SAO: The Story Of A Legend

Chapter 4: Mysterious bridge disappearance. {9th floor} (Hikaru's POV)

It's been about a month since this all started....some say it's an opportunity, while others say it's a nightmare.......we don't even really know if he was telling the truth that players will really die. Yes he made sense about how it would happen but I'm just not sure.....either way I'm fighting to survive for as long as I can....

"Hey, Hikaru! You forgot your sword..."

Huh? I turned around and saw Iku holding up my sword towards me.

"What?! How did I forget that?! Err, umm..thanks Iku...that could have been a disaster..."

She smiled and stood next to me.

"So what's next? We still have to clear the boss...."

"It's up to you I guess. If you think we're strong enough then okay..."

"Hey the beta testers said it really wasn't that difficult and you and me are already really high in level....I'm sure it'll be no problem to us!"

"Alright, Let's do it then!"

Me and Iku went off away from the inn we were staying at and went towards the teleport gate. We teleported to the last teleport gate we had opened and started to head towards the boss...

"Hey Hiku? I'm sure this might be a weird time to bring it up...but it's been a month since the game started....and your eyes haven't turned normal. If it was a glitch it would have been fixed already, right? What if your eyes stay that way?"

"Well I guess i wouldn't mind.....besides, don't they look cool?"

We both laughed a little.

"Has anything crazy happened with them? Maybe it has some kind of special buff to your reaction time or something?"

"Hmm...yeah I have actually noticed that my reaction time is a little faster than normal. Maybe that's all it does besides make me look irregular..."

She smiled and I looked at my map.

"We're almost there. Just gotta push through here and go over this.....bridge....hey where is the bridge??"

In front of us was a deep river with no bridge in sight...it appears as though some other players are struggling with this as well...Iku and I walked over to the other players and asked what was going on.

"Supposedly there was a quest for one player to make it across the broken bridge and activate a permanent bridge across.....apparently a player attempted this but never made it.....now we have no way across...."

That doesn't seem right....

"Well the GM must have made a way to rebuild a bridge or something like that? Maybe there's a quest??"

"Well ever since this happened some of the NPC's in town have been acting very strange. As if they don't exist. Some of them just stare at a wall and mumble words and others walk up to you and tell you something that really doesn't make any sense...."

"What have do they say?"

He looked up to remember some things they've said...

"One came up to me once and said, 'under' but I don't know what that means...."

Hmm...this surely is strange....under, huh? I looked down into the water and suddenly I could see through it....I saw a teleport gate surrounded by monsters that seemed low-level.....

"Woah, do you guys see this?"

They looked confused and looked down at the water.

"A deep river?? I don't see anything."

I'm confused....why can't they see this??

"Iku!"

I called to her and she ran over to me.

"Yes Hiku?"

"Do you see that down there?"

I pointed to what I was seeing. And she seemed super confused...what's going on here??

"Uhm...Hiku I'm sure you're just seeing something we aren't but....I don't see anything...are you pointing in the right direction?"

"Yes, Iku! Hang on..."

I took a deep breath and dove straight down into the river...

"Hiku?! W-what are you--HIKU! What is he doing?!"

"Did he just jump in?!"

"Y-yes! What is he doing?!"

"Do you see him??"

"No I don't! Hiku!"

Iku randomly received a message from me.

"What? He just sent me a message! 'I'm safe dont worry Iku. Jump down. The bridge was supposed to break. Tell the others' that's what he said..."

"W-what? Is he crazy?! No way we're jumping down there!"

"Well suit yourself then!"

Iku dove down into the water and I saw her swimming. I swam to her and showed her where to go. We landed in an area where we could suddenly breath and talk normally underwater.

"W-what is this Hiku?"

"Do you remember seeing a teleport gate on the other side of the river?"

"Yes I remember seeing that...what about it?"

"We were supposed to come down here and use that gate over there to get across."

I pointed at the teleport gate surrounded by monsters.

"So all we have to do is defeat the monsters and get to the gate?"

"Yep. It won't be too hard considering our level. Do you want to stop and rest for a moment? The gate isn't going anywhere and the monsters can't leave the room they protect so we're okay."

She nodded and we sat down by the wall. She then lunched my arm pretty hard, but no HP was taken from my bar...

"Hey! What's that for?"

"Why'd you just jump down there without telling me! I got worried!"

She started pouting and I started laughing.

"Hey someone had to do it!"

About 5 minutes later we decided to get up and go clear the room. It took pretty much no effort at all. Normally at this floor, those monsters would be pretty difficult to deal with but me and Iku are insanely high in damage and HP so there was no problem. We cleared the room and there was the teleport gate. We didn't need to activate it because someone had already activated it...I guess that was the other player. It asked us if we wanted to teleport back to town or to the nearest teleport gate. We chose the nearest teleport gate and both teleported back up on land but this time we were across the river...we turned back and saw those players looking down at the river nervously. We waved at them and walked off. Now to find the boss room....