Shattered: A SAO Tale (Sword Art Online)

The limit turned out to be 4 Dust Lions before it started becoming too dangerous for the player challenging them, and Drifter put a stop to it. Just because they had the Divine Stone of Returning Soul, didn't mean they could taunt death as they wished.

Still, the fact that multiple Reavers could take on 4 Dust Lions at once was extremely impressive. The mobs were mostly solitary, or roamed in pairs at most. And they followed SAO's logic of, the smaller the pack, the stronger the monster.

One of the other common mobs on the 37th floor, the Joker Hyenas, were different. The smallest group of them had at least 5 individuals, often growing up to packs as large as 12 mobs. Conversely, their individual prowess was weaker.

Drifter didn't like the hyenas. They were loud. And the noises they made didn't sound at all like laughter like their name indicated, but more like nails dragging across a blackboard.

All in all, the 37th floor was pretty normal. No hidden maps or chain quests with mind-boggling rewards that they could find. Just good old-fashioned exploring.

Honestly, Drifter had missed it. With everything that had happened over the last few weeks, even few months, it felt like it had been years since he could level up without any worries on his mind. Mostly.

----------------------

While Drifter went about the business of farming mobs with his guild, others were having a hectic day.

For once, it wasn't Seijirou. Instead, the one running himself haggard - figuratively - was Asuna's father, Yuuki Shouzou.

SAO was like a never-ending machine of producing conflicts and hurdles. Laughing Coffin was just the latest, but might be, by far, the most dangerous one, both to his company, and to his family.

Having taken over the parent company of Sword Art Online, Shouzou also had to deal with all the problems that came with it.

Actually, there were only problems. The only reason he had even done such a thing was to make sure his daughter was as safe as she could be. Which wasn't a lot, considering the circumstances.

Especially not with murderers running around inside the game. Shouzou massaged his forehead with three fingers.

Damn Akihiko Kayaba for protecting the identities of the red players. Damn the law for stopping them from executing the few they could confirm.

Shouzou never had an opinion on the death penalty before, neither one way nor the other. It had never affected him.

Now, he would gladly pull the plug of the red players himself, if that didn't mean he would go to jail for murder, and his daughter would loose what little protection he could offer.

Including from his wife. That was Shouzou's major source of headaches at the moment. Kyouko still insisted on not watching their daughter's broadcast, and was instead trying to find fucking marriage prospects for Asuna.

Shouzou was entirely sure that, if he wasn't around, his little Asuna would be married off the moment she turned 16, which was in just a few months, and regardless of the fact she was trapped inside a death game, struggling to survive each day.

That she alredy married the boy, Kirito, even if just in-game, apparently didn't even factor in the equation. Nor the fact that she was so very obviously in love with him.

Shouzou wasn't sure his wife even knew, with how she went out of her way to avoid any mentions of SAO. That had been the beginning of more than a few shouting matches between them lately.

It had gotten bad to the point that Shouzou had taken to sleeping in his office lately. He had a fully furnished suite annexed to his office, so it wasn't even a burden.

That probably said more about the state of his marriage than he wanted to think about.

Well, at least the SAO merchandise sales were on the rise. Although it still creeped him out to see his daughter's face stamped on t-shirts and action figures.

------------------------

Ogawa Kenji, Drifter's father, was relieved. His son had gotten the revival item - well, his guild had, but nevertheless.

He didn't think for a moment that Drifter was being selfish for keeping it a secret between the Reavers. He was a father, and Itsuki, for all he was a grown man, still was, and would always be, his little boy. He wanted to see him safe, the rest of the world be damned.

Kenji was sure that watching SAO had taken years off his lifespan. Each time Drifter went into battle - which was nearly every moment awake - or worse, got wounded, his heart beat so fast it felt like it was going to jump out of his chest.

He tried to put a strong front for Kana, he really did. But they had been married for too long for her not to notice his nervousness each time, not that she was any different.

Which was why that Divine Stone whatever sent such a thrill of relief through his body. Because now Drifter had an actual... Safeguard, or... Or solution... If he ever - gods forbid - died. A way to come back to them.

-----------------------

Others weren't so happy. The search for the revival item had resulted in over 30 deaths. And then Reaver's Requiem had just stumbled upon it while completing some random quest.

At least, that was how many people, especially those who had lost loved ones to Sword Art Online, saw it.

Deep down, they knew it wasn't true. Reaver's Requiem hasn't just tripped over the Divine Stone of Returning Soul. They had completed an entire questline around it, cleared a hidden map, and defeated two unique bosses, one of which was dangerous enough that it would have wiped swaths of lower-level players.

Not to mention, they were Reaver's Requiem. If anyone deserved to have a means to revive a player, it was them. With how often they put their lives on the line to clear SAO, there weren't many who thought Reaver's Requiem could come out intact - which they already weren't.

But humans were emotional beings. And despite knowing that it wasn't their fault, despite knowing the conditions to use the Divine Stone of Returning Soul, despite knowing that their loved ones were already dead and buried - they still couldn't help but curse Reaver's Requiem.

If Drifter could hear them, he would have been angry. That cold anger, that simmered beneath the surface. Then he would have turned around and ignored them. Because the stone was a means to save one of his friends, his family. For that, he could endure any sort of hate.

Until the time came that the Divine Stone of Returning Soul was needed - because one day it would be, as much as Drifter tried to avoid thinking about it - they kept it in the guild inventory, and their mouths shut.

Having 20 or so people keep a secret wasn't easy. Just one slip-up was needed for it to be revealed. But the Reavers were surprisingly tight-lipped about it.

Well, not surprisingly. Drifter gave an order, after all. But by the time the 37th floor boss raid came around, it was like they had already forgotten about the revival item's existence.

Drifter had made sure to hammer into their heads that just because they had the Divine Stone of Returning Soul, it didn't mean they could be careless. There were too many variables to ensure that whoever died would be brought back.

He 'convinced' them of the importance of valuing their lives the best way he knew how: by beating the ever-loving crap out of his guildmates.

Practice duels weren't uncommon in Reaver's Requiem. At least thrice a week, thry set some time aside to make sure their PvP skills didn't rust.

Seeing Drifter pummel them into the ground so throughly wasn't normal, though. The only ones who could hold their ground against the spearmaster were Kirito, Asuna, Yuuki, Sinon, and Nautilus - the later two only because of their bow and Unique Skill, respectively.

Even them, more often than not, the spars ended up in the guildmaster's victory. It was just how it was. When it came to fighting other players, Drifter was the most experienced one of bunch.

Well, the Reavers' greatest strength had always been their teamwork anyway. Such as right now, when they switched with Fuurinkazan and the Legend Braves to engage the 37th floor boss, Udur the Deathworm.

The battle was going well. Meaning, only one player, a Kura-something from the Knights of the Blood Oath, had almost died. Practically nothing.

Udur wad one of the more mechanics-based bosses of Sword Art Online. The main challenge of the fight didn't come from a frontal confrontation with the boss, but rather from perceiving and avoiding its ambushes when it tunneled around and appeared right beneath a player, trapping them in its maws.

"Oh, fuck!"

Drifter got to experience that first-hand, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. Udur the Deathworm's mouth was like an inverted circular saw with a thousand barbed teeth.

They rotated at right speed, destroying the durability of Drifter's armor, and leaving him with an uncountable number of red scratches over his body.

Thankfully, the frontliners had quickly figured out that the way to make the boss let go was to hit it in one of the half-dozen pairs of milk-white eyes just underneath its maws.

Two arrows sprouted from the boss' amorphous head, and it shrieked before releasing Drifter.

Instead of falling back to heal like any sane person would do, Drifter stabbed down immediately with a Double Tap, knowing that Udur was about to go underground again. The boss had a fairly simple attack pattern.

He was rewarded with another screech and a small shower of red shards floating off from the wounds he inflicted. 7 other frontliners also managed to hit the boss before it dived again.

Some boss raids were just easier than others. Udur the Deathworm would be a nightmare for single players or groups without teamwork - even if it wasn't a boss. That was just how it was designed. The player captured by the boss couldn't attack, and had to rely on others to free them.

But for a group that communicated and helped each other, it became a fairly easy fight, because when the boss trapped a player, it also ended up leaving itself open for attacks.

In the end, it all boiled down to how well the players could work together. The epitome of boss raids. And to the Assault Team, that was already second nature.

Like many times before, the battle paused for a second, the only sound being the rumbling of Udur the Deathworm traveling underground. The players wanted to predict where it would emerge, and when it did, be ready to attack.

Suddenly, the rumbling grew much louder, the ground shaking and lifting a cloud of dust. Wolv shouted.

"On us!"

When the boss appeared, it was under Kizmel, who was next to the merchant. It clamped her between its maws as Wolv, Ran, Yuuki, and Agil, who were closest, descended on it with their best skills.

When Kizmel's HP fell to yellow, Drifter judged that was enough. His spear flew in a Serpentcoil Impale, embedding in one of Udur's eyes at the same time that 3 of Sinon's arrows blinded another pair with a skill.

Again, the boss dived underground. And again, thr players reset their formations, healed when necessary, and switched who needed to be switched.

Drifter raised his spear as the rumbling grew again.

...

The 38th floor appeared in all its glory for the frontliners as the sun set over Aincrad's edge.

Rolling hills of purple grass and rainbow flower greeted their eyes. Almost smack-down in the middle of the floor, an acidic-green lake reflected the sunlight. All around it were houses and other buildings, in what was doubtlessly the main settlement of the floor.

"Pretty."

Silica commented. Drifter took a moment to pull the young girl into a one-armed hug.

"There are some things you can only see in SAO."

There was a reason why Sword Art Online had been so famous long before it was even out of the development phase, and why the 10.000 NerveGears were so sought after.

Only in Aincrad could you experience the the joy of traveling around the world by going to different floors, and to see sights beyond the laws of physics.

While the combat was what attracted most players, the possibility to be in a savannah at one moment, then a glacier in the next, or the bottom of the ocean, or in a desert, or any number of other biomes had been a huge selling point.

SAO had innumerable attractions. If only most of them weren't trying to kill the players.

But even then, the ones with a strong mentality, like the frontliners, still found it in them to sometimes simply enjoy the game for what it should have been.

Seeing Silica run around giggling with Feredir and Pina chasing her, Klein and his guildmates laying on the purple grass, Shivata putting a flower crown he made himself on a blushing Liten's head, Orlando and his Braves taking bets on what the lake in the center of the floor was made of...

Those were the moments Drifter loved the most in Aincrad. When even for just a few minutes, they could relax and take in SAO as it was meant to be.