Chapter 98 - Don't Know What to Title It

Unlike Seijirou, Drifter was only vaguely aware of the increase in deaths after they reached the 10th floor. Even Argo, with her entire information network, couldn't compare to the leader of the SAO task force, who had the resources of the Japanese government at his disposal.

No, the info-broker, and, by proxy, Drifter, only knew of fifteen deaths. Which... Really wasn't a lot when spread out over a week. Not to say two people - that they knew about - dying every day wasn't worrying, but anyone in their position acquired a certain indifference towards death. It was that, or break.

They cared a lot still, but Drifter had seen far more than fifteen players die in front of his very eyes, much less just hearing about it. And even if he dwelled on it, what would it change? The answer was nothing. The only way to change anything was to beat SAO faster.

They were well on the way to accomplishing that. At their current pace of half a month per floor, it should take them a little over 4 years to clear Sword Art Online. It was a long time. And that prediction assumed they didn't suffer many setbacks. But it was a target, and all the players desperately needed hope.

Hope. That was the emotion, the yearning, that filled Drifter's mind as he looked at the doorway in front of him. He pushed it down. There was no place for hope inside a tower, nor any emotion that might take away his concentration. The deadliest monsters on any floor were always in the labyrinth.

They had finally found the entrance to the tower connecting the 10th floor to the one above. Contrary to what they first speculated, the bamboo forest had been a red herring. The entrance was on the eastern side of the floor, near a camp of Dishonorable Samurais. Two days ago, the Assault Team had wiped out said camp and the field-boss, a humanoid monster called Betrayed Shogun.

One frontliner from an independent party had died during the battle. It was bad luck. Three players had scored critical hits in quick succession, pushing the field-boss to its berserker phase earlier than planned. The player who died had his potions on cooldown and was too close to the Betrayed Shogun when it went wild.

Bad luck. It could happen to anyone. Which was why you left hope and everything else out when you entered the labyrinth or thought boss. The colder you were, the less likely to commit a mistake. But you couldn't control fate. She was a bitch.

"Eyes open, people. We had undead samurais, invisible insects, spirits, wraith ninjas, and man-eating trees on this floor. An ambush is likely. Drifter, Sinon, and Ran, we are alternating Searching. I want to always have someone using it. Yuna, no singing for now, but speed buff us first thing if we enter combat."

Kirito gave his orders before they stepped into the tower. He had already sent the coordinates to Argo, but Reaver's Requiem had been the first to discover the entrance, and would be the first to explore the labyrinth.

They kept complete silence as they walked, instead communicating through messages when it was necessary. The detection range of mobs was determined by a number of variables, and sound was one of them. It was standard tactics to keep as quiet as possible in a tower until you knew the aggro range of the enemies inside.

Drifter was at the front of the group as they advanced. Normally that would be Nautilus' or Vallerk's position, but until now, all of the mobs on this floor had two things in common: they were undead or cursed, and they were deceptively fast. Most of the battle against them was on being able to react to their first strike. Hence why Drifter, Kirito, Yuuki, and Asuna were on the edges of their formation.

"Front."

The spearman whispered, having spotted the first enemy right ahead, just before a bend in the path. It was a fox, but as tall as his waist, with six tails, and in an advanced state of decay. Its fur was mottled and jarred, with large patches of it missing - and also the flesh beneath it. Drifter could see half of its skull and a few ribs showing from where he was standing.

"Just one. Six-Tailed Blight."

Drifter's Searching was picking up just one of the mobs. That meant the creature was probably strong in its own right. The fact that the half of its snout which was still covered in flesh and fur was twitching also told him that, despite being an undead, the Six-Tailed Blight still had a keen sense of smell.

"Vallerk, Liz, to the front. Nautilus, stay close to Yuna and Sinon, but be ready to switch in. Vallerk, test the waters. Drifter, Merida, close support."

Kirito quickly assigned their roles. He didn't need to, since they all knew it well, but saying it out loud helped solidify their confidence. Every time they met a new mob, the players couldn't help but be on edge. There were just too many uncertainties.

"Here it comes!"

The Reavers were still twenty-something meters away when the Six-Tailed Blight turned its head towards them, snarled, and then pounced towards Vallerk. With a single leap, the mob covered half the distance, and a second jump saw it almost on top of the tank, swiping down with viciously sharp claws.

"Careful!"

The monster was so agile it almost tagged Vallerk with its first attack. The player barely blocked it with a hastily raised shield. The angle had been unexpected.

The Six-Tailed Blight growled and bit Vallerk's shield, shaking its head wildly to try and rip it off his hands. When that failed, it raised a paw again.

Drifter's spear, Yuuki's sword, and Sinon's arrow reached it at the same time. The spear drilled deep into the Six-Tailed Blight's side, the sword cut off the tip of a tail, and the arrow went right through an empty eye socket - scoring a critical hit nonetheless.

A quick glance at his HUD showed that Vallerk had lost about 10% of his HP from the two attacks, despite having blocked them with his shield. The Six-Tailed Blight was down just about the same percentage.

"It got speed and attack, but its defense and health aren't that great. Kizmel, switch!"

The dark elf did that, slipping past Drifter to plant her curved blade on the neck of the Six-Tailed Blight. The mob responded in kind, one of its tails suddenly gleaming and hardening like a spear. Kizmel twirled, and avoided getting stabbed in the stomach, but the attack still grazed her side.

"Ack!"

The groan was more instinctive than anything. After she became a player, she stopped feeling pain, a change she was still having difficulty adapting to. She wasn't sure whether that was a good or bad thing. Pain made the mind sharper in battle.

"Switch!"

Drifter hadn't gone far, and immediately traded places with her again. In the time they had been together, Kizmel had learned all the tactics her friends used, and executed the transition flawlessly, stepping to the side just enough so that Drifter could sever the offending appendage from the mob with a downward Vertical.

"Raaargghhh!"

The creature howled, and threw itself at Drifter. He impaled it with a normal attack, but the mob ignored it and bit down on his shoulder. The added weight and surprise caused the spearman to stumble and fall, with the mob still latching on to him.

"Fuck off!"

Drifter cursed. Staring at a decaying snout while the Six-Tailed Blight tried to rip him to shreds wasn't pleasant. His spear was still stuck in its guts and trapped between him and the mob, as was his left arm. So he punched it in the face.

The blow, without even a Martial Arts skill to empower it, did nothing to the mob. Merida, Ran, and Kirito hacking down on its unprotected back did, however. The Six-Tailed Blight roared in pain and let go of Drifter. It jumped up and turned to lunge at the broadsword-user, and Silica gouged out its good eye with a well-placed Rapid Bite - an almost instantaneous one-hit skill. Asuna finished off the mob before it had a chance to retaliate.

"You okay, Drifter."

"Yeah, just a little battered. Self-destructive bastard."

The spearman accepted the hand Nautilus offered him, and got up, glaring at the dissipating shards of the Six-Tailed Blight. The mob had caught him by surprise, both with its agility, and the ruthless way it tried to bite him to death while turning its back to everyone else. He looked at the top left of his vision. Half of his health had vanished during the brief struggle.

"Here."

Yuna took a potion out of the guild storage and handed it to him. You couldn't be careless with your HP inside the tower.

"Thanks, Yun'. Anything good, Kirito?"

The black-haired swordsman was going over the drops from the mob, and shook his head.

"Cor and some pelts, but they are of poor quality. We'll have to hunt more of them to see what the rarer drops are. Right, your thoughts?"

The Reavers huddled together. As always, after fighting an unknown enemy, they had to analyze how the battle went and discuss tactics and changes to their formation. Kizmel was the first to speak.

"As all undead we have faced, this one has little regard for its well-being, and doesn't appear to feel pain. It still retains enough consciousness, however, to recognize and be angered when it is attacked."

The dark elf still wasn't used to much of what players considered common knowledge, but she was basically describing the aggro pattern of the Six-Tailed Blight. Several heads nodded, and Asuna took over.

"It's fast, but the reaction speed is what caught me by surprise the most."

"Uhm. And it's flexible. Three main attack methods: claws, bite, and the tails."

"Especially the tails. Did you notice? Each of them could move independently. It didn't happen this time, but I won't be surprised if the blights can attack in six different directions at once while also trying to bite your head off. No wonder it's a lone mob. You need at least one full party to take it on safely."

Again, there were nods all around. Kirito's analysis was spot on.

"You think the boss is gonna be something like that?"

Drifter shuddered. A boss who could attack from multiple angles like that was a terrifying thought. But Kirito shook his head.

"Labyrinth mobs usually reflect the floor boss, but it's not a rule. Besides, there should still be 2 or 3 mob types we haven't seen yet. Considering the whole floor, I personally think it's more likely for the boss to be a humanoid. An emperor or something like that. We already had a Shogun."

Each floor had a different lore and followed a certain plot. The Reavers simply didn't pay much attention to it, leaving that to the clearers. As frontliners, their task was more on the 'killing' side of things. But, more often than not, the floor boss would be a ruler of some kind. Illfang the Kobold Lord, Asterius the Tauros King, and so on. Like Kirito said, it was not a rule, but it seemed probable.

"Heads up. Someone is coming."

Sinon, with keener senses than the rest, warned them. She was looking back the way they came, and now Drifter could also hear people talking. He frowned.

"That was fast."

A little over a party, 8 players in total, were making their way through the labyrinth. From how loud and unrestrained, Drifter knew straight away they were new clearers, if they even claimed that title at all. He shot a glance at his party members, and Asuna whispered quietly so only her guildmates could hear. The other players hadn't spotted them yet.

"Golden Apple. I've seen them around once or twice. I think they just joined the clearers last floor."

"They are not ready for the tower."

Yuna muttered, but Drifter and Kirito shook their heads. It was not their place to say anything, and they didn't want to start a conflict with some overconfident newbies. It would not end well to try and lecture them.

"Huh? Wait, there's someone here already."

"What?! Aw, man! I thought we were the first to discover this place!"

The Golden Apple guild had finally seen them, and their chattering stopped. A few of them were looking disgruntled and put out when they found the Reavers were already here.

Drifter looked at the one who was clearly in the lead. It was a tall woman, at least a few centimeters taller than him. She had brown hair and a freckled face, and appeared to be in her late twenties. Drifter knew she was the guild leader, despite the man with a hat standing close to her, because of how she carried herself.

'That's someone with frontliner potential.'

The woman scanned the Reavers with her eyes and an easy smile, and Drifter saw the recognition on her face. She strode forwards and put out a hand to Kirito, who hesitated for a second before shaking it. The woman feigned not noticing the short pause.

"Hello. I'm Griselda, guild leader of this rowdy bunch. We are the Golden Apple. It's a pleasure to finally meet Reaver's Requiem and you, Black Swordsman Kirito."

Kirito looked blankly at her, and Drifter raised his eyebrows. Black Swordsman? When had a title like that begun to spread? At least it was better than Beater.

"Ah, right. This is the sub-leader of Golden Apple, Grimlock. And those are Schmitt, Caynz..."

Griselda seemed to notice Kirito's awkwardness, and proceeded with the introductions, as it was proper. The Reavers returned the greetings, although the Golden Apple members knew who they all were for sure. Kizmel was, understandably, the one they stared at the most, but they at least tried to be polite about it.

While the members of the two guilds mingled, Drifter directed a glance at Sinon, and received a covert nod in return. The archer was staying back, both to keep out an eye for new mobs... And also on the Golden Apple. The Reavers had learned their lesson after Morte.

The other players seemed amicable enough, however. The sub-leader, Grimlock, was very quiet and withdrawn, and their main tank, Schmitt, seemed to look down on some of the Reavers because of their young age, but he was keeping whatever comments he had to himself.

Asuna caught Drifter's eyes and gestured towards Griselda, who was laughing about something Liz said. The spearman grimaced and nodded. He didn't want to say anything originally, since it could lead to trouble, but now it felt wrong if they didn't warn the Golden Apple.

"Griselda. Can I have a moment of your time?"

The older woman turned to look at Drifter, and he didn't miss the sharp glint in her eyes. She wasn't dumb at all, he decided.

"Sure!"

The spearman felt Grimlock's eyes on them as he and Griselda stepped aside. He ignored the gaze.

"How can I help you, Drifter?"

The spearman shook his head, slightly amused.

"It's more about how I can help you, no?"

Griselda giggled. She had approached them with second intentions alright. She was ambitious, and wanted her guild to earn a spot amongst the Assault Team someday. To that, they had to first survive the labyrinth.

"If I can make a couple of suggestions to your team?"

"I will be very grateful if you would, Drifter."

He ignored the sass and carried on.

"Keep volume to a minimum inside the tower. Sounds travel far, and some mobs can track a player down by noise from a hundred meters and three bends in the path away. Don't know if that's the case on this floor yet, but it pays to be careful."

Now the woman had a serious expression on her face, Drifter was glad to notice. She clearly didn't know about the variation in aggro ranges, but she took his word for it.

"Thank you. Any more tips you can give us? I will... Truly... Be grateful for it."

"A lot of it depends on the terrain and enemies you are facing. Keep a tight formation. Labyrinth mobs can literally spawn in the middle of your group, so always be on the lookout. It's tiring, but the only way to be safe. Ration your potions well, remember you have to make it out of the tower and back to the safe zones."

Griselda nodded. He could see she was taking note of everything he said.

"Anything specific for this floor? We've gone into other labyrinths before, but we were always over-leveled. This is the first time we are on the right level."

"We entered just a few minutes before your Golden Apple, and only met one mob. Something called a Six-Tailed Blight. Undead giant fox. It is uncannily nimble and tricky to deal with. It also hits like a truck. But what you have to really watch out for are the tails. We think each of them can act as a separate limb, and attack different targets."

Griselda's mouth opened in shock before she thanked him again, this time deeply grateful. She knew how much the intel Drifter just told her could cost - in cor, and possibly lives. But the spearman simply shook his head.

"I see a frontliner in you, Griselda. I should tell you to go back to the safe zones and never leave. But anyone who got to where you are won't back down easily. And we need every player we can get, clearer or frontliner. Be careful. Don't die."