing at it, watching the steel bounce harmlessly off it's scales. He grit his teeth, realizing that even hitting was going to be a challenge.

But before he could think of anything else, an arm-like appendage slammed into his back, sending him flying into the stoney ground. His sword slid somewhere far away as groaned from the pain. Dazed, Diavel looked up to see the Dalamadur's raised body positioned directly at him. It's fangs bared and ready to go for the kill. Paralyzed with fear, he could only stand and watch Dalamadur come down on him rapidly closing the gap.

But a split second before certain death, a figure crashed into the side of its head. Dalamadur reeled back, screeching in pain as the figure came to a stop between him and the angry snake. Diavel's eyes were now wide with shock as he looked upon the one who saved him. The snowy haired ghost glanced back at him, smirking.

"Starting without me Diavel?"

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A cookie for whoever knows what Ruric Thar and Dalamadur are from.