"Now, let's talk about our roles here."
The moment Shiro diverted the topic, the guild leader's countenance went back to normal. By doing so, the awkward air is gone for now.
"If the boss is STR-based, we'll take the DPS role. Otherwise, we'll take the MT Role."
The players are surprised by their generous offers as they listened. Since there's only the STR and AGI stat in SAO, the boss can either be STR-based that has huge health and gives huge openings or AGI-based, which is also the most annoying types of boss.
Thanks to their group's reaction speed, they could literally tank hits using . Even those slippery bosses who did nothing but rush at them could be perfectly parried.
"Right, the little miss chanter over there."
"Yes?!"
Shiro called out to the girl besides Eiji. She has a rather short brown hair, has a fishtail braid on her left, and a white hat coupled with a white feather. This made her look like a proper bard.
"Can you use your strongest buff right off the bat?"
"Ah? A-alright."
It took a second for Yuna to understand that this is is the situation that Shiro had told them beforehand. This made their mood heavier, nonetheless. If things came down to this, it only meant one thing:
The level of danger in this boss fight is the highest in the past year.
"If I may ask." Heathcliff took the spotlight and stared at Shiro's masked face before saying, "How dangerous do you think this fight would be?"
"Danger? If our 'predictions' are correct..." He paused for a moment to make their made-up 'prediction' more believable. "This will be the most dangerous boss fight in the present."
"Is it because of the 5th intervals floor pattern?" Schmitt, the sub-leader of Divine Dragon Alliance, asked him.
"Partly, but it's mostly caused by it being in the 25th intervals."
"25th intervals?"
Shiro began explaining the difficulty spikes in the game. In every 5 floors that they clear, the labyrinth boss becomes much harder to kill than a normal boss. However, there's another catch in this intervals.
Every 25th floor that they clear signifies a huge milestone, thus the boss becomes exceptionally difficult to kill.
A good example of that is their 25th floor labyrinth raid, whereas the difficulty of the succeeding floors spiked.
"No wonder you took the 50th floor labyrinth clearance by yourselves." Heathcliff commented while he finished connecting the dots.
"Exactly. We don't want more casualties to appear."
With this, one of the unsolved questions are answered. Turns out, their guild took it by themselves since the difficulty soared through the roof!
"That time, we encountered a boss that would use the environment against us, so y'all better be more cautious."
Hearing this, some of the players tensed up while the rest heeded his advice. It's a no-brainer to ignore the advice of the most reliable guild in this game.
Heck, the information that they publicized through an informant is enough to cut the casualties by half.
That's why many placed them in the pedestal of heroes. Even Shiro has his own fans, and so are the others.
After a few minutes of preparation that consisted of drinking Antidote Potions and placing some HP Potions with them physically, Shiro pushed the door open.
The players quickly charged to the boss room before getting in their positions. The MTs (Main Tank) are in the front while their STs (Substitute Tank) are in the flank.
"""HA!!!"""
While they charged, they screamed as loudly as they can to ease off the tension that they're feeling right now.
It wasn't until every single players had entered did the door close off by itself.
Thud-!
They sandwiched the Damage Dealers in the middle to avoid sudden ambushes. If it came from the front, the STs could swiftly change positions with the Damage Dealers.
They scanned the room in silence, but they couldn't find anything abnormal. It's only a normal boss room. Wide area, tall ceilings, and a dreary atmosphere to finish it off.
"Nothing's happening..."
"Where's the boss..?"
Some players muttered out loud, but they still couldn't find anything.
It only served to agitate them further, thus they quickly looked around the room whilst fully concentrated.
Just as their heartbeats kept speeding up, Kuroneko shouted, "It's above!"
All of them looked up, only to see a huge skeleton centipede clinging on top of the ceiling like a spider. Small creaking sounds could be heard from it as its sharp ribcages moved by itself.
"The skull..."
"...Reaper?"
Klein and Kirito read out the name visible on top of its head - its bright red cursor coupled with the blood red in its name made it more ominous.
"Krrr..."
Heathcliff, who saw this, instantly reacted and said, "Spread out!"
As if it's the cue, the players ran away from the Skull Reaper's area. This created a huge circle, with the boss being on the center of it. However, there are some unfortunate ones that almost had a panic attack, making them react much later.
"A-AHH!"
"D-damn!"
Two players, both of whom are DPS-builds desperately ran away from it the moment it detached from the ceiling.
Creak-!
Its bones made another creaking sound when it crashed itself to the floor.
In a split second, it's right behind them. Just as they thought that they'll definitely die, a player leaped and landed right in their direction. With her huge greatsword named , she single-handedly blocked the reaper's horizontal sweeping attack.
At the same time, a wave of light swept, making the room brighter. Now, the rocks looked reddish, as if their special environment is in a volcano.
When its other scythe-like arm is about to attack her, a pair of black talons cross-blocked it while it sprayed lasers right in its face using the other set of its talons.
"Krruah!"
One of its five HP bars went down a bit due to Monst3r's surprise attack.
Tap-! Tap-! Tap-!
In that short moment, Shiro and Roman sprinted to it while unsheathing their blades. Making a huge leap, Shiro used the skill, slashing his sword downwardly to its skull.
Bam-!
Since he used two blades, his damage is twice than the normal, too.
Meanwhile, Roman used the . He kicked the ground hard enough and leaped, somersaulting past it before landing. Midair, he switched to the reverse grip, thus all he have to do is stab it to the ground.
Stab-!
Bzzzt-! Bzzzt-!
Lightning arcs generated from his blade, which soon covered the entirety of the Skull Reaper's body. Not only did it deal another set of damage, it also stunned it briefly.
This gave yet another chance for Shiro to unleash a stronger skill of his that was acquired after having the Unique Skill.
'!'
At that moment, his swords felt more lighter. Though, it's due to the additional 50% AGI that it brought.
Due to this, he became free to do cross-slashes below the Skull Reaper's stomach. As he wreaked havoc, it grunted in pain.
"KRRRRHHH!"
Suddenly, it sped up, hitting Shiro from below with dozens of ribcages that served as blades. Trapped in a grinder like this, he decided to run away from it.
Swooosh-! Swooosh-!
Thankfully, four shurikens flew out from afar, hitting its pair red eyes accurately. This cancelled its rush, allowing Shiro to escape from that blade hell.
Meanwhile, the rest of the players snapped back from their thought as they heard Heathcliff yell.
"Team A, charge! Shuffle the damages between the Main and Sub Tankers! Dealers, right after it gets parried!"
This is enough to make them move.
Sure, they are scared, but they regained their confidence upon watching the opening performance that NEXUS did.
Right now, they only have a single united thought in their minds:
'That's how the top players fight?'
*****
Side Story: Gacha God
"So... Who's this?"
Lisbeth was surprised that Kirito brought another person inside her shop. Considering that he's a lone wolf, it is totally reasonable for her to think so.
"Liz, this is Shiro." Kirito introduced him to her.
"Hello!"
Hearing Shiro speak in fluent English, she thought that she'll use her shabby English from school. Much to her surprise, he soon switched to Japanese.
"Umu, I now see why Kirito praised you as the greatest player blacksmith." Shiro mumbled as he looked around her displays.
Although he couldn't see their stats personally, his intuition told him more about it. If taken out in the real world, they'll be comparable to a Grand Knight's weapon at the very least.
Since those weapons provided by percentage yet again, their potential is much higher. Only, their durability has to be taken into consideration.
As for the other player blacksmiths that he encountered, they only have two or three pieces at best.
"He did?"
She asked with a straight face, but her inner self is in reverie.
'I didn't know he praised me that much..!'
"Ahem." Shiro coughed after seeing the dazed look of this girl. He knew what that girl is thinking about. Alas, she doesn't have any chance with Kirito.
This is the conclusion that he came up with after seeing how close Kirito and Asuna are. Just their habits alone is enough for him to guess that they might've gone up to the stairway to adulthood during their alone time in the log cabin. There's also the light novel and Girl's Ops manga that subtly hinted this.
Heck, only dense characters would never do something when the girl that they love is sleeping right beside them!
"Y-yes?"
"I would like to have some equipment to be enhanced."
He said as he pulled out several top-grade weapons one after another. Then, he also brought out the necessary enhancement materials from their guild storage.
A twin red-ish daggers, a silver longsword, a shiny black mace...
Upon seeing this, Lisbeth could only gasp in surprise as she saw that each weapon possessed an enhancement of (+70) each!
"What's this?!"
"Ah, they're the main weapons of my guild mates."
"Your guildmates?"
Kirito added, "The NEXUS guild."
"The NEXUS guild?! The strongest guild in Aincrad?!" She paused for a bit before examining the person in front of him. "White mask and a light armor... You're the rumored White Hero?"
Shiro could only smile wryly as he replied, "That's what people calls me."
After thinking about it, she now knew more about their strength. If their weapons alone are in this stage of enhancement, it's no wonder that they could clear an entire labyrinth with just eight people.
"How much do you want to enhance it?"
"Up to (+80)."
"Are you sure about that?"
Lisbeth asked this as she knew just how abysmal the success rates could be the higher it is. If it fails, not only will an enhancement chance get wasted, the weapon would also degrade as a result.
"Yup." Shiro replied.
Seeing this, Kirito commented, "You don't need to worry about failing, Liz. As for the reason... We'll see later."
"...If that's what you like."
Lisbeth then invited them to her forging room.
Soon, she began doing the procedures for enhancement. She placed the materials in the forge first before it turned into a liquid. The color became silver as Shiro requested for the twin dagger's portion to be enhanced on sharpness.
She then threw in the daggers inside the forge and hammered it ten times.
Due to the nature of this enhancement system, she got slightly nervous in the ninth hit. Still, she proceeded and hit it with her one more time.
The daggers shone before revealing the results in a window.
"It's a success."
She heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing this. This is the first time that she's enhancing a (+80) item and it'll be a pity if she fails.
Though, her worries were soon dispelled as she experienced one success after another. After the twin daggers is the black mace, yet she succeeded ten times consecutively once again. Then the silver longsword, black mace, obsidian black greatsword...
From her initial shock, it turned into disbelief before numbness.
After all this, she asked dumbly, "What are the odds of this happening..?"
"Well, 100%..?" Shiro replied with a weak voice.
"He's a gacha god, Liz. Let's just accept reality." Kirito added.
Shiro's luck shocked someone to no ends once again...
*****
A/N: SAO facts this time~!
Fact #36: Sword Art Online's Underworld is actually not as simple as it seems. That world operates with 'memories' as its base. Meaning, the touch of flower, the coldness of water, and the hardness of a tree is due to each fluctlight's belief that they're "soft", "cold", and "hard", respectively. That's also the main reason why it has near-reality sensation and graphics. It also made "Incarnation State" possible since these memories are affected by willpower. If the mind's strong enough, then a fluctlight can partly change the "rule" and make what others deem impossible, possible. A good example of it is the brawler tribe of the dark side. Due to their belief of training=tougher body, it became a fundamental rule in Underworld, with them being able to block swords with their bare bodies. The more people believe in it, the greater the effect of the said "rule".
"Now, let's talk about our roles here."
The moment Shiro diverted the topic, the guild leader's countenance went back to normal. By doing so, the awkward air is gone for now.
"If the boss is STR-based, we'll take the DPS role. Otherwise, we'll take the MT Role."
The players are surprised by their generous offers as they listened. Since there's only the STR and AGI stat in SAO, the boss can either be STR-based that has huge health and gives huge openings or AGI-based, which is also the most annoying types of boss.
Thanks to their group's reaction speed, they could literally tank hits using . Even those slippery bosses who did nothing but rush at them could be perfectly parried.
"Right, the little miss chanter over there."
"Yes?!"
Shiro called out to the girl besides Eiji. She has a rather short brown hair, has a fishtail braid on her left, and a white hat coupled with a white feather. This made her look like a proper bard.
"Can you use your strongest buff right off the bat?"
"Ah? A-alright."
It took a second for Yuna to understand that this is is the situation that Shiro had told them beforehand. This made their mood heavier, nonetheless. If things came down to this, it only meant one thing:
The level of danger in this boss fight is the highest in the past year.
"If I may ask." Heathcliff took the spotlight and stared at Shiro's masked face before saying, "How dangerous do you think this fight would be?"
"Danger? If our 'predictions' are correct..." He paused for a moment to make their made-up 'prediction' more believable. "This will be the most dangerous boss fight in the present."
"Is it because of the 5th intervals floor pattern?" Schmitt, the sub-leader of Divine Dragon Alliance, asked him.
"Partly, but it's mostly caused by it being in the 25th intervals."
"25th intervals?"
Shiro began explaining the difficulty spikes in the game. In every 5 floors that they clear, the labyrinth boss becomes much harder to kill than a normal boss. However, there's another catch in this intervals.
Every 25th floor that they clear signifies a huge milestone, thus the boss becomes exceptionally difficult to kill.
A good example of that is their 25th floor labyrinth raid, whereas the difficulty of the succeeding floors spiked.
"No wonder you took the 50th floor labyrinth clearance by yourselves." Heathcliff commented while he finished connecting the dots.
"Exactly. We don't want more casualties to appear."
With this, one of the unsolved questions are answered. Turns out, their guild took it by themselves since the difficulty soared through the roof!
"That time, we encountered a boss that would use the environment against us, so y'all better be more cautious."
Hearing this, some of the players tensed up while the rest heeded his advice. It's a no-brainer to ignore the advice of the most reliable guild in this game.
Heck, the information that they publicized through an informant is enough to cut the casualties by half.
That's why many placed them in the pedestal of heroes. Even Shiro has his own fans, and so are the others.
After a few minutes of preparation that consisted of drinking Antidote Potions and placing some HP Potions with them physically, Shiro pushed the door open.
The players quickly charged to the boss room before getting in their positions. The MTs (Main Tank) are in the front while their STs (Substitute Tank) are in the flank.
"""HA!!!"""
While they charged, they screamed as loudly as they can to ease off the tension that they're feeling right now.
It wasn't until every single players had entered did the door close off by itself.
Thud-!
They sandwiched the Damage Dealers in the middle to avoid sudden ambushes. If it came from the front, the STs could swiftly change positions with the Damage Dealers.
They scanned the room in silence, but they couldn't find anything abnormal. It's only a normal boss room. Wide area, tall ceilings, and a dreary atmosphere to finish it off.
"Nothing's happening..."
"Where's the boss..?"
Some players muttered out loud, but they still couldn't find anything.
It only served to agitate them further, thus they quickly looked around the room whilst fully concentrated.
Just as their heartbeats kept speeding up, Kuroneko shouted, "It's above!"
All of them looked up, only to see a huge skeleton centipede clinging on top of the ceiling like a spider. Small creaking sounds could be heard from it as its sharp ribcages moved by itself.
"The skull..."
"...Reaper?"
Klein and Kirito read out the name visible on top of its head - its bright red cursor coupled with the blood red in its name made it more ominous.
"Krrr..."
Heathcliff, who saw this, instantly reacted and said, "Spread out!"
As if it's the cue, the players ran away from the Skull Reaper's area. This created a huge circle, with the boss being on the center of it. However, there are some unfortunate ones that almost had a panic attack, making them react much later.
"A-AHH!"
"D-damn!"
Two players, both of whom are DPS-builds desperately ran away from it the moment it detached from the ceiling.
Creak-!
Its bones made another creaking sound when it crashed itself to the floor.
In a split second, it's right behind them. Just as they thought that they'll definitely die, a player leaped and landed right in their direction. With her huge greatsword named , she single-handedly blocked the reaper's horizontal sweeping attack.
At the same time, a wave of light swept, making the room brighter. Now, the rocks looked reddish, as if their special environment is in a volcano.
When its other scythe-like arm is about to attack her, a pair of black talons cross-blocked it while it sprayed lasers right in its face using the other set of its talons.
"Krruah!"
One of its five HP bars went down a bit due to Monst3r's surprise attack.
Tap-! Tap-! Tap-!
In that short moment, Shiro and Roman sprinted to it while unsheathing their blades. Making a huge leap, Shiro used the skill, slashing his sword downwardly to its skull.
Bam-!
Since he used two blades, his damage is twice than the normal, too.
Meanwhile, Roman used the . He kicked the ground hard enough and leaped, somersaulting past it before landing. Midair, he switched to the reverse grip, thus all he have to do is stab it to the ground.
Stab-!
Bzzzt-! Bzzzt-!
Lightning arcs generated from his blade, which soon covered the entirety of the Skull Reaper's body. Not only did it deal another set of damage, it also stunned it briefly.
This gave yet another chance for Shiro to unleash a stronger skill of his that was acquired after having the Unique Skill.
'!'
At that moment, his swords felt more lighter. Though, it's due to the additional 50% AGI that it brought.
Due to this, he became free to do cross-slashes below the Skull Reaper's stomach. As he wreaked havoc, it grunted in pain.
"KRRRRHHH!"
Suddenly, it sped up, hitting Shiro from below with dozens of ribcages that served as blades. Trapped in a grinder like this, he decided to run away from it.
Swooosh-! Swooosh-!
Thankfully, four shurikens flew out from afar, hitting its pair red eyes accurately. This cancelled its rush, allowing Shiro to escape from that blade hell.
Meanwhile, the rest of the players snapped back from their thought as they heard Heathcliff yell.
"Team A, charge! Shuffle the damages between the Main and Sub Tankers! Dealers, right after it gets parried!"
This is enough to make them move.
Sure, they are scared, but they regained their confidence upon watching the opening performance that NEXUS did.
Right now, they only have a single united thought in their minds:
'That's how the top players fight?'
*****
Side Story: Gacha God
"So... Who's this?"
Lisbeth was surprised that Kirito brought another person inside her shop. Considering that he's a lone wolf, it is totally reasonable for her to think so.
"Liz, this is Shiro." Kirito introduced him to her.
"Hello!"
Hearing Shiro speak in fluent English, she thought that she'll use her shabby English from school. Much to her surprise, he soon switched to Japanese.
"Umu, I now see why Kirito praised you as the greatest player blacksmith." Shiro mumbled as he looked around her displays.
Although he couldn't see their stats personally, his intuition told him more about it. If taken out in the real world, they'll be comparable to a Grand Knight's weapon at the very least.
Since those weapons provided by percentage yet again, their potential is much higher. Only, their durability has to be taken into consideration.
As for the other player blacksmiths that he encountered, they only have two or three pieces at best.
"He did?"
She asked with a straight face, but her inner self is in reverie.
'I didn't know he praised me that much..!'
"Ahem." Shiro coughed after seeing the dazed look of this girl. He knew what that girl is thinking about. Alas, she doesn't have any chance with Kirito.
This is the conclusion that he came up with after seeing how close Kirito and Asuna are. Just their habits alone is enough for him to guess that they might've gone up to the stairway to adulthood during their alone time in the log cabin. There's also the light novel and Girl's Ops manga that subtly hinted this.
Heck, only dense characters would never do something when the girl that they love is sleeping right beside them!
"Y-yes?"
"I would like to have some equipment to be enhanced."
He said as he pulled out several top-grade weapons one after another. Then, he also brought out the necessary enhancement materials from their guild storage.
A twin red-ish daggers, a silver longsword, a shiny black mace...
Upon seeing this, Lisbeth could only gasp in surprise as she saw that each weapon possessed an enhancement of (+70) each!
"What's this?!"
"Ah, they're the main weapons of my guild mates."
"Your guildmates?"
Kirito added, "The NEXUS guild."
"The NEXUS guild?! The strongest guild in Aincrad?!" She paused for a bit before examining the person in front of him. "White mask and a light armor... You're the rumored White Hero?"
Shiro could only smile wryly as he replied, "That's what people calls me."
After thinking about it, she now knew more about their strength. If their weapons alone are in this stage of enhancement, it's no wonder that they could clear an entire labyrinth with just eight people.
"How much do you want to enhance it?"
"Up to (+80)."
"Are you sure about that?"
Lisbeth asked this as she knew just how abysmal the success rates could be the higher it is. If it fails, not only will an enhancement chance get wasted, the weapon would also degrade as a result.
"Yup." Shiro replied.
Seeing this, Kirito commented, "You don't need to worry about failing, Liz. As for the reason... We'll see later."
"...If that's what you like."
Lisbeth then invited them to her forging room.
Soon, she began doing the procedures for enhancement. She placed the materials in the forge first before it turned into a liquid. The color became silver as Shiro requested for the twin dagger's portion to be enhanced on sharpness.
She then threw in the daggers inside the forge and hammered it ten times.
Due to the nature of this enhancement system, she got slightly nervous in the ninth hit. Still, she proceeded and hit it with her one more time.
The daggers shone before revealing the results in a window.
"It's a success."
She heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing this. This is the first time that she's enhancing a (+80) item and it'll be a pity if she fails.
Though, her worries were soon dispelled as she experienced one success after another. After the twin daggers is the black mace, yet she succeeded ten times consecutively once again. Then the silver longsword, black mace, obsidian black greatsword...
From her initial shock, it turned into disbelief before numbness.
After all this, she asked dumbly, "What are the odds of this happening..?"
"Well, 100%..?" Shiro replied with a weak voice.
"He's a gacha god, Liz. Let's just accept reality." Kirito added.
Shiro's luck shocked someone to no ends once again...
*****
A/N: SAO facts this time~!
Fact #36: Sword Art Online's Underworld is actually not as simple as it seems. That world operates with 'memories' as its base. Meaning, the touch of flower, the coldness of water, and the hardness of a tree is due to each fluctlight's belief that they're "soft", "cold", and "hard", respectively. That's also the main reason why it has near-reality sensation and graphics. It also made "Incarnation State" possible since these memories are affected by willpower. If the mind's strong enough, then a fluctlight can partly change the "rule" and make what others deem impossible, possible. A good example of it is the brawler tribe of the dark side. Due to their belief of training=tougher body, it became a fundamental rule in Underworld, with them being able to block swords with their bare bodies. The more people believe in it, the greater the effect of the said "rule".
