Chapter 18 - Kayaba's Machinations

Argo was feeling anxious. Sitting in a corner of her favorite rooftop in Tolbana, overlooking the central plaza, she nervously played with her hair. Normally, she would be contacting her informants, organizing her notes, and scheming how to sell her intel for the best value. But now, she couldn't put her mind at ease.

Kirito had just sent her a short message saying they were in front of the boss room. She had done her best throughout this month to uncover every possible bit of information about << Illfang the Kobold Lord >> that she could. She even completed every available quest on the 1st floor to try and see if there was something new. The only thing she couldn't do was fight with the raid party.

She just hoped everything went well. Their escape and survival hinged on they winning this fight without many casualties. Or, better yet, without any at all. They couldn't lose.

The info broker was so focused on her inner thoughts that it took her a few seconds to notice the blinking in her HUD. It was a different kind of notification than any she had ever came across. It looked almost like a... Camera? Unsure, she tapped on it. The next moment, her jaw dropped.

"Holy shit."

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"Hyah!"

With a last mournful wail, a << Ruin Kobold >> was sliced in two. Seeing no more mobs nearby, Klein sheathed his katana, and inspected his party. They were tired, but otherwise unharmed. Klein felt proud of them.

It had taken him and his friends a good while to leave the Town of Beginnings after the first day. They were afraid, there was no nice way to put it. But they made it in the end. Sure, this was just the second day they entered the tower, since they didn't feel confident in their skills before. But they were here.

"If we keep the pace we will catch up to the big leagues in no time, boss!"

"Yeah!"

The wannabe samurai fist-bumped one of his party members. Sometimes Klein regretted not having insisted more to have Kirito join him and his friends. If the black-haired boy had, Klein knew they would already be part of the 'big leagues'. But even if that wasn't the case for now, they were making good progress, or so he believed.

"Uhh... Boss, you need to see this."

Confused by the hesitant tone, Klein turned to one of his friends, at the same time noticing the new notification on his HUD. Thinking it was a new message, he absent-mindedly clicked it. A screen popped into existence in front of him, and Klein's eyes bulged when he saw what it was showing.

"Holy shit!"

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Throughout the entire 1st floor of Aincrad, thousands of players discovered the new icon in their menus, and opened it almost out of reflex. Those same thousands of players then did a double-take, absolute shock coloring their faces.

They watched on the screen in front of them as forty-some players warily entered a dark hall. Then they saw that same hall light up, and a monster well over three meters tall confront the players.

ROAR!!!

The beastly scream echoed throughout the 1st floor, especially in the Town of Beginnings and Tolbana, where thousands of players were gathered. They watched in fear and horror as a couple of words appeared above the monster.

<< Illfang the Kobold Lord >>

The players were so focused on the scenes showing that they barely noticed the title manifesting into existence above the screens in a dramatically late way that screamed Akihiko Kayaba.

[ 1st Floor Boss Livestream ]

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Somewhere in Japan, a man in his mid-thirties slept in a position that was certain to give him a neck ache, body bending over his desk, head resting on his crossed arms, and glassed crooked, somehow managing not to fall.

"Sir!"

"Wa... What?"

With a loud noise, someone barged into the room so forcefully that the door swung open and smacked into the wall, waking up Kikouka Seijirou.

"What is it?!"

The leader of the Sword Art Online Case Victims Rescue Force smoothed the wrinkles in his suit, not quite happy with how abrupt his awakening had been - or that it had happened at all, really. The number of deceased SAO players had just reached two thousand, and his team had yet to make any progress in cracking Kayaba's system and freeing the victims. He was under a lot of pressure, and hadn't slept well in days, as it was proved by him dozing off in his office.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you need to see this."

Something about the way his subordinate was behaving told him this was serious, however. The way the man's eyes were bulging, and the urgency in his voice worried Kikouka. He grabbed the tablet the man offered him, and frowned. He didn't quite comprehend what he was seeing.

"What am I looking at?"

"It's... It's a live stream of the SAO players battling against the 1st floor boss of Aincrad."

Kikouka almost dropped the tablet.

"Those are SAO players?! And this monster... They are going to fight it?!"

His subordinate gulped and then nodded. Kikouka watched for a few more seconds as the monster, which appeared to be called Illfang something, growled. A few of the players stepped back, fear and apprehension clear on their faces, but none ran away.

"How did you get this? Did we finally manage to get inside the Cardinal System?"

"N-No. Not exactly."

His gaze shot to the man, who was looking incredibly uncomfortable and ashamed.

"Then how?"

Once again, his subordinate gulped, his forehead covered in sweat. He turned on Kikouka's computer and put it on a video-streaming website. Then, he tuned the television in the corner to a news channel. By now, Kikouka had a very bad feeling, which only got worse as he watched the very same video playing on the tablet in his hands, being shown in the other two electronics.

"Sir... It's everywhere."

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Not just in Japan, but all around the world, thousands and then millions of people stopped what they were doing to watch as four dozen people battled for survival. Many didn't understand what they were seeing at first, but those who had heard of the SAO incident were quick to realize and share the news. For the second time in a little more than a month, the world was shaken.

When news were first released that some madman had trapped ten thousand souls inside a death game, many didn't believe it. But as more and more players died, the rest didn't wake up, and news organizations around the world reported it, everyone realized it was real. When nothing else but deaths happened in the following month, most people, especially those from other countries, quickly classed it as another tragic incident and forgot about it. But now, the world watched in trepidation as players risked their lives, almost as if they were gladiators in ancient times.

Governments tried and failed miserably to contain the news. As soon as they took one video-streaming website down, another ten popped up. Eventually, they gave up. It was very obvious that Kayaba wanted the world to watch, and he would make sure that happened. To someone who could hold ten thousand people hostage in a videogame, it wasn't that surprising that he also could hack his way into getting what he wanted.

But Drifter had no idea any of this was happening. He didn't even know the other players were watching, much less the real world. And even if he did, he wouldn't care right now. Not when a four-meters tall monster with a gigantic axe was roaring at him.

Drifter had fought wolves and boars, and even fish before - which didn't sound all that impressive, but one had to remember that those same mobs had killed hundreds of players. He also had a great deal of experience with << Ruin Kobolds >>, so he thought that their lord wouldn't be much different. Stronger, scarier, and much more deadly, sure. But at least similar. This was not what he was seeing in front of him. What he saw was a true monster.

Illfang had blood-red fur and cruel eyes, red too. When he snarled, saliva flew everywhere. At the same time, three << Ruin Kobold Sentinels >> spawned. They were a lot different than the other labyrinth mobs, using some kind of plate armor that covered their entire body and heads. Each of them was using a mace that looked more like a huge boulder on a stick. No doubt they could crack open someone's head with a single swing.

Diavel trained his sword on the boss, and yelled a command. Drawing courage from who knows where, the raid party, Drifter included, shouted and charged forward to meet their enemies.

While Diavel and three of the smaller parties they were split into fought Illfang, Drifter faced one of the add-ons the boss had spawned. As they discussed before, Nautilus was the first to clash against the mob. Knowing he had a shorter reach and as such wouldn't be able to land the first blow, the ash-haired player raised his shield and braced for impact. The force behind the hit still sent him stumbling a few steps back, and took a few percents off of his health bar.

"Ugh! Be careful, they hit hard!"

Without needing prompting, Yuna started playing << Rest >>. Meanwhile, Kirito jumped forward and struck the mob with a << Horizontal Square >>.

"Switch! Drifter!"

The spearman advanced, spearhead snaking forward, aiming for the opening on the helmet, but the << Ruin Kobold Sentinel >> moved it's head, and Drifter's weapon hit cold metal, before deflecting harmlessly to the side. Muttering a curse under his breath, he decided to be less ambitious with his next strike, and targeted the uncovered forearm of the creature, this time being rewarded with a growl of pain.

"Switch!"

Stepping to the side to dodge an overhead blow from the mace, Drifter called for a switch, and realized his mistake only when Nautilus and Asuna advanced at the same time, saw each other going for it, and hesitated. Drifter had grown used to being in a party with just Yuna and Nautilus, so only the blade user could switch with him. Now that there were others in the party, he forgot to specify who he was calling, hence the confusion.

His mistake was punished quite quickly and brutally by the << Ruin Kobold Sentinel >>. Drifter only had time to shift his body a little to try and cushion the blow before he was sent rolling back by a mace crushing down on his side.

"Drifter!"

"I'm okay!"

Quickly jumping to his feet, he checked that his health had dropped to the upper range of yellow. It was quite a bit of damage, but not enough he would be in a life-threatening situation.

Looking up, Drifter saw that Nautilus had already gotten hold of the mob's aggro, and was working with Kirito to force it back. A well-placed throwing pick from Sinon nailed the kobold right in the face, through the opening Drifter had failed to hit before. He couldn't help but give her a thumbs-up.

"Great aim!"

"Thanks! You good?"

"Yeah. I was dumb, sorry 'bout that."

"Later, Drifter! Focus!"

Despite their situation, Drifter couldn't help but chuckle when Yuna chided him, especially when the songstress had basically forced a health potion down his throat. Still, he rejoined the fight without hesitation.

"Aim for the neck! There's space between it's helmet and chest armor!"

Kirito put his words into action as he performed a << Sting >>, stabbing his one-handed sword deep into said opening, and scoring a critical hit. With a flurry of quick hits from Asuna, the << Ruin Kobold Sentinel >> burst into polygons.

Taking the opportunity while there were no more adds being spawned, the party stopped to catch their breath. Drifter briefly watched the others fighting the boss, and, while he wished he could go help, he knew it was better to stick to the plan. At least everything seemed to be going well. Diavel was rotating the parties tanking << Illfang the Kobold Lord >> in such a way that the moment somebody's health dropped, they were substituted. Happy that everything was okay, Drifter turned to his own party to apologize.

"Sorry, I screwed up."

"It's okay, nothing bad happened."

"Yeah, don't beat yourself over yet."

"I won't. Won't happen again either."

"Teams F and G, switch in! Team H, there are more mobs spawning, take care of them!"

"Roger!"

Diavel briefly turned to bark orders at them, and Kirito shouted their acknowledgment. The blue-haired man had been doing a stellar job in leading the battle until now, but the pressure on him was a lot.

Yuna gave Drifter's hand a quick squeeze, and he flashed her and Nautilus a smile before he rejoined the battle with the others. This time, he was much more careful when calling out the switches.

"Last HP bar! Keep it up!"

As << Illfang the Kobold Lord >> went down to it's fourth and last health bar, a new group of << Ruin Kobold Sentinels >> spawned, which were quickly split amongst the support groups, and taken care of. Then, Illfang's health reached red, and the monster roared before throwing his axe and shield away. Now, he was going to use his Talwar...

'Uh?'

Drifter frowned when he saw the long blade the boss had pulled out. It didn't look like the drawings he had seen in the guidebook. Maybe Argo remembered the appearance of the weapon wrongly? That didn't sound like her, to be honest. As Diavel yelled for the others to stay back, and he charged to deal the last blow - ignoring the plan he himself had drafted, it must be said - Drifter caught a glimpse of Kirito's horrified expression, and suddenly his worst suspicion came through. He was moving even before the swordsman's screamed warning cut the air.

"It's no good! Jump back as fast as you can! That's not a Talwar, it's a Nodachi!"