Chapter 69 (Nice) - Devastation

Aincrad, 6th floor, City of Stachion. January 9th, 2023, close to midnight.

Drifter sat on a fallen trunk, his head thrown back, staring at the glimpses of the starry sky he could see through the canopy. He wasn't the only one brooding. Kirito, Yuna, Nautilus, Sinon, Ran, Argo, Agil, Wolv, and Kirito's new - old - friend Klein were all there too. The entire city was silent as a grave.

They had been like that ever since they got to the 6th floor earlier today. The others had gone to sleep, but Drifter knew they weren't any less shaken than him.

While they were quiet now, there had been a lot of shouting after Morte killed the two ALS players. Mostly people in panic or cursing the red player. Quite a few were also cursing Kibaou for having someone like him in his guild.

Only after they tired themselves out did the shocked and inconsolable frontliners depressedly make their way up the stairs to the next floor. From that moment onwards, barely a word was spoken.

Two people died today. Two humans. Warriors who, while Drifter didn't know them well - or at all - had risked their lives multiple times for the sake of all the surviving SAO players. And they had died today, not because of the boss, not because of Kayaba, but because of another player. They had been murdered.

Drifter was still having difficulty coming to grips with the situation. He had seen people die before, and more than once. He was even more than just a little responsible for another player's death. But to kill like Morte had killed, without mercy and laughing... Just the thought of it left Drifter gagging.

And what made it all worse was that there was absolutely nothing he could do. Not unless he was willing to hunt down and kill Morte, and he knew he couldn't do that. Even if he was given the chance, he wasn't sure he had what it took to deliver a fatal blow to another human, even if it was someone like the red player.

Feeling lost and powerless, Drifter stood up and left without saying a word. The others barely looked at his departing figure, each lost in their own thoughts.

Drifter was almost afraid to close his eyes when he laid on his bed. He knew what awaited him, and he was terrified.

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Reaver's Requiem's famous spearman wasn't the only one who had trouble sleeping that night. The entirety of SAO had watched the boss raid and subsequent drama, and many suffered nightmares from it.

Sighing, Sasha looked at the stars one last time, and closed the doors of her church. Putting the children to bed had been an arduous task. They had been so excited when watching the broadcast in the main plaza, along with a good half of SAO. They cheered when the frontliners hit the boss, and gasped when one of them got struck in turn. For their young minds, it was so easy to forget the terrors of Sword Art Online. Not anymore.

...

Laughter. Mad, deranged laughter. A tattered black cloak fluttering around, from which an invisible hand holding a pitch-black sword emerged. Fear. Horror. The sword slashed down, unstoppable.

"Ahhhh!"

Silica shot up to a sitting position, her scream slowly dying out. Despite the blanket covering her, she still felt cold all over.

After a long time of staring at nothing, her ragged breaths slowly calmed down, and she laid back down, resting her head against the pillows. She didn't fall asleep again.

...

A cave somewhere on the 3rd floor or Aincrad.

Morte was casually leaning back against a wall, examining his nails and whistling. Now that he didn't need to hide anymore, his axe and buckler had been permanently replaced by the sword hanging on his hip.

The red player suddenly stilled, before jumping to his left, just in time to avoid an enormous hatchet-like weapon, which cut through the air where he just was, before embedding itself on the wall.

Morte's first reaction when he regained his balance wasn't to fight back. In fact, he didn't even draw his sword. Instead, he retreated, putting a few meters between him and the player who wielded the hatchet, and was slowly coming out of << Hiding >>.

"Boss! Don't do that, you scared the shit outta me!"

His tone was light, but Morte was anything but calm, if the way his eyes darted around, as if looking for an escape route, were any indication. There was a lot more respect, and fear - especially fear - in his voice when he called the unknown player 'boss' than it did when he referred to Kibaou.

"You were supposed to be my pretty little spy on the frontline guilds, Morte. Tell me, who are you spying on now that you ousted yourself? And while we are at that, start thinking of a reason you still hold any value for me. And think hard. Your pathetic little life depends on what your answer is."

The player heaved and pulled his weapon out of the wall, before he started playing with it as if it were a plastic toy. Morte looked at the spinning blade, and then glanced at the deep dark-red cursor above his head, a much darker shade than his own, and gulped.

"S-Sorry, boss. But those little bitches from Reaver's Requiem were already onto me. Especially the beater and that bastard Drifter. Since they knew, I thought I could, you know, have some fun. I sure as hell shook them."

The other player simply stared at Morte. Though his face was covered by a tattered hood similar to his own, Morte could feel his gaze on him, and shivered.

"B-Boss?"

"Uhm. It's a pity Kayaba disabled pain. It's been a while since I last played, and you would be a perfect toy."

As he said that, the red player started to lift his hatchet, and Morte almost fell over with how quickly he scrambled to back away.

"N-No, no, no, wait just a sec, please! Please wait, boss! I'm still useful, I promise! I'll do anything!"

The player halted his actions. He grinned under his hood, but the panicking Morte couldn't see it.

"I suppose you can be used to cause some panic amongst those blubbering fools. You got your second chance, Morte. Don't waste it."

"T-Thank you, boss! I won't disappoint you!"

"You better. I don't keep useless pawns."

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"After the shocking happenings of the latest Sword Art Online broadcast, during which the player known as Morte killed two other SAO victims, protests have erupted around the globe in regards to what should be done..."

"... two more lives were lost today, not by the actions of the evil Japanese mastermind Akihiko Kayaba, but rather by human cruelty when SAO player Morte..."

"... doing nothing, to stop it! Our government has achieved nothing since Sword Art Online started last year. The people can't help but wonder, do they even want to save the..."

"With the latest drama revolving around the death game Sword Art Online, Japan, and, indeed, the entire planet is divided. Many questions are being asked: does the SAO task force know the identity of the red player Morte? And, if the answer is affirmative, what will be done with him? Will he stand trial for his crimes once SAO ends, or does the fact that it happened in a virtual world grant him immunity?"

"Two innocent people, brave warriors who were fighting for their freedom, and to save the 7.000 players still trapped in SAO, were murdered in cold blood! Is that not enough reason to pull the plug?!"

Seijirou muted his monitors and banged his head against his desk. It had been twelve hours now, and the commotion was still ongoing. The news channels were having a field day. How could they not? Two murders had been committed live on air, and he had been completely and utterly helpless to stop them.

Now, all sorts of questions and allegations were flying around. There was also no shortage of conspiracy theorists. Seijirou himself, as the leader of the SAO case task force, was receiving a lot of heat, but it didn't really bother him. He was, first and foremost, a soldier. He had his orders, and outside opinions were irrelevant. If only he was actually able to complete his task and save the players, instead of being just as powerless as everyone else.

His gaze turned to one of the dozen screens in his office. Even without sound, he could still make out what the reporter, a somewhat famous belligerent shit-stirrer from England, was talking about as he sat in anger.

Pull the plug. How often had he heard that sentence in the last few hours? Of course, it was easy for them to say. They wouldn't be the ones to actually do it, nor the ones who would have to shoulder the consequences.

Death penalty was a thing in Japan, and it could be applied in fourteen situations as recognized by the law. In practice, only serial murderers - which Morte definitely was - would receive capital punishment by hanging, in one of the seven execution chambers around the country.

But sentencing someone to death wasn't that simple. Even the most open-and-shut cases required years of legal action, and Morte's wasn't as clear-cut as many would like to believe.

To start with, Seijirou's team still wasn't sure who Morte was. They had narrowed it down to the most active patients during the raid, but the red player always wore a hood, so they never got a clear look at his face. Furthermore, there was also the fact that, being trapped in SAO brought to the table a whole host of extenuating circumstances, such as his inability to defend himself.

Any lawyer - and he would have to be assigned one by law, even if his family didn't wish to do it - could simply say that due to his continued imprisonment in Sword Art Online, Morte wasn't in the right state of mind, and, as such, his actions couldn't be considered entirely his own fault. Just that would drag out the case for years, which was more than the SAO players had - whether they escaped or not. Further, any lawyer could claim that Morte was being controlled by Akihiko Kayaba, and no one would be able to prove otherwise.

No, Seijirou didn't see the plug being pulled anytime soon - or at all. Not legally at least. Morte would continue to live, and continue to kill. The only ones who could stop him were the other SAO players. Seijirou just wasn't sure if they had what it took to do it.

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Drifter would like to say he woke up the next day feeling better about what happened during the 5th floor raid, but that would be the biggest lie of his life. He wasn't, in any way, shape, or form, okay with it. The only reason he even bothered getting up from the bed was the small possibility that beating up mobs would take his mind off of the scenes he was forced to rewatch in his nightmares.

So that was what he was doing. Drifter stabbed the throat of a humanoid zombie-like monster, disturbingly called << Cannibal >>, killing it. But his mind wasn't there.

They needed to do something about Morte. Drifter wasn't afraid of the deranged player. He was just one person, after all, while the spearman had at least part of his guild with him at all times. Even if he were to go against Morte one-on-one, Drifter was still pretty confident in, at least, being able to keep his life. He wasn't a frontliner for nothing.

But the same couldn't be said about all the other players in SAO. While Drifter threaded the edge every day, and thus disregarded Morte's threat, basically every other player who wasn't a clearer or a frontliner was terribly afraid of the red player. From what Argo said - and the info-broker was surprisingly okay after the attempt on her life - very few players had left the safe zones after the disaster yesterday, and those who did had at least two parties' worth of people with them. Security in numbers and all that.

The spearman couldn't blame them. But they needed to get over their fear if they wanted to escape Aincrad. The Assault Team was desperately in need of new blood.

Again, he thought that they had to deal with Morte. If not to reassure the mid and low-level players, then to deter others from following his example. Maybe choose some players amongst the frontliners to form some sort of policing team? That was impracticable. They barely had enough players to scrape by floor boss fights, not to mention that there was no viable way to patrol all 6 floors - and however many came after.

No, there was only one way to assure Morte would never hurt anyone again, and Drifter knew what it was. He just didn't want to face it. But he had to. Because if he didn't, it would be Kirito or Asuna or Sinon or any of his young guildmates who would have to shoulder that burden. And that, he wouldn't allow.

Drifter would talk to Argo later. Tell the info-broker to send a message to him the moment her informants discovered where Morte was. And while he waited for that, he would have to work on getting over his own morality. That was too deadly a quality to have in SAO.