Sword Art Online - Alternative Reality

The Diva and Her Knight CHP.1

Running through the tunnel, the torches on the wall provided limited lighting as the sides turned into a blur. Under normal circumstances, I would have loved to go into a full sprint to get away from the growling coming behind me, or stand my ground and start whittling away at their numbers. But because of the three other pairs of footsteps surrounding me would probably prefer to keep running instead, although it may not be a bad idea to throw one of them towards the horde to buy us some time...

"ARGH, how many of these dam things are there!"

"Well, maybe next time you SHOULDN'T trigger the trap I specifically warned you about Klein!"

Yelling at the bandit directly beside me who got us into this mess, I glanced backward to make sure the other two were keeping up with us.

"Hey, you said that that the green pods were bad and the red pods were good Kiritard!"

"Yeah, and to check the roots, because when the roots are gold then it means it's overripe and 10x worse than the green bulbs!"

A deep, baritone voice came from directly behind me, tension in his normally calm voice as he struggled to follow my path and avoid the puddles scattered throughout the floor.

"As interested as I am in knowing whose going to pay for the drinks later, there's a crossroads ahead, which way!"

Agil, the 2-handed ax wielder was noticeably paler than in our earlier fights. He was the farthest from a speed time in our group right now and had to concentrate the hardest to keep up. Currently, he could keep up because he was tracking my steps, but even a minor delay could mean we would have to end up fighting our way out. To make matters worse, he wasn't even the one I was most worried about...

Seeing the minecart that acted as a small landmark, I quickly ran through my mental map before yelling at everyone to take a hard right. So long as there were no surprises, we should be able to make it out of here without any issue, but just as I was thinking of that came a loud shrieking noise from behind us, indicating that we had picked up a troublesome new fan.

"Don't look back, keep running!"

Yelling that more to the last member of our party to try and prevent triggering his 'condition', it seemed like it didn't matter whether he looked at the new pursers or not as I heard a small yell and sound of him beginning to stumble forward. Quickly reaching towards him, I just barely managed to pull him forward before he face-planted into a puddle. Getting back on his feet and resuming our run, he spoke in his soft, quiet voice.

"Th-thanks."

"Thank me later. How are your legs holding up Nautilis!?"

Taking a glance at the completely pale boy geared up in the lighter-variant of the KoB armor, his features were quite soft, and although it wasn't exactly feminine, he looked extremely young, around my age.

"The-their starting to clunk up again... dammit why now!"

"Can't be helped! I'm already losing it just thinking about how many of those freak bags are behind us!"

"That isn't helping Klein!"

With Agil's roar, we resummed our sprint, but the small diversion lead to the growling getting significantly louder, and I could hear the scraping against the walls from the especially annoying pursers that would catch up with us any minute.

"Agil, follow Klein's steps, Nautilus in front of me, move it!"

Giving the order, the three reformed quickly as we began our ascent through the tunnel. After a minute or so of running, we finally spotted the mine's exit, and just as I remembered, there were unique wooden supports that would guarantee our escape. The problem was that the scratching behind us was about to enter into leaping range, and with Nautilis slowing down, there was no way we were going to make it at this rate.