Kirito slumped to the ground.
The Elucidator in his right hand felt heavier than ever, so heavy that he had the illusion it would fall the moment he loosened his grip. He stared numbly at the battlefield that had finally gone quiet.
Here, death only meant dissolving into a dazzling spray of crystalline light. There was no blood splattering everywhere, no stiff corpses left behind.
And yet the hollow feeling of having lost something was unbearably vast.
It had only been fifteen minutes.
Clearing a floor, taking down the largest class of monster in the game, usually took at least an hour and a half.
But.
"Eighteen..."
Beside him, the leader of this suppression force, a Knights of the Blood player slightly older than him, looked around at their own ranks and murmured.
"We're short... eighteen players."
Kirito's pupils shrank slightly.
They were unquestionably the winning side. With their superior stats, they had already brought the remaining Laughing Coffin players under control, and the enemy had lost at least twice as many people as they had.
This should have been an overwhelming victory.
It should have been.
But not a single person present was smiling. No one let out the cheers that usually came after a hard-fought battle. Whenever a boss fight ended in success, even the least talkative players would excitedly clap one another on the back, encouraging each other and rewarding themselves for their efforts.
Now there was only a strange, helpless silence.
The Knights of the Blood leader sank weakly onto the mirror-smooth floor. Then he suddenly clenched his fist and slammed it down hard.
"Damn it!"
He cursed aloud.
"Use the Corridor Crystal and send them to the Black Iron Palace," Kirito said hoarsely.
"Boring right to the end..."
The cold, mocking voice came from XaXa, who had been restrained. His hands and legs were bound by nylon rope-like items, leaving him under an immobilized negative status effect. He could only lie on his side on the ground, his HP bar barely dipping into red.
"But I guess that means you won."
"Can this even be called winning?! This was completely meaningless!"
The leader roared at him in fury.
All he got in return was XaXa's disdainful chuckle.
"You bastard."
The leader suddenly stood, drew his sword, and walked toward XaXa, who lay on the ground with no strength to resist.
"Wait!"
Kirito's expression changed, and he tried to stop him.
"Oh? That expression is completely different from the one you had earlier, when you couldn't deal with me at all."
Watching the leader come closer, XaXa still maintained that grating attitude.
"That's it. Point your sword at me and swing it down in anger, just like I did to your comrades earlier."
The leader's face was livid as he raised his greatsword high.
"Just lock them in the Black Iron Palace!"
Kirito gripped the leader's hand tightly and shook his head firmly.
"Do you really want to become a murderer like them?!"
The leader went rigid for a few seconds. His teeth clenched, and in the end, he forcefully shook off Kirito's hand, turned his back, and opened his inventory window.
Kirito glanced at the dazed players around him, his expression bitter.
"Corridor, open. Black Iron Palace."
The heavy crystal in the leader's hand shattered along with his dry voice. In front of him, the air rippled as though it had been struck by a tremor. Then increasingly deep colors spiraled open, forming a dark blue hollow in midair.
"Until this game is cleared, you'll stay in that dark, freezing prison. And even after you get out, I'll make sure you receive the punishment you deserve!"
The leader's voice was heavy.
"You mean reporting us to the police...? Tch. What a way to handle things. I can't even laugh."
XaXa spat the words with contempt.
"Isn't that the perfect ending for you? Locked in the Black Iron Palace in this world, then in prison in that world. Paying for both your virtual identity and your real one."
XaXa, who had remained indifferent until then, jerked violently at the sound of that voice. He quickly twisted his head around. Those eyes, deliberately made blood-red, revealed the same look he had worn during his frenzied slaughter.
"You're late."
Even his voice trembled with excitement.
"There's no chance to fight you now, but... I won't give up. Just wait. One day, I'll surpass you!"
"Laughing Coffin no longer exists. PoH is already a stray dog. In the end, he only relied on his skill and ran like one. I originally intended to pull them out by the roots, but..."
Satoru took the cigarette from his mouth, tossed it to the ground, and crushed it underfoot.
"I can't bring myself to care about him anymore."
Even if they were both enemies, that man had made him feel a shared resonance.
This one was nothing more than a fly.
"The same goes for you, XaXa. This is goodbye."
Satoru turned aside and stopped looking at him.
"Maybe. In this world, maybe there won't be another chance."
XaXa stared hard at him from the ground.
"But one day, you and I will stand on a battlefield far more brutal than that time with Didos. More magnificent. More terrifying."
Satoru paused and turned to him in some surprise.
"You're still bringing him up?"
"Ha. He was a quiet, gloomy bastard, sure, but his strength and attitude were exactly my type. Even after you killed him, I never deleted that gray name."
"..."
Satoru spoke quietly.
"I didn't kill him. And he was the one who won. I only survived."
To think that, in the end, there was still someone willing to be his so-called comrade.
You really were lucky, Kaizuka.
"When I come after you again, don't you dare lose Yurnero's skills...!"
XaXa was thrown into the deep blue vortex, leaving only those words behind. The rest of the red players were also teleported one after another to the prison on the lowest floor.
Satoru stood silently for a moment, then suddenly let out a low chuckle. He drew out another cigarette and slowly struck a match to light it.
"Yurnero?"
Just then, Kirito, who had hesitated nearby for quite some time, stepped forward.
"What is it?"
Kirito looked at him, then suddenly gave a tired smile.
"Nothing. I just got a little emotional. When I think back to the first time we met, it really feels like a long time ago."
"It has been a long time."
Satoru nodded lightly.
"How's Klein? Is that guy doing all right?"
"He and his friends are about to catch up to the frontliners."
"That's good news."
"And you... earlier, you mentioned...?"
"The leader of Laughing Coffin. I intercepted him on the way, but he escaped."
Seeing Kirito's complicated expression, Satoru added,
"But there's no way he can build a second Laughing Coffin now. There aren't many people in this game who are that obsessive."
And PoH himself probably would not dare take advantage of the chaos again.
The pain I gave him, the kind that sank into his nerves and into his soul, was not something easily digested. He was probably curled up in some corner right now, trembling and howling.
After all, when I came out from that space between floors on the 36th Floor, the pain nearly drove me mad too.
He touched the corner of his eye.
In the end... were Makoto Kaizuka and I the only ones who had ever looked at this world through those eyes?
I thought anyone with a Unique Skill had that kind of privilege.
Maybe I was overthinking it.
"By the way, what time is it?" Satoru asked Kirito.
"Around four or five in the morning."
"I see... Then I guess you can't say I'm late."
He smiled, waved to Kirito, and slowly walked toward the exit of the Labyrinth Tower.
...
5:40 a.m., 66th Floor.
The sun had only just risen from the far side of the horizon, and the light of dawn had only begun to brighten the night sky. A few players who had hunted through the night were scattered along the streets on their way back. The town's music still echoed gently.
It seemed to have rained the night before, and the early morning air was wonderfully fresh.
How quiet.
Satoru carried cake and drinks in his hands.
He really did have to thank that pastry shop for opening so early.
He approached the inn where they were staying, but stopped several dozen meters from the entrance.
Sheeta stood there quietly, watching him with a faint smile.
At that moment, the morning sunlight crossed past him, spilled over the stone road beneath his feet, sank into the gaps between the paving stones, and moved forward, forward, still farther forward, until it touched the girl and freed her completely from the shadows.
The gentle sunlight made her seem to give off a soft glow, and her golden hair fluttered lightly in the breeze.
Satoru tilted his head helplessly.
Directly across from him, Sheeta adorably tilted her head back at him.
"If you tell me you stayed up all night, I'm going to get mad."
He quickened his steps, walking toward the dazzling girl bathed in the morning sun.