When an American finds himself trapped in Sword Art Online with some of his friends, he makes a promise to bring him and his friends out alive and then he finds himself mysteriously blessed with the power of the most powerful Demon Lord, and in effe...
By the end of the first month, an additional one thousand nine hundred players had been lost to the monsters.. or unofficially, by taking their own life by various means sometimes. All told, since the start of the "Death Game", as Sword Art Online was now called according to Crawford, who along with the rest of my friends had made fast friends with other gamers while they were still trying to level up enough to be able to get close to where I was.. that is, having the ability to cross most of the 1st Floor without worrying about dying. By this point, one month in, I was now Level Twenty Two, a very high level among the players.
I hadn't been going out every day killing monsters during this time, however. Much of that time was spent helping my friends get more and more players out of their depressed state in the Town Of Beginnings and out there against the monsters, because while I always was the tactical genius, Crawford was the strategic mind even as a Quarterback. He clearly recognized that beating this game would require a team effort of enough skilled players, and so in order to get the foundations for such a team off the ground, he enlisted me and the others to help get as many players out into the plains of the First Floor as possible. In a sense, the eventual Assault Team that was created was more or less his brainchild, even if he had only an indirect hand in its creation. Needless to say, with all the help he got, it was hard work getting non-beta testers off their butts and into the fields, but I couldn't blame them, or even give a **** about them. They just had their ******* worlds rocked to the core by that bastard Kayaba, so in their current emotional state, I couldn't blame for not wanting to do something about it - the only thing they could do about it of course being the way that could possibly get themselves killed.
But to be fair, none of those who sat on their butts in the Town Of Beginnings, nor those out in the fields fighting the monsters - beta testers or not - could even compare to what I had, with the Demon Sword. Then again, though, some of those same beta-testers were a little noisy as well, generally trying to figure out why after a month.. me, a non beta-tester, was at the top of the leaderboard in terms of level. Yeah.. no joke.
I was, by now, the strongest player in a video game and I wasn't a beta tester. Whoop de ******* whoop. Despite all of that, I still hadn't managed to even get close to unlocking the secrets of this sword.. guess that once I get to Floor Two or any other certain floor, things will start to get a little bit clearer, but either way, for now.. it came with unreal benefits, that most regular gamers in here would call absurd. Generally, it put me in a class by myself, as I was able to buy high level gear for low prices and get massively increased drops and XP on quests that even beta testers would have to level up hard to replicate. Pretty soon, by one month in, I was already wearing the highest class armor on this floor at max level, while the Demon Sword had upgraded to at least Level Four, giving increased health, attack, defense, and special attack point stats, making me even more of a powerhouse.
A key problem on the quest to beat the game still remained though at this point in time, and that was that nobody could find where the floor boss was. From what I gathered, Kayaba had redesigned the game for the official release, so that what info the beta testers had about the game at this particular point was completely useless. I, for one, wasn't really interested in finding the floor boss just yet. With less than ten thousand other players, including my friends, below me in the leaderboard rankings, I had to keep leveling up to maintain my spot as the highest ranked player in Aincrad, which was why I decided to give my skills a bit of a test and venture into the dungeon underneath Black-iron Palace in the Town Of Beginnings.. by myself.
I know.. it sounds like a stupid idea.. but then again, I had the demon sword.. so that made a world of a difference. Really, really did.. and it showed.. as one monster after another fell to my blade. Some of the Kobold Henchmen down here did put up a little bit of a fight, but their blades were snapped off when the Demon Sword came into contact with their weapons. The Fruit Nepenthes down here were a little more annoying.. scratch that, the most annoying dungeon mob in this particular dungeon.. precisely due to their method of attack.. as they could attack you from behind and on your sides. And it hurt.. but like the rest of the mobs so far, they couldn't damage my life points, so they were basically attacking me with a toothpick.
Slice. Slice. Slice. Slice.
That single sound of blade cutting flesh and subsequent sound of enemy turning into pixels was the repetitive noises that echoed frequently in that dungeon, which after the first few players that died here, nobody even bothered trying to come down here, at least for now. The silence in between these noises, as well as cries from the enemies as they noticed me and blades breaking would probably be unnerving to some, but to me.. it was an absolute ******* respite from the doom and gloom that permitted the town above me. Like seriously, it took all the self control I had not to lose it over all the depression up there, on god.
Slice. Slice. Slice.
Honestly, the whole silence really gave me time to think about other things as I continued my way down the dungeon, like what the hell was up with the Demon Sword that I had. It still mind-boggled me as to where or who it came from, like it was that infuriating for a nerd like me to not be able to answer that question, it infuriated me so much. As to my friends, generally the guys, especially Brandon, were already seeing the benefits of my new found abilities and envisioning how this could affect the death game going forward, while the girls, with the exception of Koharu at the moment, generally were skeptical that my new found abilities could tip the scales in our favor, especially since no one knew where the boss was. Either way, my new found abilities had potential, that much was for sure, we just had no ******* idea how far it would go.
It was around this time, at least seven thirty pm, about an hour after I had gotten into this dungeon without anyone other than my friends knowing about it, when I got to where the boss was.
"So.. you dared to venture alone, player.." a voice said that caused the hair on my neck to stand up, but I wasn't scared. I had the Demon Sword, and even though this was a boss, so it could hurt me, the stats the sword gave me would more than compensate for the loss of invincibility in this case. I had a determined look in my eye as the boss came out of the shadows to my front.
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"Well, you have made the biggest mistake of your life, and your last one as well!" it shrieked, swiping at me with its massive scythe. I parried it with the Demon Sword, and even though I was sent flying, I only lost one HP to the attack, something that completely confused the boss.
"Huh.. wha.." the boss howled, disoriented. I decided to seize the moment, and I don't know what happened next, because the next thing I knew as I charged the boss, I was walking out of that dungeon alive, and with two drops: the boss' massive scythe and his cloak in my inventory. I had no idea that I just curbstomped a boss as nearly as powerful as the bosses on Floor Ninety and above until Kirito and Asuna went down there later on.
My level had kicked up to Level Thirty Two as a result of the fight, being only Level Twenty Seven when I got into the boss room. Still, the whole encounter in that dungeon left me with more questions than answers, answers that I would begin to uncover all too soon.
(A/N: As to why Richard was able to curb-stomp this incredibly hard boss, he unexpectedly tapped into a later level of the Demon Sword he hadn't unlocked. This feature only triggered due to the sheer difficulty of the boss he was facing the minute he stepped into the boss arena, and so that's why the boss' attack only took one HP off of him. And as to why he gets less XP than a normal player at his level would probably get if somehow they defeated this boss, the demon sword limits the amount of XP a player gets from extremely high level bosses like these due to the extremely high level of the former user. Anyways, hope you enjoy this new chapter!)
