Timeless [Yuuki Konno X OC]

Chp. 56 - Delete

[Alfheim Online, New Aincrad, Floor 27]

[Malzeno's POV]

"Far as what I dug up, that mystery man ranked the second best player in Ordinal Scale goes by the name Eiji, used to be NautiluS," Argo finally dropped the name that had been on the tip of my tongue since over a day ago. 

"That's Nautilus?" Skeptical as I was, he did match the description, "Wasn't he like... not a good KoB member?"

"He was part of the same guild as Asuna?" Yuuki raised her hand next to me as Argo smacked her lips lowering her drink.

"The very same, he was set to becomin' one of the best, had the skills to boot, leadership too when it counted, downside, guy suffered from FullDive Non-conformitY," Argo laid out as my brow furrowed at the title. That made sense, unfortunately.

"What the heck is that?" Jun posed the question.

"FDNC, given how mass-produced the Nervegear were, they had to go through a lovely calibration check for each user, and in some cases, FDNC occurred; slight signal lag between the game and the brain, at worse, a player lost a certain sense or it was weakened, or they couldn't play at all. Hence why the numbers for launch were stuck at 10,000 exactly," I drawled, twirling my hand.

"Same thing affected Nautilus, if his sense of fear grew too strong the input to his legs would've cut ouT," Hearing that from Argo, I winced as Siune, Jun, and Yuuki all shared my pensive expression.

"In SAO of all games, that's..." Siune didn't say it, we all knew what that would've meant for a guy on the frontlines.

"Guess all that talent's come up to play in AR though, guy moved like he was right back in the saddle," I remarked, still unsure as to how he was so acrobatic.

"Might be a gymnast or just really athletic, his moves were so sharp!" Yuuki waved her hand, then grimaced. "Maaaan, why can't I move like that? I'm not even there yet it feels like my body's all sluggish!"

"Welcome back to the real world, Cupcake," Avoiding her jab, I kept my eyes on the tabs opened in front of me, flicking my fingers right to apply the right shade of colour to the rest of the outfit on display. I frowned for a moment. "No... lighter shade of green..."

"What's got you so focused anyway?" Feeling Yuuki press her head on my shoulder, she eyed the vague designs of a new outfit I had plans for. "Looks familiar," I closed my tabs.

"And it'll remain that way until I'm done, secret project," Winking, she pouted but kept her head in place. Eyeing the cheeky grin etched to my boss's face, I bit the line. "Alright, Rat, what's the deal with the event floor bosses? I heard Blackie's got little Yui working on it,"

"Siune, got the map I gave yA?" Argo turned to the bluette who nodded, bringing up a large, holographic map of Tokyo. Standing up, Argo marched over to gesture to the red marks with the title of each floor boss starting from Illfang from Floor One up to the one Asuna had fought last night. "Far as numbers go, they're still rising from the lowest, but here's the interestin' parT,"

Nodding to Siune, the woman overlayed a red set of pathways. Jun, confused still, raised his hand a little. "What's with the paths?"

"If what lil Yui and I cobbled together is right, each of these paths marks the main path to the floor bosses' original chamber within SAO's labyrinths, the game's purposefully overlayin' both gameS," It didn't take an expert to see the perturbed look on the blonde's face as these awfully big coincidences kept popping up.