The Twenty-Seventh Floor of New Aincrad was known as the Land of Eternal Darkness.
There were so few openings along its outer rim that almost no sunlight reached the interior, even during the day. Jagged stone peaks stretched down from the floor above, while enormous hexagonal crystals rose from their slopes and cast a hazy blue light through the darkness.
This was the current front line.
It had not been long since the Twenty-Sixth Floor was cleared, yet players were already pouring into Ronbaru, the main town. Most belonged to the major professional farming guilds.
Their exploration parties moved with practiced efficiency, each member falling into position without a wasted step. Only a handful of high-level independent players could keep pace with them.
Ronbaru looked as though it had been carved directly into the surrounding rock. Narrow alleys and stairways crossed through the town in a complicated maze, lit by warm orange lamps that stood out like campfires on a cold night.
A purple trail cut through the darkness as Yuuki flew into the circular plaza at the center of town. She landed lightly on the stone pavement, greeted by the peaceful music of the safe zone and the faint smell of stew drifting through the air.
Ronbaru was a town built for people who lived beneath the night.
There were no towering structures, only small blue-stone workshops, shops, and inns packed tightly beneath adjoining eaves. Under the orange lights, the town had the dreamlike beauty and lively warmth of a night festival.
Few players had used Ronbaru as a base in the old Aincrad. It offered almost no important facilities. Now that it stood on the front line, however, its streets were filled with quiet groups in matching uniforms, moving quickly through the shadows.
Miara.
Moon Scythe.
Fallen Faith.
Red, blue, and white made the three great farming guilds easy to tell apart. Their members passed one another without so much as a greeting, each group carrying the grim air of soldiers on campaign.
Yuuki had no interest in any of them. She slipped into one of the alleys branching away from the plaza, hurried up and down the narrow steps, crossed a small bridge, passed through a tunnel, and stopped before what appeared to be an inn.
She pushed open the door beneath the hanging sign. A white-bearded NPC dozed behind the counter as she walked past him and into the tavern beyond.
"Welcome back, Yuuki. Did you find someone?"
A lively young voice greeted her.
Five players occupied the round table in the center of the otherwise empty room. Yuuki strode over with irritation written across her delicate features, then spun around to face the man who had followed her inside.
"How long are you planning to keep following me?!"
Satoru did not look remotely ashamed of having tailed her all the way there.
"I only want to be friends."
"No!"
"Why not think it over?"
"I said no!"
"I'm sure my persistence will win you over."
Satoru tried to offer her a warm, gentle smile.
Unfortunately, his face refused to cooperate. The crooked curl of his lips only made him look even more like a suspicious stalker.
"W-wait, Yuuki. Did this creep see your face and decide to latch onto you?"
The boy at the end of the table stared uneasily at Satoru's smile.
"It happens," the burly man beside him said, looking thoughtful beneath his sandy curls.
A sharp-looking Spriggan woman spread her hands.
"I hate to say it, but Yuuki isn't nearly as harmless as she looks. Once she gets serious, she starts laughing while she cuts people apart. She's scarier than the orcs on the Third Floor. You may have picked the wrong girl to stalk."
"You've misunderstood."
Satoru raised both hands.
"I only came here to make friends with all of you."
Somehow, that made him look even more suspicious.
"Well, making friends is part of playing an MMO," the burly man said, scratching his head. "But our group is a little unusual. Strength is a hard requirement. We're planning something big."
"That won't be a problem."
Satoru answered with perfect humility.
"I'm very strong."
The burly man fell silent, caught off guard by the sheer lack of hesitation.
The Spriggan woman, on the other hand, seemed delighted by their strange visitor. She clapped her hands.
"Then let's test you. How about fighting the pretty girl you've been following? Beat her, and we'll overlook your questionable tastes and let you join."
"Works for me," the boy said.
"Excellent."
Satoru brightened.
"Then let's start at once."
Everyone around the table leaned forward, ready for the show.
"All right, Yuuki. Get him!"
"Show him that terrifying side of yours!"
Their cheers did not have the usual effect. Yuuki was normally the first to leap at a challenge, but now she stood with her arms folded, looking distinctly uncomfortable instead of reaching for the black sword at her waist.
"What's wrong?" the boy asked. "Stomachache?"
Yuuki glared at him.
"W-we already fought," she admitted, pressing a hand to her forehead.
"What?"
"I fought him before I brought him here."
A bad feeling settled over the table.
"I lost," Yuuki said quietly. "I used my Original Sword Skill and still lost completely."
Silence followed.
Satoru alone remained standing straight, the faint smile still on his face.
"That creepy stalker is actually stronger than you?" the boy blurted out.
"I..."
Satoru opened his mouth, then stopped.
"Those are the most dangerous ones," the burly man said with complete seriousness. "Not only is he desperate enough to bother women, he's strong enough that they can't fight him off. I wonder if the GMs handle this kind of harassment."
"That's the part you're worried about?" the Spriggan woman asked.
The woman who had remained quiet until now finally spoke.
"Doesn't this mean Yuuki's challenge worked? She found the swordsman we needed."
The others immediately understood.
"Still had to be a stalker, though," the boy muttered.
"Now hold on."
Satoru finally protested. He had assumed they were joking, but apparently their thoughts had become trapped on that particular track.
"I have a girlfriend. She's young and beautiful, with dazzling golden hair. Her smile could light up the world. She's seventeen or eighteen, right at the height of her youth."
He paused, then added firmly,
"In any case, I have no interest in a kid like Yuuki. My intentions here are entirely sincere."
Yuuki stamped her foot in outrage, but the burly man ignored her and considered Satoru's answer.
"Your girlfriend doesn't sound very real. Where's she from? Is she a foreigner?"
"We met in a game," Satoru said after a moment.
"So she's in ALO too?"
"No..."
"You play different games?"
"Well..."
"Where is she now?" the boy pressed.
Satoru gave the question grave consideration. At last, he answered in a solemn voice.
"In my head."
Silence.
The annoyance in the boy's and the burly man's eyes faded, replaced by deep sympathy.
"A 2D waifu," the burly man said.
"Poor guy," the boy sighed.
The quiet woman rose from her seat.
"It's nice to meet you. I'm Siune. This has become a little complicated, but thank you for coming to help us."
Her pale blue hair, almost white, fell past both shoulders. Dark blue eyes shone beneath lowered lashes, and her slender Undine avatar had clearly been built for a healer.
"I'm Jun."
The boy grinned.
"Anyone who loves 2D girls can't be all bad. I trust you."
"I'm Tecchi. Good to meet you."
The burly man smiled, displaying an impressive chest above his round belly.
"For the record, my favorite anime is Magical Girl Chuchubi."
A thin young man stood next. His neatly combed brass-colored hair and round metal-framed glasses made him look like a nervous student. He opened his small eyes as wide as he could, bowed, and stumbled through his introduction.
"I-I'm Talken. N-nice to meet you."
"Nori."
The Spriggan woman gave him a nod.
"And I'm technically the Guild Leader," Yuuki muttered, still glaring at Satoru.
"Then let's do our best together," Siune said with a gentle but determined smile.
Satoru blinked.
"At what?"
"Oh."
Yuuki stiffened.
"I never told him."
The enthusiasm around the table collapsed.
"That's his fault," Yuuki said, pouting as she folded her arms even tighter. "He followed me here without knowing anything. We finally found a strong swordsman, but he's one of those professional farmers."
"You really hate the farming guilds, don't you?" Satoru asked.
"They haven't given us much reason to like them," Siune said with a strained smile. "They use their numbers to seize every new resource first, pull independent players into their organizations, and treat every Floor Boss as their property. Ordinary players have to stay out of their way."
"Thanks to them, all our previous attempts ended in nothing," Tecchi said with a sigh.
"Yuuki doesn't hate you personally," Nori added. "She only hates the fact that you work for one of those guilds. I've never actually seen her hate anyone."
"I see."
Satoru rubbed his chin.
He had discussed the same problem with Souji Yae before. Having once been a power leveler himself, Satoru understood the situation perfectly well.
But if he wanted to befriend Yuuki and her companions, then his old friends would have to be sacrificed.
His expression filled with righteous disgust.
"You're absolutely right. Those farming guilds are despicable. They only care about profit. Their officers think good equipment and a little skill give them the right to harass everyone else. They've ruined a perfectly good game, and the developers should have dealt with them long ago!"
He delivered the condemnation with enough force to sound personally betrayed.
"Aren't you one of them?" Jun began.
"No. I've wanted to leave for ages," Satoru declared. "I only worked for them because they paid me. That job has stripped all the joy out of the game!"
He gestured toward the table.
"A close group like yours is what I wanted from the beginning. Please let me join whatever this big plan is."
"We'd be happy to have you," Siune said carefully. "But your attitude feels a little..."
"To prove my resolve, I'll cut ties with them right now."
Satoru opened a private chat with Souji Yae and set the window to visible, allowing everyone at the table to read along. Someone immediately recognized the name Shadow Song.
"Isn't he a Salamander general?" Tecchi asked, blinking. "One of Miara's top officers?"
"I heard he's their chief strategist. Every large raid he commands turns a huge profit. Wasn't he the one who organized the hunt for the ALO World Boss, the Sea Demon Golis?"
"So he's a big deal," Jun said.
Satoru typed a message.
You there?
A few seconds later, Souji replied.
Yeah?
You're a fucking idiot.
...What?
Braindead moron.
Did someone steal your account?
Satoru continued.
Mortimer's an idiot too. Grannis is only good for hauling that brick around and screaming like a monkey. Eugene is beyond saving. He actually looks up to that idiot of an older brother, and even with a rare demonic sword, he spends every day getting his ass kicked. Absolute trash.
Everyone around the table stared at the chat.
"Isn't Mortimer the Lord of the Salamanders?"
"And Eugene was the strongest player in ALO before the update, wasn't he?"
"Grannis... You mean the Demon of the Battlefield?"
Far away, Souji Yae was leading a party through a quest on the Twenty-Seventh Floor. He stared at the insults flooding his chat window, just as bewildered as everyone else.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
Satoru had years of online abuse stored away in his memory. He normally ignored arguments instead of joining them, but that did not mean he lacked the vocabulary.
That's enough. We're done.
With that final declaration, Satoru removed Shadow Song from his friends list. Souji tried to ask what was happening, only to receive a string of system notices informing him that he had been removed and blocked.
"Everyone, let us stand together against the farming guilds," Satoru said gravely. "Down with power levelers. Down with everyone ruining the game!"
The stunned group nodded before they could think better of it.
"B-but we aren't trying to fight the guilds. We only want to defeat a Floor Boss."
"Right. If you know someone as important as Lord Mortimer, you might have been able to persuade them to give us a chance. Now we'll be lucky if they don't come after us."
"A reckless choice, my comrade," Tecchi said mournfully.
Such was the wisdom of a man who loved Magical Girl Chuchubi.
Satoru fell into thought.
Somewhere else on the Twenty-Seventh Floor, Souji Yae was doing the same.