72 Chapter 72: True Self

"What the fuck is with your luck..."

The very first thing that Vassago spoke out is the ridiculousness of his luck.

"What's there with my luck?"

"You... There's more than a dozen traps that would spawn different mobs instantaneously, yet you didn't step in any of them!"

In the entire 250 meter corridor, more than a hundred traps are present. Shiro only triggered less than ten of them, which speak volumes of his insane luck.

After all, Vassago planned everything up until this point. He would definitely make it hard for Shiro to win with the advantages that he placed upon himself.

The spawn traps are only the beginning of it. There's also the boulder trap that would appear from a wall, death arrow trap where every single arrows would be sent from the walls up to the ceiling, and even a pitfall trap that has spikes in the end of it.

Vassago never cleared this corridor of traps and went on a detour instead since he planned to use this place all along.

After kicking his weapon away, Shiro signaled Kuroneko to come over. Unsurprisingly, she managed to dodge every single trap with her <<Trap Dismantling>. skill.

Not only can it detect traps, it could also allow a player to dismantle them. Every time they do so, they can some materials out of it.

Tap-! Tap-!

A minute later, she managed to cross the corridor with ease.

"You can leave me with them now."

"I've already made my decision, Shiro." Complex emotions flashed in her eyes for a brief moment. "I'll stay."

"Are you sure about that?"

Shiro replied with his normal tone, but he felt faint fear upon hearing this. What he is about to do isn't something that a normal people can watch. He believed in Kuroneko not becoming distant with him, yet here he is with the seed of doubt planted inside his mind.

'So this is how she feels...' He thought.

She belongs to the first few friends that he had ever since he woke up from that amnesia, thus he really hopes that it wouldn't happen. Other than that, he felt some kind of deja vu as if he'd already experienced something like this in his past.

"If I can't even bear to accept your true self, how can I find the confidence for my friends to accept mine?"

"Ah."

Hearing this, he could only smile genuinely.

To her, she doesn't want to do something unpleasant that she knows. Not only does she want this to not happen to her, she also doesn't want to do it to others whom she consider to be her friends.

She accepted Kyousuke and Kirino's relationship even though this is not accepted in the society. To add on, she even helped them hide it!

That's just how she is, a distant person as a stranger, yet she is always willing to help her friends. Since she didn't have such relationships before, she learned how to value them once she have them now.

Without them, she wouldn't be able to develop herself forward, all the whilst choosing her own ways to distance herself from others as she finds it troublesome. She would've been an outcast as a result of it.

"Paralyzing daggers, please."

Taking out two of them, she passed it onto Shiro. Then, the latter stabbed one of them each in their right arm.

Psssk-!

Psssk-!

The sound of flesh being stabbed resounded, yet the two never felt any pain; only strangeness.

"Heh. Are you planning to torture us?" Vassago said with a mocking tone.

He's someone who isn't afraid to die, thus this wouldn't really have an effect on him. Moreover, the only reason why they torture players is to feed on their despair, not to cause pain (since there's no pain in SAO).

If they don't despair, then this wouldn't have an effect.

However, the remaining player, Morte, wasn't like that.

"Fuck..! You crazy fuckers!"

""Thanks."" Both of them said in a monotone voice.

"Fuck!"

Suddenly, Shiro decided to take his mask off.

"That's how you look like..."

"Shit... I guess it isn't a bad deal to get killed by a beautiful psychopath." Morte resigned to his fate as he saw his face and got affected by his max-level charm.

"If this is real life..." Vassago muttered while in a daze.

"What?"

"I would've done you in."

In an instant, something snapped inside Shiro as his face blackened. His dull eyes, which showed his anger, stared straight at his eyes. This made him snap back to reality.

Turns out, he's actually the biggest trap here.

Meanwhile, Kuroneko is laughing so hard in the sidelines that she momentarily forgot about the serious atmosphere.

"Pfftt..! Ahahahahaha!" Tears started coming out from her eyes while she held her stomach. "I can't..! My stomach..!"

When she plopped down to the ground, she hammered her hands in it in an attempt to stop her laughter.

"I'm a man." Shiro spoke with a deadpan voice.

Vassago's expression crumbled for a moment before using this to his advantage. He replied, "I don't care."

"Pffftt! What the hell!"

Kuroneko laughed out loud again until a couple of minutes had passed. Wiping the tears on her eyes, she spoke.

"This... This is always the best moment whenever you take off your mask. We either see their faces after knowing your true gender or cases like this..!"

To be fair, this scene looked comical, with Shiro having deadpan face and eyes while Vassago shrugs it off with a smile. Clearly, this is something that you can only see in an anime!

"I hate being treated like this, so..." Shiro took out two strange looking potions from his inventory. The liquid are golden in color, making it so that its effects are hard to guess. "I'll make you experience hell so bad that you'll cry for your Papa Goetia."

Strangely, his intuitions gave out a big red flags when he looked at it, causing his expression to turn in for the worse.

'I'm not afraid of death, but that scares me?' He thought as he struggled not to drink it, yet to no avail.

Once the two of them drank it, they felt an unfamiliar sensation that they haven't felt for quite a long time...

Pain.

"Argh..!"

"Kuk..!"

While Morte wished to roll on the ground, Vassago wore a shocked expression upon feeling this. His years of torture practice went into use, making him unfazed with pain like this.

"This... This..!"

"Haha, that's right." Shiro began explaining with a monotone voice. "This is a potion that will bring back 100% of your senses in real life. No inhibitors, no limiters. Meaning, you'll feel shit here just like in real life."

They couldn't let out a word after hearing this.

Meanwhile, Kuroneko's expression turned deadly serious once she saw this - no traces of previous laughter can be seen in her.

"Now, shall we begin..?"

*****

A/N: Sh*t went from 0 to 100 real quick. Here's the double chapter and double fun facts~!

Fat #29: Divine Arts is vastly different from Originum Arts. In the latter, everything is up onto you (From knowledge to control) while the former relies on a 'god' to borrow their powers from. In a sense, it's similar to Thaumaturgical Foundations/Magic Crests in Fate where they simply choose spells from it.