Sword Art Online Volume 25 summary (31%)

Since V24 has been released in English by Yen Press, I figured that it's a great time to start on a V25 summary. I've been delaying this, since we had done a podcast version of the summary around a year ago, so it didn't feel like a pressing matter. But some people were still interested in a detailed text summary, so here ya go.

I'll be releasing the V25 summary in batches. If you've just finished reading V24 and want to get spoiled crazy on V25 and don't want to wait, you could take at the podcast we did a year ago, where I go over the main stuff of the volume in an hour long talk with Gamerturk.

-Gsimenas

Table of contents:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
[...]

Chapter 1

The chapter begins with Kirito's monologue about bosses in the Floating Castle of Aincrad from SAO. Broadly, they can be categorised into two types: Field Bosses that are placed at strategic points of the field portion of Aincrad, and Floor Bosses that guard the topmost floor of the Labyrinth Towers. The higher order of boss monsters were distinguished with the addition of the English definite article "ＴＨＥ" in their names; these monsters were referred to as ザつきボス (Za-tsuki bosu, which literally means "'THE'-Appended Bosses", or less literally "Definite Bosses"). However, there was an even greater rank of bosses that few players were aware of. Kirito gives two examples to illustrate the difference in bosses with the article "The" in their name: "X'rphan the White Wyrm" Field Boss from the Lisbeth adventure on the 55th Floor, and "The Gleam Eyes" that he had fought against with Asuna and Klein on the 74th Floor. Their naming standard differed in the fact that X'rphan had a proper noun as part of its name, while the latter only had a compound noun. All bosses with a definite article in their name could be sub-classified into those that had proper nouns, and those that did not.

You would think that the ones with proper noun names would be the higher-order bosses, but the exact opposite was true. In-lore, the bosses without proper nouns in their names were actually so fearsome that no one dared utter their names, so their proper noun names were lost to the ages. And in fact, Kirito recalls that practically all his near-death experiences against bosses came about due to this particular sub-group of bosses. The Gleam Eyes, The Fatal Scythe, and even The Skull Reaper were all examples of this. Even now, recalling the name of The Skull Reaper instilled fear and shivers in him."

Kirito: "Does this thing...... remind you of IT too, Asuna......?
Asuna (nodding, collapsed beside Kirito): "Yeah......It's not all bones, and it is twice as big in size...... but that thing sure looks like the 75th Floor boss......"
Since both of them came to the same conclusion, Kirito believed this was no coincidence: the grotesque monster before them was an off-shoot (Kirito goes Engrish by using "モディファイ版" = "modify-version" here) of The Skull Reaper. A human centipede around twenty metres in length with a lustrous black carapace, thick muscles, countless legs growing out of its trunk, a tail as sharp as a spear, its two front legs curved into huge scythes, and an elongated cranium with four gleaming red eyes and a huge mouth that opened up in all cardinal directions. Kirito saw a name in English displayed beneath its three HP bars: 【Ｔｈｅ　Lｉｆｅ　Ｈａｒｖｅｓｔｅｒ】. Without its carapace and meat down to its bones, it would be an exact match for The Skull Reaper.

Kirito: "Wait, are you telling me that this guy fell off the 75th Floor when Aincrad crashed down......?"
Asuna (shaking her head): "Argo-san mentioned that this guy had been chasing them for a whole thirty kilometres, remember? That's too just way too far for it to make sense, nor does it explain why it's got meat and carapace on its bones now."
Kirito: "Ri......ght. In the first place, all of SAO's bosses have been switched out in ALO's New Aincrad anyways."
Meanwhile, The Life Harvester let out a strange cry as it raised its two scythes just as purple lightning came down from the black clouds, followed soon after by sonorous thunder.

Alice: 'Kirito, what are we going to do!"
The entire gang was waiting for Kirito's decision: fight, or run for it. Kirito didn't feel like they could win in a fight, as a single swipe from the Life Harvester's scythe easily blew away Kirito, Alice, Lisbeth, the rhinoceros beetle and the stag beetle despite them all blocking the attack together. Kirito's iron breastplate and left gauntlet were both horribly cracked, while he himself had lost nearly sixty percent of his HP. The others suffered about the same amount of damage. To top it all off, the scythe attack hadn't had any light effects, so it was just a regular attack, not a Sword Skill. Kirito felt that the gap in power was too big too big to fill with mere player skill and UR wouldn't give them the leisure to sniff out the boss's patterns by trial and error, as a single death would exile them from the world.

However, running away wasn't so simple either. The Life Harvester was so persistent that Argo and co had been chased by the thing for thirty kilometres. There were only two ways to shake it off: flee somewhere that the monster can't get to, or foist it off on other players. But they didn't have any steep cliffs or caves around, while Kirito Town——cough, Ruis na Rig was a player-built town, so it didn't have any system protections against monsters. Meanwhile, they didn't have any sacrificial lambs around for the latter option, nor was this option appealing to Kirito in the first place.

As Kirito brooded over the options, The Life Harvester began moving again. If Kirito didn't make a choice, all that awaited them was to be wiped out. If only they knew of the monster's attack patterns. Just then... Kirito came to a sudden realisation: didn't they already know the patterns? If The Life Harvester was just The Skull Reaper with some meat on its bones, then Kirito and Asuna already had experience fighting it.

Kirito (grabbing Asuna's dainty left shoulder): "Asuna! You remember the Skull Reaper's attack patterns!?"
Asuna (opening her eyes wide in surprise, as a gleam of resolution filled them the following moment): "Yeah, I do."
Kirito (gripping Asuna's shoulder): "Alright. Let's handle all the scythe attacks together, Asuna. We should be able to offset the power of its attacks if we synchronise our Sword Skills."
Asuna: "But back when we fought the Skull Reaper, the Commander handled one of the scythes by himself."
Kirito: "The Skull Reaper had never attacked with both of its scythes simultaneously. As I recall, it always folded the one scythe towards its chest before swinging the other, without exception. If we don't overlook that movement, it's not going to be impossible to handle both scythes on our own."
Asuna: "......Alright."
The two drank a bottle of healing tea as Kirito announced, "Guys, we're going to fight!"
Kirito then started giving out orders: he and Asuna would handle the frontal scythe attacks, Klein would lead the assault on the left flank, while Agil would lead the Insecsite on the right flank; Yui would provide magic attacks, while Misha and Kuro would protect her. The Life Harvester met the ants before it with a sneer as it charged at them, prompting Kirito and Asuna to move out as well.

Once the distance between them closed to ten metres, The Life Harvester pulled back its right scythe and brandished its left. Kirito monologues about how the 《Synced Sword Skills》 Off-System skill was actually difficult to pull off despite how simplistic the concept behind it was, since Sword Skills differed in pre-motion time and slashing speed, so two people triggering their Sword Skills at the same time wouldn't actually hit their target at the same time. However, perfectly timing the attacks to hit the target at the same moment, their combined power would be bigger than simply adding them together arithmetically. Sword Skills also came with a knockback effect, which meant that it should be possible for the two of them to use Sword Skills to cancel out the power of an attack that easily blew five of them away. Or at least, that's what had happened with the Skull Reaper.

Kirito triggered 《Vertical》. Asuna followed suit with 《Linear》 point-two seconds later. The two blades in slightly different hues of blue clashed with the scythe. Kirito felt the backlash all the way from his elbows and shoulder to his spine. The clash resulted in a momentary deadlock, during which Kirito had a sense that he could feel not only his own blade, but Asuna's rapier and its power as well. Without words or glances, the two synchronised their wills and let out war cries as they wrung out the last drop of power from their respective Sword Skills. The light effects on their gave one last gleam as they disappeared, their weapons repelled and their posture broken. But the Life Harvester's left scythe had also been pushed back.

Kirito and Asuna made eye contact, exchanging their thoughts wordlessly. As the two of them recovered from their post-motion delay, the centipede had also recovered from its knockback. Now it folded its left scythe as it brandished the right for a stab attack. Since it was a stab, they didn't need to block it, but they'd tumble down if they got hit with splash damage even if they did succeed in dodging it.

Asuna (whispering): "Kirito-kun, not yet.
Kirito: "Yeah."
Life Harvester: (swings down its attack towards Asuna)
Kirito: "It's going for you!"
Asuna: (already kicked off the ground)
Kirito: (jumps in before Asuna and takes a defensive posture and blocks the shockwave)
Asuna: "Kirito-kun, there's no need to defend me!"
Kirito: "Asuna, it would have been impossible for you to block the area damage unscathed with just your leather armour!"
Asuna (frustrated but conceding that Kirito had a point): "......Yeah."
The Life Harvester pulls out its scythe.
Kirito: "If you see another stab like that coming, get behind me as best as you can!"
Asuna: "Roger! ――Incoming!"

The Life Harvester drew back its right scythe behind it for another swipe attack. Meanwhile, the others were lopping off the centipede's legs on both flanks, while ducking the monster's occasional tail strikes. Trusting Klein and Agil to handle their end on their own, Kirito turned back to his own targets. The scythe was going for a swipe, but its backswing seemed rather superficial, so both Kirito and Asuna realised that it was just a feint. Its left scythe had started to move as Kirito turned his body to the right. Kirito had almost fallen for this very feint back in SAO and nearly died, but Heathcliff had clued him in to intercept the attack. Back in the present, the Life Harvester's right scythe suddenly stopped readying for an attack and was instead drawn back in as its left went for a horizonal swipe. Since the trajectory was a bit higher than the first swing, Kirito went for 《Slant》, while Asuna went for 《Streak》 to intercept the attack. Kirito once again felt as if he and Asuna had fused their five senses together as they synchronised and repelled the scythe, just like during their battle against The Skull Reaper.

Asuna: ――Kirito-kun, right!
Kirito: ――I'm taking this one!

Kirito (internally): I don't even get whether we're talking out loud or sharing thoughts anymore. The two continued synchronising their attacks as one to intercept the monster's attacks, entering what seemed like a trance state as they optimised their moves. But this trance state came back to bite them: the Life Harvester drew back both of its scythes this time, a motion that they had never seen before from either The Life Harvester itself, nor The Skull Reaper. Normally, Kirito and Asuna would have noticed the pattern change and tried to flee outside the monster's range, but their trance state dulled their thought, costing them a precious 0.5 seconds. Both of the monster's scythes took on a deep crimson hue, while Kirito and Asuna no longer had the time to dodge them.

Asuna: "Kirito-kun――"
Kirito also heard shrieks coming from his other companions. Having no other choice, Kirito was about to drop to the ground, but then...
Kirito: "Forward!!"
With that shout, Kirito pushed Asuna forward with his right hand and the two kicked off the ground simultaneously. The monster's scythes connected to three metre long upper arms. Since it was swinging both scythes now, Kirito banked on the fact that while the scythes could intersect with each other, the upper arms would nonetheless get in each other's way, leaving a gap right before the monster's trunk. Kirito's gamble succeeded and the two of them managed to avoid the scythes by sticking to the monster's body. The Life Harvester expressed its anger in a howl as it stared down at Kirito and Asuna with its grotesque mouth wide open. Kirito noticed that its HP was at 20% of its final bar.

The monster struggled to reach them, but its carapace limited its movements too much, while Kirito's companions had already lopped of most of its other legs, meaning that it was barely supporting itself by now and couldn't really charge at them.
Asuna (readying her rapier): "Kirito-kun, now's our chance!"
Kirito placed his own sword on his right shoulder. As the monster let out another cry, Kirito triggered 《Sonic Leap》, while Asuna went for 《Shooting Star》.

The long sword and the rapier pierced the monster's giant mouth. The bluish white light bulged and came out from inside the monster's four eyes. The light also started leaking out of the cracks in its carapace, as well as its joints, pulsating——before it resulted in an explosion. As blue flames sprayed from the Life Harvester's cranium, it was violently knocked back, while Kirito and Asuna somersaulted away. Its HP was just under 10% now. Just before Kirito could order a final attack, the Life Harvester let out the loudest bellow it had made during the battle. Its burst into dark red flames, its body started violently twisting around, and its spear-kike tail started pounding the ground... these were all signs of the boss going into a 《frantic》 state, throwing away all of its usual patterns in favour of rampaging around blindly.

Kirito brooded over their next course of action: to go full-blown offensive or retreat and take their time but risk another double scythe attack. Just as Kirito ground his teeth in frustration,
"ℵℵℵℵℵ！"
Kirito heard some familiar squeaking. Kirito noticed that ten members of the Pattel, who were supposed to have been left behind at the town, were jumping out of the shadows of the forest with pitchforks and spears. Their seemingly-female leader shouted out again, which prompted the ratmen to hurl their spears at the monster, hitting its cranium. Half of them were repelled by th carapace, but the other half stabbed its muscles, shaving off 3 percent of its HP down to 5 percent.

Frustrated, the Life Harvester turned towards the ratmen, but they stood firm with pitchforks in hand. Just then, Kirito heard another voice. Now a bunch of humans - not players, but rather the Basins led by Izelma, rushed out of the forest. Izelma shouted something at Kirito, which Kirito assumed either meant "What, chickenin' out on me now?" or "Lessgo, man." At this point, Kirito realised that retreat was no longer an option, so he ordered everyone to go on full-blown offense.

Chapter 2

September 30, 21:20. Thirty minutes after the abrupt boss fight, the gang and NPCs had gathered around a bonfire in an open lot next to the stables. The ALO players (+ 1 GGO player) were mingling with the Insecsite players, Basins, and Pattels, creating a very impressive scene. Especially because the Insecsite players weren't anthropomorphised and were chowing down on meat like in a horror film, which led to a cultured discussion:

Leafa: "......So, I see that our insectile friends eat the same food as us......"
Alice: "I wonder how do the inside of their mouths function......"
Agil (drinking beer-ish drink): "During the battle, I saw that they were just like human mouths."
Kirito: "Yikers."
Kirito recalls his time transforming into a demon with a wolf-like snout and how he had trouble with working his mouth when chewing players with it.
Kirito's glad that the Pattel kids have already been tucked into bed and didn't get to see the live action horror scene of giant insects chowing down on meat. He then contemplates that the Basins are likely to start getting children soon too, but hopes they can keep away from baby-making activities until after the upcoming battle the next day, since they might need to evacuate if things go bad.

In the midst of his brooding, Kirito was approached by a drunk Izelma, the Basin chief, who brought him a huge plate with a bulky portion of steak, telling him to eat up. The steak looked and smelled good, but Kirito was hesitant to eat it... since it came from The Life Harvester. Thirty minutes prior, the gang had launched an all-out attack against the frenzied monster. Despite being struck by tens of Sword Skills, the Life Harvester didn't stop preparing to counterattack with its scythes and tail. Before the creature could deal a lethal blow against the players, Kirito managed to finish it off with a 《Sharp Nail》 to its solar plexus. At that moment, Kirito had so much adrenaline rushing through his blood that he feared he'd be kicked out of the game by the AmuSphere's safeties.

In the aftermath, the gang earned a huge amount of experience points and item drops, primarily meat, followed b carapace and bones. The boss dropped so much meat that it wouldn't fit into all of their inventory storages put together. As Kirito brooded over how to make use of their huge surplus of meat, Izelma proposed holding a celebratory feast. While Klein, the Insecsite and Pattel gangs got to eating right away, Kirito was still reluctant to partake of it. If he couldn't avoid eating the meat in some shape or form, he was hoping to sample it in the form of stew that Asuna and Yui had made as if to show off their Cooking skills...but then Izelma had come along and foisted a steak on him. Kirito turned to the sides in search of salvation, but all he found was Leafa and Alice averting their gazes from him, leaving him no room for weaseling out of his predicament.

Trying to convince himself that the Life Harvester was biologically closer to cattle than insects since it had an endoskeleton and was thus a vertebrate (though there were no vertebrates with 5+ legs - an inconvenient fact that Kirito did his best to bury deep within his mind), Kirito reluctantly bit into the thick steak. To his surprise, soft-on-the-inside meat tasted more like sheep meat than cattle and proved to be a level or two better than the bear meat or bison meat he had tasted before... as long as he kept his mind away from imagining the grotesque appearance of the Life Harvester.

Kirito: "Yum!"
Izelma: (confused)
Kirito (looking at the girls): "Umm, how do you say 'delicious' in Basinese?"
Leafa and Alice: (tilting their heads)
Silica: "It's 《jihme》"
Kirito (internally): When did she manage to learn Basinese anyway? Oh well.
Kirito: "Jihme!"
Izelma: (still confused)
Kirito: "Jihme! It's super jihme! It's hella jihme!"
Leafa and co: (giggling)
Izelma (after Kirito tried to get the intonation right for like ten or so times): "ℵℵ！ Jihme! (slapping Kirito on the shoulder)"

After Izelma shared some steak with Leafa, Agil and the others and went back to the bonfire,
【Basinese skill acquired. Proficiency raised to 1】
Kirito (to Silica): "How far do you have to raise the proficiency of language skills until they become serviceable?"
Silica: "Hmm, I think a bare minimum level of communication begins at around proficiency 10. Though I'm not one to talk big when I'm still at 15 myself......"
Kirito: "10, huh......"
Kirito starts feeling that building up his communication skills might not be too hard to pull off.
Silica: "By the way, you need to master around 30 words to get to proficiency 10. I wish you luck!"
Kirito: "......T-that so......"
Kirito (internally): So, to get both Basinese and Pattelese to proficiency 10, I'd have to learn how to perfectly pronounce sixty words that I will have no use whatsoever of in the real world. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if learning these words pushed two or three English words out of my memory instead. I don't know who's the wise guy who made this game, but they seriously have to make things so complicated, sheesh.

----------

Despite the feast, the gang didn't manage to use up even a tenth of their life harvester meat (or "harvemeat", as Kirito shortens it). Since ingredients didn't spoil in inventories, they resolved their food stockpile issues for quite a while.

The party finished up at 10 PM, when the Pattels and the Basins headed back to their areas. This left only Kirito's gang and the Insecsite players at the bonfire, so they decided to use this moment to get to know each other. The leader of the insect party was Hyme (pronounced "haimii") the orchid mantis, Agil's wife. Their sub-leaders of the party were Zarion the actaeon beetle and Beaming the Steinheil stag beetle (Cantharolethrus steinheili).

With the introductions out of the way, Kirito decided to ask Argo a question that'd been nagging him this entire time: why had Argo been travelling with Hyme and co? Argo explained that she had been acquainted with Hyme before UR (not through Agil though). Starting a year ago, Argo had been gathering material on the globalisation of The Seed Nexus. Insecsite was a major undertaking in America, but barely anyone played it in Japan. Hyme was one of the few players from Japan that Argo had managed to find there. Kirito was surprised that such a game was a major undertaking in America, which prompted Asuna to mention that she had heard the game being namedropped by Yuuki and the Sleeping Knights as one of the games they had tried out. At the mention of Yuuki's name, Kirito felt a bit of a tightening sensation in his chest and, noticing that Asuna was hit harder by recalling Yuuki, he unconsciously touched her hand before continuing the conversation.

Kirito then asked Argo to explain why The Life Harvester had been chasing them all. In order to explain this, Argo took a stick and drew a 1 metre-wide circle on the ground to represent the full map of Unital Ring's world. Argo then indicated that their own position was very close to the circumference of the circular map, specifically in the south-western portion of it, which she marked with the stick.
Sinon: "How did you figure that out?"
Argo:" Sinocchi, ya remember which direction you saw the aurora at on your first day, righT?"
Kirito (internally): Guess Argo's following the nickname trend she started with 《Alicchi》 but making Sinon into Sinocchi.
Sinon blinks twice before shrugging it off.
Sinon: "Yeah, I believe it was to the north-east."

Due to Argo's urging, Sinon realised that she had been a bit more to the north-west than Kirito's gang, and marked her location with her finger accordingly. Both Sinon and Argo then drew a line from the dots they marked to the northeast: the middle of the circle. The two lines slightly differed in angle. Then Agil asked his wife:

Hyme marked a spot to the east of Ruis na Rig and drew a line straight north. Looking at this map, Kirito realised the point that Argo was trying to make: the aurora was at the middle of the map and all players saw it from different angles. Argo also added that she had scoured the Internet for player testimonies and they all indicated different directions: some saw it to the west, others to the south and so on. Based on this, Argo concluded that all the players forcefully converted to Unital Ring had dotted the edge of the map, the same distance from its centre, which was where the aurora was located. Although the ALO starting point seemed "close" to the GGO starting point, Sinon and Kirito's gang had travelled around thirty kilometres each to reach each other, so their starting points were actually around 60 km away, making it a longer trek than from Swilvane to the World Tree in ALO.

Leafa: "Say, Argo-san, how big is the radius of this world in reality......?"
Argo: "MnN～～～～Well, we just marked these three dots on a hunch, seE. Though, if we were to assume that the scaled-down version was accuratE......each starting point is around six, or make that seven hundred km away from the centre of the map, I presumE."
Leafa: "Sevinhandred!?"
Lisbeth and Silica: "You've gotta be kidding......"
Bugs:

For comparison's sake, Alfheim's world was only 100 km across, while Aincrad was no more than 10 km across and yet both of those worlds seemed vast. In real world terms, their journey would be as long as travelling from Hokkaido to Kyuushuu, or in Underworld terms... and Kirito was suddenly hit by a sense of deja vu. What if Argo's calculations were a bit off and the radius was actually around 750 km instead? Then it'd be the same size as the Human Empire in Underworld, though Kirito brushed it off as a mere coincidence.

Kirito: "Okay, so we more or less get what the full size of world is like. Though, Argo, what does that have to do with you travelling together with Hyme and her gang?"
Argo: "Oh, right, that's where I was goin' with this, now that you mention iT. Well, it's quite simple, maN. Since the whole incident began, li'l ol' me's been hearin' things from Hyme and the others, seE. The Insecsite folks have found themselves in some pretty deep shit, seE, so I offered 'em to join forces with uS"
Kirito: "Deep shit......?"
Hyme: "Kiryi, how much do you know about Insecsite?"
Kirito (a bit surprised at hearing fluent Japanese and the new nickname from the Insecsite players): "W......well, uh, practically nothing......"
Hyme: "Figures. Insecsite is built around the fact that players are divided into several phyli of anthropods that fight amongst each other for dominance: the Hexapoda (six-legged subphylum)... or in other words, insects (昆虫 | インセクト), the Chelicerata (scissor-mouthpart subphylum), and the Myriapods (many-legged subphylum). The Chelicerata includes things like spiders, scorpions, or sun spiders and so on, while Myriapods include things like anamorphic or epimorphic centipedes."
Kirito: "......So, wouldn't the great majority of players pick the bugs?"
Hyme: "Iguzakutoryi. For a long time since the game began, the Chelicerata and Myriapods — we collectively call them 《Eighmores》 from the phrase 《Eight or More (legs)》— have been under the heels of the bugs, losing territory over time. So, to balance things out, the Eighmore skills and stats were ramped up recently. This sparked a major comeback for the Eighmores...... when this incident cropped up."
Kirito: "Ehm...... by any chance, did the Insecsite folks all get spawned in the same place, both the bug players, and the Eighmores?"

Kirito: "Wouldn't that spark mayhem?"
Hyme: "Sure did."
Agil: (translating the conversation to the Americans)
The American bugs: (cursing)

Hyme: "Within several hours of the forced conversion, nearly all of the 《Sixes》...... the bug players, including us, were killed off by the Eighmores. Since the grace period was still in effect, we did manage to respawn, but all of our transferred gear had been plundered from us, leaving the Sixes with no hope to turn things around. Nevertheless, nearly none of the Sixes departed from the starting ruins; our Troupe, on the other hand, had a hunch that the grace period would expire at some point, so we escaped from the ruins."
Kirito: "Troupe......is that sort of like a Guild?"
Hyme: "Ｙａ......Despite how things turned out, our Troupe fell within the top ten in Insecsite. But without our gear, we couldn't make much of any headway and the grace period would run out while we were twiddling our thumbs, while the Eighmores would chase after us from the ruins, so we had...... uh, how do you say "ｎｏ ｗａｙ ｏｕｔ" in Japanese, again?"
Kirito: "Uh......nicchi mo sacchi mo ikanai, or something......"
Hyme: "Yes, that's the word; so just as we had NiCchiSaCchi of our predicament, Argo got in touch with us."

Kirito momentarily turned his attention to their pets sleeping beside the bonfire, before continuing the conversation:
Kirito: "So basically, you're saying that you went out to meet up with Hyme and friends at the Insecsite area today. If you'd told us about that, I or someone else among us would have joined you..."
Argo: "NaH, I slipped through all the monsters along the way with Hiding and Sneak, seE. Much safer to do on my own, maN."
Kirito: "So, how did our Esteemed Hiding Master manage draw in that hugeass from before anyway?"
Argo: (taking on a bitter expression)
Kirito (internally): Okay, maybe it wasn't fair of me to ask that question when she had two bring a band numbering twenty-one people with her...
Argo: "Li'l ol' me screwed up, seE."
Kirito: "Whu...... really?"
Argo: "I let my greed for info get the better of me, seE. Listen, Kii-bou, the world of Unital Ring has a certain peculiarity that's not quite naturaL."
Argo then used her stick to draw a small circle on the map on the Gjol Plains. Then she drew another one to the far north-west. According to Argo, the world was dotted with areas that formed perfectly circular basins that ranged from three to ten kilometres in size. Considering how natural the forests and rivers looked, the impeccable circular form of the basis stood out too much. Lisbeth the recognised the first circle Argo drew as referencing the Basin Village, while Sinon recognised the latter circle as the location of the Ornith village. At that point Yui confirmed that the Basin Village basin, ranging several kilometres in diameter, was no more than 5 cm off from being a perfect geometrical circle, which made it seem very much artificially-created. Kirito then asked Argo what the circular basins were for, but Argo herself didn't have the answer to that question yet, which was why she was investigating them. According to her intel, there have been no less than thirty of these basins found throughout the map. And all of them featured something noteworthy: and NPC village, a ruin, a dungeon and things like that. She then revealed that while going back to Ruis na Rig with Hyme and friends, they found one of these basins along the way. She marked a circle that was about five centimetres to the east of Ruis na Rig (which would make it about thirty kilometres away in actual scale). The Internet didn't have any info on the basin they had just found, so Argo got curious, stopped their trek and asked the Insecsite players to wait a bit as she stepped inside for a peek. There, she found a stone-circle like ruins. Just as Argo began to think that she hit some treasure, the Life Harvester jumped out from behind a boulder and began chasing them all over the map.

Argo: "Who'd have thought that it hound us for a whole thirty kilometres, maN. I sure put Hyme and the others in a sticky situatioN......"
Zarion and Beaming:

Argo in turn decided to crack a joke in "fluent" English:

Bugs: (burst into laughter)
Kirito (internally?): "Big Sis Argo, rad!"

At that point, Kirito borrowed Agil's help to warn Hyme and the others about Mutasina and her choking spell. He also translated her very words about why she cast her spell. Mutasina's words were enough for Hyme and co see that they wouldn't be able to befriend her. But she also felt they couldn't just walk out on Kirito's gang either, arguing that they had a fair chance to win if they banded together. Kirito then monologued about how a victory wouldn't be a victory if they had to sacrifice their people to achieve it. He was also concerned about limiting the casualties amongst Mutasina's forces, since they were being harassed into doing her bidding.

Kirito: "......If only we could take care of Mutasina herself before the battle broke out......"
Klein: "Figures it all comes down ta this, dude. It's against da Kleinsmeister's policies ta strike down a leidi I've never even seen before, but ain't nothin' we can do about that when she's the one attackin' us....."
Lisbeth: "You could always go out and convince her otherwise on your own if yer so concerned about it."
Klein (shaking his head with fear): "And get m'self struck by da choking spell when I waltz in; now that'd be cringe."
Kirito: (feels Argo burning a hole in his cheeks with her eyes)
Kirito was reluctant to tell the others that he was already collared, since he feared that they'd all focus on trying to free him, rather than preparing for the upcoming battle. Kirito was sure the only way to break the curse was to either kill Mutasina or break her staff, anyway.

Kirito still wanted to minimise casualties and was even willing to consider abandoning Ruis na Rig if needed. The battle with the Life Harvester only reinforced Kirito's belief that he wouldn't be able to continue the game if even a single one of his companions fell. Though, Alice chided him for only thinking about the possibility of losing before the battle even began. Alice felt that fleeing to avoid a battle would be putting the cart before the horse.

It was 10 PM by then. Just as Kirito was about to offer to take their talks to the log house, Hyme brought up that her American friends needed to log out due to timezone concerns... seeing as the Americans had been playing till 5-8 AM, depending on whether they were on the west or east coast (according to Yui). Hyme asked to borrow the stables, but Kirito didn't want to treat them as animals, so he instead took them to an inn at the southern commercial area. Since Hyme was playing from Japan, she joined the others at the log house to continue their meeting.

At the log house, Kirito drew a map of the Ruis na Rig surroundings and asked everyone to think like Mutasina when considering how she would engage them. Agil believed that with how twisted Mutasina sounded like, she wouldn't be going in for a full frontal assault like an idiot. Silica added that Mutasina would like to minimise her own casualties, so she might try to hide part of her forces and pincer them later on. Sinon considered clearing out the trees around them to reduce the risk of surprise attacks, but Argo brought up that surprise attacks could be used both ways, so they'd be sacrificing their own options if they did that. Asuna then brought up Schulz as an example; in an open space, the side with bigger numbers would have the advantage. On that note, Yui brought up the idea that Mutasina herself would want to clear out the trees before their battle. Kirito added that Mutasina might be able to use more than just her choker spell, so she'd be interested in clearing out the trees to make it easier to use offensive spells. At that point, Asuna wondered if it was possible to add more victims to her choker spell, which prompted Argo to bring up that some players had asked why her goal was to crush Kirito's gang rather than add them to her ranks, to which she answered that the spell was cumbersome and would be hard to pull off without some setting up an ideal situation for it, but she didn't say that it was impossible to cast it on more players per se.

Since they couldn't rule out the possibility, Asuna suggested running with the assumption that Mutasina could use the spell on them. In which case, she might look for a chance to choker them as well. After recalling what Mutasina was like, Kirito agreed with Asuna's assumption and even concluded that it was likely going to be her only viable option. So, he presumed that Mutasina would clear out the area to prevent guerilla warfare, trap them in town with their huge army, and then cast the choker on them. This would give a huge boost to her forces, after all. Klein then questioned if the spell even worked on NPCs, seeing as they had no real life bodies, but Kirito countered that the spell didn't actually stop them from breathing; rather, it just created the sensation of being choked. Yui confirmed that it was impossible to force their real body to stop breathing with signals from the AmuSphere. She explained that the brain's respiratory centre lies in the medulla oblongata, the lowest part of the brainstem, while the AmuSphere only had access to the topmost part of the brain - the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex had centres for somatic sensations, so it was possible to create a sensation of being choked by stimulating the cerebral cortex, but not actually possible to stop people from breathing. And even if it were possible to do that, the AmuSphere safeties would kick in and kick them out of the game. Yui also conjectured that NPCs would be affected by the choker spell, as they were able to get sensory information on the five senses already and capable of adding an emotional component to processing these stimuli. So, just like how they could enjoy a sweet aroma, they could suffer pain and other unpleasant sensations as well. At that moment, Kirito subconsciously petted her head.

At that moment,
Klein: "Even if da chokin' spell does work on NPCs and Yuippe, we can totally handle it, am I right or am I right! It's all jus' an illusion anyways, so we can jus' ignore it and we'll be peachy."
Leafa: "Oh, I see, since we all know it's fake beforehand, we can avoid falling to panic. If anything, letting Mutasina cast her spell on us and trigger its effect might be our chance to strike. It'll affect all our enemies too, so if we can put up with the choking and dash our way to Mutasina, wouldn't we be able to bring her down with two or three Sword Skills?"
Kirito: (recalls how Leafa as Terraria managed to protect the Orcs and Fist Fighters from Americans back in Underworld)

However, Kirito knew from personal experience how misplaced their bravado was. The choking might be fake sensation, but it sure feels realistic. A mere moment of that choking was enough to throw his sense of logic out the window and make him fall into a state of extreme panic. Since Klein's unrealistic plan was looking quite tantalising to the others, Kirito began brainstorming how to stop this runaway train.... when he felt Argo's gaze on him again.
Kirito (internally): Oh, fine, sheesh.
Kirito: "Ehm, guys, hear me out. Regarding Klein's strat... I'm afraid it's likely not going to work out."
Klein: "Why nooot, Kirinoji."
Kirito: (removes his armour and turtleneck-like undershirt)
Leafa: "Whoa whoa, Onii-chan! Why are you strip (notices the choker)...ping......"
Kirito: "Well, umm, I'm sure know where I'm going with this."

Chapter 3

At 11 PM, the meeting was suspended in favour of a ten minute bathroom break, so everyone logged out. The Kirito-Lecturing Segment got postponed due to Argo's intervention, but as Kirito had feared, his friends began discussing ways of breaking the choker spell, rather than the defence of their town. So, Kirito had proposed a break for everyone to cool off, as he feared they wouldn't have enough time to prepare for intercepting Mutasina's army if they wasted time on his choker.

Kazuto began considering the need for diving into UR from school as he switched over to his Augma, when,
Suguha (barging into the room): "Onii-chan!"
Kazuto: "W-whoa, the least you could do is kno......"
Suguha jumps onto Kazuto, straddling him.
Suguha: "It's always like this with you!"
Kazuto (timidly): "A-always like, what?"
Suguha: "What else! Your bad habit of shouldering all your problems by your lonesome! Just like you did in Underworld with the maxi...... maxiwhatsit......"
Kazuto: "The Maximum Acceleration Phase?"
Suguha: "That's the one! I hear you were warned how shit would hit the fan if you didn't log out before the maxi-thingie began, yet you didn't even tell Asuna-san about it when she was with you!"
Kazuto: "W-well, c'mon, I figured Asuna would try to find a way to stay back in Underworld, too, if I told her about it, so......"
Suguha: "That doesn't excuse you from the obligation to tell us about it! (turns her glance a bit upwards) I'm sure Yui-chan feels the same way!"
Yui flies into Kazuto's (Augma) view in her pixie form, putting her hands on her hips and making a cute angry face at him.
Yui: "Exactly! Papa, you need to be more trusting of Mama, Suguha-san, and me!"
Kazuto (internally): Welp, there's no arguing back against your beloved daughter.
Kazuto (bringing his palms together apologetically): "S-sorry, I was wrong. I just thought I'd make you worried......"
Yui (having flown onto Suguha's shoulder): "Worrying about each other is an important part of communication, Papa."
Suguha: "What she said, Onii-chan. It's a given that you shouldn't be doing something that would make people worried, but when you're facing some problem, you need to bring it up with people, not hold it in yourself."
Kazuto then notices that Suguha's wearing an Augma herself and presumes she warned Yui about her planned storming of Kazuto's room before logging out.

Kazuto: "I'm really sorry, I've reflected on my actions from the bottom of my heart. I'll be sure to bring up my issues with others from now on."
Suguha: "Do you swear by Goddess Stacia?"
Kazuto: "I-I swear by Goddess Stacia."
Suguha: "Alright then! (climbs off Kazuto)"

Since Suguha had already taken care of her calls of nature, Kazuto was about to go for his turn.
Kazuto: "Umm, Yui-san......I kinda have some toilet business to take care off......"
Yui: "Oh, I'm sorry, Papa! There's just something I wanted to discuss with you alone......"
Kazuto: "Huh, what exactly?"
Yui: "Please take a look at this."

Yui opened up a holo-window through Kazuto's Augma that displayed his temperature, blood pressure and heart rate graphs in real time based on data from the micro sensors that Rath had implanted for his part-time job. Although his part-time job was technically over, he still kept the sensors since 1) Removal would hurt; 2) It was useful for monitoring his heart rate while biking; 3) For some reason, Asuna had grown fond of being able to monitor his vitals.

Yui then specifically pulled up data on his vitals starting from 22:18:35 the previous night. After a moment of wondering what he was doing at such a time, he realised that this was the moment Mutasina activated her ultimate spell and started choking everyone with it. Yui specifically pointed to the heart rate graph.

Yui: "Unfortunately, the sensor chip does not keep track of your respiratory rate, Papa, thus I have no means of verifying whether or not the 《Choker of the Damned》 can actually stop your breathing. However, you can see that your heart rate did go up abruptly at that point."
Kazuto: "Sure did...... Though, isn't that only natural? My heart rate goes up quite a bit when I'm fighting against monsters regularly, so what's so surprising about my heart pounding away when I lost my ability to breathe, even if it was just a virtual sensation......"
Yui: "That is not where the issue lies. The AmuSphere's safety limiter protocol is triggered when the user's heart rate exceeds its maximum value for over five seconds. The maximum heart rate value is calculated by substracting your age from 220, so in your case, it would be 203."
Kazuto: "Though it's going to be 202 next week."

Yui had noticed that Kirito's heart rate had gone up to 205 at 22:18:41, stayed up there for four seconds, then went down to 195. At 22:18:48 it went up to 204 and went down again after another four seconds, after which it went down to the 190s, before going down to normal afterwards. This meant that Kirito's heart rate had exceeded the safety limit twice, but both times it went down just before he could be kicked out of the game by the AmuSphere. This all seemed too deliberate to be a mere coincidence in Yui's eyes.

Kazuto still dismissed this as a mere coincidence, as he didn't believe the AmuSphere could manipulate his heart rate. However, Yui then argued that if the four second thing was just a coincidence, then out of the hundred players affected by the choking, at least some of them should have gone over the threshold of being booted out of the game by their AmuSphere. Yet Kazuto didn't recall seeing or hearing the light and sound effects that come up when a player is logged out, nor did he recall seeing the player population diminished after the choking was stopped. At this point, Yui turned off the holo-windows and allowed Kazuto to continue with his trip to the bathroom.

----------

While washing his hands and getting drinks for himself and Suguha from the kitchen, Kazuto thought over Yui's words. He didn't believe it was probable for Mutasina's spell to limit the user's heart rate. For one thing, the maximum heart rate value was different for each player; even if there was a way to determine this value for each player, Kazuto knew that heart rate wasn't controlled by the brain, but rather by the sinoatrial node inside of it, which the AmuSphere's microwaves couldn't reach.

Just as he began thinking that there had to be something else related to the player's heart rate but not the heart rate itself that Mutasina's spell was affecting,
Suguha: "Onii-chan, what took you so long!"
Kazuto noticed that he had already reached his room.
Suguha: "We've only got ninety seconds to spare!"
Kazuto: "Sorry, sorry. Though, I'm sure no one would bat an eye if we were late by like two minutes or......"
Suguha: "What kind of role model are you trying to be as the leader!"
Kazuto: "I haven't been officially voted in as one, though......"
Suguha took her drink and gulped it down.
Suguha: "Only one minute to go, move it, move it! (lies down on the bed)"
Kazuto: "Whoa, are you planning on Diving from here again?"
Suguha: "That's what you get for taking so long, Onii-chan. Besides, if in the unlikely event Mutasina's spell stops your breathing, I'll need to be the one to take lifesaving measures!"
Yui: "I leave Papa in your care, Leafa-san!"
Suguha: "He's as good as safe with me!"
Kazuto (internally): Those two have sure been hanging out a lot.

----------

Kirito monologued about how none of the ALO players they saw the previous night harboured actual hostility against them, so dealing with Mutasina would eliminate the threat of their town being raided again. He also thought over Mocri, Schultz and the 《Sensei》 character behind them. He wondered if this Sensei was Mutasina, or was the witch just another pawn the Sensei had been manipulating to eliminate him and his companions from the game.

At that point, Kirito's monologues were interrupted by Klein, who asked if they could get back to where they left off. Kirito took this moment to state his opinion that discussing how to remove his choker would be wasted effort, since the lacked an understanding of UR's magic skills, while Mutasina's spell was grand enough to choke a hundred players. Dispelling it would require something on the same level of power, but it was improbable for them to reach such a level in just half a day's worth of time.

As Kirito repeated his belief that allowing themselves to be hit by Mutasina's spell on purpose wasn't going to work out well, since the sensation of being choked was far too realistic to be ignored, Alice then questioned how they would deal with the hundred-strong army in that case. Since Kirito wanted to avoid casualties on both sides, he shared an idea he'd been thinking over since he found out that Mutasina would be attacking them. Fifteen minutes of discussion later, the gang approved of his plan and then filled up on SP and TP, before beginning making their preparations.

As Kirito was planning to leave with Argo for their task, Lisbeth called for everyone's attention with a clap.
Lisbeth: "Alright guys, if I could get your attention now!
Turning around, Kirito noticed that Lisbeth, Silica, Leafa, Sinon, Alice, and Argo had gathered at their bulletin board, while Yui pushed Asuna to the center of the living room.
Lisbeth (managing her menu): "Here we go!"
Girls: "Asuna, happy birthday!!"
Lisbeth then materialised a ton of flower petals from her inventory that the seven girls then scattered around Asuna.
Klein, Agil, and Hyme were caught by surprise but still began clapping at that point. Asuna blinked in surprise herself, before taking on a radiant smile.
Asuna: "Liz, Silica-chan, Leafa-chan, Sinonon, Yui-chan, Argo-san, and Alice...... thank you, truly."

Chapter 4

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