Nearly two years had passed since the Sword Art Online incident began.
The trapped players had fully adapted to this world, which they once viewed as an inescapable prison. The clearing group's skills improved steadily; recently, it had become common to clear two or three floors in just a couple of months. Now, the frontlines had reached Floor 74. The battles within this hundred-floor floating castle were finally entering their closing stages.
As I prepared to enter the labyrinth area today, a message arrived from a friend. The sender was Asuna.
"Mitsuki-kun, do you have some time? I'd be grateful if you could come to the Knights of the Blood headquarters..."
"Please, as soon as possible!"
It was a rare summons to a rare location, with a final line that seemed added in a desperate rush, yet she mentioned no reason for the request.
"I'll ask why first. If it sounds like a pain, I'm out of here."
Holding that selfish thought, I turned back toward the teleport gate I had just exited.
"Teleport: Granzam!"
As soon as the blue-white light faded, I found myself standing in a majestic, dark-gray city.
Floor 55, the main city, Granzam—also known as the "City of Steel." It was a sharp-edged place composed of countless spiraling towers. Since most of the city consisted of metal, trees were scarce, and a cold air lingered there, evoking a sensation far removed from the tranquility of nature, no matter how often one visited.
An involuntary shiver ran through me. I pulled up my collar and hurried toward the great fortress at the city's center: the headquarters of the Knights of the Blood Oath.
"Oh, well."
"..."
At the entrance, where an aura of dread and tension prevailed, two guild members stood like sentries. I tried to slip past them, making myself small, but they blocked my path with their broad halberds. I remained stuck there for nearly ten minutes.
"What is your business here, stranger?"
"Even if you ask me... that's what I'd like to say too. Your Vice-Commander summoned me."
"The Vice-Commander...?"
The two guards tilted their heads, exchanged glances, and then burst into forced laughter.
"It's impossible for Lady Asuna to be associated with someone as shabby as you!"
"You should have come up with a more convincing lie!"
"Good grief..."
I was about to show them the message I had received from that "Lady Asuna" when the door behind them opened with a heavy groan.
"Ah, you're already here! I was wondering if you'd show up... If you had replied to the message, I would have cleared the way for you."
"Ah, right... you're right. Sorry, Asuna. I've put you through the trouble of coming out."
The moment Asuna peered from behind the door, the two guards snapped to attention, their armor clanking.
"Ah, Lady Asuna!"
"We salute you! Vice-Commander Asuna!"
"Good day to you both. I hope you haven't mistreated this person?"
"N-no! Not at all!"
The tables had turned in my favor. I considered reporting them, but looking at their full plate armor compared to my simple coat and lone spear, it was true that I looked ragged next to them. I decided to drop it.
Regardless, I successfully entered the headquarters and followed Asuna. I felt a slight sense of confinement amidst the crowd of players wearing the guild's signature white-and-red uniforms.
"So, can you tell me now? Why did you summon someone like me to an elite guild's headquarters?"
"We'll be there soon. It might be better if you see for yourself."
Was she stalling, or were the circumstances complicated? I stopped questioning and followed her quietly. We passed many doors in the long corridor until we reached a room that resembled a training hall. What I saw there was:
"Next!"
"Y-yes! Ever since I heard of Lady Alice's achievements—ugh...!?"
"I have no interest in idle talk. Next!"
"I don't understand a thing. What is this?"
"Actually, here is the situation..."
Asuna began to explain the details.
It started when high-ranking officials in the Knights of the Blood Oath suggested assigning bodyguards to the Vice-Commanders, who often went out into the field. After much debate, the officials refused to back down, claiming it was a "Council decision." Asuna yielded, but Alice remained adamant in her refusal. When they tried to involve the Guild Leader to persuade her, Alice gave a single condition.
"A guard weaker than me will only be a burden. If you insist, let someone try to land a single hit on me!"
Because of this, Alice was now fighting a series of "one-against-a-hundred" duels—though the number seemed to exceed a hundred—and she was currently in the thick of those battles.
"So, that person glaring at me from behind since I walked in is...?"
"Yes, that's my bodyguard. Ah, I wish I had done what Alice did..."
I moved closer to Asuna and took a half-step away from the sharp-eyed player who was watching me with excessive hostility, trying not to provoke him.
"But even after hearing the story, I still don't get it. What do you want me to do?"
"As you can see, more candidates applied to guard Alice than we expected. She's fighting them endlessly and has completely lost her temper. I thought seeing you might calm her down a bit..."
"Are you the type who believes in human sacrifice in this day and age?"
In short, she wanted me to be the "offering" to soothe the rage of the rebelling "Noble Knightess." I wasn't sure what the guild's "Flash" thought of me.
However, even from my perspective, Alice looked dangerous now—especially for the guild members facing her. For instance, the member who was just crushed took a diagonal sword strike to the chest; if the trajectory had shifted slightly, his face would have been split open. Even if the fight was under "First Strike" rules, Alice's strikes were powerful enough to cleave a man in two, leaving deep psychological trauma. I didn't think Alice would do it intentionally, but in the worst case, her hand might slip, leading to a player death. It seemed I had no choice but to intervene.
I made my way through the long line of guild members and stood at the front. I tapped the shoulder of Alice, who was waiting for her next opponent.
"Don't you dare tou—!"
Her nerves were clearly frayed. With the grace of a beast baring its fangs at anything that touched it, she spun around and leveled her sword at my throat in an instant. With that movement, her signature golden hair flew, and her long blue skirt swayed lightly.
"Mi... no..."
"Ah. Sorry for what I did."
When Alice saw me holding my hands up in surrender, she froze with a stunned expression for three full seconds.
"M-Mitsuki!? Why are you here!?"
"It's a long stor—no, it's not. Asuna summoned me."
Alice lowered her sword quickly and looked at the true culprit—Asuna. Asuna, for her part, waved her hands with a slightly embarrassed smile.
"I heard most of the story. You need to take a break."
"I have no problem. Every match so far ended in less than three moves. My energy consumption is at a minimum... I think."
The hesitation at the end of her sentence came from her realizing she had lost her composure. I knew she had been dueling for three consecutive hours without stopping. When I asked her why she was working so hard, she said:
"I didn't want to waste much time. I intended to invite you to clear the labyrinth area today. I didn't expect to be held here this long, or to appear before you looking so disheveled..."
"It's fine. Regarding the clearing, I'll go with you whenever you ask. So rest now. Take a temporary break."
My words seemed to touch something in her. After being frustrated, her face suddenly brightened.
"Really? I'll cut you down with my sword if you're lying."
"No, please spare me from that... besides, why would I lie about something like this?"
"Fine, anyway. Since that's the case, I have no choice. I regret that our plan was ruined, but let's make sure to end this mess as quickly as possible."
As Alice moved to leave, she stopped suddenly.
"What is it?"
I saw shadows casting over her beautiful blue eyes. Her aura turned hostile instantly, and it didn't take long for me to understand why.
"Wait, isn't that the 'Beater'?"
"How dare a fraud like him approach Lady Alice...!"
"But they seem to be on good terms?"
"You idiot, he definitely has some dirt on her. Poor thing..."
Many words from the lined-up guild members were directed at me.
"Don't mind them. I'm used to this."
"You might be, but I am not like you."
She said that, then opened her system window and navigated the menu.
"Mitsuki. Duel me."
A duel request from Alice appeared before my eyes.
"No, I just told you to rest."
"The rest I've had is enough. Come on, accept the request quickly."
Alice raised her voice so those around her could hear and continued:
"I'll say it again and again: I don't need guards. The rules are 'First Strike.' Let every fool who still imagines they can guard me after seeing this duel realize that their arrogance has crossed the line."
I realized Alice's goal, so I accepted the request with a sense of resignation. The countdown began. I drew my spear and moved to the designated position.
"Everyone, carve this scene into your eyes—"
5 — 4 — 3 —
"If you want to call yourselves my guards, you must possess at least this much strength."
2 — 1 — "Duel!!"
With the starting spark, Alice lunged at me.
"Yaaaa!"
With a cry full of determination, she brought her silver blade down from above. I parried it directly. I pressed my weapon against hers amidst the flying sparks, but Alice's physical strength slightly outperformed mine. No matter how hard I pushed, she returned the pressure instantly.
I knew from the start that I wouldn't win through raw physical strength alone. Therefore, I had no choice but to use my own style—"Mitsuki's Dueling Style" (as I just named it)—the style that was said during the beta phase to be impossible to imitate no matter how hard one tried.
Amidst the clash of forces, I suddenly tilted my spear, sliding Alice's sword away from my body. Naturally, Alice's body surged forward with her sword, but she had expected this response. As soon as she regained her balance, she aimed a low horizontal strike at my legs.
But I expected that too. I drove the tilted spear into the ground to take the low hit.
Even though the building's floor was protected as an "Immortal Object", and driving the spear didn't mean it actually pierced the ground, Alice's sword struck my spear with a sharp ring. While it appeared to the onlooker that she would knock my spear away, a small smile formed on my lips without my realization.
The moment Alice's sword touched the spear, I shoved it lightly with my hand, which slid upward. While Alice was knocking away the bottom of the spear, my hand at the top was pressing in the exact opposite direction of her force. The result was:
"—!?"
I used the recoil to turn the butt of the spear into something like a revolving door that snapped toward Alice, but she dodged at the last second. She performed a low, crouching leap to move away from me.
"What you just did was..."
"An interesting trick, isn't it?"
The physics engine in Sword Art Online has some strange properties regarding inertia. If you exploit this, and with enough momentum, you can run on walls or make a weapon spin in the air for seconds. The skill "Spinning Shield" is a clear example.
What I just did could end in total failure if the timing was off, as I might get tripped. But if you add force in the opposite direction at the right time, it becomes possible to launch a counterattack that carries the same power as the opponent's attack.
"I've known you for a long time, but when did you turn into a circus performer?"
"Honestly, I've been like this since the beta days—!"
As soon as the distance widened, it was my turn. I closed the gap in an instant and leveled an upward thrust from a low stance. Seeing her dodge, I pulled the spear back immediately and repeated the thrusts, relying on speed and volume, but Alice dodged them all with amazing reflexes or parried them with her sword.
Finally, while she was dodging one of my thrusts, she lunged powerfully to penetrate my spear's range and get close. I was about to take a hit to my exposed stomach, so I used the flexibility of my wrist to point the spear tip slightly upward. Then, with a movement resembling a Japanese "Shishi-odoshi" fountain, the butt of the spear struck the ground, and the handle intersected perfectly with the path of Alice's sword—specifically with the tip of the blade where the force is weakest.
Since that alone wasn't enough to parry, I braced the butt of the spear with my foot. Alice's sword stopped just centimeters from my stomach.
Alice snorted with annoyance and tried to shift her sword tip off the spear using a body twist, but my spear moved faster toward her sword hilt, completely paralyzing her movement.
Before it turned into another strength contest, I lowered my waist as much as possible and pulled the spear back hard. The tip that was lunging in front of Alice's face retracted to protrude from behind me, then lunged again without giving her a breath. Alice couldn't dodge perfectly, and the spear grazed her cheek slightly.
"Dammit—!"
Alice knocked the spear away with force, then leaped back several steps again.
"I see. I can't call this a noble style, but it is enjoyable."
"I'm glad it pleases the 'Noble Knightess'."
"But this isn't all you have, is it? Otherwise, I'll be disappointed in the one titled 'The Severed Spear'—Resso."
We exchanged brief banter, then lunged at each other at the same time.
●○●○●
Facing this fierce battle between Alice the "Noble Knightess" and Mitsuki the "Severed Spear," the surrounding players lost their ability to speak. Initially, there were many cheers for Alice, but now nothing was heard but the sound of clashing weapons and the breathing of the two.
Asuna, the true architect of this situation, was no exception. As an old friend to both in this world, she was stunned by Mitsuki's level, which she was seeing clearly for the first time.
"I heard he teamed up with Kirito-kun often during the beta, and I thought I understood his strength through boss battles, but... was he this powerful!?"
By virtue of being in the same guild and in the position of Vice-Commanders, Asuna knew Alice's strength well. In combat, no one matched her—to the point that she might rival Kirito in skill.
As for Mitsuki, who was facing her, Asuna realized upon reflection that she didn't know much about him. All she had seen with her own eyes was his performance in boss battles; the rest of her information was hearsay through Kirito or Alice.
In battles against monsters, he didn't stand out much, but he was extremely skilled at dealing with an opponent when they entered his range. Usually, the two-handed spear, which exceeds other weapons in length, is difficult to handle once the opponent gets very close. Alice was trying to close the distance to fight, but Mitsuki was handling attacks that normally couldn't be parried with complete finesse.
The secret likely lay in his body movements and footwork. He dodged Alice's attacks, parried them, and when he found a gap for even a second, he spun the spear and his body together to create space to defend with the weapon. Alice seemed to realize this too; she occasionally tried to target his legs, but Mitsuki naturally expected that. All attacks toward his legs were parried at the last moment, followed by a counterattack using those out-of-system skills.
From this, a terrifying aspect of Mitsuki's style emerged that even Asuna hadn't realized.
The counterattack based on out-of-system skills uses the momentum of the opponent's attack, leaving the opponent with only two options. Either change the attack path in a fraction of a second, or deliberately weaken the attack force to handle the response. Of course, there's the option of attacking with full force then parrying the response, but it isn't a realistic choice.
When Mitsuki counterattacks, he parries all incoming attacks at the very last moment, a tactic to counter feints. When the opponent thinks, "This strike will definitely hit!", Mitsuki pushes with his spear, followed by an immediate counter. If the opponent tries to change the strike path before that, they are easily parried.
Thus, the opponent had no choice but to lighten their strike to reduce the momentum of the counterattack returning to them.
In this way, Mitsuki succeeded in neutralizing Alice's heaviest signature strikes and began to gradually impose his control over the fight.
"I can't find a single opening for a counterattack...!"
Alice was now entirely on the defensive against the succession of spear thrusts. She tried several times to open a gap by parrying with her weapon, but each time the counterattack caught her and thwarted her attempt from the start.
Within minutes of fighting, Alice became completely certain.
"No doubt about it. This man, in his handling of the spear, is one of the top five in Aincrad—no, he stands at the very peak!"
There were many two-handed spear users in the Knights of the Blood Oath, but compared to the boy before her, they looked like children playing. An involuntary smile appeared on Alice's face as she realized that the owner of this superb skill had been close to her all this time.
That skill in moving the spear as if it were part of his body; how much grueling training must he have undergone to reach this? And to what extent would Alice's mastered sword arts hold up against him?
When she thought of that, her body moved on its own.
"After seeing this spear skill, I can't hold back at all—!"
Alice once again struck the spear with a horizontal blow to shove it aside, this time with all her strength without any reservation. Mitsuki used that momentum to spin his body in a full circle and launch a powerful counterattack, but—
Alice had prepared her sword in advance and parried the spear.
It wasn't because she expected the spear to arrive there, nor because she kept up with the counterattack speed. To an observer from afar, it might look like her sword was placed there by chance thanks to intuition and succeeded in parrying.
In fact, this explanation was ninety percent correct. The remaining ten percent was that mysterious feeling that flashed in Alice's mind moments before.
"Oooooooooo—!"
To not waste the chance of victory she had seized, Alice shouted with enthusiasm and pushed her sword hard, knocking the boy before her and his weapon away.
●○●○●
"K-kwaaaa—!?"
While I was flying away from Alice's strike, I performed a mid-air flip using my hands and felt a red light glow outside my field of vision. It was a Sword Skill, the first since the start of this duel. For a one-handed sword skill with a red glow used at this great distance, only one skill came to mind.
As soon as my feet touched the ground, I pulled my spear back hard, surrounding it with an emerald glow.
"S-yaaaaaaaaaa—!!"
"H-yaaaaaaaaaa—!!"
Alice's single-hit heavy thrust one-handed sword skill, "Vorpal Strike", crossed with my single-hit heavy thrust two-handed spear skill, "Converging Stab". Both hit each other's shoulders at the exact same moment.
At that instant, the bell rang, signaling the end of the duel.
The result was a "Draw".
"Phew... well done. You really are as strong as ever, Alice. I thought I'd settle it with that last counterattack."
"Yes. It was a heart-warming duel. I haven't felt this excitement in a long time."
With a relaxed expression, Alice sheathed her sword and looked around at the guild members watching the fight.
"Now, I'll ask you again. Is there anyone among you who can provide a duel better than what you've just seen?"
Her majestic voice echoed in the training hall. As expected, no one raised a hand.
"Fine. I'll report to the officials. Continue refining your skills."
It ended there. Alice moved toward Asuna, who was watching the conclusion.
"Well done, both of you. I was afraid of what might happen, but I saw something truly amazing."
"I apologize for putting you through the trouble of intervening. Thanks to you, Asuna, we managed to end this situation peacefully."
"No need for thanks. Perhaps my quick surrender to the Council's pressure is the reason for what happened to you... Mitsuki-kun, thank you for coming despite the sudden summons."
"Then please, treat me to a meal. I'm hungry after this duel."
"Fine... we'll go to the fiftieth floor after we maintain your weapons."
"Is there some business?"
"Not business in the literal sense... but the clearing in the labyrinth area has reached its final stages, hasn't it? Preparations for the boss battle will start soon, so I thought I'd stop by Kirito-kun to tell him."
"I see. Then let's go eat that 'Fake Ramen' Floor 50 is famous for..."
"I don't want that. I tried it before; it tasted very strange."
"Oh, so you've tried it. What about you, Alice—"
"Don't you dare go there!! Good heavens, stop the idle talk and let's go."
Alice navigated the menu quickly and unequipped her armor. From beneath it appeared a blue dress covered by a cloak of the same color. It wasn't a fancy dress like those seen at parties; it was a design resembling nun's clothing and showed nothing of her body. I was told she spent most of her time in these clothes normally.
"What are you looking at?"
"N-no. Nothing."
I followed Asuna, and we became four: me, Asuna, Alice, and Asuna's bodyguard. After finishing maintenance at an NPC blacksmith in the city, we headed sometime after noon to the central area of Floor 50, Algade.
We went to Agil's shop, which the friend-tracking feature showed. We saw the back of a player dressed entirely in black, deep in conversation at the counter.
"Kirito-kun—"
As soon as Asuna tapped his shoulder, the figure in black—Kirito—turned around, making a relaxed sound. Then...
"We found it. The Cook has been captured."
He said that while gripping her hand tightly.
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