The Black Swordsman

Chapter 13: VR Pain Pt. 1

The wind blowing in my hair...my racing heart beat...sweat pouring down my forehead...I had forgotten the euphoria that combat in VR games brought me. As I diagonally slashed one of the black spider creatures in front of me, killing it in a single strike, it reminded me of when I fought similar creatures in the original SAO game. My teammates and I had been fighting through the forest that stood in front of the white castle for about 45 minutes and, with all four of us fighting, we had made significant progress. While I was distracted by the strange sense of accomplishment from killing the spider, a killer mantis, which was green in color and slightly larger than me, attempted to strike me with one of the scythe-like limbs that were protruding out of the creature's chest. Luckily, Lisbeth saw the creature about to strike and, immediately, initialized a sword skill and, horizontally, swung her mace right into the bug, striking it from left to right and then finished the sword skill with another identical strike. This was the sword skill called "Horizontal Arc" and it was powerful enough to kill the giant bug creature before it could attack me.

"I get that you think your hot shit but can you try to pay attention?" asked Lisbeth, annoyed.

"Sorry, it's been a while since I've been in combat like this in a VR world", I said, glancing at the dark black sword I was utilizing.

The other sword that was holstered on my back was, in fact, a weapon that Lisbeth, the blacksmith, had made me herself. An emerald sword called the Dark Repulser. The black sword that was in my hand was called the Elucidator.

"It's strange", commented Lisbeth, frowning.

"What do you mean?"

"Our avatars. Our appearances are the same as they were in the base SAO game. On top of that, we have all of our best weapons and armor. Does this mean that our equipment from SAO transferred to whatever the hell this world is?"

"It seems like that", I muttered. "It's weird, though. Why the hell would that bastard Sugou allow something like that to be included? Is he mocking us?"

"Sugou?" asked Lisbeth, perplexed by the unfamiliar name.

"Oh, my bad. That's the name of the asshole, who kidnapped Asuna."

Before Lisbeth and I could continue our conversation, we heard a female battle cry coming from behind us. We turned around to see who was responsible for the sound and, to my surprise, it was my sister, Suguha, who had shown more promise in her combat skills that I thought she was capable of. She had definitely underestimated her own skills. All of the Kendo training that she did in the real world must have helped her with the learning curve of SAO. After a series of perfectly executed vertical and horizontal strikes with her gold and green colored one-handed sword that her character came equipped with, the enemy she was fighting which was another killer mantis, shattered into tiny blue polygonal shards. Suguha was the only person who had to create her avatar from scratch since she didn't have an SAO account. I was a bit confused with her appearance. She decided to give herself long blond hair that was tied back in a pony tail and a light green gown that covered her boots that went up all the way to her shins. After defeating her opponent, she sheathed her sword and turned her attention to Lisbeth and I, who were still staring at her in awe.

"I-I thought you said you didn't think your skills in VR were that good?" I questioned, causing my sister to shrug her shoulders.

"I said that they weren't as good as my real-world skills...I didn't really say they were bad", She answered.

Before I could ask my sister any more questions about her time with VR, I heard a panicked screech coming from a different side of the forest. All three of us turned towards the noise and saw that Klein had been knocked down and cornered by two killer mantises.