War For Underworld

The Story of the First Children

Welcome to Part 2 of World of Underworld. Like Part One, there's original content, some adaptation of Volume 20, and some parts of the first paid DLC of SAO: Alicization Lycoris, Blooming of Forget-Me-Not, and a little bit of Rising Steel/Unleash Blading.

Nothing more to say, enjoy the chapter.

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Part Two: Revenge of the First Children

Medina

In Medina's family, there's a flower that bloomed despite the harsh conditions of the land. That flower begets more flowers, and they beget more that, when she was born, there was an entire garden of this one flower. The garden still stands today, the symbol of her family.

The lycoris.

Once she asked my father why the lycoris is their family's symbol. He told her that, despite the adversity and challenges, the lycoris sprouted, bloomed, and thrived, and that one day, their family would too. her father died on those words, as did many between the fifth and ninth generations did. They believed that one day the name Orthinanos wouldn't be followed by the term "defect". Almost two years ago, she did just that.

A beautiful lie.

Medina did nothing. Or maybe she did something, but the credit goes to someone else. Others who protected a world she almost helped bring to chaos, yet now she alone remains. A golden knight, her beauty as shimmering as her armor, departed for another world. A pair of pages, now trainees for the highest honor of knighthood one can receive. A graduate of that same school, now a general of the realm's still meager forces…

A best friend, a sister, now traitor to the state. A boy, her hero, a victim of the traitor's power.

It's been three days since the battle in Norlangarth, where the hero and the traitor fought to what seemed like the latter's victory. To think the most powerful person lost, even though he told Medina it would be likely, shocked Medina so much that she lashed out and held the traitor's throat in her hands. She, too, battled that person days prior, but Medina was supposed to lose; she's just a woman with a sword, her opponent's an Integrity Knight, and the boy has defeated gods. He doesn't hold back in a serious battle. But he wasn't fighting just the traitor, but enemies he couldn't see either.

Medina should've known it was a trap. But she didn't know everything. She didn't know they had an archer with arrows that inflicted terrible agony on the victim, attacking the very fiber of their being, nor did she know they wanted his sword, the strongest there is with the ability to shape the world as the wielder pleases.

Had Medina known that, she could have protected him. She wouldn't be praying to Stacia, Solus, Terraria, and Lunaria with tear-soaked eyes, She wouldn't be sitting at his bedside like she's his grieving wife. But she's tried everything, they've tried everything, but nothing has woken him up. Not her, not his two fellow otherworlders, not his apprentice or any other friends. Unlike Kirito, he's not in a comatic state due to a damaged soul; something has him gripped from within, drowned in the depths of darkness, and no one has been able to reach out and pull him into the light.

A perfect person would be able to save him, but a defect like Medina cannot. It's why she doesn't deserve him. For all her strength, she's too weak to protect him, instead always needing to be protected.