Ashi Blades (An SAO Fanfiction)

Chapter 9

Dedicated to @13Cats for all her support! Thank you!
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By now we were wandering around a magnificent pine forest littered with beautiful flowers. We sifted our way through mud and ferns and shrubbery. About two hours later of constant whining from Usu and stopping to tinkle, we finally reached a large clearing with a huge lake in the center. "Pond? Typo? It looks more like a lake to me." Said Tasm, blankly staring. We laughed with him for about thirty seconds, then walked our attention back to the lake. Joshuo scrolled his finger down in the air, opening the menu. He took a small booklet from his inventory. I turned to him, my face scrunched up in utter confusion.

"Joshuo, what's that?" I asked, then mentally slapped myself. "Oh! It's the guide booklet? You still have that from Floor One?" Joshuo looked at me with a weird, are-you-stupid-face. He nodded slowly.

"We're on Floor Three, there's not much of a difference," he said, but then he smiled and opened it. He flipped through until he found the page he wanted. He turned to everyone who was admiring the lake's sparkle and ripples. "Alright," he shouted. "I have the guide booklet here, and to wake the dragon up we must swim to the deepest depths of the lake and stick a sword, any sword, at the bottom. But be careful, you will never regain that sword. With doing this, the lake will send a light blue shockwave at the bottom, and the dragon will rise up from beneath the lake, and so the battle begins. But, we need someone with the skill 'Diving' for this to be accomplished. I know Maralie gained it once, but I forgot how." He looked at Maralie. She groaned.

"Fine, I'll do it. Just like you can't maintain money, Joshuo." She spat. She changed into a swimsuit like armor, then jumped into the lake ever so gracefully. We waited a few minutes until we heard a rumble, then the luscious grass began to shake. Maralie was scrambling up to the top when the dragon rose from the center of the lake. Maralie got up, gasped for air, and equipped her Rainer. She made it clear she disposed of her Starter Sword.

The dragon's name and health bars loaded. Five health bars. The Dragon Silver. Everybody changed into Shamrock Cloaks quickly, and so the battle commenced.

Each of us took a station around the lake, spread out far and wide. It was clear the Dragon Silver's head was the target. It contained a statuette-like stone carving shoved into his head, but we could do additional damage by hitting the belly of the beast. We heard Maralie scream, a sure sign she was being attacked so everybody ran over to either side of the dragon. And started climbing up onto the shimmering blue scales. It was launching waterballs at Maralie, which she hit back with her sword, like ping pong or tennis. She was dealing significant damage, lowering the health bars all to an orange. We all nodded at each other as we watched her from safe places in the scales. We dashed up the scales as Maralie kept yelling battle cries and playing ping pong. We finally reached the head and slashed our swords at the head ornament.

The Dragon Silver shattered into the blue pieces of data and we all plummeted into the lake. We managed to get out, only to find an unconscious, low on health Maralie laying in the grass, her hair beautifully splayed out. We decided to teleport to Floor Four, as they had some nice, strong potions there that we could gain. We teleported together, sleeping Maralie in Joshuo's arms as he weeped for mercy.

---(>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We sat around a table, all jittery and happy. We had passed Floor Four and were in the Hollywood-like Floor Five, with gas lamps and red cobblestone roads, the beautiful flower beds planted here and there for decoration. We had bought the biggest mansion on the floor as well, so we decided to permanently live here. All was going well, and we all almost reached levels of 40. We heard the boss in this floor was incredibly easy, so we didn't fret a single bit about time, but soon we started realizing if we wanted to open our Mixture Shop (we decided to call it Orchid Mixture Shop, after our Guild name), we would need to reach Floor Nine early, so we had been working our butts off to where we were tired on our leaving day.

--(>>>>>>>>>>

The sky shined beautifully in the Floor Seven light. We had reached it literally before everyone else, so we were alone. We trudged through thick mud and kept staring at the sun, hoping for a sense of direction. None of us had Floor Seven maps yet, so we could get lost if we tried.

We just hoped we wouldn't encounter such gruesome enemies like we did on Floor Six. Hellbeats, Fire Bats, and Flame Wolves.