Disclaimer: I don't own Sword Art Online or any of its characters. They are all owned by A-1 Pictures, Aniplex USA, and Reki Kawahara.

Discord: A3dTszc

(See A/N at the top of Chapter 1 for context)

Kirito stopped laughing.

His eyebrows were in his hairline as he watched the rapier user pick up a minion and start swinging it around over her head. He had never seen anything like it before and didn't know how to react.

When the girl screamed and launched the kobold his way, all he could do was sidestep it. The creature slammed into the ground and skipped like a stone across the water, before bouncing some distance away.

Kirito wasn't really able to tell what happened with it after that because he had to put his guard up in order to block the girl's immediate, vicious, followup assault.

He was placed entirely on the back foot as he defended against her attacks.

Kirito had goosebumps.

Never in his life had he seen someone so mad before, and all of that anger was directed squarely at him. The girl was screaming and shouting at him, and doing everything in her power to try and utterly destroy him.

It was deeply unsettling, to say the least.

She had just gone completely off.

There was a sinking feeling in Kirito's stomach now that he couldn't get rid of no matter what he tried. He felt intimidated. Afraid, even, at such a display of hostility.

...And that pissed him off more than he would have liked to admit. Because he knew that there was no actual reason to feel like that.

As he continued to deflect another series of her attacks, he confirmed that she really didn't seem to know what she was doing. She was acting like a mindless berserker and was just swinging her rapier as hard and as fast as she could, hoping to land some sort of big hit. Kirito understood, logically, how to defend against something like that, but he wasn't able to do it effectively with the gigantic rock currently sitting in his stomach.

He was letting this happen when he knew that he had the skill to stop it. There was a psychological barrier stopping him and he needed to calm down in order to get rid of it.

'Breathe. Calm down. You're better than this.'

Kirito exhaled and tried to visualize the girl as nothing more than a monster with a rage mechanic. He didn't really know how to properly deal with angry people like this, so stepping back and imagining the girl as a computer-controlled NPC was the only way in which he could move forward.

It didn't matter how pissed off she was at him, Kirito needed to ignore it and move on.

It took multiple tries. But, eventually, after the third or fourth attempt to forcefully clear his mind, Kirito's surroundings finally seemed to slow down and he felt himself enter that heightened, hyperaware state that he always fell into whenever he was at his best.

Only then was he able to counterattack.

With his mind clear, Kirito observed each and every move that the girl made, remaining entirely on the defensive while analyzing her attack patterns.

It didn't take long for him to figure out that like this, she was completely incapable of planning out her moves in advance.

Normally, when you were in the middle of PvP combat at the highest levels, you had to constantly try and read where the battle would be a few moves in the future. If you didn't do this, you risked using a sword skill at the wrong time and becoming stuck in cooldown at the wrong moment. Which your opponent would exploit.

You couldn't just dish out sword skills randomly and react to whatever your opponent was doing right at that moment. You had to try to anticipate their future actions and there was a huge amount of strategy involved.

The best PvPers in the game constantly laid traps for each other. They would try to lure you into attacking when you shouldn't in order to force you into cooldown, all the while you would be trying your best to avoid falling for it.

It was a constant back and forth. There was an entirely separate battle going on inside the heads of two duelling players―that knew what they were doing―involving trying to force their opponent into these sorts of situations. There were moves and countermoves, each trying to get the other to make a mistake.

You needed to have a lot of experience in order to PvP effectively at such a high level, but Kirito was among the few who had it.

This girl he was fighting didn't. She was running entirely on anger, and would not notice anything more subtle than a direct attack.

Feints, subtle footwork, timing manipulation… really any sort of advanced concept at all would be completely missed by her when she was like this, which would allow him to begin to pick her apart.

Kirito subtly changed his stance and presented a false weakness.

He allowed the rapier user to blast his sword out from between them, deliberately leaving his side completely exposed in the process.

Asuna, predictably, went for the opening without hesitation. She thought that she had created it, after all.

But she wasn't thinking ahead.

Kirito turned with the momentum and toe punted the side of Asuna's leg just as she planted it on the ground and activated a Linear.

Kirito had timed it precisely so that her sword skill had still activated. However, due to the kick, her leg had landed slightly to the right of where she had intended it to, and so her aim was off. Since she was unable to correct for that while the skill was running its course, her rapier missed its mark. It whizzed right past Kirito's left side, leaving the girl wide open.

There was no way that any experienced duellist would have fallen for something like that.

Kirito punished that mistake hard.

He would have cut her clean in half at the waist with his counterattack if it had taken place in the real world. Here, however, his blade went straight through her avatar and out the other side leaving her body intact.

It was possible to chop off the limbs of another player, but that mechanic was restricted to only the arms and legs. Decapitations and bisections of the torso didn't actually cause the body to be split into multiple pieces.

So here, instead of seeing everything above her navel fall to the floor and her whole body fall apart into two, roughly equally sized pieces, he instead saw a huge orange gash form across her stomach, marking where the edge of his blade had sliced through her body. A corresponding gash appeared across her back, marking the exit wound.

It did a devastating amount of damage, knocking out over half of her remaining HP and putting her in the deep yellow section of her HP bar―the portion in between the bright yellow and the red zones.

Kirito had needed to put in a significant amount of mental calculation in order to figure out that an attack of that magnitude would still leave her alive, but he had plenty of experience with his weapon and had a really good understanding of just how much damage each of his attacks did.

So he had known in advance that she would survive.

Asuna didn't even seem to notice the massive drop in her HP, however. She recovered in an instant and came right back at him at full force.

Kirito's right eye twitched.

He knew that he would not be able to land another massive hit like that last one again without killing the girl outright, so he knew that he would have to be far more careful from then on. He had hoped that an attack like that would have been enough to get her to back down, but it definitely had not been. In fact, it seemed to have had the opposite effect.

She was even more serious now.

Another series of the girl's attacks were all deflected.

Kirito laid another trap for her.

He offered her the opportunity to get into a blade lock. By making his left side appear weaker than it was, he made it look as if there was an opening there―one that could only be exploited if she pressed in hard and used a ton of force, committing to a full-powered attack.

She took it.

With her mindset as it was, she really wanted to hit him, and hit him hard. She wanted to land an equally devastating blow to the one he had already landed on her, in order to even the score. That's why it hadn't taken much convincing to get her to attack with as much force as she was able.

This meant that any sort of trap that involved punishing a player for attacking with too much power would be extremely effective against her.

So that became his plan.

Their blades crashed into each other.

...Then Kirito punched her in the face with his opposite hand.

It was an incredibly effective technique to use against newer players. Noobs tended to fail to understand that battles did not have to be limited to just swords. There was no reason why you couldn't get creative by using your fists or your feet as well.

New players saw a weapon in their opponent's hand and became laser-focused on it… ignoring all of their other limbs. This weakness was so rampant among noobs that it was routinely exploited by more experienced players.

Kirito had been a noob himself, once, so he knew all about the common mistakes that stemmed from a lack of experience.

Taking the opportunity, Kirito drove his heel as hard as he could into the girl's solar plexus, driving all the air out of her and making her drop to her knees.

He was about to punish her again for dropping her guard and falling to the floor, but she managed to avoid it at the last moment, proving that she was at least skilled enough as she was to avoid being completely flattened by him in an instant.

The girl managed to block his followup attack and got up to her feet before creating a little bit of distance between them. She hesitated for a brief moment and Kirito could see a newfound wariness in her eyes.

The fight had definitely not proceeded the way that she had expected it to.

...But the girl did end up attacking him once again anyway, after only a few seconds of hesitation.

Then they continued the battle.

Once again, Kirito started to get a bit nervous. Watching the girl's HP drop more and more, he quickly realized that he was going to have to stop using his sword entirely at some point.

It was just doing too much damage.

If he kept at it, the girl would die. For now, he planned on transitioning into progressively weaker and weaker attacks to try and buy himself as much time as possible to figure out a way to actually end the fight for good, without having to end her life.

He lowered his gaze slightly and noticed that the girl was still slightly hunched over―likely due to the fact that Kirito had winded her with that kick earlier.

Due to that, the girl was still struggling—though that didn't stop her from swinging wildly at anything and everything in her reach. The kick had had a noticeable effect on her, but it was not enough to end the fight. It had done little more than slow down her frenzy just the slightest bit.

After seeing this, Kirito realized that he was going to have to eventually switch over to physical attacks entirely. Kicks and punches did far less damage than swords and other weapons did, after all. Once her HP got too low, they would be his only non-lethal options remaining.

But he still had a little bit more time before he'd have to switch to them. If he could, he wanted this girl to realize on her own before then that, if the battle continued, she would lose, and that she probably wouldn't even land a single hit on him at all during it. That it was entirely one-sided and that she had no chance of winning.

He could only hope that she was in the right state of mind to realize something like that. Otherwise, he wasn't really sure what he could do to end the battle.

The girl was being a bit more cautious now―which was a good sign, as it indicated that she had learned something from the duel so far, at the very least.

But she was still being too reckless.

Kirito mentally marked out a spot on her HP gauge and told himself that he would stop using his sword only when her HP lowered to that point.

But since he still had some space to work with until then, he kept on using his weapon for the time being.

Kirito punished every single one of the girl's mistakes, mercilessly, in a final attempt to get her to understand the reality of her situation.

He was not trying to be polite, and this was not a training duel to teach her how to fight. Kirito had every intention of turning this into a completely one-sided victory.

If she was going to lunge at him like an animal, then he'd put her down like one.

He exploited every last mistake to the maximum extent that he was able, stopping just short of landing a lethal attack.

He had started out with subtle things.

A flaw in her guard that gave him a tenth of a second to give her an extra papercut or two.

Tipping her slightly off balance.

Redirecting her attention with a feint.

...But as the fight continued to go on, Kirito started to get a little bit bolder.

He now had a very good understanding of how the girl fought when she was angry. There was little variability in how she responded to his attacks. If Kirito struck from a specific angle, she would always try to defend herself in the same way, making it very easy for him to predict exactly how the course of the battle would unfold. Kirito could visualize a ten-hit combo in his head, and predict with near-perfect precision exactly how she would try to deal with it, allowing him to easily pinpoint all the holes that he could exploit several moves in advance.

He had an overwhelming advantage due to her current mental state, annoying as it was to deal with. But, the way he saw it, if she was going to keep making dumb decisions while she was angry, then there was no reason for him not to exploit them.

In fact, the angrier she was, the dumber her attacks seemed to get.

And something about that realization just pissed him off. This girl was not the only angry player in the room and he was starting to want to demonstrate that to her. Kirito was pretty irritated himself. At her.

An argument could even be made that he had more reason to be angry than the girl did.

So he gritted his teeth.

Some part of him wanted to dish out a little bit of revenge. He had been too analytical and calculating during the fight, so now he decided to take the metaphorical gloves off for a little while.

He changed up his strategy a little.

He did make an attempt to justify it to himself―if she was going to make a ton of mistakes when she was angry, then might as well keep her that way, right?―but it was mostly bullshit.

He just wanted to piss her off even more.

So Kirito created another opening and punched her in the nose.

He made that his target. Every single mistake she made from that point forward would be punished in the same way. A punch in the nose. Every time.

The idea behind it was two-fold. It kept her HP from dropping too low as punches didn't do very much damage on their own, but... it was also pretty satisfying to do.

Nothing would piss her off more than getting repeatedly punched in the face in the same exact way over and over again, he figured. It'd make it seem like he was toying around with her and not taking the fight seriously, which would frustrate the crap out of her and force her to keep falling into more and more of his traps.

It would create a vicious cycle. And maybe she'd even learn something from the experience.

'I think you'll find that I might just be angrier than you are,' Kirito thought with a glare.

The girl swung wide.

Kirito punched her in the nose.

She miscalculated the position of her feet, leaving her slightly off-balance and leaning too far to the left.

Kirito punched her in the nose.

She used a sword skill―and missed with it―causing her to get stuck in cooldown at the wrong moment.

Kirito punched her in the nose.

She suddenly screamed and hurled her rapier at him.

...This actually did come as a bit of a surprise, but Kirito managed to deflect it at the last moment.

But then straight away, he took a step forward and punched her in the nose.

Stunned, she took a few steps backwards and reached up to cradle her nose with her hands. It was a reflex that anyone could be forgiven for still having. Those punches of his definitely would have broken her nose had they landed in the real world, after all. But it took a while for the brain to understand and adapt to the differences between the real and virtual worlds―and the lack of permanent injuries and pain in particular. It was clear that the girl had not been in Aincrad for long enough for that to happen yet.

She still reacted as if she were being hit for real.

After realizing that nothing was broken―nothing could break in this place―the girl glared at him once again and lunged.

With her literal, bare hands.

It was a crazy and utterly suicidal move that she only attempted because she was so mad―but she was finally stopped―finally―when Agil stepped in and restrained her from behind.

After taking a look at the girl's expression, Kirito got the distinct impression that maybe, just maybe, he had taken it a bit too far there.

But he wasn't sorry.

The girl looked a bit like an animal with rabies that was frothing at the mouth.

"You need to calm down!" Agil shouted as he locked the girl in what was essentially a full-Nelson. "This guy is way too good to beat like this! We have to work together!"

"Let me go!"

"Asuna! What the fuck?!" Diabel shouted, in total shock. He had been watching that one-sided trainwreck of a battle and couldn't believe what he was seeing all throughout it. But, just like Agil, he had been too stunned to actually try to interfere until that moment.

The girl turned and glared at him.

"You're fucking crazy!" Diabel yelled at her. "What the hell was that?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"Shut up, Dish Soap!" Asuna shouted back furiously. "I still owe you a one-way ticket down the steps outside!"

"D-dish Soap?!"

"This is personal!" she shouted. "So stay out of it! Both of you!"

"How the hell is it personal?!" Diabel asked.

"He betrayed me!"

"How?!"

"He saved my life earlier! Made me feel like I mattered! And now he's stabbing me in the back and treating me like garbage! I want an explanation!"

"You're not mad about the stairs?" Diabel tried.

"Shut the hell up about the stairs! I'm furious about that! It's just not the main point! I'm allowed to be mad about two things!"

"Well, you're not gonna get an explanation from him like this! You're going to lose and he's going to get away! Do you really want that!"

"I won't let him!"

"Asuna!" Diabel shouted, getting her attention. "You are not strong enough to defeat this guy! I'm not strong enough to beat this guy! Nobody here is strong enough to beat this guy! This guy probably can't beat this guy, fuck! This guy is probably the strongest player in the whole game! I've never seen anyone move the way that he does!"

None of that was an exaggeration either. He truly believed that they were fighting the strongest player currently in the game.

"You're going to lose!" Diabel could not stress that point any harder than he did.

Asuna winced. The vicious snarl on her face began to fade.

"We have to work together or we'll never win!" Diabel continued. "We'll team up on him. None of us here can fight this guy in a one-on-one. He's just too good. But he won't win a three-on-one. You want to capture this guy, right? Let's do this properly!"

It took a few moments, but eventually, Asuna took in a deep breath and sighed.

"Okay," she said. "I want twenty minutes alone with him when we're done."

"You can have an hour if you want."

"I want that."

She wanted that a lot, actually.

The four players inside the boss room were now having a standoff right next to the boss door. Tempers had cooled significantly on all sides during the temporary intermission in the battle and everyone seemed to have their heads on straight once again.

They had all silently agreed to stay where they were―on the outskirts of the room―to avoid the possibility of Illfang or any of his minions from getting involved in the fight as the four players were all currently outside the monsters' visual ranges.

Diabel, Agil, and Asuna all understood the hooded player's strategy to kick them outside the room and close the door by now, and so they all knew that standing right next to it like this was intrinsically dangerous. But they figured that it would be too difficult for their opponent to knock them all outside the room in a single instant like that, so they decided that it was worth the risk. There were three of them, after all. Only one of them needed to stay inside the room to prevent the player's plans from succeeding. If the unknown player was going to try something, then they would just be able to scatter.

If two of them were kicked out, then the third only had to buy enough time for the other two to come back.

"Why are you going to such lengths?" Agil asked, breaking the silence. "Why are you trying to stop us from killing Illfang?"

Kirito didn't answer. But the answer was pretty straightforward.

All along, Kirito had wanted to use the players as guinea pigs so that he could study that ranged attack with his camera. Since that had failed, more extreme measures would now need to be taken.

He had deemed it necessary to finally pull out his final, ultimate, backup plan. He had never thought that he'd be pushed to go so far, but the way things were heading, it was the only option he had left on the table.

If he had the room to himself, he could lock the door and activate Hide.

That's it. That was the extent of his plan.

When he turned invisible, neither Illfang nor the minions would be able to spot him, and no player would be able to enter the room to interrupt him because it'd be locked. This would effectively roadblock the rest of the players from ever entering the room again until after Kirito was done soloing the boss, no matter how long that took. He could lock them out like this for days, or even weeks because there was no limit to how long he could keep his camouflage active, and there was also no known limit to how long the boss door could be locked when a battle was in progress. So this would create a perpetual stalemate until Kirito himself resolved it when he was good and ready. And he would have all the time in the world to solo the boss in the meantime.

He had come up with this plan quite some time ago, but he hadn't wanted to use it. He had just wanted the players to lose so that he could figure out when they were going to try again and so that he could plan his own solo attempt around that. It was just easier to do it that way, and it wouldn't involve such a blatant and open display of hostility.

Roadblocking the rest of the players for days or weeks at a time on the first floor would definitely not go unnoticed. The other players would know that someone was inside the room and he imagined that they would not take too kindly to the situation.

Everyone would know what was going on, and they'd be furious. Especially after the stories that this group of players Kirito was currently fighting told everyone, about the hooded player that had stopped them from defeating the boss.

This plan was way too bold to be considered under normal circumstances, and so he had simply kept it in the back of his mind, mostly as a thought experiment. He had known that it was theoretically possible to do, but since it was such a massive middle-finger to everyone else, he had not taken it seriously.

Until now.

Illfang had proved to be too easy to defeat. Far easier than expected. Kirito now knew that a full raid party of players was not going to be needed to kill this boss at all. A small group could pull it off after what they had all seen, and the other players knew it. They had taken way more people than necessary on their first attempt, and they would not need to take nearly as many precautions on their second go around.

So Kirito's original plan was not going to work.

He had no choice anymore. It was roadblock or bust and it was now or never. If the players got a second attempt, they would win. Kirito was never going to get what he wanted unless he took drastic measures.

"You know…" Agil began. "Things might work out better if we talk about this instead."

Kirito almost couldn't believe the suggestion. The fact that the shopkeeper was still willing to talk things out after everything that had happened made him realize that Agil was without a doubt the biggest man in the room. He was way too nice to be caught up in this situation.

"Why don't you tell us what you're trying to do and then maybe we can come to an agreement? We don't have to fight, you know."

There was a brief moment of silence as they awaited Kirito's reply.

...However, he had no intention of giving one with the risk of his voice being recognized.

"That's definitely not happening," Asuna stated. "Nobody needs to talk right now."

She sounded more than a little irritated at the suggestion and she was clearly out for blood. Peacefully resolving the conflict was not something that she seemed even slightly interested in.

"Now, now… maybe Agil has a point."

"Nobody asked you, Dish Soap. So shut up."

There was another intense moment of silence as the standoff at the door continued.

"Is it because of my hair?" Diabel asked after about a dozen seconds of nobody saying anything.

"Actually," Asuna replied immediately, turning to face him and sounding more than happy to explain her insult, "It's because of a lot of things. So take your pick. You're slippery and get everywhere that no one wants you to get to, you make people slip and fall a lot―me in particular for some reason―you're blue, you're not very good at what you're marketed for―passable at best, really… What? If I throw water on you, are you going to fizz up an unnecessary amount, too?"

"Huh. You put a weird amount of thought into that," Agil mumbled aloud.

"Wow," Diabel replied. "Has anybody ever told you that you're kind of a bitch?"

"You just tackled me down a staircase! I'm allowed to be angry!"

She turned to face the blue-haired player and started ranting.

"Have you seen how many stairs are in that thing? It's a comical amount! Nobody needs that many stairs anywhere! And I fell, all the way from the top to the bottom! Twice! And to top it off, I was betrayed by one of my heroes and I don't know why! Today was a bad day, okay! So sorry for being a little high-strung!"

Diabel cleared his throat and prepared to continue the argument.

Agil, however, interrupted it before they could continue.

"Now is not the time, you two. You can continue your lover's spat later."

This comment, however, made things worse.

Asuna turned and stared blankly at Agil for several extremely long and uncomfortable moments before finally giving her reply.

"You're a friendly guy, Agil, and I like you a lot. But if you imply that Dish Soap and I are together to my face like that again, I'll ream your ass out with my rapier."

"What the fuck?" Diabel muttered, bewildered. In his opinion, a simple: 'we're not together' would have sufficed.

"Don't think I won't," Asuna pressed.

As Agil raised his eyebrow in astonishment―as he had not expected a reply like that at all― and prepared to reply, Kirito chose that opportunity to strike.

If these players were going to take their attention off him and have an argument, then he was going to take them all down when they weren't looking.

"Look out!" Diabel shouted. He lunged forward and just barely blocked the attack that would have impaled Agil straight through the back.

"Let's all agree to disagree, okay?" he said, struggling to hold back Kirito's attack. "Asuna and I aren't together, never will be, and we can all fight each other later. Like you said Agil, now is not the time!"

The battle continued from there.

As the battle raged on, Kirito quickly realized that he was going to need to depend on an old principle in order to win.

Despite his best efforts, he quickly discovered that they were pretty much evenly matched. The three-on-one battle was much more difficult to handle than he had originally expected. And what was worse was the fact that they were slowly starting to adapt to each other's fighting styles and were working together. They were getting tighter as a team, and they were starting to cover for each other's weaknesses.

They were getting harder and harder to fight against, and so Kirito had to make a decision.

He was going to take advantage of the fact that he was still holding back.

Rather than slowly allow himself to reveal more and more of his skills gradually over time, allowing them to gradually adapt to his pace, he made the decision to go from zero to a hundred in an instant. He was doing everything he could to shape the course of the battle and was keeping his eyes peeled for a single moment of opportunity. As soon as one would present itself, he was going to go all out.

If it went according to plan, he'd be able to take every single one of them by surprise, and kick them all out of the room in just a handful of seconds.

But he was starting to get anxious. Because so much could go wrong. So much had already gone wrong.

But he didn't see any other options.

He started slowly maneuvering his opponents in the way that he wanted. He revealed false weaknesses in his guard to encourage them to attack. Despite the fact that they all knew he was a dangerous opponent, Kirito knew that they were still underestimating him.

None of his three opponents understood just how high the PvP skill ceiling was. They didn't understand that Kirito was still only half-assing the fight. They simply wouldn't be able to comprehend what he was like when he went all out.

But he had to take them by surprise. They would adapt if he didn't, and start pulling underhanded tactics. Their mindset would shift upon understanding that they couldn't win, and they would scatter throughout the room until more reinforcements came.

To win, he had to do everything perfectly, and win instantly.

His anxiety continued to rise.

He deliberately faltered and allowed Asuna's rapier to barely graze him.

Kirito saw the eager expression in her eyes. The girl reminded him of a wild animal that had just caught the scent of blood.

It would just take one perfect moment…

The moment arrived.

Kirito lowered his guard, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

As expected, in that single second, all three of his opponents converged on him with their respective weapons.

Kirito summoned the dagger from his sleeve.

Then he spun and lashed out with both of his weapons.

He kicked Diabel in the stomach and, while flipping, deflected both Asuna's rapier and Agil's axe. Due to his high AGI stat, even despite the crazy acrobatics he had just performed, he was still able to land on his feet first, before the other three, and so he was able to continue his attack by pushing his virtual body to its limits.

Agil happened to be the closest, and so Kirito chose to deal with him first.

With a series of incredibly rapid strikes with his weapons, Kirito manipulated Agil's axe horizontally in front of him and plunged his dagger into the center of Agil's forearm.

Kirito knew from experience that that part of the arm was strangely sensitive in the game. It was almost like hitting a pressure point. Players that were stabbed there for the first time reacted almost as if they had been tased. This had been discovered accidentally during the beta by the PvP community and, ever since, the elite players among that group had learned to take advantage of it. It was a sensation that you had to get used to in order to learn how to suppress the instinctive jerking reaction from being stabbed there. But Kirito knew that Agil was a merchant and would not have this experience, so targeting this point would prove to be effective.

And it was. Agil reacted exactly as Kirito had expected, and his left arm jerked. His grip loosened.

Without a moment's delay, Kirito pried the dagger out of the man's arm, rotated Agil's wrist, and stabbed the blade right through the back of his hand. This finished the job of forcing his hand open and Kirito was able to easily pry it off the handle of the man's axe.

Kirito left his dagger impaled in the man's hand, dropped the sword in his other hand to the ground, then grabbed the handle of the axe in front of him with both hands. He used it as a handle and pulled himself forward into Agil's guard.

With a flying knee followed by a headbutt, Kirito knocked the man backwards and, with a sudden twisting motion, pried the axe clean out of his grasp.

With complete control over the weapon, Kirito twirled it around and whacked the back of Agil's foot with it, tripping him and causing him to fall to the floor. In the same motion, he turned and hurled it at the two players behind him.

Kirito had achieved all of this in about three and a half seconds.

"Shit! Look out!"

In his peripheral vision, Kirito saw Diabel tackle Asuna to the ground to avoid the flying axe. In the meantime, Kirito grabbed Agil by the leg and, taking advantage of the ridiculous strength of his avatar, dragged him into a decent throwing position. He spun the man around a few times using the helicopter technique he had invented earlier back when he had been experimenting with using Illfang's weapons. With it, he was able to get some rotational momentum built up and tossed him high into the air in the general direction of the door.

Because of the fact that summoning a weapon back to the hand was slower than pulling out a new one, Kirito pulled out his next hotkeyed sword and was re-armed almost instantly.

Kirito took advantage of his built-up rotational momentum and, instead of coming to a stop after throwing Agil, he used it to drop into a sword-skill powered spin. He whipped through the air, landed on one foot, jumped, and directed every ounce of strength he could into Agil's gut before the man could hit the ground.

This blew him clean out of the room.

With Agil gone for the foreseeable future, there were only two players left to deal with.

The instant Kirito landed, he was gunning for the next closest player.

Asuna and Diabel were only just then climbing to their feet when Kirito closed the remaining distance to them.

Kirito took some satisfaction in watching the looks of absolute terror appear on their faces at what had just transpired before their eyes. Clearly, they had not anticipated his sudden and radical increase in speed.

For a moment, Kirito was split on his decision on who among the two players in front of him to attack first, but this decision was ultimately made for him when Diabel gently pushed Asuna from behind, straight into Kirito's line of fire.

Frankly, this floored him. Asuna too, was stunned. Being shoved from behind had not been expected so she had no chance whatsoever and wasn't even able to raise her guard before it was too late. As a result, it only took Kirito about one second to eviscerate her. She was in the red zone when Kirito blasted her out of the room with a kick, but he had made sure that she wouldn't die by carefully restricting his attacks. He knew that she would be fine, but he did toss a hotkeyed HP potion after her on a similar trajectory just to set his mind at ease.

If she needed one, she could pick that one up after she landed and use it.

It was at this moment that Kirito finally heard the impact of Agil landing somewhere off in the distance, outside the room.

Only about seven seconds had elapsed since he had gone all out.

While Asuna began her own journey through the skies, Kirito turned over towards where he had seen Diabel run off to and prepared to attack the player immediately.

However, annoyingly, Diabel was making no attempt to fight. He had simply turned tail and was now booking it towards the far wall.

'You fucking dirtbag.'

Kirito immediately sprinted after him.

It took several seconds to close the distance from behind but when he did, Kirito tackled him, interrupting whatever he had been trying to do with his menu.

Kirito flipped him over, sat down on top of the player, and looked up, noticing all the minions and the boss looking directly at them.

Diabel had run straight into their line of sight, and all the monsters were now preparing to charge at them. However, whether this had been an intentional part of Diabel's plan or not, Kirito had a countermeasure ready.

He immediately activated Hide and, as a result, the two of them suddenly vanished. All the monsters lost their targets and so none of them ended up making their way over.

Kirito opened his menu, pressed a few buttons, and placed a bag of cor down on Diabel's chest.

"I will give you a million cor if you walk out that door."

Diabel's eyes widened.

"You see this?" Kirito asked. "Check it. It's all there. Get out now, and make sure the other two follow you."

If he could get this player to leave voluntarily, it would make things so much easier. Diabel had sprinted a good distance away from the door and so it would take Kirito some time to drag him all the way back if he had to do it by force. It was a task that he probably wouldn't even be able to do successfully before the other two players made it back inside the room.

Paying him would be faster, and may even be the only way to succeed now.

"W-why?" Diabel asked. He was completely pinned onto the ground.

"I'm gonna count to three. You have until then to decide."

"W-wait!"

"One."

"Hold on a sec!"

"Two."

…

"Three."

...

"What's your decision?"

Diabel looked up at him for a few moments.

...Then Kirito clicked his tongue in annoyance upon noticing the defiant gleam there.

"My honour is not for sale."

Kirito couldn't believe the reply he got.

"Are you kidding me?! What honour?! You just sacrificed a girl to save yourself, you asshole!"

Kirito yanked the other player to his feet, fully intending to drag the hypocritical bastard out the door.

But, in a childish display of resistance, Diabel went completely slack, toppling over and falling back down to the ground, refusing to so much as carry his own weight.

Kirito was going to have to carry him around like a sack of potatoes.

He spent the next ten or so seconds hurriedly pulling the other player back towards the door.

But Kirito felt an incredibly uneasy feeling pass over him upon noticing Diabel's menu open and him typing away at something as he was dragged across the floor.

Kirito took a closer look and saw the player messaging someone.

Anxiety at its peak, Kirito raced toward the door as fast as he could, prepared to toss Diabel outside, but then he froze when he was about twenty meters away.

He took two more steps, and then came to a stop.

...

Kirito's jaw went slack at the sight that greeted him in the doorway.

He had no words.

His grasp on the back of Diabel's armour went slack, and the player dropped to the ground.

"Is that the guy?" a player that Kirito had never seen before asked, as he stood in the doorway, pointing straight at him.

A fourth player entering the battle on its own was bad enough news on its own to warrant concern. But what really troubled him was what was behind the newcomer.

A huge crowd of more than thirty players was now standing in the doorway, all blocking his path.

The whole raid group.

Asuna was standing right in the front row with a vicious grin on her face.

"Oh, yeah," she confirmed with a savage, unbelievably self-satisfied smirk. "That's the guy alright."

Kirito heard the blue-haired player behind him start to laugh.

Diabel stood up, dusted himself off, and walked in front of Kirito.

Kirito was in way too much shock to react.

His weapons lowered.

"You almost had us there, not gonna lie," Diabel cheerfully admitted. "You were really good. But it's over now."

Diabel turned and placed both of his hands on Kirito's shoulders as if they were best buddies before leaning in close and gesturing over towards the crowd of players before him.

"You see that sight right there?" Diabel asked, over Kirito's shoulder. "That is what your defeat looks like. While you were busy kicking our asses, I was busy calling in reinforcements."

Diabel smirked victoriously.

"You just lost," he declared.

Diabel let go of him and started casually walking over towards the group of players by the door, leaving his back completely exposed.

The message was clear. He no longer saw Kirito as a threat.

Once Diabel reached the midway point between the two sides, he stopped in place.

"I hope you don't plan on teleporting out of here," Diabel spoke to the orange player behind him, without turning around to face him. "You may have hidden your cursor but everyone here knows what colour it is. You attacked me first, remember? When you materialized out of thin air and punched me just as I was about to land the last attack on the boss? I bet you're regretting that now. Because it turned you orange. If you try to escape by teleporting now, you'll be attacked by the NPC guards. And that's not all, either. I'll have you know that I messaged Argo earlier and she and her people are now currently watching the teleport gate and I'd love to see you try to get past them."

Diabel suddenly started speaking to the players assembled in front of him.

"Everyone! Don't let the player behind me escape, but don't kill him either! I want him alive! That means we'll be relying on the retrieval squad! So make an opening for them! Cut his HP down to ten percent, and let them take it from there!"

"He is extremely skilled at vanishing," Diabel continued. "So we will be relying on all the players with the Searching skill to keep your Search modifiers constantly active! Don't let him disappear! And if you have an opportunity, break through his Mask and find out who he is!"

"Once he's down we'll finish off Illfang!" Diabel shouted. "The boss is already almost dead as it is, so it'll only take another minute at the most!"

Diabel raised his sword up to the sky in a cliched, heroic pose.

"We can still win the day! Everyone charge!"

The group of players let out a battle cry and rushed into the room.

Kirito watched them absolutely pour inside the room, in complete disbelief.

Capturing a player alive was not something that was attempted very often. It was tricky to pull off. Back in the beta, it was also usually just easier to kill whoever was causing you problems instead, so there weren't a whole lot of examples of someone trying to do this, let alone succeeding in the task.

But it was possible to do, and there were some rudimentary tactics that had been developed to make things easier. The one that was most often used involved the use of what was known as a 'retrieval squad'. Essentially, this was a squad of players who possessed a multitude of abilities or items that could induce paralysis. This group would be made up of players that specialized in this, and they would lie in wait until the primary battle group finished weakening the target―only intervening at the proper moment when victory was assured.

The vast majority of paralysis methods―especially so early on in the game when nobody was really that highly levelled―only worked properly when the target was in a weakened state. In general, the lower their HP, the more effective they would be. So a player could not simply throw a single dagger with a paralyzing agent applied to it and have a full-health target become instantly immobilized. Perhaps on the higher floors, this would become the case once everyone had access to better abilities and unlocks, but it was definitely not true yet. The closest you could get to that involved somehow force-feeding your target a paralysis potion, but that was almost impossible to do to a skilled opponent that knew what they were doing.

This was why this group of players had to plan their assault in this way. The only realistic way to capture someone like Kirito was to lower his health like this first.

It was actually a good plan, some part of Kirito realized. It sounded like something that he would have come up with.

At that moment, as he stared at the group of players charging towards him, in total shock, he didn't know what to do.

Off to his left, a group of players stopped and Kirito noticed their eyes change colours, indicating that every single one of them had activated Search.

Kirito heard a series of shattering noises and immediately looked down at the ground to hide his face from view. Once everyone piled on their Search modifiers, the effects stacked and did an incredible amount of damage to his Hide Rate.

It was completely unfair.

"Are you kidding me?!" a player loudly complained. "Not even this is enough?! How high is this guy's Hiding level?!"

"It doesn't matter! Once he's paralyzed we'll drag him outside this dungeon into the open daylight outside and finish the job there if we have to!"

Kirito quickly checked the heads up display in the corner of his vision that summarized some of the effects he had active at the moment and noticed that everything except for his Mask and Name Hiding abilities had been shattered. His cursor was currently visible, and all of his other Hiding abilities were now disabled. But even with all the players there teaming up on him, they couldn't go any further than that.

This was due to the fact that he had taken advantage of his advanced Hiding skill options a while ago to create a basic program that reallocated his Global Hide Rate solely to those two abilities whenever everything else was taken down. Those were the two most important things that he needed to keep hidden above all others, after all. But prioritizing them like this meant that none of his other Hiding abilities could be used during the fight. But as long as nobody found out who he was, then it was worth it.

While this came as some relief, it was short-lived. Because he still didn't know what to do.

So he just stood there, watching as the group of players closed the distance toward him.

The only thing he could think of that had any possibility of working was accepting his loss and taking his chances by teleporting out of the room. But he had not anticipated the possibility that all the players would coordinate an attack against him like this, and so he had not prepared for running away from Argo of all people.

He wasn't sure if he could succeed in doing that either, because she wouldn't be alone at the teleport gate. He knew how she operated. She would have multiple teams of runners decked out on AGI enhancers whose sole job was to keep track of wherever their target decided to go and report their position to the other players. And since Argo regularly hunted down people with the Hiding skill all the time, they would know exactly how to deal with anything Kirito could dish out.

If he teleported and failed to escape from Argo's trap, his life would basically be over. Everyone would know everything. Questions would be asked, he'd be thrown in prison, and even more questions would be asked once everyone realized that Kirito's cursor was not reverting back to green. There was only one reason why that would happen and everyone knew what that reason was.

Even if Kirito refused to speak a word, and completely resisted, the truth would come out if he was caught.

He was a murderer.

Running away and evading capture wasn't his specialty. And he'd be going against Argo herself if he tried, the master of that domain. He was pretty sure that he wouldn't win that battle.

He couldn't teleport.

...But he couldn't stay, either.

'What the hell am I supposed to do?'

He couldn't run away either. The only exit to the room was behind the group of players charging toward him. And with so many players using the Searching skill on him, his Hiding skill was useless. So he couldn't use it to turn invisible and escape that way.

He was about to lose everything, all because he had failed to anticipate and prepare for this series of events.

He was going to die. He was going to be captured, it would be discovered a few days later that his orange cursor was permanent, everyone would deduce that he was a PKer as a result, and then he'd be executed for being a murderer.

At that moment, Kirito knew that he was never going to see his family again.

It was over.

It always happened the same way. Every single time he was a moment away from achieving his goals, something would always come out of nowhere to rip his victory away from him at the final moment.

He always seemed to be a moment too late.

Over and over again, every single time he found the walls closing in around him, he would always find himself regretting the same exact thing. If only he had acted more decisively, sooner, then he never would have found himself where he was.

During every single battle or conflict he had ever found himself a part of, he would always stall, pull his punches, fail to take his situation seriously, and he would relax way too much during it.

It was always like that. And the worst part was, he would never notice this until after the fact.

How easy would it have been to defeat those two players if he had simply cut the crap, pulled out both of his swords, and went all out with one-hundred percent of his skills, right from the beginning? He'd have kicked them both out of the room and locked the door long before Agil had arrived, and he would have won. None of this would have ever happened.

Who cared if word got around that he could dual wield because of it? If that had not been a good enough opportunity to play that trump card then what would have been? What good was an ability like that if he never used it?

But, no. He hadn't done that. Instead, he had allowed himself to… settle. He had allowed himself to get complacent. He had held back and fought on their level when he was capable of so much more.

He had allowed them to take the win.

It was his fault.

It was always his fault. Because this wasn't the first time that this had happened.

Every single time that he lost at anything SAO-related in the past, it was always due to him not treating the situation seriously enough. Whether that was a PvP encounter or a battle against a boss or a group of monsters, he was never too weak. He always just made a dumb mistake every time due to holding back for too long or being too indecisive.

He couldn't remember the last time that he had gone all out on an opponent and had been genuinely defeated due to their superiority. It was always due to his own mistakes. Even his recent battle against Illfang a few days ago where he had been swatted had been like this. He had been denied the opportunity to go all out by whatever bullshit had happened and because he had failed to plan properly in advance.

Whenever he lost it was always because of this.

His entire battle with Asuna, Agil, and Diabel, consisted of example after example.

'How many times am I going to make the same exact mistake before I learn anything?'

All of his plans were now in ruins. He had had this one shot to squeeze through this window of opportunity. To lock the players out, defeat Illfang, and gain the strength required to solo more bosses in the future. It had all depended on this victory right here and now. Without it, all of that―his entire vision for the future―disappeared from his view.

He had blundered it, and let it all slip away.

It was gone now.

He gazed up at the advancing players.

This was the group of players that was going to defeat him. Yet, from a single look, Kirito was able to tell that they were all so far beneath him that it wasn't even funny. They had poor equipment, couldn't move very fast, most weren't wearing any decent armour whatsoever, and yet, Kirito was going to lose to them.

One of the things that Kirito had come to hate more than anything was when a player mistook their incredible luck for skill. When a player repeatedly got lucky breaks and arrogantly thought that they were better than everyone else as a result.

He had never understood it until now, but now he knew. The reason why he ran into people like that so infuriatingly often was because of his own inability to learn from this mistake. He repeated it over and over and over again and he let them get away with it. He always dragged things on needlessly, when he could have easily finished it and this gave them every opportunity to turn things around.

He accepted defeat too easily. He held back―and lost as a result―before ever getting the chance to showcase his best.

Nothing had changed, even after all this time. He was still the exact same as he had always been. Repeating the same dumb mistakes and never learning anything.

...

As this realization sank in, something very different than what he was used to, happened.

Normally, what tended to happen in situations like these was that he would fall into some sort of desperate state of despair and would eventually accept his fate. He'd realize how hopeless the situation was, give up on his original goals and start trying to do damage control. He'd give up on winning entirely, and instead focus on limiting his losses. He'd think that, as long as he escaped with his life intact, nothing else mattered.

But not this time.

For the first time in his life, he could see all of this from the outside. He was watching, and observing, how his thought processes tried to do the same exact thing that they always did. Blindly spiralling down into defeatism.

He had been doing it all of his life and yet, only now did he realize how... utterly disgusted it made him feel.

He was sick of it.

This process had been spinning away inside him all this time, all throughout his life, unnoticed, and only now did he finally realize it. And seeing it play out from the outside for the first time like this was the last straw.

Something inside him recoiled.

Kirito felt a vicious snarl spread across his face.

He was pissed.

For falling into the cycle yet again, and having learned nothing, yet again.

He was pissed at himself, at these players, and at the whole situation he found himself in, and that was an understatement. He could not remember ever having a feeling of rage as intense as the one he felt at that moment.

Something inside him almost audibly snapped, causing the strangest sensation he had ever experienced in his life to appear. It felt like his brain had ripped itself right in half at the center and rearranged itself. For a moment, it gave him a splitting migraine and he could have sworn that he had even gone cross-eyed during it, but the feeling passed about half a second later.

When it was over, he closed his eyes and tilted his head down to the floor.

He had absolutely no idea about what had happened during that moment, but one thing was sure. When he opened his eyes again, he was not the same person anymore.

Everything was gone and it felt like he had reset. He wasn't nervous, angry, depressed, or much of anything anymore.

There was only clarity and the truth.

'I am never going to lose at anything, ever again,' he vowed.

It didn't matter what he tried to do in the future. It didn't matter if he was playing some frivolous game that meant nothing to anyone, or if he was trying to complete a task that would somehow determine the fate of the world.

'Every single task or goal that I will ever set for myself from this point forward will be met with my absolute victory, without exception. There is no 'try' anymore.'

'It all stops here.'

This had been his last failure. Allowing Asuna, Agil, and Diabel to stall for long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

It would not happen again for the rest of his life.

He stated this with one-hundred percent certainty. As if it were a fact that the universe had no choice but to obey from that point onwards.

'Not here. Not ever. I don't lose anymore.'

No matter what it took, he was finally done with it.

The players couldn't see it due to Kirito's Mask ability, but his whole countenance had changed. It was a radical shift. As jarring as a person with split personalities switching over to the other one.

A crazed expression appeared on his face that went unseen due to that Mask, and in that moment, only a single thing was on his mind.

Victory at all costs.

Just in front of him, there was a demarcation on the ground. Two concrete floor tiles met about an inch or so in front of his toes. The thin crease between them was easily visible.

In the final half-second, before the first of the players reached him, he ran the tip of his sword along this razor-thin crack.

'None of you will pass this line.'

Their forty-plus player advance would be completely stopped before a single one of them ever crossed over it.

That was the new objective he set for himself. And because he didn't lose anymore, he knew, with absolute certainty, that it was going to happen. He was going to win. In fact, as far as he was concerned, he already had.

As it turned out, Kibaou was the first player to reach Kirito. With a roar, he ran right in front of the stationary orange player and swung his sword at him with all of his might.

But his strike never landed.

Kibaou's eyes widened in surprise as both of his amputated arms flew off to the sides, carrying his sword with them.

A moment later, he noticed that he was in freefall. When he looked down, he quickly discovered the reason. Both of his legs had been removed at the knees and there was nothing supporting his weight anymore.

He dropped his jaw.

But before he could fully process what had happened, there was an explosion of movement in front of him before he felt a hand grab the side of his head and direct what was left of his destroyed, virtual body face-first into the ground.

He bounced and landed in a heap, facing the ceiling where he remained for several moments. Unable to move whatsoever―effectively a quadriplegic―all he could do was watch as the battle proceeded from there, in shock.

When he finally tuned back into the fight, a few more seconds had elapsed and he found the orange player casually walking forwards towards the group of still-advancing players.

Kibaou's eyes widened. In the few moments of the battle that he had missed due to being slammed into the ground, three other players had been dismembered and were now all in the process of falling to the ground, just as he had been a moment ago.

There was considerable hesitation evident in the next two players that arrived in front of the orange player. They had clearly seen what had happened to the previous four during the opening seconds of the battle and were now very nervous. However, they managed to get over these nerves―probably due to the fact that they were being bolstered by the crowd of screaming players rushing into the action directly behind them.

They shared a quick glance and attacked together.

Two seconds later, both were limbless and lying on the floor.

...But this time, Kiboau had seen it happen right before his eyes.

He was stunned. It was as if the orange player could predict everyone's attacks before they happened and knew exactly how to react to them in advance. It looked like precognition.

And the player was so fast… Even when Kibaou had been watching it unfold right in front of him, it had been nothing but a blur.

By this point though, the main group of players had arrived. The five other players that now all found themselves in the same position as him―as limbless torsos―had all been a bit too eager to jump into the fight as soon as possible, just like he had been, and had sprinted a bit faster than everyone else, causing them to pull slightly ahead of the rest of the group. But the rest of the players had arrived now, and so Kibaou was confident that the battle would be over very quickly as a result.

This wasn't an action movie. Nobody had any intention of coming at the orange player one at a time while everyone else watched and waited their turn. They would surround him, work together, and beat him into the ground using their vastly superior numbers if necessary.

They would attack from all directions, all at once, and Kibaou couldn't wait to see it.

...But things did not happen the way that he had expected them to.

In less than half a second, the orange player went from standing upright on his feet in a typical sword fighting stance, to flipping uncontrollably through the air and rocketing forwards impossibly quickly.

Taken by complete surprise, no one in the group could stop the player from ripping through the crowd in a wild spin that none of them had ever seen before.

Various amputated legs and arms flew into the air and rained down to the ground dropping all manner of weapons and pieces of equipment with them.

Several players dropped to the ground having lost one or more of their legs.

The air was filled with screams.

"What the fuck! What the fuck! What the fuck!"

"Shit!"

Players were screaming in terror.

"What the fuck was that?!"

"Help! I can't move!"

"Hold still! I'll get you out of here!"

One player grabbed his buddy by his only remaining arm and started dragging him out of the room towards the door.

"Diabel!" one player shouted, looking over toward where he expected the blue-haired player to be. "We need to re―"

The player gasped and frantically looked around.

Diabel was nowhere to be found.

Asuna unleashed another flurry of attacks toward her target. All of them were blocked, but she realized that she was starting to get the hang of battling against other players now. She had had it all wrong earlier. The key to duelling against other players was to target unexpected locations and vary the patterns of her attacks to catch her opponents off guard. Unpredictability was better than raw power.

While she didn't quite have the experience necessary to match her current adversary, she was significantly faster than him and her opponent was unable to deal with that for one reason or another. Perhaps he simply had not dealt with very many rapier users in the past, or perhaps she had simply closed the skill gap. She wasn't sure which.

But one thing was certain. When she abruptly crouched low and aimed her Linear at the back of her opponent's foot, he was unable to stop it.

Diabel was blown off his feet and collapsed onto the ground.

"W-we can talk about this!"

"Dish Soap… we are so far beyond talking." She sounded calm but she wasn't. She was anything but.

As soon as the players had charged toward the orange player back there, Asuna had immediately taken the opportunity to get even with the raid leader.

Diabel had been clumsily getting in her way and being a nuisance all throughout the previous battle with the boss and with that orange player. At first, she had been able to look past this as they had needed to work together to defeat the mysterious player, but after being blown down the stairs by the raid leader and then being shoved right into the orange player's path by him, she had finally had enough.

It was beyond obvious that there was no way that the orange player still inside the boss room would be able to handle so many players at once, so, to her, it didn't matter one bit when she took the opportunity to drag Diabel out of the room and kicked his ass.

It wouldn't have made a difference with her being there, so she had left the room while everyone else had been distracted. She was hell-bent on doing one, highly specific thing to the player before her, and if she didn't do it now, she'd lose the opportunity forever.

Asuna kicked the other player in the gut, launching him closer to her destination.

She walked over towards the downed player and kicked his sword out of his grip.

"It was the only way!" Diabel exclaimed.

"What was?! Throwing me to the wolves so you could run to safety?!"

"We needed to stall for time! And fighting wasn't the right way to do that! One of us needed to stay inside the room!"

"If you had told me this we could have done that together!"

"You wouldn't have listened!"

"Why didn't you shove me off to the side instead, then?! There was no reason to throw me right into his path!"

Diabel gained a considering look on his face.

"Huh. Oh yeah. I guess I could have done that."

He turned to the girl bearing down on him and scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

"Whoops."

A tick mark appeared on Asuna's face and she smiled a very unfriendly smile.

"...Whoops?" She repeated. "That's all that you have to say?"

"It's not a big deal. Everything turned out fine. You're blowing this way out of proportion," Diabel claimed.

Then he said the one thing that sealed his fate.

"You need to calm down."

…

Never in the history of ever had anybody ever calmed down after being told to calm down. This long-held record was not finally broken here either, needless to say.

Asuna reached down, grabbed Diabel by the front of his armour and picked him up, raising his body over her head in a cheesy imitation of some sort of wrestling move.

"Hrrk! W-wait, what are you―?"

"Did he do it like this?" she mumbled to herself, thinking aloud and adjusting her grip.

Then she chucked the blue-haired player head-first down the staircase.

The euphoric release she received upon seeing the annoying player tumble head over heels down the staircase, shouting expletives all the while, caused the biggest grin that she had ever had throughout her entire time in the game so far, to appear on her face.

She started to giggle at the sight.

It was so much more satisfying when she wasn't the one on the receiving end.

After another moment or two of satisfaction, she spat on the ground and dusted off her hands.

"And that's what you get, Dish Soap. Now you know how that feels. We're even now."

Then she turned around and started walking back towards the boss room.

Asuna stopped walking a few moments later, however, upon noticing an unexpected spectator. She turned and faced the man, and the two of them stared at each other for a few seconds without either of them saying anything.

"Why didn't you try to stop me?" she eventually asked.

He definitely could have.

"I figured you needed it," Agil replied. "And I saw what he did to you earlier. Accident or not, I think he probably had it coming."

Asuna stared at the man for a few moments.

"What are you doing out here, anyway?" she asked. "All the action is inside."

"Someone needs to watch the door to make sure that guy doesn't make a break for it. If he tries, I'll be able to see where he goes and follow after him."

"You don't want to get even with him for throwing you around like a ragdoll?"

Agil chuckled.

"I'm not into that sort of thing. I'm a merchant. I'm not so great at duelling other players. I'll leave that to the experts."

"Well, suit yourself, I guess. But―"

Abruptly, a bunch of players started streaming out of the boss room, interrupting their conversation.

"Everybody run! Flee for your lives!" a player shouted, sounding frantic.

"What―?" Asuna turned and watched the proceedings.

The group of retreating players looked terrified.

"That guy is a monster!"

"He's not human!"

"Don't tell me―!" Asuna spoke in astonishment. "Did that player really… defeat everyone?"

Agil's eyes widened in shock.

"I-impossible. There's over forty players here."

But sure enough, only around twenty-five or so players were left standing and most of them were dragging out bodies of other players.

'Bodies,' however, was perhaps not the right word to use for the situation, Asuna quickly realized.

She dropped her jaw at the sheer number of them that had no limbs. Many of the players were just torsos, now. She had never seen anything like it before and the sheer brutality of it gave her goosebumps.

They couldn't even stand up anymore as they had been hacked to pieces. They could only lay there helplessly on their backs like a bunch of turtles that had just been flipped over.

But these players were not the only ones to have missing limbs. Many of the players who were still standing on their feet also had the occasional missing arm or two. And she could even see one that had a missing leg and was struggling to hop around.

So many limbs had been lost.

"What the hell happened?!" Agil exclaimed, sounding just as stunned as she was.

Abruptly, Asuna gained a look of realization and bolted over toward the door and the crowd of players forming outside.

"You can't let the doors close!" she cried. "Someone has to stay inside!"

Many of the players turned to face her, and one of them spoke up.

"Lady, ain't nobody here dumb enough for that."

"That dude is a fucking psychopath!" another player added. "We need some breathing room, so we'll fight him again out here!"

The interior of the boss room was far more cramped than the cavernous chamber right outside it―even though it was a pretty big space in its own right. It also had the added danger of having to deal with the other monsters inside it―the minions, and Illfang himself. After the players had been faced with such unexpected, staunch resistance from that singular orange player, the collective opinion changed about what they should be doing. It suddenly sounded, to them, like a better idea to deal with their problems one at a time. First the orange player, then the boss. And to eliminate the possibility of having to fight the boss early, before they were ready, everyone had left the room to regroup.

They intended to handle the player outside the boss room where there was more space, and where they wouldn't be constantly hounded by minion attacks.

"No, you don't understand!" Asuna shouted. "He's not trying to fight, he's trying to close the doors!"

"Fucking let him!" another player shouted. "That bastard took off my arm like it was nothing!"

Suddenly, a player that Asuna could only describe as having a bit of a 'leader-ish' aura navigated himself into the group and waved for the others to calm down so that he could speak.

"Where's Diabel?" he asked.

"He's… otherwise indisposed," Asuna replied, slightly guiltily. "He'll be here again in a few minutes."

"...But you can't let him close the door!" she pressed.

"Why not?"

"Because he―" she cut herself off a moment later when she realized that she didn't really know much of anything about what the orange player's plan was.

"Well… I don't really know, actually," she admitted. She knew the just of it. That the orange player wanted the doors to close so that the boss would heal, but other than that, she didn't really know what the player's ultimate goal was, or why he was trying to stop the raid from succeeding. "B-but that's what he's trying to do! We have to stop him!"

"You aren't making any sense!"

"Look," she tried to explain, frustrated, "he said earlier to us that he wanted everyone out of the room so that he could close the doors. I don't know why, but it can't be good!"

"It wouldn't do anything if he did, though," the player replied. "If everyone left the room and the doors closed, all that would happen is the boss would heal. Illfang would instantly regenerate."

"That's what he's after! We have to stop him since Illfang is so low on health already!"

"Why would he want that?"

"Don't you people already know all of this? Didn't Diabel explain it to you?"

"He was rushed and didn't say much in the message. Just that everyone needed to show up immediately to help capture a dangerous player and to finish off the boss. We don't know much else about what happened."

Abruptly, a limbless Kibaou came flying out of the room and landed on the ground right in front of them.

"What the fuck, man?!" the cactus-haired player hollered back, outraged.

"You bastard!" another player shouted, having seen what had happened.

Asuna turned just in time to see the orange player stalk into the doorway of the boss room to face them, blade at the ready. She expected him to make an attempt to close the door, so she quickly readied herself to suddenly sprint into the room. But, to her surprise, he didn't even try to do this. Instead, he casually walked towards the group of players outside the room, leaving the boss room behind him bereft of any players whatsoever.

It was empty now except for Illfang and the minions.

Asuna was astounded to see the reactions from everyone else in the area. For each step the orange player took forward, the rest of the players retreated a step backwards. Somehow, this one player was strong enough to make everyone else start to shake in their boots.

"You bastard!" a player suddenly shouted. "I don't know who you think you are, but I'm not going to let you get away with this!"

He abruptly lunged forward, and this appeared to be the signal for everyone else to attack. His actions served as a catalyst that saw the vast majority of the players still on their feet, join in.

All of these attackers formed a wave that crashed down upon the lone, orange player.

Asuna stayed behind to observe the assault. She watched as they surrounded the player and jumped him from all sides.

The players attacked, and the hooded player reacted.

...

Whatever it was that she had expected to see, definitely did not occur.

She couldn't believe what she saw instead.

Her eyes widened.

...Because it was a complete, one-sided slaughter. And not in the direction she had expected.

The orange player demonstrated a level of skill so far beyond what she had seen previously from him that he looked like a completely different person. The speed, the precision, the techniques, everything he was doing was so much more refined than it had been previously that the player was almost completely unrecognizable to her.

And for some reason that she didn't understand, he seemed to be deliberately targeting the limbs of the players around him.

As she watched more and more players drop to the ground, however―having no way to continue the battle―it soon became clear to her as to why he was doing it.

By removing the limbs of the players, he was taking them out of the fight. It did the same thing that paralyzing someone did, she realized. She knew that limbs grew back in this world, but it took a bit of time, so this strategy she was seeing was being used to reduce the total number of combatants that this player had to fight against without ever having to kill anyone.

'No, wait…' Asuna narrowed her eyes as a strange, academic sense of curiosity took over her thoughts as dozens of players were being butchered in front of her.

It was actually even better than that. Whenever this player removed all the limbs of a single player, he actually took two players out of action―the player that had lost his limbs, and the player who was forced to try and carry that fallen player away from danger. It was actually better to leave them alive in this limbless state than it was to kill them and that was clear from the proceedings. If the orange player simply went on a killing spree, he'd have to kill everyone there. But with this strategy, he only had to remove the limbs of half of the group of players to achieve roughly the same effect. In the end, half would be limbless, and the other half would be trying to help out the first half.

And then nobody would be able to stop him.

Asuna had never even imagined that it was possible to move the way that this player was moving. He was flipping and spinning wildly, all over the place. He was upside down just as often as he was right-side-up, and he was flying in between all the attacking players so fast that it was a blur. It took an embarrassing amount of time for her to even see the fact that the player was actually carrying two swords at the same time because he wasn't ever standing still long enough for her to get a good look.

"Stop running at him one at a time!" a player shouted. "Surround him and just fucking… dogpile the bastard!"

"No, you idiot!" a different player replied. "We need shield users! Everyone pull out a shield, make a shield-wall, and fucking ram him with it!"

Players continued shouting suggestions at each other as the battle progressed.

"Use your throwing knives!"

"And throw them at what?! His after-image?! Trying to hit this guy would be like trying to hit a bullet out of the sky with a bow and arrow!"

"The system improves your accuracy!"

"Not by that much you dolt! I'm way more likely to hit you guys than him!"

"Fuck!"

Nobody there seemed to know how to defend against a player that fought like this and so they quickly gave up on trying to face him conventionally at all. The players had no choice but to resort to working together and trying to come up with strange tactics in order to stand a chance.

"Everyone should just, like, lay down in front of him," a lazy-sounding player chimed in.

"You're so fuckin' stupid, Gary. How the hell is that gonna help anything?"

"You'll trip him up and, like, leave him nowhere to land when he jumps."

"He's not going to care whether or not he lands on someone! Everyone will just get trampled if they do that!"

The majority of the players there weren't beta testers. So for most, this was their first time ever battling against another player. So even if this player had battled against them all in a normal, conventional way, they would have still had some trouble. But now? They were completely outclassed. The sheer gap in skill level made it uncomfortable for Asuna to keep watching.

He was literally―and figuratively―tearing them all to pieces.

...Most of them, anyway. A dozen or so players were able to defend themselves surprisingly well―clearly having had a good amount of PvP experience under their belts in the past. But everyone else in the group… not so much.

Asuna continued to watch in disbelief as the orange player battled against enemies from all sides, flawlessly. Nobody had even been able to land a hit yet. The player's movements were just too unpredictable for that.

She clenched her teeth and finally prepared her own attack. She knew that she was not skilled enough to battle someone like this head-on, so she waited for a moment in which his back was facing her. She would have to attack from behind and take him by surprise to even stand a chance. It stung a good bit, having to admit that to herself, but she needed to face the reality of the situation.

She had been unable to keep up with him even before he had started flipping around like a maniac, so what hope did she have now?

So she readied herself, crouching down low, and prepared for a good moment to strike.

When an opportunity finally arrived, she activated a Linear. The skill triggered and she lunged toward the unprotected back of the orange player, eyes peeled for any countermove her target could possibly make.

She covered the entire distance in what seemed to her as the blink of an eye. Even she routinely surprised herself with how fast her virtual body could move when she tried to push it to its limits, and this was a perfect example. Asuna went from standing almost twenty meters away from the player, to right behind him with an extended rapier merely inches away from piercing his back in about a second.

Even Diabel had been unable to keep up with her speed, so she was completely confident that her attack would land. She had caught the player off guard and was simply moving too fast for the thrust to be dodged―

However, contrary to all of her expectations, an instant after she was one-hundred percent sure that her attack was going to run the player through, her rapier hit the ground and she was missing her right arm.

She watched as her virtual body's amputated arm hit the floor and shattered into polygons. For whatever reason, after a body part was removed, the world deleted it from the environment until it grew back. So the floor was not currently covered in the missing limbs of all the players currently taking part in the battle. The equipment that those limbs had once carried, however, was another matter. Various weapons, armour and other pieces of equipment were all scattered across the floor, and now her rapier joined the pile.

She was stunned at this turn of events, to say the least.

Because her opponent hadn't even turned around. His sword had simply swung around behind him at the last moment and clipped her arm off at the elbow. It had been a completely underhanded, wonky, tricky counterattack that she never in a million years would have expected was even possible. The orange player's sword had actually spun around in his hand. Unable to reach so far back, he had used a strange wrist-flick that had caused his entire sword to spin around like a top in his palm. It had done one rotation, cutting off her arm, before he had caught it again and continued the battle with the players in front of him.

It had looked like a completely unnatural and awkward counterattack, but her target had made the movement at the drop of a hat.

He hadn't even looked at her.

She spent the next several moments staring at her newly missing limb, jaw agape, failing to process the sight. Never in her life had she ever expected to look at a giant pocket of empty space where one of her limbs should be. So it was very jarring for her because it had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly. And with the added strangeness of the virtual world that she found herself in, it was even stranger than usual. There was no pain, and she didn't feel much more than slightly inconvenienced by what should have been a grievous injury.

Before she could fully grasp the fact that her dominant arm was now missing, she was reminded―quite rudely if you asked her―of the fact that she had been dumbly standing in the middle of a battlefield for the last five seconds or so, staring at the floor.

She was suddenly kicked in the stomach―yet again―and launched away from the battle.

She landed bonelessly on the ground, trying desperately to reclaim the air that had just been forced out of her lungs.

She had had all the air forced out of her lungs more times in the last five minutes than in the rest of her life combined. For some reason, the orange player kept targeting that part of her body. But, after landing on the ground and trying desperately to reclaim the escaped air, she understood why this was happening to her so often.

During the few times in which she had been seriously winded in real life in the past―typically during a nasty fall after not paying attention to whatever she was doing, or during a tennis match, or one of the few other sports that she had occasionally taken part in―the feeling of losing all the of that air at once was a brutal experience. During these few incidents, her whole focus from that point forward had been on not suffocating, and her whole body would lock up as she desperately tried to breathe.

...And that was because of the fact that humans needed to do that in order to live. Obviously.

There was no air in SAO, though. There was no oxygen. So there was no cellular respiration, or gas exchange going on in the lungs―players didn't even have lungs as far as she could tell, or any other organ really, for that matter.

However, for some reason, the world she found herself in had been designed to force players into breathing anyway. The feeling of being out of breath, and of losing air, was―to a moderate extent at least―replicated by the system.

If you didn't breathe for a while, you felt uncomfortable even though, logically, you shouldn't be. Not really.

So, even though the world was virtual, being winded was without a doubt the most painful sensation she had experienced in the game so far, beating out being thrown down all of those stairs by a long shot. There was actually no comparison between the two. The sensation was still several steps down from how being winded felt in the real world, but it was definitely distracting. With most injuries she had sustained so far, she had been able to shake them off in short order and jump right back into the fight, but being winded forced her to her knees for a few moments and prevented her from doing much else.

And that was why the orange player kept on targeting her there, she realized. Huge impacts to the stomach were a weakness that she had overlooked because of the fact that HP was the only thing that decided whether a player lived or died. She had figured that only attacks that did significant damage to her health bar were worth defending against, since everything else could be brushed off. But she was wrong. Being kicked did almost no damage to her and yet, she had been completely taken out of the fight for the foreseeable future with a single one.

She was definitely going to have to learn how to overcome that weakness in the future. As she found herself gasping for air that she knew didn't exist, clutching her stomach with her only remaining arm, completely incapable of focusing on anything else except for the sounds around her, she made a mental note to try and work on that.

The only thing that she could experience in this state―other than pain―from the world around her, was the sound of the battle raging behind her. She simply could not focus on anything more than that until she got her breath back.

She had been forced to close her eyes and was unable to watch it. But she definitely heard it. The sounds of screaming and cursing players, and an intense battle going on behind her.

"Motherfucker!"

"What level is this dude?! Fucking… a hundred and ninety?!"

"This is such horse shit!"

"Asuna! Look out!"

Asuna finally turned around upon hearing her name being called and struggled to force open her eyes.

They very quickly widened in alarm.

There were exactly thirteen players left standing from the original raid group. All of the rest of them―some thirty or so other players―were now all limbless torsos lying on the ground. Even Agil was in that state now.

Worst of all, the orange player was now advancing directly towards her, as the rest of the players were all currently occupied with trying to aid the other fallen players.

"Just… wait," Asuna pleaded in a breathless whisper, still struggling to catch her breath as the orange player arrived and stood over her.

The orange player stopped and stared down at her for several moments before finally speaking.

"I saw what you did to Diabel a few moments ago when I was inside the boss room."

'Uh-oh.'

She really didn't like the sound of that.

There was a clear line of sight from the top of the stairs where she had dragged Diabel a little while ago, all the way into the boss room―even as far back as Illfang's throne itself. So the orange player had been able to see what had happened easily enough.

But the really uncomfortable part about what the player had said to her was not exactly what he had said, but rather, how he had said it.

He sounded a lot different now when compared to earlier. The actual tone of his voice was much darker and crueller. It gave her an uncomfortable, foreboding feeling.

"Good for you," the orange player continued. "But you're going to regret it. I'll make sure of that. Because it gave me an idea I wouldn't have otherwise had."

Asuna could only offer token resistance in her current state to what happened next. All of which was handily brushed aside with ease.

In no time at all, she found herself in the very familiar, though absolutely infuriating position that she had come to hate. Being manhandled and dragged across the floor by her hair. He was relentless and gave her no time to fully recover beforehand.

"Since you attacked me again, it's clear that you still haven't learned your place in the world yet. Allow me to show it to you again."

"No…! Wait…!" she desperately gasped out. "You are not going to do this to me again! I won't let you!"

They were making a beeline straight towards the top of the staircase.

She struggled mightily to resist and started yelling at him as best as she could in her semi-winded state, but Kirito had been practicing recently. He was starting to get really good at dragging people around through the use of their hair now, and he had since developed and refined a multitude of techniques to make things proceed smoother.

He backhanded her across the face, shutting her up.

"I can and I will, Stumpy. We're doing this again. And we'll keep doing this again until you learn."

He wasn't shouting. It was a tone of voice that was hard to describe. Almost like he was a commander who was giving out orders to people. Stern, but calm. But also with a dark, cruel edge to it.

A furious expression flashed across Asuna's face and it turned completely red. There were lots of things that she was mad about at that moment, but there was no way to react to every single one of them all at once. And it just so happened that right at the top of her list of 'things that happened in the last five seconds that I'm mad about', her new apparent nickname happened to appear first by coincidence, so that was what she focused on for now, electing to get mad about the other things in the following seconds.

"S-stumpy?!" she roared, furious.

It was the first time that she had been called that―and she knew exactly why she had been called that―but she knew immediately that she absolutely hated that name with all her heart.

"You and this staircase were made for each other," the orange player explained to her as if he were talking about the weather. "You were destined to be together. Like long-lost lovers."

He kicked her legs out from under her as she tried to stand up and yanked her head to the side, throwing her off balance.

"It's actually pretty romantic, wouldn't you agree?" the player continued as he threw her onto the ground, right onto the top step of the staircase.

Before she could struggle to her feet and get up, Kirito grabbed the back of her head and planted her cheek back down into the stone, giving her an up-close and personal view down the hundreds of stairs that she knew she was about to be thrown down, yet again, in mere moments.

"I promise you that you will become intimately familiar with each and every step in this thing before your time in this game is through. You will be spending a lot of time together in the future and I expect you to thank me for it all later."

Asuna had no idea how to react to being treated in this way. To her, it felt like she was being treated like a dog that had just done something naughty or had made a mess on the floor and was now having her nose rubbed in it to make sure she wouldn't do it again.

Never in a million years had she ever expected to be put into a situation like that for real. It was completely outside the realms of what she had considered possible. She had never planned out what she would do in a hypothetical situation like this, so she had literally no idea how to act. It was without a doubt the most degrading, humiliating thing anyone had ever done to her, but she was in shock, having no idea what to say or do in response.

It was surreal... the fact that someone would do something like this to her. She was used to being praised and complimented all the time from her peers due to her looks and her grades. Not… whatever this was.

'What the hell is happening right now? Is this real?'

It was like the other player had just snapped. Like he was just gone. The orange player that she had been interacting with this whole time had all of a sudden, been replaced by an insane psychopath. But instead of shouting and screaming at anyone, he seemed to be the type that got real quiet instead.

And that, on some level, terrified her. If he had been shouting at her instead, she'd at least know what he was thinking.

Kirito suddenly yanked her up to her feet and lifted her off the ground.

"Stop!" she cried.

It didn't do any good.

Kirito raised her high up into the air.

"I hate you so much―!" the girl screamed.

Then Kirito chucked her down the staircase.

"Nobody cares."

This time, however, rather than sit by and watch her tumble down them all, he immediately turned around and stalked over towards the remaining players that still had limbs attached.

Kirito had always felt like there were two of him.

...Sort of.

It wasn't like he had split personalities or anything as extreme as that, but it had always felt like there was another version inside him that possessed an incredible amount of both strength and skill. On various occasions throughout his life, during times when the pressure was on and he needed to come out with a win, it had always felt like he had delved deep within himself and tapped into a small portion of the power that this other version of himself possessed. When he was in the right state of mind to do this, he would very suddenly, and inexplicably, drastically increase his reflexes and overall abilities.

He had experienced this a couple of times in the past. Even in real life to a limited extent, in a couple of Kendo matches when he was younger. But the majority of these instances happened in video games when the stakes were high and losing wasn't an option.

When the pressure was at its height, so was he. His ordinary abilities when he was not in that state utterly paled in comparison.

When he was in this state, through―drawing on this weird inner power―his personality changed. His easy-going, relaxed attitude vanished, and in its place was a much more serious, almost cruel substitute that was entirely objective-oriented.

But in most of these instances in the past, this change to his demeanour was never really noticeable. Because he never really drew all that much power from this part of him―just enough to win. So his personality would only change a little bit to reflect that.

It had always felt like a trickle. Providing just enough power to overcome whatever threat he was facing, and vanishing soon afterwards.

This had even happened a couple of times over the past month in the game. His battle with those Little Nepenthes on the first day came to mind. Back then, he had achieved this hyper-focused state and it had saved his life.

And now, he was in that state again.

But in this instance, it was completely different than what he was used to. Rather than a small trickle, it felt like he had dived deep down the rabbit-hole, head-first, and had completely swapped places with this other version of himself.

The trickle was at full blast providing him full access to one-hundred percent of everything. His maximum potential was at his fingertips and he had never experienced anything like it before. Everything around him felt like it was moving way slower than it usually did, and every movement he made just worked.

He had a vast library of combat techniques at his disposal, but many of them he never bothered to use because they had a significant chance of failing on him due to him screwing up the timing. They were probabilistic, and some had worse than fifty-fifty odds of working on a normal day. Risky moves like these he only ever used when he felt this power flowing through him, because only then did they ever seem to work.

In his current state of mind, however, there was no longer any risk of failing them. Everything would work one-hundred percent of the time, and he could do it all with ease.

He knew that they would work flawlessly, too. It was assumed. And he knew that he was going to win this fight he was currently in. It was as if everything was preordained and he could see it all.

His whole body almost felt like it was vibrating, and his mind was completely focused on the objectives in front of him. He didn't care about what anyone thought about him anymore, and he no longer had any filter.

He simply said what he thought now, and didn't give a shit about if it made him look like an evil asshole or a dick. He dished out revenge on the players that he felt had wronged him, and he was completely focused on achieving his goals.

Disable all the players, close the door, and lock them out. And do this without killing anyone.

There would be no compromise or negotiation. He was going to dismember every single remaining player that was standing against him so that they could no longer stop him, even if they tried.

He was tired of trying to close the door only to be stopped at the last instant by a nosy player. So he elected to immobilize every last one of them first.

It wouldn't even matter if another wave of players came. Even if all ten-thousand players in Aincrad stormed this boss room together, he would stop them all.

He would win.

It was a certainty.

When he finally arrived in front of the last remaining dozen-or-so players, he knew immediately that this battle in front of him was going to be the hardest one yet. While he had been dealing with Asuna, these players had taken some pretty extensive preparations in the meantime.

Kirito watched as the group finished affixing the forearm guards that had been distributed by one of the players, while he had been dealing with the girl. Apparently, there was a player here who had had a whole pile of them just sitting in his inventory, lying in wait for some reason, and so he had given them away to the other players in the area.

This new development would make it difficult for Kirito to take off their limbs and take them out of the battle, but it wasn't going to change the outcome in the end.

...And neither would the fact that they all started drinking potions a moment later, significantly boosting their stats.

Kirito wasn't the least bit concerned about it and charged into the fray without a second thought.

"Keep your fucking feet on the fucking ground like the rest of us you fucking hamster!"

Kirito performed another spin.

"Fuck!"

Kirito landed and found players on all sides of him once again.

"We got you now you son of a bitch!"

Kirito twirled through the air, dodging another spear thrust.

He was completely calm. He wasn't the slightest bit nervous at the fact that a dozen or so players were all attacking him simultaneously.

He was surrounded. And he counted five different attacks all on their way towards him at that very moment. All of which were in varying stages of preparation.

But that didn't matter to him either.

He had just dodged the first one―the spear. That meant there were four left.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

Still midair, Kirito gently tossed one of his swords with a behind-the-back wrist-flick and grabbed the shaft of the spear still thrusting through the air just underneath him with his newly freed up hand. He used it for a fraction of a second to guide himself over the weapon in a similar way that an Olympic high-jumper would over a bar, while his sword continued on its trajectory underneath it.

He went high, his sword went low.

Instead of landing on the back of his neck in a failed, half-backflip, however, he raised his newly emptied hand upwards―towards the ground relative to him―and prepared to land in a one-handed handstand.

The instant his fingers touched the ground he triggered a sword skill with his second sword―the one that he hadn't tossed. He was completely inverted but it didn't matter. Sword skills were relative and could be activated even upside down.

In a different context, the movement he did next probably would have looked like he was in the middle of a hardcore breakdancing routine, as he swung his whole body weight around in a flashy move that made his robe flutter in a super-dramatic, completely unintentional manner―his Rigid Cloak ability had been disabled to preserve his Global Hide Rate, so it routinely fluttered all over the place now.

But despite the flashiness of the move, it had been necessary in this instance. It allowed him to guide his triggered sword skill around to meet up with―and nail―the still falling blade that he had just tossed a moment ago.

He hit it with full force, and it sent this sword whipping through the air as if he had just smashed it with a golf club. There was a tremendous metallic clashing sound as the weapon was sent on its way at an extremely high speed.

The sword impaled a spear user. This one had been only a second or two away from landing a thrust, so Kirito had needed to take that player down. Impaling and sending him flying like this was his way of doing that.

This stopped the second attack in its tracks.

The instant his feet hit the ground, Kirito activated a hotkey and repositioned his empty arm over his right shoulder slightly behind him.

There was a slight delay whenever you activated a hotkey to pull out a weapon, but Kirito had taken this into account. So his arm was already in the proper position to block the next attack before the new sword had even started materializing in his hand.

As the sword began forming there was a clang! as it performed the deflection.

...Then the particles of light solidified into the familiar shape and he found himself dual-wielding once again.

The process of a sword actually forming from particles of light was entirely cosmetic. So there was often a brief instant of time―a handful of frames―in which the system knew that the sword was there but that nobody else would be able to see it yet because the game hadn't rendered the graphics yet. He had taken advantage of this.

That blocked the third attack.

Having served its purpose, Kirito immediately threw the newly summoned sword at the fourth player that was currently trying to attack him―which happened to be a sword user. The thrown sword forced said player to cancel his attack and deflect the weapon instead―effectively removing him from the battle for the next five seconds or so.

That left only one attack left.

With his newly freed hand, Kirito grabbed the sword arm of the player that was still behind him―the player that had dished out attack number three―and he suddenly backed up into his guard.

This particular player was using both a sword and a shield, and Kirito needed that shield to stop the incoming fifth attack that he could see coming in his peripheral vision. But he still had about a second before it would land, so he still had loads of time.

Kirito elbowed the player behind him in the stomach and simultaneously twisted and swept both of his feet out from under him with a kick. Kirito kicked off the ground and activated a sword skill to initiate a spin, dragging the shield user into it with him. Instead of hitting the ground in a heap, they found themselves in midair at the exact moment when the two-handed warhammer user's attack arrived, and Kirito had just enough time to redirect the position of the shield by directing the player's arm into the flight path.

At that moment, both Kirito and the player he had dragged with him into the spin were sideways, in midair, and if one were to turn their head to get the perspective right, it would look like the player was giving Kirito a piggyback ride. Kirito was behind both the shield and the player, effectively forcing him to take the brunt of the impact.

Kirito could have thrown himself to the ground instead of pulling a crazy stunt like this to get out of the path of the attack completely, but that would not have allowed him to avoid the next series of incoming attacks. Attacks six through eleven were all on their way at that very moment. To dodge them all, he needed to get out of the middle of the group of players around him and the best way to do that was to tag along with the player he had pulled into the air as they were both sent flying like a baseball off of a home run swing.

And that was exactly what happened.

Kirito braced for the impact and then the warhammer blasted the shield dead on forcing it into the gut of the player carrying it and launching them both high into the sky. The warhammer user had mostly been swinging upwards with the attack, so they were sent on an extremely high, parabolic arc that would see them nearly three storeys in the air at the peak and with a ton of hangtime.

Kirito performed many tasks during the ensuing couple of seconds in which they were flying through the air. He opened up his menu, summoned both of the swords he had thrown earlier and put them away, removed both of the arms of the player he had dragged into the air with him at the elbows, and stole the player's shield.

Because the player didn't have arms anymore, he could not open his menu. You needed to have fingers in order to do the gesture that opened it. So without them, you were essentially locked out of your menu. This meant that the shield user could not summon the shield back anytime soon. So Kirito could 'borrow' the shield essentially for as long as he wanted to, at least until the player gained his limbs back. He would not receive all the bonuses for it since it wasn't considered equipped by the system, but he could still think of a few uses for it.

So he took it.

Kirito let go of the other player and, with a final backflip, landed silently, with a slight twirl and with all the grace of a cat.

The other player, on the other hand, face-planted into the ground a moment later and found himself in the oh-so-common display of ineptitude―the face-down, ass-up position.

Kirito immediately spun around in preparation for the next attack that he expected to be on its way only to stop upon noticing the fact that none of the other players were coming after him at the moment.

Underneath his mask, Kirito raised an eyebrow in confusion.

The players were just gaping at him in stunned amazement over what he had just done.

"Are you kidding me?!" someone broke the silence. "That is such horse shit!"

"Was that intentional?!"

"Yeah, it was intentional! He absolutely did that on purpose!"

"What the fuck?!"

"Right?!"

"This dude is nuts! Who thinks of something like that in the heat of the moment?! Oh, you're attacking me?! No worries! I'm just gonna use this guy right here as a sailboat and soar through the skies on his back to dodge! How does an idea like that even show up as a feasible option worth considering in someone's head?!"

"It's ridiculous!"

"How the fuck did he get through all that? He was completely surrounded on all sides!"

"There's a fucking hamster underneath that cloak, I'm telling you! That's what we're fighting! And they're sly motherfuckers!"

"Everyone, shut up!" a player shouted, trying to regain control over the situation. "We've still got ten of us left that can fight. We can still win if we work together and bring his health down a bit. If we can get him below half I should be able to paralyze him."

"Dude, we haven't hit him a single time yet," another player reminded him.

"We're getting closer though. I'm starting to get used to his movements. He's really tricky and spry, but I'm starting to understand."

"He's right," another player agreed. "The longer this battle goes on, the more likely it'll be that this guy makes a mistake. When he does, we'll get him. For now, just try not to lose any more limbs. Work together―and Prex, hold off on using your warhammer for a bit, okay?"

"Yeah, sorry about that…"

"Don't worry about it. Nobody knew that we were going to be fighting a doped up squirrel on a sugar rush here. Just be patient and wait for the right moment. I'll see if I can pin him down so you can get a big hit in."

The players immediately began to fan out and approach the orange player once again.

A Few Minutes Earlier

Asuna's lengthy process of rolling down the stairs came to an abrupt halt about thirty steps from the bottom.

She struck something solid and it completely stopped her in her tracks.

Grateful for the small reprieve, but confused nonetheless, she opened her eyes to look at whatever it was that she had hit. She knew by now―almost in her soul―exactly how much time it took for her to fall all the way down this particular set of stairs from the top and was confused as to why it had been cut slightly short.

So she investigated and her eyes widened at what she found.

Diabel had taken a seat in the middle of the stairs and she had just slammed into his back. This had caused her to wrap around him in the same way that a speeding car would upon smashing into a pole. He had fully absorbed her momentum and allowed her to finally stop her maddening tumble.

There were a few moments of awkward silence as she peeled herself off of the player's back.

…

"T-thanks," Asuna said, lightly blushing from the embarrassing manner in which she had encountered the other player.

"Don't worry about it," Diabel replied.

…

There were several more moments of awkward silence after that. Neither of them really knew how to start a conversation after everything that had happened.

"You just can't catch a break can you?" Diabel eventually asked. "This makes… what? Three times for you now?"

Asuna cringed.

"S-shut up. I would prefer it if you didn't remind me."

"I'm so sorry that you had to go through that," Diabel said.

To Asuna's surprise, he actually did sound genuinely apologetic.

"Thanks to you," Diabel continued, "I know exactly what that's like now, though. It really sucks. The stairs are just steep enough to prevent you from stopping yourself once you get going. If they had been just a little bit shallower then it wouldn't have been a problem."

Asuna rolled her eyes.

"Diabel… do you have any idea who you're talking to here? I'm literally an expert on this subject now. I know way more about this staircase than you ever will."

Diabel laughed.

"Right, right, sorry. I was just thinking aloud."

…

"Look, sorry for throwing you down here okay?" Asuna apologized. "It's just…"

"Don't worry about it. I had it coming," Diabel admitted. "Are we cool now, though?"

"Y-yeah."

"Good."

Diabel sat up and stretched.

"Let's go and throw that orange guy down next," he suggested.

"I don't think that's going to happen," Asuna replied.

Diabel raised an eyebrow.

"Why not? You don't want to get your revenge?"

To Diabel's surprise, rather than being filled to the brim with righteous fury, Asuna just looked… resigned now. The last vestiges of her anger and rage had finally been beaten out of her by the very same stone steps that they were currently sitting on.

"It's not that I don't want to, it's that I don't think we can."

"What are you talking about? By now, I'm sure he's probably already been defeated. He'll have been paralyzed and will be totally helpless."

Asuna furrowed her brow in confusion at just how out of touch Diabel seemed to be with the current situation.

"Definitely not," she replied.

Diabel frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"That person… he was holding back on us. When I was up there a few moments ago, not only was he holding his own against that entire group of players, he was beating them into the ground with ease. It's a completely lopsided battle and we need to get up there, right now, if we still want to win. It's going to take everything we've got."

"Are you serious?" Diabel sounded alarmed.

"Unfortunately, yes. That player is good. Extremely good. Far better than we thought. We need to get up there as soon as possible so we can help."

She stood up and started climbing up the stairs.

"Wait!" Diabel called after her.

Asuna turned and raised an eyebrow.

"I just sent a message a minute ago to a friend of mine that's got a really high Hiding level. He's an expert on the skill. I called him to see if he could get any sort of insight into this player and his abilities, but if what you said is true, we can take advantage of him when he gets here."

"How so?"

"He can Hide other players. He can turn us invisible as long as we stay close to him. From there, we'll be able to get the drop on this guy."

"When is he coming?"

"He'll be here in like…"

Diabel opened up his menu and checked something on his map.

"...Thirty seconds."

Asuna bit her lip and looked up to the top of the stairs in worry.

"Can you wait that long?" Diabel asked.

She considered the question carefully for several seconds before finally giving an answer.

"O-okay."

She sat back down and the two of them waited.

Sure enough, the player showed up about half a minute later.

Asuna wasn't the least bit surprised at what she saw when he arrived. The guy was in the exact same getup as the orange player. Almost, anyway. She couldn't see his face, he had his hood up, his body was completely concealed in a full-bodied cloak―the only real difference was the colour scheme. The orange player at the top of the stairs was wearing all black, while this player was wearing a lighter shade of brown.

"Thank God that you're here man," Diabel greeted the player. "We really need your help."

"I got that impression from your message," the player replied.

"It's worse than I realized, though. We need to move now. I'll explain while we go."

Diabel turned and started to run up the stairs. Both of the other players followed after him.

It took about a minute for Diabel to explain the situation to the new player and get him up to speed as the three of them ran up the stairs.

"So what is it that you want me to do now, then?" the player asked. "I won't be of much help in a fight."

"That's where you're wrong my slippery friend," Diabel disagreed. "All you have to do is hide us with that nifty ability of yours so we can get close to this guy. Then we'll leap out and attack him from behind when he isn't expecting it. He's in the middle of a battle with more than thirty players right now so it'll be easy to get the drop on him."

"That actually isn't true anymore," Asuna corrected.

Diabel turned to face her.

"What do you mean?"

"When I was last up there," she explained, "there were only about a dozen left standing. Everyone else had been taken out of the battle."

"What do you mean by 'taken out of the battle'?" Diabel asked, worryingly. "He didn't kill anyone did he?"

"No, no, nothing like that. He just chopped all their limbs off."

Diabel blinked in surprise.

"What?"

Out of all the things he had expected to hear, that wasn't among them.

"I'm serious. He started cutting off everyone's limbs and leaving them on the ground as limbless torsos. That way they couldn't move anymore until they heal. But by the time that they do…"

"...He'd have already won," Diabel finished. "Dammit! That's actually really clever. I hadn't thought of that."

"We're going to have to be careful. But not only that, I'm not too sure how effective I'm going to be up there. I'm not left-handed. And I don't know if either of you has noticed yet, but I'm actually currently missing an arm. My good arm. I've never tried using my rapier in my other hand like this."

During the run up the staircase, she had taken the time to summon the weapon back to her. But it was really awkward holding it in her left hand and she knew that she would not be very good with it, but she didn't have a choice.

"The two of you will probably have to do most of the work until I recover," she admitted with a wince.

She didn't like feeling so useless.

"That's okay," Diabel said. "We can still make that work."

Just as the three players reached the top of the staircase Diabel motioned for his friend to cloak the two of them in his camouflage.

"Just so you know, my Hide ability is not going to be very strong with both of you inside it. So we're going to have to move slowly so we don't make a lot of noise. Make sense?"

It was also the case that they needed to stand really close together since the range on it was so short. It only extended a couple of feet outwards.

"Yeah," Diabel replied.

"Let's do it then."

The ability activated and the three players disappeared from view.

From inside the range of the ability, there wasn't much that changed. The three players received a slight tint to their vision as confirmation that they were indeed inside the range of the ability and were currently affected by it, but not much else.

They walked up the final few steps of the staircase and looked over the top to where the battle was taking place.

All three players collectively dropped their jaws.

Because the sight that greeted them there was sheer insanity.

It was the highest intensity combat that any of them had ever seen before. The orange player finished performing a ridiculous sequence of spins before being surrounded and attacked from all sides.

Then they all got a front-row seat as the player deflected or dodged every incoming attack, was fired high into the air with a warhammer, dragged another player along for the ride, and then did a couple of flips and landed without a scratch on him.

"Holy fuck," Diabel's friend cursed. "What the hell was that?"

Diabel grimaced.

He now understood exactly what Asuna had been talking about. The ridiculous abilities of this player were going to be problematic to deal with, to say the least.

"How the hell are we going to sneak up on a player that can do shit like that?" Diabel asked rhetorically.

"I told you," Asuna said, "Nothing this guy does makes sense."

After watching the orange player land on the ground and the battle come to a momentary pause as a result, from the safety of their shared camouflage, Diabel started brainstorming.

"Okay, we're going to need a new plan. Listen up, you two. Here's what we're going to do…"

There were eleven players still standing against him, and as far as Kirito was concerned, they consisted of two types.

Almost all of the players that didn't have much PvP experience had already been taken out of the battle. Kirito had deliberately targeted them first to reduce the total number of opponents as much as possible.

However, he hadn't been able to get rid of all of the noobs yet due to a minor annoyance. A couple of them had been wearing moderately thick armour over their arms by total coincidence, and Kirito had not been able to cut through it very easily. So as Kirito had been chopping off everyone's limbs, this small group of players had managed to make the cut by luck. So there were a few of them around still.

Everyone else, though, had a decent amount of combat experience and did not fall for any of the simple-minded traps that had caught all the weaker players.

So those were the two groups. Lucky noobs with good armour, and skilled players―some with good armour, and some that were just skilled enough to evade all his attacks.

As the battle had progressed and the number of his opponents had decreased, Kirito had found that the difficulty of the battle paradoxically increased over time for a few different reasons. The first was that the average experience level of this group of enemies increased as the weakest were removed from it. The experience distribution skewed and so the average opponent became more challenging to defeat.

The other main reason for the increase in difficulty was the fact that with the reduction in the total number of players, there was suddenly more open space for these stronger players to move around in.

Many of Kirito's opponents―the strongest ones among them―had taken to sitting back and observing as Kirito battled the weaker players. As they slowly dropped to the ground though―limbless―one at a time, the stronger players suddenly had more room to move around in as there were fewer people getting in their way.

This counterintuitive concept was the reason why Kirito made the prediction that the difficulty of the battle would actually only peak once he had around five opponents remaining. It would increase steadily until then, and drop off after.

But just because that was when the battle would be at its most difficult didn't mean for a second that Kirito wouldn't be able to win it in the end.

He still wasn't even close to being worried. Because it was still beyond clear to him that he was going to win.

He just knew.

It was only a matter of time.

His opponents had slowly adapted over time to his spins. They had started to get used to the way he was currently using them, anyway. If he wanted to, he could still easily tear through the whole remaining group with them, but only if he started using them with the intent to kill. All this time, he had only been targeting exposed limbs and using them to immobilize instead. So if he dropped this restraint on himself they would be no match for them. But because he didn't want to do that, his spins were becoming less and less effective at achieving his goals, so he needed a new strategy.

This meant that Kirito ended up in a bit of a strange situation for a few moments. He knew that he was going to win the fight―he had decided that he was never going to lose at anything ever again, after all, and this counted―but he didn't quite know the details on how he was going to do that yet.

He was curious.

What was he about to do to regain the edge?

Kirito looked down at the sword in his right hand for a moment or two before suddenly getting an idea.

He started to chuckle.

The players suddenly stopped their cautious, slow advance.

"This guy is up to something everyone, be careful!"

Each of the players had all of their attention focused on Kirito like a laser, and they all now had disturbed looks on their faces after seeing him start to laugh.

"I didn't sign up for this shit," a player complained.

Kirito grinned under his mask and suddenly opened up his menu. He spent the next several seconds as the players slowly surrounded him again and advanced, building and setting up a new hotbar. As his potion engine was not useful in his current situation, and neither were any armour switches―as DPS was not the focus―he switched out this normal setup for a new one that cleared everything he didn't need out and replaced every newly freed up slot with a weapon.

Many of his Anneal Blades had different tiers of upgrades on them, so they were technically classified as separate items now even though, under normal circumstances, items of the same name stacked in the inventory.

But they didn't have the same names anymore. Some were Anneal Blade +8's, and others were +6's, etc. So most of them took up different slots on his hotbar now, so to have easy access to all of them, he had needed to clear up a lot of space.

When he was done, he looked at his newly stolen shield in his left hand―the one he had taken from that player he had dragged into the air.

...He didn't actually need the thing anymore, he realized. He had picked it up before coming up with this plan, just in case, but it would only slow him down now. So he carelessly tossed the thing behind him.

Without the shield, all he had in his hands now was a single sword. He tossed it back and forth between his hands a few times before settling on keeping it in his right hand for the time being.

Then he started walking forwards with it.

"Here he comes!"

A one-handed sword and shield user stepped in front of the slowly advancing orange player and prepared to meet the incoming attack head-on. Three other players backed him up and settled into their own defensive stances right behind him.

Kirito slowly started rotating his wrist, before suddenly flicking it, causing his sword to start rapidly spinning around in his grip like a helicopter blade.

A rapid, periodic whooshing sound filled the air and continued as he walked forward.

When a player used the same weapon for such a long period of time, they would eventually begin to get an extremely good understanding of its balance and weight distribution. When this happened, and when you gave a player like that a lot of free time, sometimes they would find themselves just… fucking around with their weapon out of boredom. Spinning it, tossing it around, doing mindless tricks with it―it was a totally useless skill to learn when it came to actually winning important battles against a boss or a monster, but it was one that was usually learned anyway by extremely high-levelled players that for one reason or another decided to put in the time.

Kirito was one such player. Back in the beta, he had picked up the Fishing skill for no particular reason other than passing curiosity. So, he had spent hours sitting next to lakes and ponds, waiting for a bite, with nothing to do but fuck around with his sword and carelessly spin and toss it around.

He wasn't the only player that did this by any means. And he was certainly not the best at it. There was this whole niche community of players that practiced endlessly and came up with techniques and borderline dance routines with their weapons that were meant to be visually appealing―not applicable. Oftentimes, these players wouldn't even battle anything. They'd just record themselves doing crazy shit and then post it on the internet.

It was just like what you saw in sports. There were the professional players that you saw in actual matches, and then there were the guys on YouTube that displayed incredible tricks that nobody would ever see during the middle of a game.

It was the same in SAO. There were front line players, and there were trickers.

Kirito was making use of that mindless training time of his―if it could even be called that―and the superhuman strength and dexterity of his avatar now, as he kept his sword spinning at a speed that was impossible to achieve in the real world.

There was a multiphase routine to it―one that could only be understood after hours upon hours of mindless practice to get the subtleties down. It'd spin on his palm for a second or two, but it would not remain balanced for long like that. The spin was intrinsically unstable for complicated physics reasons that he didn't understand and the blade would fall to the ground unless he rotated his wrist in a particular way. The spin processed, and he had to turn his hand over mid-spin so that the handle of the sword ended up rotating over the back of his hand and his knuckles. This would allow it to stabilize for a few seconds more, but then he'd have to turn his hand back over again to keep the spin going. And all throughout this process, he was having to flick each of his fingers in a highly precise, subtle way, so that the sword didn't lose any of its net rotational momentum.

All in all, it was an intricate, highly complicated routine that could only be understood by a player that had put in hours of time developing it through trial and error, and who had a deep instinctual understanding of the balance of their weapon.

It helped immensely the fact that Kirito had spent so much time using the Anneal Blade in particular. Out of all the swords he had ever used in his time in the game―including in the beta―he had spent the most time with that weapon, so he was most familiar with it.

He could do what he was doing now with other one-handed swords, but since the balance was slightly different on every weapon, he wouldn't be as good at it if he tried. He was most familiar with the Anneal Blade and because of the fact that the particular upgrades he had on all of his from a Blacksmith did not change anything about their weight or balance, he had not needed to relearn how to use them afterwards.

In any case, Kirito was now glad that he had put in this practice time because he had just figured out how to weaponize this seemingly useless concept.

Kirito could get the blade moving impressively quickly. Every tenth of a second or so, the blade would make a full rotation and there would be a whooshing sound loud enough to be heard all around the room. And the sounds were so rapid that they blended together.

It sounded as if someone had taken a rope or a piece of cable and was now whirling it around over their head in a rapid circle―only, it was amplified a bit due to his superhuman, virtual strength.

Kirito had put in so much practice that he could do this without much thought at all. It was instinctive and second nature. And to top it all off, he had so thoroughly mastered the subtleties of this and many other related tricks, that he could do it without any wasted movements whatsoever.

He was not struggling to keep the blade spinning and there was a stark, visual contrast between himself and his weapon. He was calmly walking forwards at a casual pace, hardly making any movements at all… and then his sword was whipping out of control at a ridiculous rate of speed.

It made for a strangely captivating yet intimidating sight.

And he could do this all day.

"W-what the hell is this guy doing, now?" a player complained, a look of complete disbelief on his face at what he was seeing.

"Why couldn't we have had a normal opponent?" someone else asked.

"Oi!" a third player shouted. "Squirrel-boy! Are you here to fight, or prance around like a fairy princess?!"

Kirito took one final step before crouching low to the ground.

'Traditional sword fighting… isn't for me.'

He bolted forwards abruptly, keeping the spin of his sword going all along.

"Shit!"

In his current mindset, Kirito did not yet understand the limits of his own capabilities. This was the first time he had ever had full access to his maximum potential and was perfectly in control of it. So, wanting to test himself to his full extent, Kirito planned on developing a brand new, horrendously informal sword style right at that moment, as he was battling this group of players.

He didn't once consider how monumental that task actually was or whether or not he could actually do it.

Because he would do it.

In fact, as far as he was concerned, he already had. Everything that was about to happen was all preordained.

He had noticed a weakness in these players. This group of intermediate players were really good at defending against and reacting to textbook attacks that were standard everywhere. They knew how to block any common sword skill well enough to stop Kirito from tearing through them in a handful of seconds like he had earlier with the novice players. They were at the stage of development in which they knew how to defend against anything one would reasonably expect in a duel. His spins had thrown them for a bit, but they knew how to dodge them for the most part now. At the very least, they could more or less prevent the loss of their limbs. But they did not know how to properly react to bizarre, underhanded combat tactics, so by rapidly developing a sword style that centred around those, Kirito would be able to tear these players apart with ease.

But, here was the thing about doing battle in this way. There was no sword skill support. He couldn't use them for obvious reasons. They were predictable, and that meant that these players would be able to defend themselves against them. So doing battle like this, without using them, came with a significant DPS cut. And this was the primary reason why nobody but the most insane of PVPers had ever tried fighting like this. It was massively inefficient and a gigantic waste of time.

But this was only true if a player was trying to do damage at all.

This was not Kirito's current goal. He needed to paralyze these players by taking off their limbs. He didn't care about doing actual damage to them. In fact, the less damage he dished out, the better.

The reduced DPS was a feature, not a bug.

What he needed was to take everyone off guard. And the best way he could see doing that was to throw out all the rules. He butchered his own stance and started to move more like a wild animal than an experienced swordsman. He took shameless advantage of his Acrobatics skill and the AGI gap between himself and the rest of the players due to the difference in their levels and closed the distance to the closest player in only a few seconds.

This first player that he reached… didn't have a clue on how to react to an attack like this, so he elected to just hide behind his shield.

Kirito immediately threw himself to the floor as fast as possible at the last moment and caught his sword in a reverse grip. Then, with a twirling motion, he swung out with it as far as he could reach and took off one of the player's exposed legs.

Raising his shield had been a mistake, and Kirito had capitalized on it.

Then he slapped the ground with his palm and rose to his feet just in time to dodge the counter attacks from the next few players.

He decided to dodge as much as possible rather than to parry or deflect, even if it meant he was moving way more than he needed to. Then he focused his attention on a single target at a time.

He heard the player behind him curse and collapse to the ground, unable to handle his newly lost leg and Kirito stopped paying him any more attention, intent on finishing him off later. Instead, he changed his targets to another sword and shield user.

Kirito leaped at him and started swinging wildly.

The player was able to block everything with only some difficulty, but he failed to notice the fact that Kirito's wild swings were actually being calculated out with extreme precision in order to manipulate his stance.

The other player parried another one of Kirito's attacks and tried to counterattack immediately after, but froze, eyes wide in astonishment at what happened next.

Kirito had released his sword the instant it had been parried, causing it to fly out from his grip, leaving him seemingly unarmed.

However, the sword continued on its path behind his back and landed straight into his opposite hand in a reverse grip a moment later. All it took then was a slight rotation and he had completely bypassed the shield user's guard.

He slashed off one of the player's arms at the shoulder, taking his shield with it. With the rest of the player's body exposed after that, it took only a second for the rest of his three limbs to come flying off afterwards.

A player attacked Kirito from behind.

Kirito threw his sword to his other hand and blocked the attack.

That was another thing that these players seemed to fail to understand. Even though they knew that Kirito could dual-wield, for some reason, when he had put away one of his swords, they almost seemed to forget about that fact. At any time, Kirito could just switch his weapon to his other hand because he was ambidextrous and could use it just as easily there.

He could perform any given attack from either hand just as well.

...And he started to take advantage of it.

He began to dual-wield with a single sword. He'd unleash an attack with one hand before tossing his weapon to the other hand and continuing with that one. Because of the fact that he had a higher STR stat than everyone else in the area, he could block attacks with only a single hand―even two-handed attacks. If a player was in front of him, and a player was behind him, and if both were attacking him at once, Kirito would not have to completely rotate his body back and forth to deal with both players. He could just toss his sword back and forth between hands and turn his body so that both players were coming at him from his sides.

With the added confusion thrown into the equation by filling every spare moment by rapidly spinning and twirling his sword in an extremely janky-looking manner, he was able to create a lot of distance between the players trying to attack him from behind, and made a lot of opportunities for himself.

Kirito slashed a shield in front of him as hard as he could with his blade. The strike was stopped completely, but the other player was knocked slightly off-balance due to the fact that Kirito had put so much force behind it.

Then, Kirito abruptly tossed his sword to his opposite hand to deflect a spear coming from that side.

...Then he immediately threw it back to his right side again, but added a half-spin to the weapon, catching it upside down.

When he grabbed his weapon, blade first, and then promptly swung it like a baseball bat as hard as he possibly could, striking with the handle and using it as a club and completely twisting his body into the motion, he caught everybody off-guard.

He inflicted a small amount of damage on himself due to grabbing his own weapon by the sharp side, but this was worth it, as it allowed him to hook the side of the shield in front of him using the cross-guard and half-pry―half-smash―it out of his way. His own sword completely shattered during the process, having not been designed to be used even remotely like that, but he didn't care. The weapon had been getting pretty low on durability anyway and he had more than enough money to replace it. Also, he had a ton of backups ready on his hotbar to take its place.

Another sword would be in his hand in only a few moments―he had just activated the hotkey to bring it out.

In the meantime, he jumped and planted both of his feet on the chest of the off-balance shield-user in front of him, double-kicking him and knocking him over. Kirito landed on top of the guy and used his newly summoned sword to free the player of his arms.

And then there were eight. Eight more players that Kirito had to deal with.

Well… eight and a half. The ninth player was only missing a single leg and had since figured out how to hobble around. But Kirito didn't see him as much of a threat at all like that, needless to say.

Kirito looked down at his hands again.

He was beginning to get the hang of it. This new style of combat… But he hadn't perfected it yet. He still needed a bit more experience with it first.

The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood up. On a seemingly complete whim, Kirito abruptly leaned far off to the side and turned, only to see a sword come out of nowhere and Diabel to phase into existence along with another player.

The blade passed right through where his back had been a mere moment ago.

Kirito's facial expression didn't change whatsoever. His instincts had actually given him much more of a heads up than necessary, and he could have dodged far later than he had. He definitely wasn't surprised. Because nothing was capable of stopping him as he was, least of all Diabel.

'I don't lose anymore.'

A fraction of a second later, Kirito's left hand wrapped around Diabels' overextended wrist. He tugged the other player to the side, and kicked out his legs, causing him to trip and fall.

"Are you kidding me?!" Diabel loudly complained as he toppled onto the ground. "How the hell did you see that coming?! I was invisible!"

Kirito ignored him and focused on the second player that had arrived during the ambush.

Just like him, this second player clearly specialized in the Hiding skill as well and so Kirito could not see his face due to that player's Mask ability.

Rather than leap into action and prepare as fast as he possibly could for this new player's incoming attack, however, Kirito deliberately moved as slowly as possible to throw off the rhythm. He slowly raised his sword into a position to block the incoming second player's attack―moving only just fast enough to get his sword there in time.

With a battle cry, the player that had concealed Diabel during his surprise attack activated a sword skill and thrust forwards with his dagger in order to meet Kirito's sword.

When the blades clashed, Kirito let go. His sword was sent flying out of his hand once again, at a frightening speed.

He had deliberately slackened his grip on it so that it would do so. All of the power behind the sword skill that the dagger-user had just used was now behind Kirito's flying sword.

However, at the last moment, Kirito had curved his hand so that the blade would deflect off of his palm, ever so slightly changing the trajectory. So, instead of his sword flying off in a random direction and missing everyone in the area, it flew a little off to the right and impaled a spear user trying to sneak up on him from behind, through the stomach.

'I can see everything.'

Without the slightest hesitation whatsoever, Kirito continued as if his sword had never been in his hand at all. He had planned on losing it and had actually been intending on using the dagger he had just pulled out from his sleeve to attack the player with instead, the whole time.

Kirito caught the other dagger user's hand with his own, newly freed one, and stabbed the player in the stomach with his dagger, impaling him on the blade.

The player reached down to grab at Kirito's hand in shock.

Then Kirito punched him in the face, and kicked his legs out from under him, exactly as he had done to Diabel a moment earlier.

The player collapsed onto the ground, dagger still impaled in his gut, and Kirito continued standing, completely unphased.

'I've already won.'

A moment later, there was another sword in his hand and he was looking for his next target.

Kirito completely zoned out for the next thirty seconds or so. Throughout that entire period, he was in the middle of an intense battle but he found himself barely paying any attention to it anymore.

He just kept reaching down further and further into the abyss of power within himself and it kept on giving more and more.

'How deep does it go?'

On the outside, he suddenly stopped moving around. He didn't feel the need to flip or fly around the battlefield in a flashy show of acrobatics any longer.

He planted both of his feet and stood there, staring at his empty left hand.

Then he lowered it to his side.

'I don't need it anymore.'

His right hand was enough.

The remaining players immediately surrounded him, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

One sword covered every direction at once in a spinning defence. The only thing he paid any attention to was his grip on his weapon.

It was odd. He had never held a sword the way he was now. Instead of holding it in a clenched, solid, unbreakable fist, it was instead open, relaxed, and loose. And he was almost 'clawing' the handle. Or pinching it―relying on his finger strength instead of the support from his palm.

It wasn't something that he had intentionally tried to do, but it had developed naturally as he had tried to get his sword to move faster and faster.

It came down to the differences between this game world and the real world. The strength in his avatar's fingers was far greater than any human's. So was the rest of his virtual body for that matter. As a result of this, what was possible to do with a sword in this world was simply different. Vastly so.

This wasn't the real world where everyone's physical bodies were roughly equal in strength and had hard limits built into them.

Kirito had known all this time, at least mentally, that this was the case, but this was perhaps the first time he was understanding it on a truly deep level.

There was no reason to follow the common-sense views brought over from the real world on how to hold and use a weapon because that knowledge wasn't necessarily applicable here. Real martial arts, including Kendo and the like, had been designed for use by a human, in a human body, with human strengths and weaknesses. It was really good in that narrow situation, but when the rules changed, it failed to keep up with what Kirito needed to do. Rigid stances were too slow for him in this new world, and so he had to make up his own rules.

Real martial arts of all types were going to need extensive revisions and modifications to remain relevant in virtual battles.

This was yet another example.

Since there were no known techniques that allowed a sword user to defend against ten people coming at him from all sides, he was forced to invent one.

His STR stat was significantly higher than everyone else's and he made use of that fact. He didn't need all the strength of his hand to stop an attack. A few fingers on the handle of his weapon was enough to support his weapon during a deflection or a parry against one of the low-level players around him. So when he changed the grip on his sword to allow him to put in the minimum amount of strength necessary to block each blow, his hand naturally curled, and his sword moved closer and closer to his fingertips.

But then this had a side effect. The rest of his hand was opened up. Without the ironclad grip on the weapon that he was used to, all of a sudden, a huge variety of movement possibilities opened up before him.

This gave him a huge boost in the mobility of his sword. He could manipulate it far faster and with far more subtlety with his fingertips than he could when he had a standard vice-grip on it.

He began spinning his weapon between his fingers.

That summed up what he was doing at that moment most succinctly. Spinning his sword between his fingers, and only gripping it solidly enough to prevent these weaker players from knocking it out of his hands and using no more force than that.

And then as he delved deeper and deeper within himself, he took it one step further.

He did not need to grip the sword at all except in the brief instants of time in which he needed to parry, or when he needed to attack. Just those tiny fractions of a second, separated by long, drawn-out moments of nothing. All throughout the rest of that time, putting in just enough strength to prevent his sword from falling under the influence of gravity, and stopping it from falling out of his hand was enough. And that took almost nothing at all.

It was in that moment, wrist awkwardly curled, and directing his wildly spinning sword to deflect all attacks at once that he understood the final missing piece to his new fighting style.

'I need a lighter sword.'

His current one was too large and clunky to allow for the sort of unrealistically deft movements that he was trying to get it to do. It just couldn't keep up with him. He could manage with it, but it was needlessly difficult to do so. He needed the right tool for the job, so a smaller sword was required. But he also needed the blade itself to be roughly the same length―just thinner―so that he could still use all of his techniques with it.

He glanced around the room at the other players and noticed that one of them―in the distance―was carrying around a chokuto.

Kirito's eyes locked onto that player like a laser.

'Yours will do.'

The sound of his sword whirling all around him and defending against attacks from all sides sounded like someone was firing a machine gun at a sheet of steel, such was the rapidity of the weapon clashes.

Kirito suddenly let go of his weapon mid-swing and carelessly cast it aside like a child would with a broken toy. It went clattering off somewhere in the distance, leaving him completely unarmed.

Five players took that opportunity to try and land a hit.

...Every single one of them missed.

None of them had been able to follow what exactly happened during that moment of time but the next thing they knew, their target was outside of their group entirely and was no longer surrounded. The orange player's hands were in the pockets of his cloak, and he was casually closing the distance to the player with the chokuto, having completely bypassed and ignored them.

"Don't look down on us!"

A player suddenly charged at the orange player's unprotected back and activated a sword skill.

Kirito dropped his gaze to the floor as he continued walking, and spotted that player's shadow.

The interior of the boss room was brighter than the dungeon outside it, and since the door to that room was still wide open, the light from within was streaming out. This light cast the player's shadow on the floor in a spot where Kirito could easily see it. So he knew exactly what the player was trying to do without having to turn around.

With an encyclopedic knowledge of every one-handed sword skill that existed in the game up to around level one-hundred or so, he didn't even feel the need to turn around. He knew all the sword-skill timings and decided that he didn't need to use anything except his ears and the movements of the shadow on the floor to dodge all the attacks.

He listened for the sound of a sword skill activating, and identified which one it was based on the shape of the shadow. That told him everything he needed in order to determine the exact trajectory of the blade, allowing him to dodge it.

These players were still too dependent on using the system to assist them, and this made them extremely predictable.

He was going to teach them that lesson now.

Kirito began swaying side to side as he continued his walk, hands still in his pockets, avoiding each attack from behind him with the barest possible of margins.

The player behind him launched sword-skill after sword-skill but every single one of them missed the target.

The player with the chokuto that Kirito had spotted earlier was busy tending to one of the downed players and finally looked up upon seeing his approach.

A terrified expression quickly settled on his face.

Something about seeing an enemy totally disregard one of his attackers and casually walk straight towards him sent chills down his spine.

The player gripped his chokuto, pushed aside his fear and charged, hoping to land a hit.

The idea made sense in his mind. The orange player was still being attacked from behind so there was no way he'd be able to handle both of them at once.

But the reality was different.

At the last moment, Kirito spun around, grabbed the wrist of the player still wildly swinging behind him, summoned his dagger, pried the sword out of the player's hand with it, caught it, then spun back around with the new weapon and slashed the arm of the player with the chokuto right off.

It had been a blurred, whirling movement that had all taken place in under a second.

Kirito caught the chokuto out of the air and used this new weapon to liberate its original owner from the rest of their limbs. Then he threw what was left of that player's body aside and turned back around to face the other guy that had been attacking him from behind all this time.

"You bastard!" the player roared at him.

...But Kirito wasn't very threatened by it, seeing as the player wasn't currently holding a weapon.

'Stand aside.'

In a movement almost twice as fast as his last one, Kirito's new chokuto ripped through that player's limbs in less than a second, and he quickly found himself walking back over to the rest of the group of players he had been battling earlier on.

'This is much better.'

Even with all of the debuffs to his damage output due to the fact that the weapon he was using didn't actually belong to him, the newfound maneuverability of it put him on a completely new level.

He could finally move as he had envisioned and the only thing that was slowing him down now were his current avatar's stats. But he couldn't do anything about those yet. One thing was sure, though. Once he increased them, he knew that he would be able to move much, much faster than he was. As fast as he was now, he was nowhere near the limit of his reaction time. His body was the bottleneck, not his mind.

Dual-wielding with his old swords was still a lot better in terms of damage output, but in this niche PvP situation where he needed to move extremely fast and unpredictably, and take off limbs rather than go for kills, the chokuto was way more useful, even when he couldn't use sword skills with it.

But he didn't have to pull his punches to prevent any deaths while he was using it since it did so little damage, and it was a lot easier to suddenly change the blade's direction.

It was so much lighter and because of that, Kirito had been slightly concerned at first that he would have to spend a ton of time getting used to the thing. But he had underestimated himself. It had only taken him a few seconds, in the end, to get used to the new weight and balance.

He hadn't perfectly mastered all the intricacies with it nearly as well as he had with his Anneal Blade yet, of course―as that would take time―but he was more than good enough with it now to accomplish what he wanted to.

Kirito shredded through the entire rest of the group in seconds. The group of players that he had been painstakingly battling all this time―slowly whittling down their numbers―had been completely eviscerated in only a few moments with his chokuto.

There were only four players left standing now and they were all in another standoff. Diabel, and a few other randoms that Kirito didn't know, were his final opponents.

Spotting the thick armour that Diabel was wearing, Kirito decided to do one last thing before lunging forwards to start the battle anew.

He placed his new chokuto between his teeth, bit down on the blade to keep it there, and summoned two more of his swords.

He didn't care that it made him look like a dog carrying a bone because he had a purpose for doing so.

He was going to swap between dual-wielding and his new chokuto as needed. But without the ability to hotkey that chokuto since it couldn't be placed in his inventory due to it not being his, and without a sheath to hold it, he'd have to keep it in his mouth instead if he wanted to have quick access to it.

The battle that proceeded was without a doubt the fastest, most intense PvP battle that had ever occurred in the game's history up until that point.

Kirito's earlier prediction had been accurate. This final group of players consisted of the most skilled among the lot of them.

Diabel wasn't the weakest one there, but he wasn't the strongest either. And one of these guys in particular―the strongest one―really seemed to know what he was doing. He was clearly a PvP specialist.

The other limbless players spectating on the sidelines could only look on in stunned amazement.

"Holy shit!"

"Who the hell are these guys?!"

There was still a noticeable skill gap. Kirito was dual-wielding and could dish out attacks faster than all four of them combined. But the remaining players were working together and trying to attack him from all sides. And at first, this seemed to balance it out.

The battle continued in its rapid intensity for about twenty seconds before Kirito finally understood their fighting styles and began tearing them apart.

He created an opening, reversed the grip on the sword in his right hand, and initiated a spin, chokuto still in his teeth. He whipped through the air, targeting the weakest of the four. He unleashed a multi-hit sword skill that finished with an incredibly precise strike that took off the player's left arm just above where his forearm guard came to an end, bypassing the armour.

Having expected something like this, the other three players took advantage of Kirito's newly exposed back. Because he had unleashed a sword skill, they knew that he would be forced into cooldown and would be unable to retaliate.

...Having expected this, however, Kirito bypassed that cooldown by unleashing a skill with his other hand, suddenly reversing his direction on a dime.

Skill connecting.

At no point did his mind even consider how absolutely puny the timing window was, or how experimental and untested the technique was. He just knew that it would work.

He had already won the battle.

Of course, the skill would work. Because he had decided that he was never going to miss with one ever again. This was simply a fact that the universe would obey as far as he was concerned.

He was never going to lose again.

Seeing the fact that the player he had targeted with the sudden reversal was skilled enough to freeze and raise his guard despite the seeming impossibility of the counterattack, Kirito took note that that player was the biggest threat against him, and translated his skill downwards toward the ground, forcing him into a wonky backspin. He reversed the grip on his off-hand sword once again and reached over the guard of the player―targeting the top of his shoulder in a completely formless attack.

The player began twisting to the side to sidestep, but Kirito had anticipated this. So he stuck to his original plan and diverted to his right at the last moment, targeting the player off to the side instead.

His attack had been a diversion.

Taken completely off guard, this new player was unable to stop the fifteen-hit, skill-connected combo that saw all four of his limbs removed and the rest of his body thrown off to the side with considerable force.

It was the first time that Kirito had ever succeeded in getting the timing for that particular combo down. He had theory-crafted it some time ago, but not once throughout all his training sessions in the past had he ever successfully pulled it off.

Now it was obvious to him how to do it.

The remaining combat-capable players landed and reset their positions.

"How the hell did he do that?!" one of the players laying on the ground off to the side shouted.

"That was a dual-wielding sword skill!"

"Hacks! I call hacks!"

"Bastard," the player that Kirito had removed the arm of earlier on spoke, clutching his stump. "Who the hell are you?"

"You're strong," player number one―the strongest among the lot―mumbled to himself.

The players had another momentary standoff before Kirito suddenly broke it with a Sonic Leap.

The battle started up once again.

Kirito targeted the player with the missing arm first, as he was the weakest. Unable to defend himself properly, the player was steamrolled in a matter of seconds.

This simplified the battle once again and turned it into a two-on-one.

But it was only superficially so. As Diabel found himself completely outclassed and unable to keep up with the two remaining players, and so he quickly found himself on the sidelines, watching as the two strongest players he had ever seen started duelling.

"These guys are unreal! Why haven't I ever heard of either of them?!"

"Why are you asking me? I don't know."

"The orange player I can understand. He's an absolute demon. But who the hell is this other guy that's fighting him? This dude was just hanging out in the background with us this whole time?! Why wasn't he leading the raid?!"

"Dude, half the people here are hiding their names. There are probably a ton of incredible people here that just don't want to draw any attention."

"One thing's for sure, though. These two both have to be beta testers. Nobody could possibly get this skilled so quickly otherwise."

They continued to watch as the duel raged on, their collective jaws agape.

"Look! He's keeping up with him!"

"Dude, did you see how many potions that guy chugged down earlier? This orange guy hasn't taken any yet. So while they are probably evenly matched in terms of raw stats at the moment, the instant that potion timer runs out, it's over."

"Dude, what battle are you watching?" another limbless torso interjected. "These guys aren't even close to being evenly matched. The orange dude is all over this guy. He's in complete control of the pace of the battle and it's taking the other dude everything he has to not get destroyed in an instant."

The other limbless spectators took a closer look.

"Shit, he's right."

"Fuck."

Abruptly, the orange player switched weapons to the chokuto still in his teeth, and ended the battle, slashing off all four of the other player's limbs in a blur.

"Are you shitting me? This guy just beat every single one of us single-handedly."

The collective mood of all the remaining torsos became downtrodden.

"Not everyone, yet," one hopeful individual pointed out. "Look."

The spectators noticed at that moment that there was still one player on their side left standing. The leader of the raid group himself.

Diabel.

The orange player turned to face him, the last remaining player capable of movement standing in his way.

Diabel took a look around the room.

There were more than forty players there. Of them, the only two who had any functioning limbs at all were himself and the orange player before him. Every last remaining player other than them had had all of their limbs amputated.

He looked back at the orange player and chuckled nervously.

He had not expected things to turn out like this.

"You sure love taking off people's limbs, huh?" he asked. "At least you're not a PKer. That would have sucked. You'd have killed all the best players in the game right here and nobody ever would have made it out of this world alive."

Kirito didn't respond.

Diabel's grin faded and a serious expression settled on his face.

"But I'm not going to give up."

Diabel readied his sword in a heroic stance and aimed it at the orange player.

"Come at me with nothing held back and I'll do the same. Let's make this a fight to remember."

Diabel suddenly lunged and the final battle began.

Kirito was actually almost disappointed. When he was in his current state of mind, battling was pointless. He already knew how it would end.

But rather than finish it in an instant, Kirito wanted to use this opportunity to truly unleash his maximum potential. Something about what Diabel had said stuck with him. About making this moment something to remember.

He wanted to utterly destroy this group of players on every level. He wanted them all to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they had no chance against him.

So he gave himself a challenge.

He put a time limit on himself. He would end the battle in less than ten seconds.

...But the real hard part about the challenge was that he was going to pull it off without even touching his opponent. Their swords would not make contact and neither would they. He would lay his opponent out on his ass without contact.

Kirito abruptly lowered his swords and, with a pair of gestures, they vanished.

Diabel's eyes widened, but he continued his assault.

Kirito started dodging side to side as Diabel started swinging, subtly manipulating the other player's feet by carefully spacing out each dodge.

When the other player landed in the exact position Kirito had been waiting for, Kirito abruptly surged forward with a punch.

Diabel leaned back and dodged it completely, exactly as Kirito had expected him to.

Having anticipated this, Kirito abruptly pulled out a hotkeyed throwing knife with his opposite hand and tossed it on a precise trajectory towards Diabel's right foot.

Again, the other player dodged it completely by sliding that foot back by a couple of inches.

Having anticipated this as well, Kirito deliberately waited about three-quarters of a second to throw off the rhythm of the battle the tiniest amount before pulling out the chokuto from between his teeth and hurling it right past Diabel's shoulder.

The player was forced to lean ever so slightly to the side.

This completed all of Kirito's planned manipulations of the other player's stance, so he pulled out a dagger, lowered his center of gravity, and suddenly lunged forwards.

...But he slammed on the brakes halfway and slid to a stop.

Because the battle was over in that moment.

Kirito had carefully manipulated Diabel's balance and center of gravity with several unbelievably precise movements and, by throwing himself forwards at the last moment in the way he had, he had forced Diabel to move according to his instincts. However, due to the awkward stance he had been manipulated into in advance, this had actually worked against him. Diabel's muscles had tensed, and this had thrown him off balance causing him to stumble and trip.

Diabel landed on his ass and was now staring up at him in astonishment.

Ankle-breaking.

It was a technique that was so unbelievably advanced that nobody had ever actually figured out how to perform it intentionally during a battle. It happened every now and then during a duel, occasionally, but it always happened by accident when it did.

Until now.

Because Kirito just knew how to do it now. In his current mindset, the concept had simply been intuitive to understand. It had taken up a huge amount of his focus and concentration to pull off, and those seemingly careless weapon tosses in particular, had needed to have laser-like accuracy and timing, but it hadn't been too much for him.

Kirito remained motionless in his final stance for several more moments. Feet evenly spaced, legs bent at the knees, his left leg forward, and both of his hands on his dagger, holding it in a position right by his chest. The pose made it look like he was some sort of bandit that was about to leap forward and plunge it into someone.

But that wasn't necessary anymore. Kirito knew that the fight was over simply by looking at the expression on his opponent's face. The skill gap between them was clear, and there was no reason to continue.

Without another word, Kirito put his dagger away and started walking over towards the still wide open boss room door.

The way he saw it, it was best to leave one player with functioning limbs in the area. If a random monster from the dungeon managed to wander their way over at some point, if everyone was unable to move, they'd literally all be killed by a single enemy because nobody could teleport without access to their menu or hotkeys. But with Diabel left in the area, he could serve as protection.

"W-what are you?" Diabel asked in astonishment in the stunned silence.

Over forty players had just witnessed their battle happen and none of them knew what to say now. They were all speechless.

Kirito didn't answer. Instead, he continued to walk towards the boss room.

He could have returned Diabel's words from earlier right back to him―and some part of him wanted to. Telling him that this was what Diabel's defeat looked like, and going on about how pathetic and weak they all turned out to be in a giant, villainous monologue from there.

But he decided not to. He figured that nothing really needed to be said.

There was a strange atmosphere in the room that he didn't want to break. Despite the fact that there were more than forty defeated players there on the ground, the room was silent.

Everyone had a defeated air about them and remained where they were, probably trying to anticipate―with a great amount of worry―just what Kirito was going to do to them next now that he had won.

They were watching his every move like a bunch of terrified sheep would with a wolf that had just wandered into the middle of their herd.

So Kirito decided to just give everyone a break and leave the area without another word. He had beaten them all and this was beyond any doubt.

Literally nobody would be able to make excuses about the outcome. Nobody would be able to say anything like: 'well, actually, he only beat all of us because of reasons A, B and C'―and imply that in other contexts they may have had a better chance.

No. He had fought them all at once and won. Kirito had defeated them all because he was just better. And they all knew it.

Kirito still had work to do anyway, so he decided to just get on with it.

He walked into the boss room.

Nobody stopped him.

Because nobody could.

Kirito slammed the doors shut with finality.

Then he walked over to the locking switch off to the side.

On his way over, he took a careful look around to make sure that there weren't any stray players that had wandered inside during the battle. After seeing none, he activated the switch.

The doors finally, after all of this time and effort, locked, and Kirito found himself alone.

He took a deep breath and sighed, before leaning against the wall.

He spent the next thirty seconds or so just staring at his hands. Part of him was still in disbelief at what they could do when he was in his current state of mind. The old version of him would have never in a million years been able to pull any of that off.

But he was different now. He could feel it.

Ordinarily, after a particularly intense battle in which he had needed to go all out and draw on that inner power of his, the feeling would fade away and leave him back in his normal state afterwards.

But it didn't happen this time. The change, whatever it was, seemed to stick around. It wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Kirito didn't know how to feel about that yet.

But a moment later, his concentration was broken.

"Why would you lock the door with yourself still inside?"

Kirito's eyebrow twitched at the familiar voice behind him.

He just couldn't catch a break.

A Few Minutes Earlier

"Listen up, you two," Diabel said. "Here's what we're going to do. One of us needs to go inside the boss room, and the other two need to ambush this guy."

"Why do we want someone inside?" Asuna asked.

"Because there is a good chance that we are going to fail to defeat this player. If that happens, we need someone inside to stop whatever he is trying to do."

"Okay well… Why don't we all just Hide inside the room then?"

Diabel's friend cut in next.

"My Hiding level isn't high enough to hold up in such a bright room even on my own. With the two of you added in, my camo won't work at all. I can only make use of it effectively out here where it's darker."

"That player did it with ease…" Asuna pointed out, referring to the orange player, and the many times she had witnessed him vanish without a trace.

"Because that guy is a fucking demon for all I care. His Hiding level has to be through the roof to pull something like that off. I don't have that capability yet."

"There's also the problem that he'll get suspicious if none of us show up again," Diabel explained. "He'll think we are up to something if we don't show up for the rest of the battle."

"Okay well, why don't we all sneak past him and finish off Illfang while he's distracted?" Asuna asked. "If all of us work together, sneak by this player, and try to finish Illfang off, we should be able to win, right?"

"Illfang has regenerated a bit since earlier," Diabel replied. "Take a look."

Even from where they were standing, they could still see Illfang in the distance. They could even make out his HP bar if they really focused. And while the boss himself was about a hundred meters away, they could still see that his HP was noticeably higher than it had been earlier.

"If the three of us went all out, it'd take us at least a minute or two," he continued. "Maybe if we got lucky we could pull it off in time, but this player would hear the battle. And even before that, he'd see us the instant my friend's camouflage deactivated on our way over. Long before we closed the distance."

The orange player was battling in clear sight of the boss door. He was outside the room itself, but he always made sure that he could see inside to make sure that nobody was trying anything funny by trying to sneak by him.

"He'd see the three of us, kick all our asses and throw us back outside. And then we would have no plan in place anymore. We'd lose the element of surprise and would not be able to regain it. We have to take advantage of the fact that this orange player does not know where we are right now, or what we are doing. We have to get the drop on him while we still have the opportunity. Because if we lose it, we will not get another."

"Okay, so one of us needs to stay inside the room. Makes sense," Asuna finally agreed.

But what she said next came as a surprise.

"I'm going to do that."

"You're volunteering?" Diabel asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course," she confirmed. "I want to see the look on his face when all his plans are ruined by yours truly." She was grinning in anticipation as she explained this.

"Hopefully, it won't come to that. With the two of us ambushing this player, there's a decent chance we'll take him down in one shot. You'll only meet him if everything goes wrong."

"Everything has already gone wrong," she replied. "This will too."

"I'm so grateful for your support," Diabel spoke sarcastically.

"S-sorry. But I have way more faith in this player's abilities than in yours," she explained sheepishly. "It wasn't an insult directed at you, but a compliment directed at him."

"I don't like that fact one bit. But I do understand where you're coming from. And it's why we have you as the backup plan."

Diabel's friend had been listening to the two in silence for the past several moments but finally decided to ask a question that had been weighing on his mind since Diabel had first started explaining this plan.

"I have a question."

"What?"

"Suppose everyone fails to beat this player and the worst-case scenario ends up happening. So this girl here ends up as the last one standing. That's what we're planning for here, right? How does this backup plan even help?"

"What do you mean?"

"If she's inside the room when this player closes the doors, Illfang won't regenerate. This is true. But it is very easy for this player to check whether his plan worked or not. After closing the doors, he can just re-open them again immediately to take a peek to see whether or not Illfang is at full health, right? The regeneration is instantaneous. So this player will definitely do this to check to see if it worked. He won't just… walk away after closing the doors. He'll want to be sure. And when he sees that Illfang has not regenerated he will know, with certainty, that someone is currently inside that room stopping it from happening, even if that player is completely invisible through the use of the Hiding skill. And he will go inside to drag whoever it is, out."

"If everyone else is limbless on the ground when that happens," he continued, "how are we going to buy the twenty or so minutes that we would all need to start recovering?"

He gestured at Asuna.

"She alone would have to buy all that time. How is she going to stop this player from dragging her out of the room for twenty full minutes, all on her own? I have no doubt that she's good, but just take a look at that for a moment."

He motioned toward the battle taking place between all the other players before them.

The moves that the orange player was pulling off were completely outrageous and out of control. He was destroying everyone with absolute ease.

He turned to look at Asuna and they made eye contact.

"Just like you said to Diabel earlier, I have way more faith in this player's abilities than in yours. Especially with that missing arm of yours."

There was a moment of silence. But after a few moments, Diabel grinned and made his reply.

"Those would all be very good points if it weren't for the one thing you're overlooking."

"What thing?"

"Earlier when I was fighting this guy―before the rest of this group of players arrived to help out―I noticed something very unusual about this player."

He cleared his throat and prepared to tell a story.

"Right after Asuna protected me from falling down the stairs―"

"I did not protect you!"

"―I sprinted back towards the doors to try and stop this player from closing them." Diabel continued, ignoring Asuna's angry and immediate rebuttal. "You see, at that time, there wasn't anyone else besides him in the room. So it was the closest he has been so far to succeeding. I had been the last player, and he had just thrown me outside. Meaning he was moments away from winning. If Asuna hadn't been there to save the day with her loving embrace, he would have won at that moment. Anyway―"

"Why are you telling this story in such an infuriating way? It isn't necessary!"

"―this player made his first attempt to close the boss doors right then. I just barely managed to stop him from succeeding."

"What's your point?" the cloaked player asked.

"Here's the thing. When he was closing those doors, he was trying to do so from the inside."

"Why is that important?"

"Well, that's just it. Isn't that weird?"

"Why would it be?"

"Why would he try to close the door with himself still inside the room? If he's in there, Illfang won't regenerate."

"So... what are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying that I have no idea what he's actually planning. It's definitely not as simple as just shutting the doors to get the boss to regenerate, though. There's more to it. I want Asuna inside that room not only to stop Illfang from regenerating when the doors close but mostly in order to find out what this player is actually trying to do. Something is off with what's going on here, and I don't know what it is yet."

"Well, he could just be trying to teleport. There's that locking switch, too, remember? He could be trying to lock everyone out of the room so that he can safely teleport after and get the boss to regenerate that way."

"Well… that blows a huge hole in my theory. I guess I was being too suspicious. So there actually is a reason why he might close the door from the inside, then?"

"...But at the same time, he wouldn't get confirmation. Doing things that way is definitely not the best way. Imagine if someone with a maxed out Hiding skill was still inside that room at the time, for example. Someone who is a complete master with that skill. If this orange player succeeded in throwing everyone else outside the room and locked the door from the inside, he would never be able to truly confirm that he was alone in the room. A Hiding master might still be inside and this player could never prove otherwise unless he had an equally powerful Searching skill. So when he teleports out, there would be a distinct possibility that Illfang wouldn't regenerate and this player would have no way of knowing because he'd be half a world away at spawn."

"The smarter way is to be outside the room when he closes the door," Diabel's friend continued. "That's the better way to do it and anyone would be able to figure that out. In that case, he could easily deduce whether or not someone else is inside the room by doing what I mentioned earlier―closing the doors and quickly reopening them to check Illfang's HP. If it hasn't recovered, someone's still in there and if they aren't visible, he will even know that they have a camouflage active."

"So, it's just like I was saying then! I was right all along! He's definitely doing something suspicious!"

"Or he's a moron and didn't think of it, but judging by how ridiculously skilled this player is, I wouldn't bet on that. You're probably right. He's up to something else. But I can't even imagine what that might be. Closing the doors from the inside doesn't seem to have any tangible benefit and comes with nothing but disadvantages. There's nothing to gain."

"...So we need someone in there to find out what's going on."

"Definitely. You've made me curious, Diabel. I really want to know what he's up to now."

"Are we all in agreement then?"

"Yeah."

"Sure," Asuna agreed as well.

"Great."

Diabel turned to Asuna and began explaining the rest of the plan to her.

"So my friend here will take you inside that room under his invisibility cloak and then come back here to get me. Then the two of us will do the ambush while you're inside. You'll have to hide somewhere near the door so that the monsters inside don't see you. If you go too far into the room, you'll draw their attention. So, either behind or on top of one of those pillars would work perfectly, because you also want to be out of sight from that player when he enters the room again. Otherwise, if he sees you, he won't close the doors."

"There's a locking switch on the wall next to the door," he continued. "When it's pressed, the doors can't be reopened until either all the players inside die, teleport out, or Illfang is defeated. There's a strong possibility that he'll press it, locking the two of you inside so take this just in case."

Diabel handed her a teleport crystal.

"Dude, if he has the Searching skill though, it won't matter," his friend pointed out. "He'll see her before he closes the door."

There was barely any cover at all inside that room. And the Searching skill would ruin everything.

"I know. If he does that, our whole plan is fucked."

There was a saving grace, though. Skilled players usually only selected one of those two skills in the early game―planning on picking up the other one only once the later floors had opened up and everyone had some additional skill slots to spare. So there was a pretty good chance that this player only had the one. And that was what Diabel was hoping for.

"Fuck. I hate having to rely on luck."

"So do I. But it's the best we've got."

"Sound good?"

"Yeah. Let's do it."

"At the very least, even if this guy does win, I can't imagine anything too serious happening as a consequence. So it probably won't be too bad."

"This guy's going through a lot of trouble to succeed though. There's no way it's all for nothing."

With that, the three players finally initiated their plan and Diabel's friend snuck Asuna into the room.

Diabel watched them go from his position on the stairs. Because of the fact that his friend had left―and therefore the camouflage that had been protecting him from being spotted by the orange player was now gone―Diabel had taken to lying down on top of the stairs with just his eyes peeking over the top step so that he could watch the battle as it continued to rage on whilst remaining reasonably concealed. The orange player was looking in the other direction anyway, so he was pretty sure that he would not be seen for the minute or two until his friend would return.

If it looked like the orange player was about to look his way, he'd just duck down.

About thirty seconds later, seemingly out of nowhere, Diabel cursed.

"Fuck!"

...He had just come up with a clever comeback for when that girl had insulted him several minutes prior. She had called him Dish Soap and had listed a ton of reasons as to why it was true.

He had just figured out what he should have said in response and it was golden.

He should have said something along the lines of: 'well I guess you would know, being a girl and all…'

He should have pointed out how weirdly familiar that cleaning product seemed to be to her and relate it to her gender―implying that that was the only thing she was good for. That girls like her were only useful for cleaning and that this must be the case due to how quickly she had jumped to using soap as an analogy. It was so ingrained into her soul that it was her whole world. If she couldn't clean anything, or talk about cleaning anything, then there was no reason for her to exist at all.

It was her identity.

She did not know how to navigate the real world without relating everything she saw to the only thing that existed that was familiar to her―the only thing that made sense. Cleaning products. The real world was just too complicated for a girl like her to understand anything about it. Men were the only ones that could and she was evidence of that.

He should have explained all of this to her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

...She would have hated every single word of it, he was sure. Most girls upon hearing something like that would have probably laughed at how absurd it was and how it was so obvious that he was deliberately just trying to aggravate them―or was telling a sexist joke―and would move on with their day. Perhaps even with a smile.

But not Asuna. She definitely wouldn't have done that. She'd have taken great offence and would have been livid.

And he was kicking himself now. Because he had missed that chance.

On the other hand, though, maybe it was better that he hadn't. She very well may have killed him if he had tried.

There were two main approaches that Kirito had thought of, in getting what he wanted. Both of which had advantages and disadvantages to them.

His end goal was for Illfang to not only be at one-hundred percent HP but to also be the only remaining player inside the room and have the door locked so that nobody else could get in.

The first way to achieve that was the obvious way, and the way that looked to be the safest. This involved closing the doors just before entering the boss room and then quickly reopening them to see if Illfang's HP had changed or not. If it had regenerated, then that would mean that Kirito could be sure that there were no other players inside―not even hidden ones. And if it did not change, then that meant that there was someone in there.

At a surface level, this just looked like the best way to do things.

But Kirito was paranoid, and could not bring himself to do things like this because he required absolute, one-hundred percent confidence in his success, even if that came at a bit of a cost.

There was exactly one weak point inside this first plan that could cause him to lose everything if it was taken advantage of. It was incredibly unlikely that someone would be able to, but due to the fact that his whole future was depending on him succeeding in this task, he was not willing to take any risks.

This weakness could be seen by imagining what would happen if there were a small team of maxed out Hiding users, that all slipped inside the room while he had been fighting the players outside. Due to Kirito's lack of a Searching skill, this was a possibility. Or rather, Kirito could not prove that this hadn't happened.

But if this small team had slipped inside, and if they had somehow deduced that Kirito was trying to get Illfang to regenerate, they would know that the best approach to take was the obvious approach he had outlined earlier.

They would know that Kirito would likely close the doors from outside the room to get Illfang to regenerate, and quickly reopen them to confirm whether or not it had happened because this was the safest option to take.

But if one of these hidden players had anticipated all of this in advance, they could camp right next to the locking switch inside the room―completely invisible―and wait for the precise moment in which Kirito shut the doors of the room from the outside.

In that instant, they could lock it. And in that moment Kirito would end up as the guy locked outside the room, and then this team of players could finish off the boss.

That single weakness, even though it was unbelievably unlikely to be exploited, was enough for Kirito to abandon this approach.

He absolutely could not allow the boss doors to close unless he was inside the room at the time.

It was better to be locked inside the boss room with a small group of hidden players than to have been locked outside entirely.

But this also had a downside. Because he had not closed the door like this before walking inside the room, there had been no real way for him to confirm whether or not he was alone inside. So there had been a much higher chance of being crashed by another player.

It had been a tough decision to make. But Kirito had made it in the end, and it was why he had been trying to close the doors from the inside all along. It would allow the possibility of some players getting inside the room as well, but at the very least, there was no way he could become trapped outside.

He had hoped that nobody would actually try to sneak inside though, rendering all of his concerns pointless, but it looked like he was going to have to come up with a contingency plan now.

Because someone else was in the room with him.

Kirito turned around and faced the player behind him.

...Above him, actually.

At first, he had wondered just how a player had managed to escape his gaze when he had entered the room, but it was clear now. She had climbed up on top of the pillars and had actually laid down on top of them. Obscuring both his and Illfang's view of her.

The ingenuity of the idea frustrated the crap out of him. She had been in a blind spot and hadn't even needed to use the Hiding skill at all.

If Kirito had had the Searching skill, it never would have worked.

The girl was now victoriously smirking down at him.

"Do you have any idea…" Kirito began, "just how many times I'm going to throw you down those stairs outside for pulling this stunt?"

"Definitely more than one," he continued. "Why would you even do this? How, even? I would have noticed you walking passed me."

"You're never throwing me down those stairs ever again, mister!" she exclaimed. "Three times is way more than enough!"

"In fact," she continued, "after we make it to the second floor―and we will make it the second floor today, make no mistake―I'm never going to set foot on the first floor ever again, I suspect. You have single-handedly and forever tainted my view of it and I'm never coming back."

"Oh, you will, Stumpy," Kirito replied. "And when you do, I'm going to be there. And you will quickly find yourself in the embrace of the concrete steps outside when you do. It will happen again, I promise you."

Asuna's fists clenched.

"Why are you such an asshole?" she asked.

"Tell me, is it being an asshole to a cockroach when you swat it? Or do you kill it because it just keeps bugging you? People, in general, don't go around just looking for cockroaches to kill in their day-to-day life. They only do so when it gets in their face and starts being a nuisance. None of this would have happened if you had just walked away back then."

"I am not a cockroach!"

"You're pretty much a cockroach, actually. Every time I think you're gone, you just keep showing up again."

Asuna glared down at him for several moments.

"For your information, after you threw me down those stairs for the third time, I stumbled into Diabel. Turns out that he has a friend with the Hiding skill, just like you. Diabel called him over and came up with a plan. He sent his friend off with me, and we went invisible. We walked right by you as you were fighting those players outside and he helped me climb up a pillar."

"Is anyone else in here with you now?" Kirito asked.

He wouldn't actually believe her response, whatever it was, but if she admitted that there were, then things would at least be made a little easier.

"Unfortunately, no," she replied. "Everyone else is outside the room. It's just us, here."

"Diabel sent you on your own to face me?"

"Oh, I volunteered," she replied eagerly. "I wanted to see the look on your face when you realized that your plan wasn't going to work. Too bad I can't see it because of your stupid mask."

Kirito stared at her for a little bit.

Then he chuckled.

"For the love of God, stop laughing! I hate it when you do that! Nothing is funny for you in this situation!"

"I disagree. There's a lot of things that are funny here."

"Like what?!"

"Imagining you struggling up that pillar with only one arm for one. I can't quite figure out how you managed to do that―you don't have my AGI―but I'd bet it was hilarious. The other reason is because of the fact that you think you foiled my plan."

"I did foil your plan!"

"No, you didn't. I don't lose."

Asuna looked uneasy.

"W-what do you mean…?"

"Did you really think that I failed to take into account the possibility of someone sneaking in here behind me? Anyone could have thought of that. I was hoping nobody would be stupid enough to try it though because there's only one way I can think of in order to get you out of the room now because the door is locked."

"You aren't going to kill me."

"You don't think so?"

"I know so. You saved my life earlier. You wouldn't take it now."

Kirito ran up the side of the pillar and landed a few feet in front of her―precariously balanced on the concrete beam on top of the pillars.

"You're right. I'm not going to kill you."

Kirito pointed down to the ground below her.

"Jump down," he ordered.

"No," she refused.

Kirito blinked.

...Then he roundhouse kicked her off the ledge.

She yelped and landed like a bag of flour on the ground.

Kirito landed behind her.

"You just don't learn, do you?" he asked.

"Ow―! You jerk!"

Kirito pulled out a teleport crystal and tossed it at her.

She picked it up.

"What's this for?"

"Teleport out of the room."

The girl's eyes widened at the order.

"No!"

Kirito drew his sword.

"What are you going to do with that?" she asked. "You don't have anything to threaten me with. I know you aren't going to kill me."

Kirito walked right over top of her and impaled her through the stomach with his sword.

"Hrrk-!"

Kirito twisted the blade.

Asuna's eyes were wide in shock and terror and she frantically grabbed at it.

"Teleport," Kirito ordered.

Asuna's eyes narrowed.

"No!"

Kirito sighed.

"You just love to make things difficult, don't you?"

Kirito pulled the sword out and suddenly slashed off both of her legs before standing up.

Asuna blinked in disbelief at the sudden dismemberment. The sudden loss of a limb was jarring to experience in the virtual world. Partly because of the fact that there was so little pain involved, but also because of the fact that it took her brain a lot of time to adapt. She had still been struggling with the loss of her right arm―and that had happened several minutes ago now. But now she couldn't move at all. She could still think about moving, but nothing was responding because she hardly had any functioning limbs anymore.

Asuna's only remaining limb now was the arm that she was currently using to clutch the teleport crystal.

"Teleport," Kirito ordered once again.

"No!"

"You will instantly regenerate your limbs upon entering the safezone in the starting city," Kirito claimed.

However, he wasn't actually sure if this was true. He had never tested it out before. But it sounded reasonable enough to be true, and he didn't care whatsoever if it turned out to be a lie. If it worked in getting her out of the room, then it was worth it.

"But I'll leave you here alone to do whatever you were planning on doing!"

"So what? You have no idea what I'm planning. So why are you trying to stop me?"

"I know that it isn't good, whatever it is! So I'm going to stop you!"

"I'll give you a million cor if you teleport right now," Kirito claimed, pulling out the bag of cor that Diabel had refused only a few minutes prior.

"You think you can pay me off now?! How pathetic do you think I am?! That won't work either!"

"Fine."

Kirito turned and suddenly started walking towards the boss.

"W-what are you doing now?" Asuna asked, more than a little nervous.

"Getting the boss' attention," he admitted.

"Why?!" she shouted.

"Because you're being difficult."

In order to prevent Illfang from doing whatever he had been doing all along and hanging out against the far wall, Kirito had to reach a certain distance between them. He still had no idea why this was the case, but when someone was within the radius, Illfang began to act normally again. Otherwise, for some reason, he'd wander off to the far wall and just watch whatever was going on. So Kirito made sure to do this.

He advanced forwards, the boss walked backwards, and then Illfang's back hit the wall and could no longer retreat any further. This allowed Kirito to close the rest of the distance and forced Illfang to start thinking straight once again.

After getting close enough to the boss, Illfang finally started making his way over to the player in front of him.

Kirito, after getting the boss' attention, started kiting it over towards the girl.

Asuna, understandably, panicked. Because it was extremely obvious to her what was going to happen.

"Are you crazy?! Let me up! I can't move!"

"And whose fault is that?" Kirito asked as he steadily brought the boss over towards her. There were some minions that he also had to contend with, but they were easy enough to fend off.

"Yours!" she replied.

"No, it's yours," he 'corrected'. "Every single choice you've made today has been the wrong one. I'm almost impressed, actually, at how consistently in error your decisions are. You led yourself all the way here with them. If you want some advice, don't make the wrong choice again. And for you, that'll be easy. Whenever you are about to make your choice, just think to yourself, 'what would I normally choose to do in this situation'... then do the opposite. It's guaranteed to work every time."

Illfang lunged at him, but Kirito sidestepped it, causing Illfang to come to a sliding stop only a few dozen meters away from the girl. Kirito took advantage of that moment to distance himself from the boss.

After retreating out of range, Illfang suddenly realized that Asuna was now the closest target and started lumbering his way over to her.

"No! Wait! But… I'm going to die! You're going to kill me!"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "I'm trying to save you. I gave you a teleport crystal to escape your predicament. All you have to do is use it. I've provided every single tool that you need to save yourself. All you have to do is activate that item and say: 'teleport'. It could not be made any easier for you. I've done everything I can. But I can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. I can only spoon-feed you. You have to chew and swallow on your own."

"You won't kill me."

"I just told you. I'm not killing you. You're refusing to accept my aid."

"That's bullshit and you know it! You caused this situation so you can't be the saviour no matter how you look at it! My blood is going to be on your hands!"

"I don't see it that way."

"You won't let him kill me," she stated again with confidence.

"Are you willing to bet your life on that?"

Kirito could see the nervousness and worry in her eyes. He knew that she would fold. She'd have to be the dumbest person alive to let herself get killed like this.

"It's like I said. You led yourself here, so make your choice."

Kirito activated Hide and disappeared from her view.

Asuna stared in stunned disbelief at the spot where the player had just been a moment ago.

She looked up at Illfang, then towards the crystal in her one remaining hand.

Illfang raised his axe.

With no more time to think, Asuna made her choice.

...She threw the teleport crystal off to the side and closed her eyes.

She heard a thunderous impact less than a foot away from her head a second later and slowly opened her eyes.

The orange player had deflected the attack at the last moment, forcing it to land mere inches away.

The player launched Illfang back with a parry and turned to look down at her for several moments.

She got the impression that he was pissed.

Asuna and Kirito were sitting behind a pillar now, under the protection of his camouflage so that none of the other monsters in the room would make their way over. They had been sitting there for several minutes now without either of them saying a word.

The other player had paid no attention to her comfort whatsoever when he had bodily dragged her over to where they were now. After pulling her away from the monsters in the room, he had carelessly tossed her aside before setting up his camouflage ability so that it would conceal the both of them. But she didn't really pay any of this too much attention.

Because her life had flashed before her eyes. She had been an inch away from death, and so much had happened over the past few minutes.

She was still trying to process it all.

So she just sat there, with three missing limbs, without a word… right next to the orange player.

The tension in the air between them was unreal.

"How the hell are you even alive?" Kirito asked, breaking the intense silence.

"W-what?"

"With the sheer number of times in which you've carelessly thrown your life away in an instant, it is surprising to me that you've made it all the way to this moment. I'd have thought you'd have been killed as a child―leaping into the street to save the life of a squirrel and getting hit by a car or something dumb like that."

"You're screwed in the head," he concluded.

Her face went red.

"I don't do this often!" she replied. "I've just been having a rough month, okay!"

It had been a really rough month on her. She had faced death more times than she could count, she had had many of her long-held views challenged, she had had her entire view of the world itself practically collapse, she had tried to kill herself, was convinced not to only at the last moment, was then betrayed by the person that did so not two days later, was constantly battling against absurd, fantasy creatures… it was just a constant, never-ending stream of ridiculously dramatic, life-changing events, one after the other.

But she had to just keep moving on. If she stopped for too long and started thinking about everything that had happened, she'd just crash and break down.

"Why would you do that?" the orange player asked her.

"D-do what?"

"Throw your life away on a gamble that I might save you."

"I knew you would."

"No, you didn't."

"I did."

"You literally gambled with your life, needlessly, on a decision made by a player that you don't even know. I can't wrap my mind around how anyone could do something like that."

"Impressed?"

Kirito shook his head in disbelief.

"The opposite. Why would I be impressed? It was the single dumbest thing I've ever seen."

"No, it wasn't. It wasn't dumb. It wasn't a gamble. I knew. And I know you well enough."

"No, you don't."

"Why did you save my life back then?" the girl asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"A few days ago, when we met for the first time, why did you stop me from continuing down the path I was on?"

"Why not? Because you were there."

"You didn't have to, but you did. It's the type of person you are."

"I owe you my life," she continued. "I should have died there, but you stopped it from happening. You're a hero. My hero."

Underneath his mask, Kirito cringed as if he had just eaten something foul.

"You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about."

"You might be a humongous jerk, but deep down, you're a good person."

"No, I'm not. But okay, let's assume I agree with everything you just said for the sake of argument. If you owe me your life, why would you try to stop me from doing what I want?"

"I'm not trying to stop you. I'm trying to save you."

"You want to save… I… what?"

Kirito didn't know how to respond to that and fumbled over his words. He had not expected her to say anything even remotely similar to that and it threw him completely off his game.

"From what?" he asked, bewildered.

"Yourself!"

...

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"If you stop us from defeating Illfang, everyone will hate you and you will become a criminal forever! Stopping that from happening is repaying the debt to you that I owe! I have to stop you to save you!"

Kirito stared at her as if she were a filthy, disgusting animal.

"Is that really why you did all of this?" he asked, making no attempt to hide the hostility and distaste in his voice. "You're way too late for that. I'm already a criminal hated by everyone. Your stupid plan was never going to work."

"You're just being stubborn!"

Kirito whistled in amazement.

"I've never heard a more opportune moment to insert a 'pot meet kettle' reference."

"S-shut up."

"I'm being stubborn? I don't want to hear anything about that from someone like you."

"It's true! Nobody outside died! You went out of your way to ensure that you didn't kill anyone! And you're unreasonably strong! Nobody is going to hate you if you join forces with us! You'll practically be worshipped!"

"Just… stop all this," she almost whispered. "Let me help you."

"So you mean to tell me that after I dragged and threw you around, chucked you down those stairs―multiple times for that matter―promised to do so again in the future, beat the crap out of you, sliced your limbs off, and did a bunch of other things to you―"

"Grabbed the back of my head, pressed my face into the floor and treated me like a dog―"

"Which you totally deserved, by the way―"

"I did not! That was messed up!"

"But it's the only way to get someone like you to learn anything. Getting your butt kicked repeatedly during a fight apparently isn't enough to get you to back off. So, just like a dog, you have to be reminded, repeatedly, that continuing to attack me will leave you with nothing but a mouthful of staircase."

Kirito turned to face her and paid careful attention to her expression. It became clear very quickly that literally every single word out of his mouth was frustrating her even more.

"If you learn like a dog, I'll teach you like a dog," he continued. "And maybe after enough times, you'll finally correct your view that attacking me was ever a good idea."

The girl's face was bright red in both embarrassment and rage.

"You're insane."

"I'm not the one that has to be classically conditioned into being non-violent. That's all you. And you have no room to talk about other people's sanity. You're crazy and I'm not going to apologize for what I did."

He turned to face her.

"You still want to save me?" he asked in disgust.

"Yes," she replied without hesitation, and with full confidence.

"Even after being treated like a dog?"

"Es―"

Asuna cut herself off and sighed.

"I'm not actually all that angry about that."

"Seriously?"

"Don't get me wrong, I hate that you felt the need to do that, but I… sort of understand. I know what it's like to be really angry at someone. In hindsight, I really should have known what would have happened when I tried attacking you from behind like that."

"So in other words, the conditioning worked?"

Asuna blinked.

"What? No! But… I―"

Asuna stared at him for several moments in shocked disbelief. She wracked her brain for a good response but couldn't come up with one. What the orange player had just suggested to her definitely wasn't what happened. But it sort of looked like it was. That there was at least some truth to it.

She didn't like that one bit.

"S-shut up. That's not what happened. And I really don't like the fact that that's what it looks like."

"But, yes, in other words," she continued. "Even after all of that I still want to save you. But I would really appreciate it if you didn't do something like that to me ever again."

Kirito just stared at her for a while after that.

…

"Are you real?" Kirito he eventually asked after several moments of prolonged silence, sounding as if he were doubting the very nature of reality.

"W-what?"

"Nobody in real life acts like you do. You're either lying, or you are the biggest goody-two-shoes that ever lived. I mean… holy cow. You're like a saint. When you aren't angry, anyways. You definitely didn't deserve being trapped in this game."

It was the weirdest thing. Stuff that this girl realistically should get really angry about, she let slide. And stuff that she really shouldn't get angry about, she became furious over. But underneath it all was one of the most benevolent souls that he had ever seen.

'I mean, who the hell goes out of their way to try to save someone that repeatedly humiliates them in public like that? An enemy at that?'

It almost hurt his eyes to look at her when she pulled out that bright, angelic aura of hers. She was way too pure-hearted. Unrealistically so.

"Do you know what else I didn't deserve?" she challenged. "Getting thrown down those stairs. Or any of that other stuff you did to me, for that matter."

Kirito chuckled.

"Oh, no, you definitely deserved all of that. Make no mistake, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat, even knowing what I do now."

"You―!"

"You tried to ruin my plans, Stumpy. And you're trying to do it again now. You deserved everything that you got. I was simply telling you how you didn't deserve to be here in the game in general."

"Stop calling me that! It's humiliating!"

"That's precisely why I'm calling you that."

"And it's why I want you to stop!"

"Then what would you like me to call you then if not Stumpy? You've got no limbs."

"I have one left!" she hollered back, gesturing with her one remaining arm. "And the rest are growing back! Just give it some more time!"

"Fine, whatever. You don't like Stumpy? Let's get rid of Stumpy."

"Good. I appreciate it. Thank you for respecting my wishes."

"I mean, Roach works just as well."

"That's even worse! I'm not a cockroach, you ass!"

"...Or maybe something staircase-related? I know just how much you love those things."

Asuna clenched her fists.

Kirito started brainstorming.

"Stairs… Steps… Steppy… maybe something like Steppy McGee? Eh. It's kinda dumb but…"

"I have a name already! Use it!"

"...Though I have just now realized that you may not even know it," she continued. "My name is Asuna. Please refer to me as such from now on. Not Roach, not Stumpy, not Steppy McGee, A-su-na."

"Fine, whatever."

"Thank you."

…

The next twenty seconds or so passed by in dead silence. All throughout this time―ever since they had sat down, actually―Kirito had been seriously considering whether or not he should just kill this girl and be done with her. She was the last thing standing in his way now. Once he got rid of her, he would win. And that was all that mattered.

But there was a big difference between killing someone by accident―as he had with that crasher―and killing someone on purpose. And despite the massive shift in his worldview that had taken place only a few minutes ago now that had caused him to focus on winning at everything above all else, he knew that he wouldn't be able to actually go through with it.

No matter how annoying this girl was, he couldn't just kill her.

...But he couldn't lose, either. So he needed to find another way.

He kept thinking.

"So…" the girl spoke up. "I couldn't help but notice the fact that you did not return the favour."

"What are you talking about now?" Kirito asked.

"Isn't it rude to not give your own name when someone else takes the time to introduce themselves to you?"

"Probably," he replied, before going right back to his thoughts and ignoring her.

The silence returned.

…

"I guess I walked right into that one, didn't I?" she asked. "Why did I expect anything more out of you?"

"A good question. That's the real lesson here. You need to stop doing that."

"Maybe you should stop being a jerk so I won't have to!"

"And miss out on these self-righteous lectures? How could I?"

"Your sarcasm isn't appreciated."

"Believe me, there is nothing sarcastic about calling you self-righteous."

The girl grumbled a bit at that, but elected not to reply. Instead, she changed the subject.

"If you don't want to give me your name then I'll make something up, just like you did for me."

"Oooh~. This'll be good," he replied, with very fake enthusiasm. "Go ahead."

"How about… Chuckles?"

Kirito chuckled.

"See? It's perfect for you."

"It is actually pretty good."

"No, it's not!" she exclaimed, outraged. "That's not the reaction you're supposed to be having to it! It's supposed to be humiliating!"

"Not everyone hates dumb nicknames as much as you seem to. I don't care what you call me."

"Your real name would be nice."

"I'm sure it would."

"I would like it very much if you told it to me."

"That's cool."

"That was a hint by the way."

"Was it? I couldn't tell."

...

"Please tell me what your name is," she eventually pleaded.

"No."

"Why?"

"I have no reason to."

"Being polite isn't good enough for you?"

"Why would I be polite to an enemy?"

"We're not enemies anymore! And if you stop being an ass we might even become friends later!"

"If I tell you my name will you teleport out of the room?"

"I…"

She suddenly fell silent.

"Not enemies, huh? You see? We have opposing goals. That makes us enemies. We can't both get what we want."

"Maybe we can."

"We definitely can't."

"Why don't you tell me what you're trying to do then? We can talk about it. If you do, I just might forgive you for everything."

"I don't give a crap about your forgiveness."

"W-what?"

"Why do you think I'm going to apologize to you and ask for it? If anything, I'm going to give you another one-way trip down the stairs outside."

"Why is it that you insist on acting like such a jerk all the time?! You know, I hope you realize the fact that you're in the exact same position that I was in, just a few days ago. I was just as insistent that I was right back then until you showed me otherwise. I'm just trying to do the same thing for you!"

"The difference is that you were actually being an idiot back then. I, on the other hand, actually have something that I need to do. A goal. Something worthwhile that is much more productive than getting my brains blown out of my skull by the NerveGear for no reason."

"What do you need to do? Maybe I can help?"

"Look, you―"

Suddenly, Kirito stopped speaking entirely.

Two thoughts had occurred to him in that moment.

...So he got real quiet and just stared at the girl while he went over the possibilities.

There was good news and bad news.

Well―potentially bad news. But as he thought about it a bit more, he realized that even in the worst-case scenario, his real-life identity was still safe.

He had never posted any connection between his in-game username and his real-life identity on the internet. So, even if someone successfully tied his current, hooded appearance to the well-known player Kirito, all of their work would still be ahead of them. They could not make the further step in connecting Kirito with Kazuto.

Even if everyone knew that Kirito had been the one to battle all these players and stop the raid―even if it was discovered that he was a PKer―the consequences of that would only last until the game was over as long as he never showed anyone what his real face looked like.

But that was what this bad news was. If his hunch was right, there was a distinct possibility that Argo had just figured out who he was.

This was a bit of a strange realization to have considering the fact that Argo wasn't even in the room at the time and didn't seem to be anywhere close to the situation. But all of the pieces were there for her to make this discovery, and Kirito only just picked up on this now.

She probably hadn't figured it out yet, now that he thought about it, but it was possible for her to do so, now.

All that remained was to confirm.

But there was good news, too. And that had to do with the seemingly unrelated fact that he had likely just figured out a way to get this thorn in his side to leave the room voluntarily.

It was going to be tricky―and he was going to have to manipulate the shit out of this upcoming conversation―but he could see a reasonable way out now.

He was just going to have to play things perfectly.

He was going to have to win this battle with his words instead of his swords, and he had never done anything like that before.

But, to his surprise, he was ready for it.

He still wasn't nervous. Or worried. Not even with the specter of Argo breathing down his neck. He hadn't felt any strong emotions really, ever since he had drawn that line between those two-floor tiles and had declared that he'd never lose at anything ever again.

Even his anger at this rapier user was mostly superficial.

He was mostly just irritated at the unrealistic number of obstacles that kept on trying to get in his way.

It was starting to get absurd.

It was like the universe wasn't even trying to come up with believable excuses to stop him from achieving his goals anymore. It was just trying to screw him over by any means necessary.

First there were those two players, then Agil, then the rest of the raid group, and now this girl...

Time and time again, he kept running into a stupid number of random encounters.

That was what this whole situation had devolved into.

He had had a plan in place but his RNG had been so bad that his simple idea to lock the boss door had turned into a grandmaster-level quest. And right when he thought that he was finished with it, the final boss arrived. But annoyingly, he couldn't just fight this boss, either. Because it was actually a puzzle quest―not a combat one―and it was chock-full of annoying, scripted, randomization that was different for everyone so he couldn't just go on the internet and look up a solution guide to it.

The worst sort of quest.

He was having to constantly make up for all of this bad luck with an overabundance of skill―and he would freely admit that it was starting to frustrate him a little bit.

But he would make up for it in the end. He would win. If for no other reason then to spite whatever god of misfortune that was trying to stop him in the first place.

Even if it wasn't an actual, physical fight―a domain in which he excelled―he wasn't going to lose. If he needed to lie and manipulate, then he would lie and manipulate.

Kirito continued to stare intensely at the girl in front of him for several more moments.

She blushed and turned away.

"W-what?" she asked shyly.

"I'll offer you a trade."

"What trade?"

"I'll tell you why I stopped the raid from succeeding today if, in exchange, you answer a few questions of mine."

"You will?!" she asked, perking up and sounding excited.

"Yes."

"Then I accept! Ask away!"

…

"You don't even want to know what questions I'm going to ask?"

"It doesn't matter. If you'll tell me why you did all of this I'll answer anything."

Rather than get into a pointless argument about how there were, in fact, plenty of questions that he was sure that she would not answer―and that she would be quite angry about if they were asked―Kirito decided to just stick to his original plan and continue from there.

"You said something earlier that I couldn't help but notice. Have you ever met someone by the name of Argo?"

Her whole countenance changed at the mention of that name. Kirito thought that she looked like a child that had just realized that Santa Claus wasn't actually real after all and that it had been her parents giving her presents the whole time.

Her expression just dropped.

"Ugh. The Rat? Why do you want to know about her? She's crazy."

Kirito blinked.

"And you're not?" he couldn't help but ask. The way he saw it, this girl was in no position to say that about someone else.

"Shut up. Name one thing that I did today that was crazy or unbelievable."

"Today?" he asked in disbelief. "We don't have to leave the last twenty minutes."

"Remember that time when―way, way back," Kirito continued, "when you picked up that minion and started swinging it around?"

That was like ten minutes ago, tops. Probably less.

"Okay, to be fair, you really pissed me off," she replied.

Kirito shared his opinion about that remark without delay.

"When you ask a crazy axe murderer why they did what they did and killed a bunch of people, the excuse: 'I was really mad at them at the time' doesn't tend to hold up very well in court. They're still crazy. And so are you."

"And you've… what?" he continued. "You've calmed down since then? What changed between then and now?"

"Look, I looked up to you, okay?" she replied, exasperated. "Back when we met, you saved my life. I literally see you as my hero. And now, to see you as my enemy… it hurts. It felt like you stabbed me in the back. And I wanted retribution. But now, I really just want to know why."

She sighed.

"I wasn't crazy, just… really really angry. At you in particular. But I'm mostly just tired now. It's been made clear to me, repeatedly, that no matter what I do I'll never be able to actually defeat you. So trying to force any answers out of you with violence just isn't going to work. I guess you can only be thrown down a staircase so many times by someone before you finally just give up on trying to defeat them."

...

"You need to pick better people to look up to," Kirito said after a few moments. "If literally anyone else had been walking through there that day, they would have done the same thing I did."

"I don't believe that."

"Why not? I would have figured that you of all people would have had more faith in humanity than that."

"Plenty of people walked right past me without a word. You were the first one who stopped to see if I was okay. You were the one who stopped back then. Not anyone else. And now we're here."

"If I had known that saving you would have caused me so much trouble, I wouldn't have done it," he grumbled to himself. "It's proven itself to be a bad investment so far."

"But, whatever," he continued. "Fine. I'm willing to tell you what you want to know. But first, I want to know if you've met Argo."

"I have."

"Recently?"

"Earlier today, actually. I've known her for quite some time."

"Are you friends?"

"I don't know if 'friends' is the right word… she bothers me. A lot. She loves to tease me about strange things."

"She treats all her friends like that."

"Really?"

"She singles you out from crowds, right? If you're in a big group of players, she heads straight for you?"

Asuna blinked. A truer statement had not been said that day. That girl practically had an 'Asuna-detector' hardwired into her skull and she always made a beeline straight for her whenever she was within range.

"Oh, yeah," she confirmed. "That's definitely true. She definitely picks on me much more than she does any of the players outside. Probably anyone else in the whole world."

"That was exactly what I wanted to know. That you are the closest player to her out of everyone in the raid group outside. All forty-whatever players."

This meant that Argo probably trusted her the most.

...His hunch was looking more and more likely to be correct, then.

"Yeah. That's definitely true."

"Did she give you anything before the raid?" Kirito asked.

"Did she… Actually, yeah, now that you mention it. I completely forgot about it. She actually gave me this necklace. She told me to keep it on."

Kirito's eyebrow twitched. Sometimes, it sucked being exactly right about something.

"Why?" he asked.

"She never told me."

"But you did it anyway?"

"She has a way of getting what she wants."

"She blackmailed you, didn't she?"

A sizeable blush appeared across Asuna's face, clearly indicating that Kirito had hit the nail right on the head and that the whole incident had probably been hilarious, and/or embarrassing.

"Yes," she admitted with a grimace.

"What did she say?"

"I-I'd rather not share. It was inappropriate, to say the least."

"Inappropriate in a threatening way?"

"I-in a lewd way. Threatening also, though."

"Oh. Yeah, you've definitely met Argo, then."

That brought back a ton of memories from the past. That was just how Argo operated. She just loved teasing and making people feel uncomfortable, and loved when she got a reaction out of them. Kirito could easily imagine just how frequent a target Asuna would be to that girl since she was so easily wound up about the simplest things.

But Argo was also clever. As a practical spymaster, she had all sorts of schemes cooked up in order to learn new information about all manner of different things.

One of her methods in particular that Kirito had seen her use before involved the concealment of recording crystals.

There was a wide array of items that allowed a player to record sights and sounds in the game. From crystals that picked up audio signals only, to ones that recorded video as well, and as an information specialist, this was one of Argo's go-to methods for gathering intel.

It was obvious to him now, in hindsight, that a boss raid was the perfect opportunity to record such information and if Kirito's hunch was correct, then that necklace that Asuna was wearing had just such a device hidden inside it.

"Can I see it?" he asked.

He didn't really know what he expected to see, as a recording crystal―when it was concealed―could look like any number of different items, but he figured that he may still recognize something familiar in the way that it was designed.

This was definitely possible so early on in the game. In order to modify the shape of a recording crystal in this way, you needed to have a really high-level Crafter involved in the process. And since there were no such Crafters in the game yet―in all likelihood―the work was probably shoddy at best.

And this was the primary reason why he wasn't very nervous at the moment.

There were pros and cons to all the various types of recording crystals out there, and they could really all be summed up in terms of data capacity. A crystal can only store so much data, and on the first floor, the options were very limited in that respect. Better ones were only obtained on higher floors.

This meant that Argo would have had to make do with a pretty bad crystal with a low amount of data capacity to get the information that she wanted, and would have had to cut a lot of corners.

And due to the fact that she had clearly not told Asuna about why she wanted her to wear this necklace in the first place or what it's purpose was, the situation was clear. The crystal had been recording the whole time. Ever since Argo had given it to her. Argo was trying to record information throughout the entire duration of the raid.

And this was actually good news.

Because it meant that the device would have had to have been recording ever since the very beginning when all the players had set out to the labyrinth, several hours ago. But due to the data limit on these devices, in order to record for that long, a big sacrifice in quality was required.

So every corner that could have been cut in that respect had to have been.

There would certainly be no audio, for example, as video was way more important and there probably wouldn't be enough room for it.

It wouldn't be a 3d video either. A 2d projection would have been needed. It probably wouldn't even be in colour. It would be grainy, and there were all sorts of other techniques out there by which a player could sacrifice video quality in exchange for video length, and many such sacrifices would have been needed to record for so long.

And as these quality losses stacked up more and more, the harder it would be for Argo to figure out who he was and what had happened.

Kirito hadn't really explored this domain all that much, but with his Photography skill, he was probably going to need to in the future. He only had a surface level understanding of the topic. So there was probably a huge amount of recording crystal support tied up in that skill that he just didn't know about yet.

"What?" Asuna asked.

"The necklace. Can I see it?"

"Oh, sure."

Asuna reached up with her only remaining arm and took the necklace off her neck and handed it over to him.

Kirito examined the item.

All of a sudden, in his menu, a plethora of new information was provided to him.

His Photography skill had kicked in. Apparently, with it, he now had the ability to analyze recording devices and see what they were capable of in the same way that a weapon's specialist could see the stats on a weapon.

'Appraising' was the term that was often used. And now, he could do it with items like the one in his hand now.

This was a lucky break. The first one that he had had in a while.

For all of the bad RNG that had happened that day, this was the first instance in which luck had played in his favour.

Because he had not planned for that to happen. He hadn't even imagined that his Photography skill could be used like that. He had literally just lucked his way into acquiring a significant countermeasure against Argo. It had happened by chance. But with it, he could thwart a lot of her schemes now.

It was just more evidence to the fact that Photography―the skill he had completely written off as useless at first glance―could very well become one of his most prized assets.

He opened up his menu and navigated to his Photography page and started reading up on the new information there. Due to the fact that this new ability had manifested spontaneously because the right circumstances had been in place, just like always, this meant that his guide had updated with new information.

"What are you doing?" the girl asked.

"What does it look like?" he replied.

"It looks like you're going through your menu."

"There you go."

He continued navigating through the pages and left it at that.

…

"B-but…"

Kirito's eyebrow twitched.

"What?" he asked, slightly irritated at the girl for interrupting his reading.

"I can't see it," she said.

"You can't see what?"

"Your menu."

"What's your point?"

"When I open up my menu," she explained, "anyone can see it. Why can't I see yours?"

"Because I turned the visibility off."

"Y-you can do that?"

"I can."

"How do I do that?"

"You can't."

"Why not?"

"What skills do you have?"

"You need a skill to hide your menu?"

"Yeah."

"Shouldn't everyone be able to do that? That sounds like it should be a feature that's default for everyone. I don't like other people being able to see what I'm doing on my menu."

Kirito sighed before doing a quick cost-benefit analysis in his head.

If he quickly explained the concept, it'd probably take less time overall than having her constantly interrupting him with nosy questions. So he decided to just do it. There didn't seem to be an obvious downside and it'd only take a minute or so.

"One of the design philosophies behind the creation of this game is that teamwork is meant to be encouraged as much as possible," he began. "As a result, the developers did two things. They made skill slots extremely limited and valuable, and they put many convenient features behind skill-walls."

"So you don't have a lot of skill slots," Kirito continued, "but the game tries to force you to use as many of them as possible so that you run out of them fast. A lot of 'unlocks' are just things that should have been there for everyone at the start, and just make your life less of a hassle rather than giving you something new and useful. I guess the main idea behind it is to force all the players to work together and prevent solo players from being able to do too much on their own."

"If you want to get something done," he said, "say, building this necklace, for example, you need, like, ten different skills."

Kirito tried to tally a few of them off on his fingers, but quickly gave up.

"A Crafter, a Blacksmith… and a bunch of other intermediate skills that I can't name off the top of my head because I'm not familiar with this process in particular. The point is, no one player can do all of that because skill slots are so hard to come by, so you need a team of a bunch of different people and you all need to organize and agree with each other and plan out your skill slots together so that you can get things like this done."

"It's meant to incentivize teamwork, and penalize solo players," he summarized.

"On the other hand, though," Kirito pointed out, "it's just like you said. Because it penalizes solo players, no one player can really do very much on their own. As it turns out, there are a ton of convenient features that should really belong to everyone but that don't, not just the one you brought up. Capturing and recording game footage is another example. So is access to calculators and spreadsheet software, or hiding your menu, or hell, even in-game access to the fan-made sword art online wiki so that players can reference all of that accumulated information freely, whenever they want."

"But for better or worse, that's not how it works," he said.

"And for what it's worth, I agree with you. I think it's kind of dumb," he concluded.

Now, with her curiosity sated, maybe she'd leave him alone.

...

"What skill do you need for it? Hiding?"

'Fuck.'

Apparently, it would not be so easy to get her to shut up.

"Yes. You need Hiding."

"So if I pick it up right now I can get it?"

"You have an empty skill slot?"

"I do."

"Well, you can pick it up if you want, but you won't be able to hide your menu for a while."

"Why?"

"Because you need a pretty high level in the skill to get it."

"What level?"

"A pretty high level."

The girl narrowed her eyes at the evasive answer.

"When do you unlock it?" she asked again.

"After getting your level pretty high."

"What specific level do you unlock it at?" she pressed.

"Somewhere between level 1, and level 1000."

"That covers the whole range! Just answer the question!"

"No."

"Why?!"

"Why do you think? Because if I do, you'll be able to reverse engineer what my level is. You'll think, 'if you need level x in order to hide your menu, and this guy can hide his menu, then he must be at least level x.'"

She gaped at him.

"You are insufferably suspicious of my intentions. I just want to hide my menu!"

"Then pick up the skill and find out on your own. Or better yet, ask your good pal Argo. She'll know."

"But she'll make me pay for it!"

"So what? She charges, like, 500 cor. That's ten or twenty boars."

"No, no, you don't understand," Asuna said, righteous indignation colouring her tone. "She lets everyone else pay her money to buy information from her, but she makes a special exception for me!"

"She gives it to you for free?" he asked.

That didn't seem like a good business model.

"No!" she shouted. "The opposite! She tries to blackmail me into embarrassing myself for her entertainment instead! I would love to pay money like everyone else does but she will 'suddenly and inexplicably' spike all her prices the instant I enter the room!"

It was clear that she wanted to get this off her chest, so Kirito let her continue her rant unabated. He looked back at his menu and continued reading, listening with only half of his attention.

Because he didn't care about this girl or her problems.

"It's completely unfair!" she continued. "She claims that the economy is just wildly out of control and that there's nothing that can be done and then―get this―she tells me not to worry and that we can make 'alternative arrangements for payment'. Those are her exact words! And let me tell you, it is just as shady as it sounds!"

Kirito grinned under his mask. Argo knew exactly what she was doing. Asuna had no idea whatsoever, but she was the literal, perfect target for her. Argo must have been thrilled to meet someone like Asuna. Getting wound up like this did her no favours whatsoever.

Kirito finished reading his skill guide a few moments later and abruptly stood up.

"I'll be right back," he said, before turning and walking away.

"W-where are you going?" Asuna asked, worried.

"Don't worry about it."

"You know… If you leave me here alone the monsters in this room will see me. Your invisibility cloak is the only thing that's preventing that."

"You overestimate the visual range on these things. You could walk out from behind this pillar right into the open and those things over there wouldn't be able to tell. Well, I mean―you could if you weren't a cripple―"

"Rude!"

"―And besides I'll be back in like ten seconds. Not even."

"O-okay, well, please hurry up then."

Kirito, still invisible, climbed up the pillar and went over to grab his camera. It had been recording the whole time and he took this opportunity to finally pick it up.

Then he climbed back down and sat down next to the girl again.

He tapped on his camera and started going through the settings.

"What is that?"

"What is what?"

"That thing in your hands?"

"A rock."

"That is clearly not a rock! How dumb do you think I am?!"

"It's not about being dumb, it's that I don't care whether or not you know that I'm lying to you. You're an enemy. Why would I tell you anything?"

"For now."

"What?"

"I'm your enemy for now. Once you tell me why you stopped the raid, you'll probably become my friend."

"It's unrealistic how forgiving you are. Extremely suspicious."

"No, it's not! It's true!"

"Whatever."

"What, you don't believe me? You saved my life! That supersedes all that other stuff you did to me!"

Rather than try and convince her, or get into some sort of rational discussion, he decided to be petty and childish because it was easier.

"It 'supersedes'?" Kirito asked, mocking her word choice. "Nerd."

He knew that it was hypocritical of him to call her this, but the intent was not to be truthful but to piss the girl off.

It worked.

"S-shut up!" she shouted.

"―But it's true," she continued after a moment to collect her thoughts, not allowing herself to be derailed by his taunt. "You'll become my friend after this, just you wait."

"No, I won't."

"You will."

"Friendship is a two-way street," Kirito felt the need to point out. "While you may have warped the facts in your mind enough to convince yourself that befriending me is a good idea for you, I haven't. You have done nothing but attempt to impede my progress at every turn. Why would I become your friend?"

"Because I'm the only one that knows the truth."

"What truth?"

"That you're not actually a bad guy. Just a jerk."

Kirito cringed. He really didn't like how this girl kept trying to paint him in a positive light. It made him think about what he had done. How he had actually murdered someone in cold blood.

One thing was certain. He was definitely not a 'good guy'. And the implication otherwise was making his resentment for this girl flare up a little bit.

He grit his teeth but didn't say anything else. Instead, he just focused on his next plan.

It turned out that his camera was a hell of a lot more than just a camera. It had recently unlocked some incredible capabilities. Due to the fact that he had been recording this entire raid and all of the following battles, and because the vast majority of that stuff had been deemed 'extremely interesting' by the system, the skill had levelled up a ton and he had unlocked some new stuff.

He had a bunch of backed-up level-up notifications that he only just now skimmed through.

The first thing he noticed was the fact that his storage had increased a bit. Just like any recording crystal, his camera had a data cap on it as well. However, his was set high enough that he would not need to worry about hitting that limit any time soon. He'd be able to use the camera constantly for several more months before hitting that cap, if his math was right, and even when he did, there were ways that he could create more storage.

Just like in the real world there was a way to offload the footage onto what were, essentially, external drives. Kirito didn't know how to build them yet, but the possibility of creating them in-game was stated almost directly in the skill guide on his menu, so he would probably be able to figure it out later―long before the storage issue became relevant.

But the second capability he had unlocked was what really interested him. He could, essentially, break into other recording devices and see how they worked.

...Sort of. As with most of his abilities that sounded amazing at first glance, there were asterisks everywhere. But the ability was still really good.

Take Argo's necklace for instance―Kirito could see roughly how it had been set up and could view the footage that had been captured by it with his camera. He could even copy it all over. It took some time to do the transfer, and he needed to have the device he was breaking into right in his hands at the time, but it could be done.

As it turned out, there was this whole field of game mechanics relating to in-game data encryption that he had just stumbled into by accident with his Photography skill. You could modify recording crystals so that they were harder to break into, and you could program recording devices so that they could do different things like record after a time delay, or under certain other conditions.

It was basically this game's equivalent of hardware-designing. There was a skill in this game that he now had the option to pick up, called Crystal Design, with which he could literally make crystals from the ground up in the same way that a player could make potions.

It was a hidden skill that only unlocked after two prerequisites were achieved. You needed a maxed out Mixing skill in order to create the advanced potions needed for the creation of the crystal bases, but the other prerequisite was less well-defined.

The Photography skill was only one way with which to fulfill it. Basically, what needed to happen was your character needed to 'discover' though some method, that there was more to crystals than simply being magic stones. He had 'discovered' this by figuring out that it was possible to transfer footage between recording devices. This was enough to fulfill the second prerequisite of the skill and had caused it to show up as an option in his menu. He didn't actually have the skill active right now, but he could pick it up in the future if he wanted to, whenever he had an open skill slot.

However, there were other ways through which that discovery could have been made―and by which that second prerequisite could have been fulfilled. The Photography skill itself wasn't strictly required for it. It was just one path, and so this new skill was not technically a unique one. It was just hidden. It was probably true that he was the first player to stumble upon it, but it was definitely possible for other players to pick the skill up later if they found a way to fulfill that other prerequisite in another way.

So as it was, modifying recording crystals and doing all kinds of other fancy crystal modifications fell outside the scope of his Photography skill on its own. That was all encapsulated in the Crystal Design skill. All that he could do with his Photography skill was see how other recording devices worked, and it supported transferring footage between them.

However, this data transfer was actually not technically part of the Photography skill itself, but rather, a capability of his specific camera. He needed his camera to do this and could not do it on his own.

And this had allowed him to deduce two things. Firstly, it was possible to have the Photography skill without access to his specific camera, meaning, that this skill too was probably not unique as he had at first thought. And secondly, it was the capabilities of his camera that had fulfilled that second Crystal Design prerequisite, not the Photography skill itself.

If he had stumbled upon the Photography skill through a different means―possibly by finding a weaker, less-capable camera, one that was not capable of hacking into other devices and transferring footage―he very well might not have stumbled upon this new skill.

But as far as he could tell, this Crystal Design skill was right up his alley. It was the sort of skill that he would have picked up as a hobby if this weren't a death game.

But upon rationally considering it, given his current situation, he wondered about whether it was a good idea to pick it up in the future.

He couldn't think of a real application for it. Any crystal that he needed he could just buy. And he didn't think that he'd really need to be able to modify recording crystals.

It would also involve an absolutely massive time and financial investment. He'd literally have to set up a lab. He'd also have to hire a bunch of Crafters and Blacksmiths to create all of his equipment.

To be fair, he was probably going to have to do this anyway when he started experimenting with his Mixing skill in any real sense―as a lot of the really good potions involved much more than simply mixing ingredients together―but he would need to do so to a far greater extent if he started trying to make crystals. Some pretty high-tech equipment was involved and needed to be custom-made.

And to top it all off, he couldn't actually buy a plot of land to set everything up under the protection of a safe zone. This meant that the designs for all of his equipment would have to be extensively modified to make them modular, portable, and easy to tear down.

This was possible, in principle, to do, but designing equipment on your own took a long time.

Every production-based skill like this, whether that was Crafting, or Blacksmithing...or Crystal Design for that matter, had a built-in feature that allowed you to create designs for equipment that you needed.

A Blacksmith, for example, could sit down, open up the design interface, and make a design for a really cool forge, or something. They could make it as elaborate as they wanted to and with any capabilities allowed by the physics engine of the game. And when they were done, the finished design would be right there, sitting in their menu.

But at that moment, that's all it would be. Just a finalized design. To actually build the thing, you needed to have all the right skills.

Someone with the Woodworking skill would be needed to make any part that was made out of wood. A Blacksmith would be needed for anything made of metal. And for composite components, players with different skills would all have to come together at the same location to create the part together, at the same time. And depending on how intricate the parts were, a level prerequisite for each skill necessary in the process would be calculated by the system. So if you didn't have all those skills levelled up to that level, you couldn't make that part of the design.

There was this whole design sharing feature built into the game to deal with this―that Kirito had almost no real experience with―that allowed players to collaborate in this way. One player didn't have to do everything by themselves. You could create a design necessary for your production skill, break the design down into component parts, and trade these designs to other players with the necessary expertise that you lack, to get those parts built.

And then contracts were involved to make sure that each player actually honoured their end of the agreement and didn't just steal the designs and run with them, and that you actually ended up with the part that you needed at the end―and all of this, Kirito would need to learn how to do.

And being orange cranked the difficulty of the task way up.

The question would then naturally arise as to whether it was worth it. All throughout this time in which he was learning how to use this system and was designing his lab, he could have been grinding or picking up new skills and levelling up.

And what if he set up his lab somewhere only for it to get attacked by someone? He wouldn't have a safe zone to protect him. And simply putting the pieces inside a safe zone wasn't enough―anyone could just grab a piece of equipment and drag it out of the safe zone if they wanted to.

There was a reason why Blacksmiths and Crafters actually bought plots of land. When you were in a chunk of land that you had actually bought and paid for, you had a lot of extra permissions at your disposal. You could bolt equipment down to the ground to prevent it from being stolen, for one. And that alone was enough to make it worthwhile.

But Kirito did not know if it was possible for an orange player to buy land like this. So he'd be on his own.

And for what? The possibility that Crystal Design might actually allow for the creation of custom crystals not allowed by the base game that were phenomenally powerful? Maybe that was possible. And if it was, then yeah, it'd probably be worth it in the end, but Kirito didn't know for sure.

All in all, it was a skill that he was really interested in pursuing as a hobby but that he couldn't really justify with a cost-benefit analysis because of all the unknowns and the time investment. It would lock him down for long periods of time just figuring out what he needed to do.

Making a simple potion lab was one thing, as all the equipment needed for one had been iterated on and optimized by the playerbase during the beta. The best designs had all been on the wiki that he had regularly visited back then and he'd be able to remake any of them from memory with almost no real effort on his part.

But nobody had found the Crystal Design skill back then. So any new required equipment he would have to design himself. He would be the guy footing the bill for all the mistakes that would be made in the attempts to find the most efficient designs. Both the opportunity cost and the financial cost.

And all because crystals might be worth making.

Might.

...If he was lucky.

In the end, he had no choice but to decide to just keep the idea in the back of his mind and continue with his current plans. No matter what he chose, he still had to solo Illfang first. He needed the extra skill slots that he would get from doing that.

He had to finish winning. If he couldn't do that and gain that huge xp drop, then there was definitely no way to justify just halting all grinding for months as he jumped headfirst down this Crystal Design rabbit-hole.

Not that that was relevant or anything. Because he definitely would win and there was no doubt about it in his mind.

When the data transfer from the necklace was completed, Kirito opened up the file and started scrolling through the footage to see if there was anything incriminating on it.

As he had expected, he had to scroll almost seventy-five percent of the way through the video to even make it to the beginning of the raid.

Argo had not told Asuna about the implanted camera. If she had, and if she had instructed Asuna to only start recording upon reaching the room, all of that wasted data spent on recording grainy footage of the players just travelling to the boss room could have been cut out. All of that freed up data could have then been used to improve the quality of the rest of the video and, in particular, could have added audio to it.

That had really been the only thing that Kirito had been worried about. Argo would have been able to recognize his voice during the few times he had spoken.

But she couldn't, now. So his hunch had actually been wrong. Even with this full video at her disposal, it would not be possible to identify him as the orange player.

His identity still seemed to be safe.

Now, if it were up to Kirito, he would have done one of two things in that moment.

If he could have, he would have erased the footage collected anyways, just to be safe.

...But he could not do this as modifying a recording crystal with that sort of finesse like that required the Crystal Design skill.

It was possible to just destroy the item though, in theory.

...But only if it belonged to him. Items belonging to other players were indestructible when they were in the hands of someone else.

As an example, Kirito could not steal someone's sword and start grinding it against the wall to wreck its durability. This would do no damage to it. The sword had to be in use by its owner to degrade.

Incidentally, this meant that it was possible for all players to use weapons that never degraded if everyone just agreed to use weapons that did not belong to themselves, and if everyone handed them over to each other and didn't re-summon them back. However, this was impractical as there was no way you'd get everyone to agree to that, and because nobody would have access to sword skills even if they did.

But in any case, these same concepts applied to this necklace. Right now, it belonged to Asuna. So Kirito couldn't destroy it. And if he made an attempt to hide it or otherwise keep it away from her, at any time, she could just open up her menu and summon it back to her hands.

There were only three ways to prevent this footage from making it back to Argo's hands. Convince Asuna not to give it back to her, get her to voluntarily destroy the item, or Kirito would have to kill her. That would make him the new owner of the item, and grant him the ability to do whatever he wanted with it.

But he did not see the need to do any of these things, especially when he continued to fast forward only to find perfect footage of Asuna falling down the stairs.

It had all been recorded. And not just the first fall, either. All three times she had tumbled down that staircase had been perfectly captured.

A copy of this footage was also now on his camera.

The footage was black and white, and a bit grainy, and there was no sound, but Kirito knew exactly what would happen when it got into Argo's hands.

When Argo had dirt like this on someone, she had a ton of leverage over them. Kirito had experienced this first hand back in the beta. The ultimate revenge that Kirito could unleash now, on Asuna, after all of these new revelations, involved ensuring that this footage was seen by The Rat.

The teasing that would follow would be a sight to behold. And Kirito could finally rest easy with the knowledge that Asuna was suffering through that somewhere in the world even if he wasn't there to see it for himself.

Because of the fact that his menu was hidden, Asuna had not been able to see what he had been watching. So she still didn't know what this necklace actually was. And by simply not telling her that this was actually a recording device, she would, undoubtedly, give it back to Argo when this was all over, as she had been blackmailed into doing, sealing her fate.

Kirito briefly considered the consequences of doing this. Because the crystal was still, at that moment, continuing to record. So the fact that the necklace was currently in his hands at that moment would be picked up by Argo. It was being recorded. And so was the strange brick-shaped camera in his hands.

'But what would she be able to do with that information?' he asked himself.

Kirito wracked his brain for a few moments and tried to put himself in Argo's shoes. He imagined her, having no knowledge of anything that had transpired, sitting in a room and watching this entire video.

Kirito's face was blacked out on it, so The Rat wouldn't even be able to read his lips―a skill she was quite talented at. So she would have no knowledge about what had been talked about all throughout the battle. Furthermore, because of the fact that the necklace had been around Asunas's neck, Asuna's lips as well, were almost never seen either. So the vast majority of everything that had been discussed had not been recorded.

Kirito imagined that Argo would be extremely frustrated with the lack of information that she had received and would be kicking herself for not getting any audio. If she had anticipated the possibility of a single player intervening and stopping the raid like this, she would have definitely made other arrangements. But as she had only been planning on filming the battle with Illfang, she had probably thought it to be good enough as is.

As for Kirito's display of combat abilities, that was no secret anymore anyways. Everyone currently outside the boss room had already seen them. So even though a big chunk of his feats was missing in the video due to the fact that the camera was in a state of falling down a staircase with such unprecedented frequency, the secret about what he could do was already out.

But letting this video get back to Argo definitely would have some consequences, he was sure.

There were an uncomfortable number of hints about who he was, out there, and Argo would be able to use them in order to rapidly narrow down the pool of potential players that his hooded persona actually was.

The first of which was the fact that the 'Hooded Demon'―the moniker that had been given to the player that had saved that group of players from an exploding fruit that one time near Horunka Village―would almost certainly be linked to the player that had stopped the boss raid from succeeding.

All that would need to happen to make this connection is if any of those players he had saved back then saw this video for themselves. They would immediately recognize the fighting style in what they were watching and would be able to tell with a pretty high level of confidence that they were the same guy.

To be fair, though, this would probably take some time to happen. Argo would have to first think of the idea of showing this video to those players first. Or she would have to publicly release the video to everyone so that they would. But this wasn't a common strategy of hers. She tended to prefer keeping all of her evidence as secret as possible from everyone except for her inner circle.

So there actually was a slim chance that the Hooded Demon would not be linked to the player that had stopped the raid after all, but it was unlikely. It really all depended on what Argo decided to do with her recording.

It was probably best, in his opinion, to proceed as if she would make this connection, though. At least at some point.

So those two players would be linked. It would be determined that the Hooded Demon was the orange player that stopped the raid. If that was deduced, where could Argo go from there?

Well, Kirito had heard the rumours circulating around about his merchant persona―the one that he donned whenever he was dealing with Agil and Timely, and back when he had been running his 'shop'.

It was assumed by a large percentage of the playerbase that those two players were linked as well. That there was some sort of connection between the Hooded Demon, and that mysterious merchant. Some had made the additional leap that they may actually be the same person, but most accepted the fact that they were not, and were just part of the same guild or were perhaps just friends or business partners.

It was rare to find a player that was both a really well-known merchant, as well as a really good combatant. Everyone tended to be too specialized to be really good in multiple different areas like that. So it was seen as much more likely that these two personas of his were different people.

There was a lot of speculation around that topic since Kirito had made such a big impact on the economy of the game. But he had been careful to not give away any details about who he was, and with a lack of information like this, there were only rumours. The public was completely in the dark about the nature of that connection, but it was still widely accepted that there was a connection of some sort there. And so Kirito's merchant persona would inevitably be connected to all of this as well.

So there would be a web of connections constructed between those three players. The merchant, the Hooded Demon, and the guy that stopped the raid. Argo―and really anyone that put in a similar amount of investigative work―would be able to reason themselves up to that point without much trouble.

But as far as he could tell, there wasn't a way to confirm, with certainty, that all three of these players were actually the same. There would be some suspicions, but nothing concrete.

But there was one consequence of all of this that Kirito really didn't like having to face but that he realized was probably necessary.

Because of the fact that his merchant persona was going to be implicated in all of this once Agil and Timely learned about all of these developments, Kirito probably would not be able to continue working with them.

They would be uncomfortable, to say the least, about aiding a criminal that had made themselves the enemy of all the rest of the players.

So Kirito was probably going to have to give all of that up.

This was… annoying, as it would force him to have to re-do all of his work in setting up another contact to trade with, but he was prepared to make that sacrifice. If it meant that he could solo Illfang, it was worth the price.

The xp drop was just too huge to ignore.

But this wasn't the only consequence that would happen. There were more.

Argo would be able to whittle down the possible choices of who the player that stopped the raid might be.

It would be known that he was male. Most players were, but it would be confirmed by Diabel and Asuna, both of whom had heard his voice directly.

It would also be known that he was almost certainly a beta tester. Nobody else would have the skills necessary to battle the entire raid party on their own.

And this is where the high casualty rate of the beta testers would come back to bite him. The majority of that group of players were now dead―having fallen into various beta-targeting traps that had been set up deliberately to punish their prior knowledge. The differences between the different versions of the game had killed a ton of people. Way more than a lot of people realized.

Argo herself had been a beta tester, so she knew a lot of them―both living and dead. She would know which names on the monument of life were beta testers and by crossing all the dead ones off her list of 'possible identities for the orange player' the list would be dropped to only a few hundred names.

Something like half of those remaining ones would be able to be immediately crossed out, though, due to the fact that the skillset of the remaining beta testers was so heavily skewed.

The vast majority of the beta testers that had been killed already had been players who were essentially trying to speedrun the start of the game. They had run off on their own on the first day with a plan in their mind to use their prior knowledge to get good gear. However, only the combat-oriented players had done this, so only those sorts of players had been wiped out. And this left the Crafters, the Blacksmiths, and all the other non-combat beta testers alive, and they now made up the vast majority of the survivors.

There just weren't very many combat-oriented beta testers around anymore.

Yet, one of them had to be the orange player that stopped the raid. Argo would be able to cross out all other players from her list of possibilities.

Essentially, the only viable possibilities were the former elite players. The best of the best. And there were only about twenty players in that group―these being the ones that were really well known as being exceptional combatants.

Kirito was among them.

And if she were to combine all the evidence that she had collected so far, including the fact that Kirito had vanished off her radar, muted her, and essentially vanished from her sight, pieces would start clicking if they hadn't already.

She wouldn't have confirmation, but after seeing this video of hers, and hearing about the story of the orange player that had stopped the raid, she would probably at least suspect the possibility that Kirito was that orange player.

That idea would run through her head at least once, at some point. Whether she took it seriously or not was another matter.

It made too much sense. They had been pretty close, after all. Argo had to know that something extreme must have happened to make him go no-contact with her. And the fact that he had become orange would just make too much sense for her to not at least consider the idea.

She wouldn't be able to deduce why he was orange, though. Just that he was. And only during the time that this video was being recorded. Just like Diabel had mentioned earlier, she probably wouldn't know that he had been orange before the raid. She'd probably just assume, just like the blue-haired player had, that he had become orange only when he had first attacked Diabel and would revert back afterwards.

Unless...

If it turned out that his old suspicion, the theory that his name might already be on the monument of life―labelled as the killer of that Crasher―and that Argo had already gone through that whole list, then she might already know.

After considering all of this, Kirito really didn't like how easy it was to make all of these connections. He had been so careful but it hadn't mattered. All of these tiny little details just added up neatly to form a frighteningly accurate picture.

The list of items he had bought off of Timely was yet another example of this. If Timely ever told Argo about them―if he gave her that list―then this would create even more evidence of the connection between his merchant persona and the orange player that stopped the raid because a player as shrewd as Argo would be able to scrutinize this footage and identify those same items being used by him, in it. And that strongly implied that the merchant had supplied the weapons and equipment used for the operation.

Once the players all started collaborating and sharing information and theories about who the orange player was, it was almost certainly the case that the name Kirito would be directly implicated.

He had been wrong before. Now that he had put some more thought into it, he realized that his identity wasn't so safe after all.

There was so much evidence out there now that Argo might not even be the first player to put all the pieces together. There were many players out there who had publicly wondered about just where Kirito was. He had been pretty well-known by a lot of people.

Kirito is the orange player.

Someone would almost certainly come to that conclusion. And they wouldn't even need Argo's video to do it either. Just the stories from the players outside mixed with the widespread collaboration and sharing of information from everyone else would be enough to do it.

It would make no difference destroying this footage, even if he could, he realized.

The name Kirito would almost certainly go down in infamy with or without it.

But… there was still that final wall that there was no way to climb over yet. There was absolutely no way to make the jump from Kirito to Kazuto Kirigaya. He hadn't even told Argo his real name before. So it would not be able to be traced back to him by another player.

The best someone could do is get a recording of his voice. But lots of people sound the same, and nobody would have the idea to run around after the SAO incident was over to collect voice samples from all of the survivors to try and piece together who the orange player might have been.

That would be ridiculous and unethical.

But… now that he thought about it, he began to wonder about what would happen if someone actually did do that.

AI systems could do crazy things with voice and facial recognition, after all.

As these doubts started to creep back into his mind, he forcefully halted himself.

...Because that was the old Kirito that worried and planned around what would happen if he lost.

But there was no 'if' anymore.

'I don't lose.'

All of these details that added up to form a picture of who the orange player is were a result of things not going according to his plans. He had set goals for himself back then―various ways to hide his identity―and had failed to achieve them. He had lost. Plenty of times, too. The past version of Kirito lost a lot of times without ever realizing. And now Argo would be able to reason her way all the way up to his username.

But he was still in the game. As long as his real-life identity was not known by anyone, then nothing else mattered.

And it wasn't known. It couldn't be.

So he could still win.

He would.

And when he thought about it that way, everything suddenly made sense.

In order to win, it had to be impossible to lose. And that made the solution to the problem obvious. So in order to prevent his identity from being traced back to him, he had to become someone else.

'This is the final conversation I will have in this game using the voice of Kazuto Kirigaya.'

He wasn't a voice actor, but he'd learn. He'd completely change the way his natural voice sounded and become a new person.

He'd throw out his identity and make a new one.

He'd dye his hair, change his hairstyle, and put on a real mask―not his Hiding ability, but a real, physical mask to prevent anyone from seeing his face if his Mask ability ever deactivated. With how close he had come to that already happening just a few minutes ago when all of those Searching players had teamed up on him, this was a cause for concern, now. Especially because of the fact that he already had the Hiding skill maxed out.

He could not make it any more powerful than it already was. But the other players could definitely still improve their Searching abilities. And this meant that in the long run, it would be harder and harder for him to continue Hiding from large groups of people. There would come a day in which he would not be able to Hide anything except for maybe one or two things about himself. He could probably keep his name hidden forever―by putting all of his Global Hide Rate into it and keeping all of his other abilities permanently disabled―but then he would not be able to rely on that skill to hide the rest of his appearance in those brief instants of time when dozens of players all activated Search on him, together.

So he needed to look into other methods for protecting himself.

He'd even look into ways of changing the structure of his face. He didn't know if there actually were any ways to do that inside the game, but he'd look into it. And if he could, he certainly would.

Then whenever he got around to waking up in the real world once the game was clear, he'd keep the ruse going. He'd keep his new voice in anticipation of being secretly recorded.

His sister would probably be confused for a while, but he'd probably be able to play it off as his voice having changed due to not having used it for so long due to being in a coma, and because of puberty kicking in, or something.

Then maybe, after months back home, he'd finally be safe to be himself again.

As it was, only Asuna and Diabel had heard his real voice. But Kirito could get around this now. If he deliberately let slip the idea that he could freely change his appearance and voice to throw off the people hunting him down, then he would be able to play his real, natural voice and appearance off as if they were actually the fake ones.

Even if his real voice had somehow been recorded through some means, he could just make it look like it was actually fake by adopting a different voice by the time he next spoke to another player and if he pretended as if that fake voice was actually real.

He could invalidate any incriminating evidence against him by doing this.

He needed to learn how to completely change his voice at will. And because of the fact that doing this was the only way to win, he knew that he would succeed in the end. It was inevitable.

It'd actually be relatively easy.

With his camera, he could record his own voice and play it back to himself while he was practicing to see how he sounded until he perfected his new identity. And when he was done creating one, he'd make another. And another.

And he'd keep making more until he had absolute control over his own voice to make it utterly impossible for anyone to identify him through that means. And he would do the same thing for his appearance.

If Argo was looking for Kirito then he'd make damn sure that there was no Kirito for her to find. Kirito would just be an identity that he adopted on occasion. Since Kirito's face had not been revealed to anyone yet, he could retroactively change it.

'Kirito' could actually be a blonde-haired, blue-eyed fourteen-year-old with Kazuto Kirigaya's natural voice and nobody would notice the problem. Nobody knew yet that Kirito actually had black hair so he could pretend otherwise and nobody would be able to call him out on it.

All videos of Kirito in action from the beta used his old avatar from before the switch. And that didn't necessarily correlate to his real appearance.

So in order to protect his identity, he had to throw it away. Argo was simply too smart for Kirito to be able to safely assume that she wouldn't eventually track him down. The past version of Kirito had given away too many clues for her to pick up on.

Drastic measures like this needed to be taken.

Kirito concluded with the thought that there was no significant risk to him by allowing the footage on this necklace to be distributed however Argo saw fit.

If Argo figured everything out, then he'd just redouble his efforts into never seeing her again. He didn't care all that much if the name Kirito went down in infamy. The only thing that mattered was if someone managed to tie that name to Kazuto Kirigaya. That was where any real-life consequences could show themselves.

But he had been incredibly diligent about separating his online and private lives. So he was still safe.

But allowing this necklace to land back in Argo's hands would definitely frustrate the hell out of Asuna when it came to light that that's what had happened, and that was a win in his book.

So he would allow it.

"Alright, that's all I wanted to know," Kirito said after he was done with it. "You can have this back now."

"W-what did you do with it?"

"I was just admiring the craftsmanship."

"Why can't you just be truthful for a change?"

"Because there's a quota on it. I can either tell you the truth about this, or I can tell you the truth about why I stopped the raid. I can't do both. It's just too exhausting. No one can be expected to do something arduous like that."

"Telling the truth about two things is arduous for you?! Lying is harder! How is it that you can so consistently manage to piss me off with only a handful of words?!"

"Because you make it too easy."

Asuna sighed.

"Argo tells me the same thing all the time. I hope you two never meet."

'So do I.'

"Anyway, do you want to hear the story or not?" Kirito asked.

"Of course I do!"

"Okay then. Pay attention, because I'm only going to tell you this once."

The story that Kirito intended to tell her was going to have a ton of manipulated facts in it. And a ton of lies. He had a specific objective that he was trying to achieve by telling it and being honest was not required in order to win.

So the whole story was going to be based around one true thing that had happened, and almost everything else would be a lie. But the girl wouldn't be able to prove that this was the case, so if everything went well, all the lies he was about to tell her would go unnoticed until long after he had successfully carried out his plan.

"This isn't the first time I've been in this room," Kirito began. "I've actually been here a few times over the past few days."

"That day we first met, I was actually heading here to do some recon," he explained.

"What for?" Asuna asked.

"I work as a scout for a pretty secretive party of players. The details behind them aren't really important, but basically, it was my job to come here into this room to see if there was anything off about the boss."

"I don't know if you know about this or not," he continued, "but there have been a lot of differences found between this version of the game and the beta test. So I came here that day we met to see if there was anything of the sort in this room. I was supposed to come inside this room, wake Illfang, and sort of... probe him. See if any of his attack cycles were different or anything like that. It wasn't really a battle, just a test."

"Why didn't I hear about this?" Asuna asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Back at the boss meeting," she explained, "nobody mentioned anything about scoping out the boss beforehand. In fact, I don't think anybody there even did that. We just went off the information given to us from the beta testers."

"None of us were at the meeting," Kirito answered.

"Why not? If we had had you in this battle, Illfang would have been defeated with ease. With you, me, Diabel, and everyone else… it would have been so easy."

"We weren't there because, to my surprise, I actually did find something off about Illfang," Kirito explained.

"What was it?"

"That's the thing. I don't know. During my test battle with him that day he did something that should have been impossible. For just a moment, I turned away from him. I was being attacked from behind by a couple of the minions and didn't see any danger in doing so as Illfang was on the complete opposite side of the room at the time."

"There was no way Illfang could have taken advantage of it since I only turned away for a second," he recounted. "Yet, in that single instant, somehow, he did something. I don't know what, or how, but he hit me from the opposite side of the room. The impact of this ranged attack, or whatever the hell it was, was so incredible, that he nearly one-shot me with it."

"Are you serious?" she asked, astonished.

"Yeah. If I had delayed pulling out my teleport crystal for even a tenth of a second longer than I had, I'd be dead right now. As it was, I barely escaped. And the fact that I did was entirely due to luck. When I appeared in the Town Of Beginnings, I had 3 HP left. True story."

Kirito figured that adding as much truth to the series of lies as possible would give it more credibility.

"You came that close to dying? But Illfang didn't do anything like that against us!"

"You're right, he didn't. And that's why I stopped the raid."

"You mean that you…"

"Back when this happened, that party of players and I began an investigation, and over the next day or so, we came back to this room time and time again trying to recreate whatever the boss had done at that moment."

"But no matter what we tried… nothing. It was as if it had never happened at all."

"Why didn't you warn anyone about this at the boss meeting?"

"Because nobody would have believed me."

"What do you mean?"

"It makes sense, doesn't it? I'm some mysterious hooded player that refuses to tell anyone so much as his name. If I told everyone that the seemingly super easy to defeat first floor boss about this ultimate, secret, mysterious attack, they'd just laugh it off. I don't even know, exactly, what happened myself. Was it even an attack? Was it some sort of glitch? I don't understand any of the details, so I have no credibility."

"Well, you've certainly got credibility now!" Asuna shouted.

Kirito blinked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing says 'heed my warning' quite like defeating the entire raid group of players you're trying to convince, single-handedly! People are definitely going to listen to whatever you have to say now!"

"Yeah, well, nobody knew anything about me back then, so nobody had any reason to believe me. I wasn't going to waste my time trying to convince people when I had no evidence and when there were much better things to do at the time. People have to see these sorts of things for themselves in order to believe them, so that was the decision I made."

"I let the raid happen," Kirito said, "fully convinced that Illfang would do whatever he did back then, once more. But I was not so irresponsible as to do so without taking any precautions. I actually entered this room about an hour before you guys did. I was lying in wait the whole time in order to prepare to intervene whenever it looked like Illfang was going to do whatever he did again. I watched the whole battle, ready to jump in if things went south on you."

"But then… Illfang never did it," he explained. "You guys got him all the way down to about one percent of his HP and not once did he even try."

"So I made the decision. One I still stand by. I will not let Illfang die until I figure out what happened."

"B-but why? If he has this secret, dangerous attack, why wouldn't you want him to die as quickly as possible?"

"Because then nobody would ever know about it. If Illfang can have a secret attack like this, then so can the floor bosses on the higher floors. The players need to know that the floor bosses are significantly harder than what they look like. That they are different from the beta. But they can't just be told about it. They have to be shown. The bosses can hide things deliberately, just like people can, and are far more intelligent than they act. It's better to learn that here on the first floor with such an easy to defeat floor boss than to be blindsided by it later."

"So you mean to tell me that once you figure this all out, you'll let us kill the boss?"

"Of course."

"Thank God."

Asuna smiled and let out a massive sigh of relief.

Kirito raised an eyebrow.

"What's up with you?"

"I thought that you were trying to prevent us from completing the game. Having someone like you as an enemy long-term would have set us so far back… you don't even know. You're terrifying to fight against do you know that? But you've actually been on our side this whole time, haven't you? You never betrayed me at all."

"So… wait. You believe me?"

"Of course!"

"Why?"

Kirito had had a whole slew of false explanations and excuses ready to go to convince her that he was telling the truth when she inevitably started poking holes in his story. But none of them, apparently, were necessary.

"Because you wouldn't lie to me."

"I lie to you all the time. You've even pointed it out a few times when it happened."

"Not about important things like this you don't."

"So you just… believe all of that just because I said so?"

"Yes."

"One day, your complete willingness to trust total strangers implicitly is going to get you killed. You must have scared the hell out of your parents when you were younger when you―undoubtedly―blindly followed every last stranger in the street that said he had candy in his van that he wanted to share with you."

"Hey! I'm trying to be nice! Do you want me to believe you or not?!"

"I don't care if you believe me or not. It doesn't matter. I understand why people don't. I need corroborating evidence to back up my story."

"Well, that's just perfect then. I'll do that for you."

"No, my recording crystal will do that for me. I didn't have one on me back then, which was a dumb mistake in hindsight. But I do now. I'll get a video of Illfang doing his attack this time and release it to everyone. You need to teleport out of the room now."

"Why?"

"Because the best way to get Illfang to do his attack is to recreate the situation exactly as it happened. I was alone at the time, so I need to be alone again."

This was his plan A in getting her to leave. Give her a reasonable explanation about why it's a good idea for her to leave the room of her own volition.

None of what he had revealed mattered whether or not it got out. If the story spread, the worst thing that would happen is that the rest of the players would be more careful when fighting future bosses. And there was nothing bad about that.

"That's why you wanted everyone out of the room and locked yourself inside?"

"Yes."

"So you want me to leave then?"

"Yeah."

...

"Well...sorry, I'm still not going to do that. I want to see the attack too."

'You might just be the most frustrating person that I've ever had to deal with,' Kirito thought to himself.

"He won't do it until you leave, though," Kirito explained, trying to salvage the situation.

"Are you totally sure about that?" the girl asked.

"Pretty sure."

"But not one-hundred percent, totally sure?"

After hearing the stubbornness lacing the tone of her voice as the girl asked him that question, Kirito knew that he was going to have to resort to plan B. His easy method to convince her to leave the room of her own choice had failed, but he still had several backups. Some of which were going to be tricky to pull off and would depend on whether or not he was able to get Illfang to perform the swat again.

And he'd have to let her stick around for a bit as well.

"Fine then. If you want to stick around then don't get in the way."

"What are you talking about?" Asuna asked. "Once I get my limbs back I'm going to help you."

"I'm not going to let you kill the boss."

"I know. And I promise not to. Once we get Illfang to do his thing, we'll both teleport out. Then we'll reschedule the raid and have you lead it."

She made this suggestion as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm not leading shit."

"I'd rather follow you than Diabel."

"You really don't like that guy, huh?"

"He's just… annoying, sometimes. He gets―"

"Yeah, yeah, you've explained it all already. He gets in the way all the time, and is as slippery― and as blue―as Dish Soap. Who could forget?"

"You were listening? That makes me happy."

"You were shouting pretty loudly at the time. Everyone could hear."

"O-oh."

Asuna blushed in embarrassment.

"He's bubbly too," she added, after a moment of thought.

"I don't know what that means."

"He acts super nice to everyone all the time."

"So you hate how friendly he is?"

"No, I love friendly people. I hate the fact that he tries so hard to look like a hero. It's like he tries to be famous and is overly dramatic but it doesn't feel genuine. Just… be normal. Real heroes don't have to try to act like heroes. Everyone just knows that they are."

"He rallies the troops though. If that's what the other players like to see in a leader then it's fine by me."

"Yeah, yeah, it's fine, and I'm probably being nitpicky because I'm still holding a bit of a grudge against him but it doesn't matter. You're way better."

"I'm not a leader."

"You should be."

"I just kicked the collective asses of the entire raid group. Nobody would follow me."

"Everybody would follow you for exactly that reason! You would run the tightest ship ever and nobody would dare to challenge your authority! You crushed Diabel and all the players he led by yourself! There are going to be a lot of doubts in the future about whether or not Diabel should remain in charge of everything when there is so obviously a better option to choose."

"I'm still not going to do it."

"Would you think about it if I asked nicely?"

"That would have the opposite effect actually."

"So… you'd be more likely to refuse my request because it's me that's asking? And because I'm being polite about it?"

"Yeah."

"Haven't we passed this already?" she asked in frustration. "We aren't enemies anymore! You don't have to be such a jerk to me now! I'm on your side!"

"That remains to be seen."

"Fine! I'll show you with my actions instead! At the very least, will you promise to take part in the next raid after we finish up here and reschedule it, even if you don't lead it?"

"Fine, whatever."

This technically was the truth, actually. Only, contrary to her expectations, the next raid would be him soloing the boss. Not all the other players ganging up on it like she was imagining. So he technically would be taking part in the next raid after it was rescheduled.

"Good! I'll hold you to it."

"Fine. Do whatever you want, then."

Their conversation died down again after that for some time. In order for Kirito's plan to work, Asuna needed to be on her feet, so he had no choice but to wait for her to recover before he could begin trying to figure out what Illfang had done back then.

The Swat. It was about time for him to finally figure out what that was, and how it worked. He'd have an unfortunate tagalong during that time, but he'd ditch her by the end. His first backup plan in getting rid of her was already in motion and was going perfectly so far.

…

"So, uh, how long does it take to regrow a limb?" Asuna suddenly broke the silence with a question.

"It'd be instantaneous if you teleported right now."

He figured it was worth a shot.

"I'm sure it would. But I'm not going to do that, so…"

"It's complicated," Kirito explained. "It depends on your HP, and on whether you move around a lot. If you sit perfectly still and get your HP back up to max, it takes something like thirty minutes."

"That's a really long time."

"It is. There is a reason why forearm guards and shin guards exist. Speaking of which, I imagine that they are going to spike in price pretty soon. So if you want to make a lot of money, you could teleport and start buying them up now before the rest of the players do and before the price spikes due to the increased demand."

She couldn't help but laugh.

"You think the price will spike because of what you did?"

"I guarantee it. People are dumb like that."

"This game is crazy. You just mangled forty players and left them in a pile outside, and the only long-term consequence that is going to happen is that there is going to be a measurable increase in the price and demand of forearm and shin guards. Have I got that right?"

"Yeah. In fact, many of those players outside are probably more concerned about losing out on this opportunity to make money than on not having any limbs. Since they can't move, you should go now before the opportunity passes you by."

"How do you expect me to do that? I can't move, either."

"Teleport to the Town of Beginnings. It'll instantly regenerate your limbs."

"And why aren't the players outside doing that?"

"Because unlike them, I left you with an arm. If you don't have limbs, you can't access your menu or teleport. Teleport crystals are also still extremely rare. Almost nobody has them yet."

"This sounds like a long-winded excuse to try and shoe-horn me out of the room. Why can't you just be more direct about it?"

"Get the hell out of this room right now, bitch, or I'll fucking snap your neck. How's that?"

Anonymity was a hell of a thing. There was no way he'd ever be able to say something like that to someone's face in real life. Even saying it behind his identity protections would have ordinarily been impossible. But after all that had happened so far, and after the change he had undergone, he found that it was remarkably easy to just say whatever he wanted to now.

"...I have suddenly come to realize that I prefer the other way a little more," Asuna claimed, remarkably composed even though she was terrified at the sudden, drastic change in the tone of his voice. "Forget what I said, please."

It seemed that she had forgotten the fact that he was still extremely hostile towards her.

"I figured you might. So what do you think? There's an opportunity to make a lot of money here if you go now."

"I turned down a million cor from you, earlier, remember? Paying me off isn't going to work. But there is one thing I've been meaning to ask, how were you able to do all of that? Is it really that easy to remove a limb from a player?"

"Not really. I happen to be a bit of a special case. My level is much higher than everyone else's and that difference is magnified at early levels."

"What do you mean?"

Kirito turned and looked at her, wondering, for a few moments, whether or not it was worth the effort to explain the concept to her. Eventually, he decided to do it because there wasn't really a reason not to. Giving her some information might even boost her survivability which could, in turn, boost his own in the long run. The more skilled players there were, the better his odds of getting out of the game.

Well, he knew that he was getting out alive eventually, even if he was the last player left at the end. But he'd get out quicker if there were a lot of skilled players out there who were all working together and helping him.

"Okay, here's my go-to example when explaining this, the number three is one and a half times larger than the number two, right?"

"Yeah."

"That's a fifty percent increase. So a level three is about fifty percent stronger than a level two. Make sense?"

She nodded.

"The number fifty, on the other hand, is only something like one point zero two times bigger than the number forty-nine. This is only a two percent increase. So, a level fifty is only about two percent stronger than a level forty-nine, which is hardly noticeable."

"The percentage increase," he continued, "is what matters most when it comes to strength increase from level to level. Not the absolute magnitude of the difference."

This wasn't exactly right. The actual level-up system was much more complicated than that, but this analogy explained the general idea.

"In both cases, there is only a single level-up happening. But the percentage increase is wildly different. This means that levelling up in the early game is intrinsically more valuable than levelling up later on. Each level is worth more earlier on because the numbers are small. Make sense?"

"I see."

"It's something that won't hold true for very long. Once everyone gets their levels up a bit, even if I stay ahead in terms of actual numbers, the strength gap will be reduced."

Kirito would have to maintain the same percentage gap between him and everyone else if he wanted to maintain his clear position of superiority, and the only way to do that was to gain a ridiculous number of levels. To even keep the same strength difference he had now, he'd actually have to widen the level gap over time. Something that could only be realistically achieved by soloing floor bosses.

But this was unsustainable in the long run. He knew that, eventually, the players would catch up to him. But by the time that happened, he expected to have developed new capabilities for battling large groups of players that were dependent on having better equipment, abilities, and perhaps even new allocated skills, rather than having a massive gap between their stats and levels alone.

There were many ways to become stronger that did not involve levelling up that he had not fully explored yet.

But this was something that he did not intend to tell her.

"That actually makes a lot of sense," she replied. "So you won't be able to cut everyone's limbs off like that nearly as easily in the future."

It was hardly a secret that avatars got more durable as levels increased, and that durability tended to increase much faster than a player's strength did. So his rapid removal of everyone's limbs probably would not be able to be done again at scale so easily. It could still be done, but he'd have to be much more precise in his attacks and it would not be as easy as cutting through butter like it was now.

"Exactly. Even a month from now it'll be noticeably harder to do that. To win a fight without killing anyone then, would require more advanced tactics than wide-spread dismembering."

"What sorts of other tactics?"

"Like the sort you can read all about in Argo's book."

Kirito definitely wasn't about to start giving away any of his future plans to this girl so she can run around and spew them all off to her friends.

"But I want to hear about them from you..." she almost whined.

"And I want you to leave the room."

"Fine, fine, I'll stop asking. But if you ask me, you're way too secretive about all of this stuff. If you had just explained everything to Diabel and I earlier on, we both probably would have helped you out."

"And how could I have done that? It took me, like, five minutes to explain all the relevant information to you. Back then, we were right in the middle of a boss battle at the time and I had just stopped you from landing the killing blow on it. Neither of you were in the mood to talk."

"I would have listened."

The truth was, though, that Kirito had not anticipated the possibility that this girl was so unbelievably naive and gullible that she'd believe everything he said without question, instantly. If he had known that, he probably could have gotten her to believe him and the battle probably would have been unnecessary after all.

But because he had assumed that she was a normal person―with a healthy amount of skepticism―assuming that she would not believe him had been the best assumption to make at the time.

To be fair, it would have been a tricky conversation to have anyway with all the minions around.

Hindsight was 20-20.

"Even so, it doesn't matter. I thought that the method I used would be easier at the time. Kicking the crap out of you and scaring you all out of the room, that is. Because I didn't think for a moment that anyone would be dumb enough to believe whatever I said implicitly and without proof. So, it was only a mistake in hindsight."

"It's not dumb taking people at their word."

"It can be."

"Anything can be, but it wasn't in this case."

"Look, I don't feel like getting into an argument about it, so we'll just agree to disagree, okay?"

"Well, that isn't good enough!"

"Oh, for the love of... I'm going to take your jaw off next, Stumpy."

The girl's eyes widened in alarm.

"C-can you actually do that?"

"I'm about to try if you don't shut the hell up with the nagging."

"Fine, then. Jerk."

She pouted.

"...You also promised you wouldn't call me that anymore."

"I lied."

AN: Have a Nice Day!

Improvements:

Slimicee, Myrek, Black Silverclaw, _Sigravig_, Keepie, Infinity104, Sean Wales,