Kayaba's Wrath

Chapter Two: Black and Blue

Yushiro and I enter the dungeon with a party. It's been one month since Kayaba trapped us in this game, yet we're still on floor one. Yushiro has been levelling up his blacksmithing and I've been gaining levels and climbing the ranks. I am one of the strongest players, but then, it is floor one and I am a beta tester.
We're part of the party looking for the boss room.
One of the other players nudges Yushiro, says something and gestures to me, probably another guy asking if we're dating or permission to ask me out. My cousin laughs and joins me as he takes down another mob with a swing of his sword.
"What was that about?" I whisper, looking back at the wide-eyed male.
"He was wondering if he had a chance with you."
"You couldn't have humoured him a bit?" I giggle, my hand over my mouth to stifle it. He smiles and taps the side of his nose.
I bump into the player in front of me, my sword hitting my leg.
"Why'd you stop?" Yushiro asks.
The woman points at a huge door in front of us, her arm shaking. The boss room.

We gather in the square, a fellow beta tester called Diabel standing up front. He lead our party to find the boss room. Yushiro won't be participating in the boss fight, he'll just repair weapons beforehand. People file in around us, all chattering.
"Alright everyone, may I have your attention please?" Diabel tries to get the crowds attention. The chattering slowly dies down. "Thank you all for coming to this meeting today! My name is Diabel. I am, what you may call a 'Knight'."
The crowd laughs and I nudge Yushiro. "There's no job system in SAO!" Yushiro yells, his hands clasped around his mouth. I laugh. It's healthy to laugh at this point.
Diabel's serious look silences the crowd. "Today, our party has finally found the boss rooms lair!" Diabel says, joy and pride filling his voice. Yushiro puffs his chest out, proud. Being part of that party added to his ego. "We must beat the boss and gain access to the second floor to prove this game can be beaten!"
A lot of the party stand up and bow to the cheering, clapping crowd. I pull Yushiro down. "You aren't even fighting the boss!" I hiss to him.
"Alright, everyone. Let's all calm down and form a plan of action." Diabel sweatdropped at the party members who sit back down once his words shut the crowd up.
"To begin, I would like us to form parties of six."
Yushiro and I make our way to Diabel's party, the party of seven we were in. Before the meeting, Yushiro decided to stay out the fight. He's going to make sure the parties weapons are alright before they go in.
"Ok, so we'll have our tanks up front, keeping the boss off Midnight. For some reason, she's the only one who doesn't have a shield or a way to defend herself." A blonde male called Alex glares at me.
I roll my eyes and quickly dash behind Alex, stealing his shield. He blinks and panics briefly before noticing me with it.
"I'm a stealthy character. Sheilds will slow me down and I won't be able to have hard hitting swords. I'm already pushing my weight limit with this one." I hold up my sword.
Yushiro and the other two-handed swordsman, Javier, laugh as I give Alex back his shield. Javier has a shield on his arm. It's pretty long, but his STR stat is high enough to hold his heavy sword in one hand for a short amount of time. Alex won't really be much use as a mace user. His main role is to heal the party so he holds all our crystals. Yushiro and Javier get on pretty well, the first friend he's made in the virtual world. I don't get on with people very well so I tend not to make any friends. We've been in this party for half the month, and are planning to stay here until we've beaten the second-floor boss and we have informed the rest of the party of this.
Diabel goes back to addressing the crowd. "Alright! Has everyone formed their parties?"
Everyone nods, but our party ignores the egotistical male for the most part.
"Alright-"
"Hold on!" A voice draws the attention of everyone, even the less interested parties. A beaten up man jumps down to the centre of the stage. "My name is Aden and there's something I want to get off my chest."
Diabel looks worried.
"Some of you bastards need to apologise for the two thousand players who lost their lives!" Aden seems angry. His eyes search the crowd and land on a brown haired male, one who I've seen around in the dungeon when I was soloing it, trying to search for the boss room. "Are you one of them?! Beta testers?" He yelled.
The male walks down the stairs, slightly annoyed. I step forward when he mentions beta testers but Yushiro holds me back.
"No... but what do they have to do with anything?"
"Everything! They left us for dead, taking all the good grinding spots, and all the easy quests!"
"He has a point," I mutter to Yushiro who nods then gestures to the party, all of which (except Diabel) are new players.
"I know at least one of them is here, show yourselves! Get on your knees and apologise, and fork over all your items and Col!" He points at his feet and I stifle a laugh.
"At least buy me a drink first," I mutter, taking a more... sexual route to his words. Yushiro hits me lightly.
"So, you want them to provide compensation? For holding back information?" He asks Aden.
"Y-yeah." The yelling man replies.
The sensible male, I think I'm going to call him, reaches into his pocket and takes out a booklet, one I recognise as Yushiro and I worked on it with Argo, a beta tester and info broker.
"You do have one of these guide books, don't you? They're free at the item store, after all."
"O-of course..." he mumbles so quietly, I can barely hear it but I do and don't keep the smirk forming on my face to myself.
"Well, in case you didn't know, it was the beta testers that gave the information to make it."
Who did make it, I add in my head. I don't want to embarrass him in front of this crowd.
He faces the crowd. "Listen, everyone, we all had equal rights to this information, but regardless,  we lost a bunch of lives. I came here to learn from the mistakes those players made and to finally get some progress made on this game."
Diabel smiles at him and my smirk turns into a smile. Aden sits down, quietly murmuring to himself.
I ignore the meeting from here on out. It's just stuff we beta testers already know. Diabel stated that money was to be distributed equally, the experience would be given to the party who defeated the boss and items would go to whoever got it. Diabel has a glint in his eye when he says this.
"Alright, we will leave at ten AM. Dismissed." My party leaves with Alex and leaves me on my own. They dragged Yushiro with them so he could sort out weapons. I decide to do a last minute grind.

I leave with a hooded cloak on, my hair up in a ponytail so it doesn't get in my way. After I defeat three boars, my sword breaks. Great, I think angrily. I take another sword out of my inventory, a basic store bought one. I have the sword I'm going to use in the boss fight in my inventory so I don't break it. I don't exactly keep an eye on the durability of my items when training.
Once I defeat a wolf, I notice a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. A male rapier user with emerald green eyes and jet black hair with a bit of stubble on his chin.
"Hey!" I call out to him. "Do I know you from some-" He takes one look at me and runs back to town, yelling a 'no' behind him. I shrug and keep training.