Sword Art Online - Midnight Assassin - Vol.1

Chapter 7

[Saturday, 3rd December 2022 - 02:00 p.m.]

'It's in two hours, the boss meeting.'

I stood behind some pillars on the top of the amphitheater as other players come and goes after checking out their interest.

Earlier in the morning around ten o'clock, I met Kirito while in the labyrinth and he told me about how there will be a meeting about the boss and all because some players found the boss room while he was soloing nearby yesterday. At first, I didn't give a care but as time passes, I feel bored after some worthless hunting and since my map completion rate is already 100% (excluding boss room), I decided to check it out.

It's almost a month now since the game had launched and there still isn't any progress on floor clearing so it's no wonder some people are excited to have found the boss room. Even knowing they could die in a miserable way, they know more to accept the fact that waiting in the main town for saviors would be worthless efforts and the more time they spent in here means the higher the chance that they won't make it back. The hospital equipments wouldn't be able to hold us for so long after all.

As I watched the clock moving to 14:19, a few players are already coming in and get their seat while chatting with friends they came with or having introductions with each other and some even ate or took a nap.

They're coming too early though... It's not even two-thirty yet.

I decided to sneak out from behind the pillars and went for the top entrance. Before stepping out, however, I saw a few people talking and handshaking with a blue-haired man on the lowest ground. He almost seems like a famous person having a fan-meeting.

"Watch where yer goin'."

I flinched a bit but successfully hid the rest of my reaction from Argo. She's still mad about how I ignored her message back in the dungeon, somehow. Like, come on, it's been weeks already, duh.

I stepped aside and tried to walk past Argo who then stopped me by grabbing my arm. I looked to her sideway and asked in a half-whispered bored tone.

"What is it now?"

"Ya just gon' step 'way  after comin'? Come with me, I have somethin' I gotta talk over with ya."

She turned a hundred and eighty degrees, still grabbing my hand, and pulled me out of the amphitheater to some secluded alleyway.

"Why didn't ya send me the map info?"

"What's in it for me if I did? I don't have any info I wanna buy and I'm certainly not accepting col."

"That info coulda saved buncha lives goin' into the labyrinth."

I ended up not sending her the infos I found in the labyrinth or meeting her at all and ignored all her messages while avoiding her as much as possible. Of course she's mad, we're dealing with infos that could save lives here, after all. In the end, she bought the infos later from Kirito.

As to why I didn't send her the infos and avoided her...

"I know that. Hell—"

"If ya know then explain why ya didn't give it ta me."

"The moment they step into the labyrinth, they should've known they're at the edge of a cliff. Instead of preparing a rope, they were all trying to jump across. If they had been high enough level, they could've handled the labyrinth mobs easily."

"It's 'cause they don't have the info that they didn't prepare."

"Stupid reason. It's a labyrinth, what do they expect? A deer? Unless they're playing their first mmorpg here, most gamers should've known to not mess with a labyrinth on low levels."