Chapter 62: Fluctlight

"It's done..."

"We're finally finished!"

"Haaa..."

They all collapsed to the ground after seeing that the boss fight is over. Albeit it only lasted for 10 minutes at most, it's more intense than a hour of continuous dungeon exploration before.

Here, they can't afford to make a single mistake as it'll cause them death, literally. They worked hard not to get touched by the blood elf king's attacks, thus making this cross-level boss fight possible.

Of course, they wouldn't want to choose this option again if given the chance...

"Nice job, everyone." Shiro could only do a thumbs-up as he placed the final hit rewards to the guild storage.

'Hah. This is the first.'

He thought so as he recalled the previous battles that he experienced before. When facing Zouken, he really didn't have much trouble since it is mostly him suppressing his Insect Magecraft all the time. The only annoying trait of his is immortality, but that's it.

Meanwhile, he didn't feel fatigue comparable to this when fight against the transformed Surtr due to his buffed Physique under the marble. It only worked since his body far surpassed the limits of a normal human, with it being at above 50.

His mana reserves are the key to that fight due to it filling in the gaps of his meager combat power that is against a Demigod. Through all those, he only collapsed because of his mana usage at the end of it.

If he didn't choose to control it that way, he wouldn't have gained the "Foreigner's Blessing" buff.

In the end, he only felt frail and powerless now.

'It's not that unpleasant, I guess. Though, I have to say that I felt kinda used to it..?'

Shaking off the strange thoughts in his mind, he focused his attention towards a spectator of their battle, Strea.

Knowing that she's an AI, Shiro is aware that she's shackled by the Cardinal System. Once she disobeyed, she'll most likely get erased, just like what happened to Yui, although Kirito managed to save her by converting her data into an in-game item called "Yui's Tears".

After syncing it to his Nervegear, he managed to bring her out to the real world.

Slowly, he stood up while using his black sword as a support. Then, he approached her.

"What are your plans now?"

"Me? It's... nothing. I can't even get out of here."

"What do you mean by that? Aren't you using a player account right now?"

"Yes, I am. But I could only use it in this sub-dungeon due to the system glitches that it created. Now that it's cleared..."

"Ah."

Right now, this sub-dungeon is akin to a bugged area inside Sword Art Online. This is the reason why magic and the likes appeared here when it's only stored in SEED. Due to the mental interference of such emotions, Cardinal lost some of the control here.

One such thing is its inability to expel Strea from the game and erase her.

Though, it's only a matter of time when this occurs now that this anomalous dungeon is already cleared.

"Please keep this a secret to others."

"...No."

"Eh?"

"I'll take you out of here."

Of course, he didn't come to this decision just because she presented him with goodwill over the past few hours. Well, that may be a small reason to do so, but the main thing is her state.

To be specific, Shiro judged her to be a real soul.

At first, he thought that those top-down AI are like the ones that Kal'tsit had mentioned to him, but he changed his mind after he met her.

Yes, she might be made up with all sorts of data, but her core is something... real.

That's right, he sensed a 'soul' in her depths!

'This is interesting. Kayaba, alright. This is the first time I met such insane guy...'

After all, this is the domain of the souls we are talking about! He thought that only conceptual beings such as Gods and the ones outside the rules such as Magicians could step in this domain, but the world of Sword Art Online is not as mundane as it seems.

'I never knew that his involvement with RATH's output is very high...'

When he read the light novel, he learned of RATH, Underworld, and most importantly, Fluctlights. Shiro knew about JSDF's plan of creating sentient mechanical soldiers and how it succeeded when Alice Zuberg came to the real world.

The core of their plan is the said Fluctlights, which is based on a famous quantum brain theory that the photons inside the neurons of the brain makes up the thing called "Consciousness". In other terms, the soul.

However, it looks like Kayaba had already created it on his early days and hid it in the present world. Without the things called "Lightcube" that functions as the artificial consciousness' brain, his work was lost and everyone thought that Yui is a top-down AI at best.

Thus, RATH had to do everything from scratch, and only when two years had passed after SAO's collapse did it progress to the mature stage.

"Hey, the one up there." Shiro spoke with a low volume, but its enough for only Strea to hear it.

"Shiro..?"

"Let's make a deal."

He paused for a while, calculating the best conditions that he could come up with to bring her to Aincrad.

No, to real life.

As for how he would retrieve Kayaba's lightcube, he would think of it later. If he couldn't, that's fine too.

He can now purchase it in the Chat Group's store anyways.

"3 times. I'll only stay inside each dungeon 3 times. I'll only use the magic gun once out of these three times."

...

"This is the only time I'll be giving you a concession." Shiro said it in a not-so peaceful manner. Still, his amiable tone didn't change.

...

'Still silent, I see...'

He decided to deal the last blow.

"If you don't accept this offer, you can expect me to abuse the system more."

A second later, a window appeared in front of him.

========

[Notice]

Fine.

========

His eyes lit up upon seeing this message.

'I'm not really used at this.' Shiro thought as he let out a smile.

"Eh? Eh?!"

Strea, who got Cardinal's permission to leave with them, is startled. Before, she didn't think that she'll be allowed by that stiff system to leave.

"But what about my sister..."

"Sister?"

"That's right! I can't leave Yui-oneesan alone!"

"What?"

This time, it's Shiro's turn to be dumbfounded. Of course, he didn't get surprised that much when he had some guesses before, but who would've expected that Strea is the younger sister there?!

"You... Nevermind."

Another window appeared as he spoke, which is the reply to Strea's question.

=======

[Notice]

I can't do any more than this. He will notice.

=======

'He? Kayaba? I see.'

"Looks like you can only wait for an opportunity in the future."

"But my sister..."

"Believe in her. She can withstand it."

Silence.

Both of them went silent after Shiro said that.

Strea knew how bad it is to continuously watch people die with resentment and regrets, thus the main reason why she'd wanted to leave that place.

Now that she can leave but her sister can't, she felt complicated. Although, Shiro's words kept repeating inside her head.

It stayed this way until 5 minutes had passed and the dungeon's exit appeared.

"Let's go."

In the end, Strea was left with no choice but to trust Yui. Shiro is confident that Yui can hold on, but how could Strea be confident when she didn't know about the future?

The entire party left the anomalous dungeon one-by-one. Unbeknownst to them, this would be the start of their Chat Group making big waves in this virtual world of Aincrad.

*****

A/N: No fun facts today.