Following the staircase beyond the First Floor Boss Room, Shindo and the others continued upward until they finally reached a massive, square-set door that looked considerably heavier than anything they had passed before.
The moment they pushed it open, a fresh gust of wind rushed straight toward them, forcing everyone to raise their hands over their faces and squeeze their eyes shut.
Several breaths later, the wind gradually settled.
Only then did Shindo and the others lower their arms and look outside.
The first thing that greeted them was an endless expanse of open wilderness.
Broad grasslands stretched in every direction, while a wide road cut straight through the fields toward a hollowed-out crater rising not far away.
The town of Urbus had been built inside that enormous crater.
And the road leading directly toward it was the town’s southern central avenue.
Shindo stepped through the doorway.
The evening sun slanted across the elevated platform, bathing everything in warm gold.
Asuna walked ahead of everyone with her hands clasped behind her back.
Without the hood of her cloak covering her, her long chestnut hair swayed gently in the breeze like willow branches.
Her Wind Fleuret hung at the left side of her slender waist, rocking lightly with every step.
Beneath her short red pleated skirt, pale-white stockings traced the lines of her long legs, while the heels of her boots tapped against the sunlit stone as though she were walking across a golden sea without any clear edge.
Nearby, Yuna broke into a light, almost dancing step and began singing again.
This time it was a soft country-style ballad.
Mito, Yuuki, and Aiko laughed quietly and hurried after her.
The dozens of front-line players following behind watched the girls running through the evening light.
Perhaps it had simply been too long since any of them had seen something so ordinary and peaceful.
Several players unexpectedly felt their noses sting.
A few even wiped tears from their eyes.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Diavel lowered his head slightly, a sorrowful smile crossing his handsome face.
“If only…” He stopped there.
Finishing the sentence would have ruined the moment.
“That’s exactly why scenes like this are worth chasing.” Shindo rested both hands over the nodachi strapped across his shoulder and stepped fully into the sunlight, letting the wind pull at the hem of his cloak as he entered the world of Aincrad’s Second Floor.
Perhaps because everyone had only just survived a deadly Boss battle together, none of them seemed particularly eager to separate yet.
All forty-eight raid members followed Urbus’s central avenue into the crater city and eventually arrived at the cathedral plaza in its center.
Purple system text appeared before their eyes.
[INNER AREA] They had entered Urbus’s central safe zone.
The crater surrounding the town had been hollowed out so completely that the opening overhead formed an almost perfect circle.
Through that enormous natural skylight, they could see the blue sky of the Second Floor.
A Gothic cathedral with a sharp spire towered over the settlement.
Urbus’s BGM carried the melancholy tones of an oboe, and somewhere within the music floated the faint sound of a choir singing hymns.
At the center of the plaza stood a carved stone archway with no actual door, almost like an ornamental gate in a garden.
When the full raid approached, Diavel stepped forward and activated it.
The Teleport Gate connecting the floors.
Light erupted from the arch.
At the same moment, an NPC band standing at one edge of the plaza suddenly began playing the triumphant Town Liberation Fanfare.
A thin blue membrane spread across the empty interior of the arch like the surface of a soap bubble.
Faint human silhouettes began appearing inside it.
The first players to emerge were those who had attended the First Floor strategy meeting but had chosen not to participate in the Boss battle.
The moment they saw all forty-eight raid members standing there alive, their expressions turned to outright disbelief.
To them, a zero-casualty clear apparently seemed almost miraculous.
Then more players began arriving.
People who had spent nearly a month trapped in the Town of Beginnings stepped through the gate and entered the Second Floor for the first time.
A completely new world opened before them.
Their restraint vanished.
Cheers erupted throughout the cathedral plaza.
Some players shouted congratulations, others laughed and clapped, while still more crowded around the front-line raid as though they wanted to celebrate simply because the First Floor had finally fallen.
This was part of the glory reserved for those fighting at the very front.
They risked their lives against the Floor Boss, opened the path upward, then received the applause and gratitude of everyone who came after them.
And from that day onward, Shindo and several of the others began becoming genuinely famous among SAO’s player population.
Diavel, the Victorious Knight.
Shindo, the Master Swordsman wielding an odachi.
Kirito, the solitary swordsman in black.
Asuna, the flash that moved like a shooting star.
And Yuna, who had effectively made her debut inside SAO as a singing idol.
Elsewhere, some players had already bought parchment guides containing early information about the Second Floor and were weaving through the crowd before sprinting toward Marome Village, the closest settlement to Urbus.
None of that mattered to Shindo right now.
He was waiting for someone.
And judging from what he remembered, she should have been dealing with a minor problem at around this point.
A familiar figure suddenly shot through the blue membrane.
Argo.
Two other players came sprinting through behind her at nearly the same speed, clearly chasing her.
The sight looked disturbingly similar to those reports on NHK about creeps following schoolgirls through the streets.
“Yo, Argo!” Shindo raised a hand.
“Need some help?” Hearing his voice, Argo stopped running forward but continued jogging in place, feet tapping rapidly against the ground.
The moment she spotted Shindo and the others, she visibly brightened and hurried toward them as though she had finally found salvation.
“Huh?
Shindo-kun?
Kirito-boy?
Asuna-chan?
Why are all of you here?!” “As members of the raid that just cleared the First Floor, I’d say us being here is pretty normal.” Shindo spread his hands helplessly.
“You’re the one sprinting through town like someone’s trying to collect a bounty on you.” As he spoke, his gaze shifted past Argo.
Two players dressed like ninjas had stopped several paces behind her.
Asuna and the others noticed where he was looking and followed his gaze.
The two strangely dressed players clearly became nervous when they saw Shindo’s group.
Still, neither backed away.
Rare equipment had a very particular meaning in SAO.
Only certain elite MOBs and Floor Bosses dropped truly exceptional weapons and items, and many of those rewards were unique.
Asuna’s Wind Fleuret, Shindo’s Splitter, and Kirito’s Coat of Midnight were all obvious examples.
The old saying that the stranger the weapon looked, the faster its owner would die simply did not apply here.
In SAO, unusual equipment was often proof that its owner was extremely strong.
“Ahem…” One of the ninja players straightened himself.
“We have business with Argo.” “Who are you?” Shindo glanced at Argo hiding behind him like an actual rat, then looked back at the two men with open irritation.
Their ridiculous outfits alone were enough to annoy him.
“We are Kojirō and Isuke of the Fūma Ninja Army guild!” “Sorry.
Never heard of you.” At this stage of SAO, most so-called guilds existed in name only.
The rare item required to establish an official guild, the Guild Flag, would not become available until much higher floors.
For the moment, the front-line group Diavel had successfully organized into something resembling a united force was the closest thing Aincrad had to a truly influential guild.
Most other groups were little more than loose collections of players.
“We have urgent business with her!” “They want information about one of the special Skills I know,” Argo whispered.
She rose onto her toes and leaned close to Shindo’s ear.
“I don’t want to sell it, but they won’t stop following me.” Shindo’s expression flattened.
“Whatever your reason is, relentlessly chasing a girl around town after she’s already told you no is pretty damn rude, don’t you think?” There was not much to judge here.
If Argo did not want to sell, that should have been the end of it.
Asuna, Mito, and the others began looking at the two ninja players with equally unfriendly expressions.
“Well, we did just finish clearing the First Floor Boss.” Shindo shifted the long scabbard of his nodachi behind him and planted its tip against the stone.
His hand turned around the hilt.
“But if you really want to try something, I’ll entertain you.” He slowly drew Splitter.
“Shindo-kun, what’s going on?” Diavel had noticed the sudden tension and came over.
Considering the atmosphere had been celebratory only moments ago, the change was difficult to miss.
“There are creeps bothering a girl, Diavel.” “C-Creeps?” For a moment, Diavel seemed genuinely baffled that such a term could even become relevant inside SAO.
Then he noticed Argo hiding behind Shindo and the two suspicious players dressed in bizarre ninja outfits.
His expression immediately hardened.
“What exactly are the two of you trying to do?” Diavel raised one hand with the commanding presence he had shown throughout the Boss raid and stared directly at the self-proclaimed Fūma Ninja Army members.
At the same time, the rest of the raid began gathering around them.
They had fought side by side only minutes ago, and several of the people involved in the dispute happened to be among the players who had distinguished themselves most prominently during the Boss battle.
The two ninja players suddenly found themselves surrounded by nearly the entire front line.
Shindo tilted his head.
“You still sure you want to keep this going?” He slid Splitter back into its scabbard.
The guard clicked sharply into place.
Both “ninjas” flinched.
“We sincerely apologize!
We shall take our leave immediately!” Kojirō and Isuke dropped into a full dogeza without hesitation.
Then they stood and disappeared from sight at the highest speed they could manage.
Shindo watched them go before turning toward Diavel.
“Seriously, Diavel, aren’t the players outside the front line a little too carefree?” He folded his arms.
“I remember there being people like that during the beta too.” “Shindo-kun, not everyone is going to treat this world seriously.” Diavel sighed.
“There are always going to be exceptions.” His expression suggested the resigned exhaustion of someone accepting that no matter how large the world became, it would never run out of idiots.
“Anyway, Diavel, are you heading back to the First Floor to reorganize?” “Yeah.
Most of our supplies and stored equipment are still down there.” “Then I guess this is where we split up.” Shindo waved toward Diavel and the other front-line players behind him.
“If everything goes well, I’ll see you again around the Labyrinth at the southern end of the Second Floor.” “Wait, Shindo-kun…” Diavel stopped him.
For once, the usually confident knight looked strangely hesitant.
“Um…
friends…?” Shindo blinked.
Then understanding dawned.
“Oh.
Sure.” Shindo exchanged friend registrations with Diavel and several of the other raid members before finally leading Asuna and the others away from Urbus’s cathedral plaza.
Freed from her pursuers thanks to the front-line group, Argo promptly wrapped both arms around Shindo from behind.
“Shindo-kun was so cool back there.
Big Sis might end up breaking an information broker’s greatest taboo and falling for you.” Her deliberately mature tone did not remotely match her age.
Shindo reached backward and rubbed his knuckles through Argo’s soft golden-brown hair.
“Argo-chan, even if this is a game world, you shouldn’t cling this closely to boys!” Mito planted both hands on her hips and gave Argo a very serious warning.
Aiko and Yuuki poked their heads out from behind Asuna.
“Aiko agrees.” Kirito, now dressed in his new black coat, passed by Shindo and gave his shoulder a quick pat.
“Shindo, I’ve got something I need to take care of.
I’m heading out.” “Kirito, you’re trying to get a head start on grinding, aren’t you?!” Shindo immediately pointed after him.
“I am absolutely not giving up the number-one spot on the level rankings!” Before he could finish, Kirito’s party-leave notification had already appeared in front of him.
By the time Shindo dismissed the system window, Kirito was already running away at high speed.
“Shindo-kun, you really are a sinful man.” Nautilus began pushing a wide-eyed, completely innocent Yuna toward the western street branching away from Urbus’s cathedral plaza.
That part of town contained most of the inns and rental houses, and it was already getting late.
Shindo watched his supposed ally abandon him.
Then he raised his voice thoughtfully.
“You know, Nautilus, now that I have Splitter, I probably won’t be using my old Anneal Blade +4 very much anymore…” Nautilus froze.
Then, with astonishing speed, he appeared directly in front of Shindo and adopted an almost painfully respectful posture.
“What are your orders, Shindo-kun?
Would you like us to clear the Second Floor Boss tonight?” Shindo nodded solemnly.
“Young man, if you truly wish to become stronger, I recommend joining us for hellish grinding starting tomorrow.” Asuna covered her mouth, barely suppressing her laughter.
Yuuki burst out laughing beside her.
Only Aiko still looked somewhat irritated.
“How long are you all planning to keep fooling around…?” …
Urbus was anything but quiet that night.
The flood of new arrivals spread through the town like dandelion seeds carried in on the breeze.
Only a short while ago, the settlement had been peaceful enough that someone could lie on the roof of a house and stare into Aincrad’s eternally moonless, starless night sky.
Tonight, even that seemed impossible.
Winter also appeared to have arrived early this year.
It was only the beginning of December, yet snow began drifting quietly from above.
Aincrad, much like the real world outside it, was entering its snowy season.
Asuna cupped her hands together and caught the first snowflake of SAO’s first winter.
A perfectly ordered six-sided crystal rested against her palms.
Yuna began singing a Christmas song that would not belong to the season for several more weeks.
For an instant, it felt as though an entire season had passed around them at once.
Their breaths had already begun turning white.
“It’s snowing!” Excited voices rose from the crowd.
Some players clasped their hands in front of their chests, lowered their heads, closed their eyes, and silently made wishes.
“Shindo-kun.” Argo walked around him with her hands behind her back before finally stopping just behind his shoulder.
“Anything you want to wish for?” “Make a ridiculous amount of col.” Shindo answered without even thinking.
“And clear all of Aincrad as quickly as humanly possible.” “Ehh?
Shindo-kun, you’re seriously boring!” Argo pulled her hood tighter around her head.
“Well, whatever.
Big Sis is heading off.” She waved goodbye to Shindo, Asuna, and the others before breaking into a light jog toward Marome Village.
Only after Argo disappeared did Aiko suddenly remember something.
“Ah!
I forgot to ask Argo-chan about that special Skill those people were after!” “I already know what it is,” Shindo replied.
“But we’re not going anywhere tonight.
We’re resting first and leaving tomorrow.” He led everyone out of the cathedral plaza and toward Urbus’s western district.
Warm lights glowed beneath the covered walkways lining the street.
For tonight, at least, it looked like the perfect place to sleep.