Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 8 - Chapter 15

15

SHEESH, IT’S HOT.

After some thought, I opened my menu window and unequipped my main armor, the Coat of Midnight. After another few seconds of consideration, I also returned my Fortified Breastplate to storage.

That left my only clothing, aside from underwear, as a black long-sleeved shirt and black pants. Both were tight-fitting, but the pants were made of a fantastical material called Shadowthread, which gave them a substantial bonus to Hiding and also a small amount of temperature regulation. I sighed and took a look around.

My current location was in the middle of a narrow, dark path between the north wall of the Volupta Grand Casino and the tall wall surrounding it. A heavy iron gate separated this pathway from the front garden of the casino, so it was clear that guests were not meant to come back here. But because SAO didn’t have those invisible walls from classic 3D action RPGs, you could always cross any fence or wall—provided you had the strength or agility. And the game did not automatically turn you into an orange criminal player for doing so.

But NPC town guards were a different story. I didn’t think they’d just attack me without warning, but after what happened at Harin Tree Palace, it was quite possible I’d be apprehended, taken to jail, and held for questioning. On my left was the wall of the four-story casino building, and on my right was a ten-foot wall. If I got trapped on both sides—front and rear—there would be no escape. Tonight was our plan to expose the wrongdoing of the Korloy family for Nirrnir, and tomorrow was our crucial mission to take back the sacred keys and restore Kizmel’s reputation. I couldn’t afford to be arrested for even a single night.

Should I turn back and play it safe…? I wondered. But there was a vague worry deep in my gut that I’d been missing some crucial detail. We’d all but confirmed that the Korloys were dyeing the fur of a higher species of lykaon to pass it off as a Rusty Lykaon in the Battle Arena. Kio the maid was mixing the decoloring agent at this very moment, and once sprinkled on the creature in view of the betting public, the Korloys would have no excuse. In my head, I knew Nirrnir’s plan was foolproof, but the gamer part of me always suspected a trap when things were going too smoothly.

I’ll just take a quick peek at the monster stables behind the casino, and if nothing sets off my intuition radar, I’ll leave at once, I told myself, then resumed walking down the path.

Fortunately, I reached the northwest corner of the building without encountering any guards, so I pressed my back against the white surface of the casino and listened closely. I could hear the faint sound of talking, but no one seemed to be coming closer. Leaning just barely around the corner, I took a quick peek.

There was a space behind the casino lined with stones that was much more expansive than the front garden. Three carriages without any horses were parked there. The doors on the rear of the carriage were made with iron bars that slid sideways, making it seem like these carriages were for transporting monsters captured in the wilderness.

On the northern end of the space was a warehouse-like structure, but I heard sounds like whinnying now and then, which suggested it was the horse stable. I leaned out farther so I could look along the wall of the casino itself; there was a massive gate large enough for the carriages to pass through, with smaller doors on either side. Inside had to be the monster stables I was after.

I’d assumed that would be a separate building, but they kept the space inside the casino. My initial plan was to sneak up and peek through the window, but that was now impossible. Sneaking inside would be much too dangerous—and yet one of those two small doors was half-open, beckoning me closer.

Fine, fine, I’ll go! I growled to the SAO game system—or just my own goddess of fate. Once again, I examined the whole space beyond the corner. From the horse stable, which was no more than twenty feet from my current hiding spot, I could hear the faint sound of a mop being used and a voice singing a rather silly song, but there wasn’t any other sign of humanity. My guess was that the capturing teams for the Nachtoys and Korloys were still out doing their jobs.

I steeled myself for the task ahead, rounded the corner, and rushed along the wall in a hunched position. I paused before the open door, listening for sounds, then slipped inside once I was sure the coast was clear.

The first thing I noticed was a faint, unpleasant odor. It reminded me of the zoo: a combination of straw, soil, and animal smell.

The place was dark and spacious, not unlike a garage. The walls and floor were made of stone and had two large square holes on the back wall. Seeing this confused me at first, until I realized they were doorways for loading monsters. Most likely, the carriages backed into the garage until they were flush with the holes, then they slid the metal grates open so the monsters could pass through the holes on their own.

Listening carefully, I felt like I could hear low growling from behind the holes. I certainly didn’t want to go in there, but I couldn’t see any other— No, there: plain gray doors on both the right and left walls. If I squinted, I could make out crests on the doors—a red dragon on the left and a black flower on the right, most likely a lily.

Red dragon and black lily. One was probably the Korloy family crest, while the other presumably belonged to the Nachtoys. I tried to remember the past day’s events but could not recall seeing the same symbols in either Nirrnir’s room or the casino itself. If I sent a message to Asuna or Argo, they might be able to ask Nirrnir directly, but then I’d have to explain where I was and what I was doing, and if I was honest, they’d command me to call off my mission at once.

Well, I told myself, what else do you do at a casino but rely on your hunches?

But then I remembered the monster arena last night. The Korloys’ Rusty Lykaon and the Nachtoys’ Bouncy Slater had appeared from different entrances into the cage, left and right. If the monster stables were separated into left and right areas farther within, then the side the lykaon appeared from was the Korloy stable, and the one the pill bug came from was the Nachtoy stable.

Playing back the visual memory of which was which, I had my answer. The pill bug appeared first from the left, and the lykaon came out second from the right. That meant the Korloy stable, the one I wanted to investigate, was…not the black lily door on the right. I was facing the stable from the opposite side as the arena last night, so the directions should be switched. That meant the Korloy door was the left one, with the red dragon.

Sneaking closer, I reached for the knob, turned it, and pulled. It opened easily, so I waited for a moment, then snuck inside when I heard nothing. I quietly closed the door and turned around.

Much like the cells beneath Harin Tree Palace, there was a gloomy corridor that extended to the left and right. But here, the floors, walls, and ceiling were hard stone. The doors were wooden—but reinforced with iron. There would be no burning through locks with a torch if I got caught and held here.

I thought about equipping my sword from my inventory but rejected the idea. I was the one trespassing here. If the guards spotted me, I didn’t want to make things worse by getting violent. If spotted, I’d run away at top speed, and if I failed, then I failed.

The hallway ended shortly to the left, so I followed it right instead. There were a few doors on the wall; I tried opening one of them, but it was just a dusty storage room, so I ignored the rest.

On the wall at the end of the hallway was an open passage with no door; beyond was a spiral staircase heading downward. I listened carefully, then quietly snuck down the stairs. The lantern-lit steps were natural stone that had been worn smooth with use, speaking to the long history of the two families at the coliseum.

The temperature dropped as I descended, and the animal smell increased. Presumably, all the monsters in the Battle Arena were tamed through the hero Falhari’s secret technique to command monsters, but Nirrnir said their obedience didn’t last indefinitely and unconditionally. So there was no guarantee that being in the presence of an outsider like me wouldn’t cause the monsters to go feral again. As I reached the bottom step of the stairs, I kept my senses as attuned to danger as I possibly could, ready to flee at the first sign of trouble.

Beyond the arched doorway was another hallway, this one wider than upstairs. But lining the walls was a series of steel cages, not doors. I didn’t see any humans in the hallway, but I could hear muffled voices in the distance.

I listened as hard as I could, but I couldn’t even tell how many people were speaking, much less the content of their conversation. Once again, I told myself, Just gotta go find out, and proceeded down the hall.

After a few yards, I peered into the cage on the right and saw a squat animal lying on dirty straw, something like a cross between a pig and a capybara. I recognized it as a Giant Pincer Rat, a creature that lived near Lectio, the main town of this floor. It moved slowly and had no special attacks, but the pincer-like teeth that gave the rat its name were extremely powerful. If they bit down on your weapon, it was essentially impossible to pry it loose. You’d have to beat the rat with another weapon or get a party member to help—or else it would break your weapon. Even a huge two-handed ax wouldn’t withstand the pressure.

But as long as you were aware of that, they were easy to defeat, so they’d been a big source of experience points in the beta. I’d beaten far more than just fifty or a hundred, but looking at it now in this setting, I felt pity for the creature.

Don’t be a hypocrite, I scolded myself, backing away from the bars and deciding not to peer into any of the other cages. I passed the second through fourth, but as soon as I reached the fifth cage, my eyes found themselves automatically drawn to it.

This cage was not bound with vertical bars like the others, but it was surrounded by a fine iron lattice pattern that ran vertically and horizontally. The gaps between the bars were barely an inch wide, suggesting that quite a small monster was being held inside. But once I saw the shadow huddled in the corner, I could see that it was no smaller than a capybara. Interested, I stared at it until its cursor appeared. The monster’s name was ARGENT SERPENT. I couldn’t recall such a monster from the beta, but it was clearly a snake of some kind. Unfortunately, my mental dictionary did not contain the adjective that described it.

In any case, the cage now made sense to me; a narrow serpent would be able to slip its way through spaces that a larger mammal could not. Yet the gaps between the bars in the actual arena within the casino were more like three or four inches. If they unleashed the snake there, wouldn’t it slip through and threaten the guests watching the battle?

Just then, an angry voice echoed through the corridor. “Dammit, behave!”

I spun around on reflex, but there was no one around. Whatever the voice was yelling at, it wasn’t me.

Facing forward again, I could see a cage on the left and one on the right—and then a rather small doorway on the far wall, which did not seem to be a monster’s chambers. If I focused, I could hear something like an animal growl from the back-right cell.

I snuck forward slowly, pressing myself against the wall, and peered carefully into the sixth cage.

The little chamber was maybe eight feet to a side, and two men stood inside, their backs to me. In the corner, resting atop a pittance of straw, was a dog-type monster with red fur. I didn’t need to see the cursor to know it was the Rusty Lykaon from yesterday. There were spots where the red color was coming off its body, revealing white fur instead.

The lykaon bared its fangs at the men, growling softly. If that was a higher version of lykaon with its fur dyed, it would be dangerous enough that even the most advanced players would be wary of it, but these two were totally unconcerned—because the lykaon had a collar made of heavy iron that chained it to the wall.

The men were solidly built themselves and wore deep red shirts, leather vests, and long gloves that went up to the elbow. Both of their cursors said HANDLER OF THE KORLOY FAMILY, meaning that their job was to deal with the monsters.

The man on the right lifted a short whip and shouted, “Damn mutt! Do what we say, or you’ll get a taste of this!”

The lykaon instantly backed down further but did not stop growling. The man on the left muttered with irritation, “We gotta paint this thing quick, otherwise it won’t take to the fur by the match, and it’ll still smell. It wasn’t totally dry last night, either.”

I noticed he had a large brush in one hand and a ceramic jar in the other. The brush was covered with red from the jar—the fur dye.

Concentrating on the lingering smells, I picked up a sweet, sharp scent among the animal odor. It was definitely the same smell as the red stain we wiped off the bars of the arena. I didn’t like it the first time, so it had to be overwhelming to a dog-type monster’s sensitive nose.

But the Rusty Lykaon—or whatever the proper species name was—was supposedly under the control of Bardun Korloy’s power of Employment. There was a food dish and water bucket in the corner, so I assumed it hadn’t lost its tamed status from hunger. So why was it continually baring its fangs at these handlers?

Obviously, they couldn’t have sensed my thoughts, but all the same, the man on the right scratched the back of his neck with the handle of his whip and grumbled, “We’re gonna need Master Bardun to redo the trick on it.”

The burly shoulders of the man on the left bobbed up and down. “But the plan is to dispose of it today, right?”

“Yeah. Even those foolish Nachtoys are bound to notice something’s wrong by now. Once it’s performed its last shift tonight, this doggy’s going off to the farm.”

“So if we ask him to apply his trick again, he’s just going to order us to make it last one more fight instead. It ain’t cheap to do.”

“That’s true…”

What did they mean when they said the technique to tame monsters wasn’t cheap? According to Nirrnir and Kio, it was a special power inherited from their ancestor, the hero Falhari. That sounded like an Extra Skill to me. Whatever it was, something wasn’t adding up.

The man with the whip clicked his tongue. “Tsk, fine. I’ll whip it until it can’t move anymore. Then you apply the dye. As long as we feed it healing potions throughout the afternoon, it should be ready for that last fight tonight.”

“All right. Go ahead,” said the man on the left, stepping back.

The one on the right swung his arm back. The corded leather whip made a whistling sound and cracked firmly on the lykaon’s back.

The creature yelped and fell onto its side, red damage effects streaming from its back. It got up and resumed growling again, but just that one attack had taken its health bar from about 60 percent down under half.

The whip whistled through the air again. The lykaon tried to jump away, but the short chain jangled and held taut, keeping it within the whip’s range. It cracked against the lykaon’s ribs, hurtling it backward and onto the ground again. Another 10 percent was gone from its HP, and it was now under a stun effect.

For a third time, the man lifted his whip.

“Stop!!” I shouted before I even knew what I was doing. I clamped my mouth shut, but it was too late.

“Huh?!”

“Who said that?!”

I pulled my head back just before they could spin around to see. If I ran away now—but no, if they shouted, their companions were likely to trap me on the spiral stairs. On a snap judgment, I opened my window and equipped a Tattered Burlap Sack over my head.

With a whoosh, the sack appeared and fit right over my head. There were no eyeholes, but the fibers were woven so wide that I could actually see much better than I expected. The moment I closed my window, the door of the cell hurtled open, and the men leaped out into the hallway. Their eyes went wide the moment they saw me standing there with the impromptu mask over my face, but they quickly recovered and shouted, “Who the hell are you?!”

“Are you with the Nachtoys?!”

The second accusation was perfectly accurate, but I wasn’t going to admit to it. Instead, I said nothing. The handler with the brush and jar, who also sported the perfectly villainous combination of a bald head and goatee, scowled and spat, “Whoever you are, we can’t let you leave. Let’s rough him up and toss him in one of the empty cells.”

“Sounds good. I’ve always wanted to try hitting a person with this thing,” said the other handler, smacking the whip against the ground. That was the signal to turn their color cursors from yellow to red.

But the shade of red was quite pale; that meant their level was far below mine. However, not only was it the first time I’d fought a person using a whip, I was also the trespasser here. Just because fighting them wouldn’t turn me orange didn’t mean I could just kill them. Perhaps I could neutralize them without taking too much HP, so I could escape the place before the real guards rushed in.

The whipmaster had no beard, but his hair was long, and his brows were thick and angled with fury and concentration as he pulled his arm back.

While it was my first time fighting against a whip, I’d seen its ideal range and attack timing after watching him punish the lykaon. By the time the whistle echoed off the walls, I was already charging forward.

The weapon came from the upper left, which I ducked to avoid, the enlarged tip brushing the top of my head as I rushed past. I held my left fist at waist height, then thrust it forward.

The glowing red fist struck the whip handler right between his impressive eyebrows. That was the basic Martial Arts skill, Flash Blow—not so powerful but with a much higher chance of inflicting a stun on a clean hit than a slashing sword did.

As I hoped, the whip handler flew off his feet and splayed out on the ground, motionless. Over 70 percent of his HP was left, but there was a yellow ring of light rotating around his head. That was the stun effect I wanted—and not the weakest kind that wore off in just three seconds, but a powerful stun that would immobilize him for nearly a minute. It didn’t work that well against players, but it seemed to me that ordinary NPCs who weren’t soldiers or warriors were more likely to fall victim to negative status effects.

“Wha…?!”

The other handler gasped with shock, then sucked in a deep breath. He was going to shout for the guards. I leaped forward again, determined to stop him.

This time, I threw a Flash Blow with my right fist, directly into his temple. The handler left his feet, smacked the back of his head against the metal bars of the cell, then fell to the floor, covered with visual effects indicating damage and a stunned effect. The jar came loose from his hand and fell—I caught it just before it could smash noisily against the floor.

Just as I’d hoped, I was able to neutralize my adversaries without killing them, but at best, they were only going to be stunned for another fifty seconds. I had to escape the Korloy stable and return to the front of the casino within that span.

I was just pivoting around on the ball of my foot when I caught sight of the Rusty Lykaon, lying limply on its side in the back of the cell.

On pure instinct, I tensed my foot, then tried to run again, but my avatar would not obey me. What would those handlers do to the lykaon if I ran out on it now? They’d assume that their fur-dyeing scheme had been leaked to the Nachtoys—and eliminate their “evidence” sooner.

Even still, so what? It was going to be destroyed later tonight anyway, so it was just a difference in timing. And the lykaon wasn’t someone’s beloved pet; it was just a monster like all the lancer beetles and poison wasps and hematomelibe we’d already killed on this floor. A simple mob, the likes of which I wouldn’t hesitate to fight with my sword in the wilderness.

All of these facts I knew perfectly well. And yet…

“…Dammit!”

I leaped through the open door into the cell.

The prone beast craned its neck and growled—but its voice was weak and unintimidating. The yellow color cursor showed that its HP bar was only a third full.

I opened my window and tossed the jar into my inventory, then hit the QUICK CHANGE button to equip my sword. Once I’d drawn it from my back, I took one swing and severed the chain that connected the lykaon’s collar to the wall.

The lykaon barked, feeling the vibration of the blow. I quickly put my sword away and whispered to the injured beast, “Just stay calm.”

“Grrrl…”

I couldn’t tell if that growl was a yes or a no. But the cursor was still yellow, so at the very least, it wasn’t targeting me for attacks. I approached carefully and put my arms around the creature, which was the size of a German shepherd, lifting it up. Its frame was sturdy, but because of my strength stat, it didn’t feel very heavy to me.

“Grar!” the lykaon barked, struggling a bit before giving up and hanging its head. It hadn’t accepted my control; it just didn’t have the strength left to fight me.

Out in the field, monsters would battle it out to the very last pixel of health. It should have been true for this lykaon, too, so why couldn’t it move? Maybe it was inflicted with some kind of negative status.

But I could figure that out later. At this moment, I had to get out of the underground stable.

I leaped out of the little cell, holding the lykaon. The handlers were still stunned, but the yellow visual effect encircling their heads was much fainter than before. They’d probably be up and moving in less than twenty seconds.

At full speed, I dashed down the hall, using the loose weave of the burlap for visibility. In less than three seconds, I was through, into the corridor without slowing. Within five steps, I was past the curving wall and into the stairwell, where I bounced up three steps at a time.

At last, I could hear their shouts behind me. But the building wasn’t built with security against intruders in mind; I didn’t hear any alarm trumpets or bells. It was going to take longer for the guards to hear from the handlers.

Once I was on the ground floor again, I hustled through the short hallway into the loading garage. Fortunately, it was still empty in here—though I was sure the open yard in the back would not be the same.

I stopped briefly in front of the door I used to get inside, peering out carefully. As I suspected, in the middle of the loading yard, the two employees had finished cleaning the horse stables and were in conversation with two fully armed guards.

If a stranger wearing a sack over his head tried to leave now carrying a lykaon, it was going to cause an uproar—and in another twenty seconds, the handlers from below were going to be up here. Perhaps I had something that might help me in my inventory, but there was no time to go scrolling through the huge list.

…My inventory.

“ !”

My eyes bulged. I slipped the lykaon under my left arm and opened my window with my free hand. At the top of my inventory, which was ordered by most recent pickup, was an item called RUBRABIUM FLOWER DYE. I tapped the name and materialized it, grabbing the jar and pulling back as far as I could.

I could really use the Throwing Knives skill right about now, but this distance should be close enough. Please hit them! I prayed, hurling the jar at full strength through the half-open door.

The jar flew straight and smacked off the sturdy breastplate of the guard facing this direction. It burst, spraying red liquid like mortar. Instantly, all four of the faces in conversation were splattered with the same color as the lykaon’s fur.

“Aaaah!”

“Wh-what’s this?!”

“My eyes! My eyes!!”

The instant the men hunched over, hands over their faces, I bolted out into the courtyard. At that very moment, voices behind me wailed.

“Guards! Guards!”

“There’s an intruder!”

But the guards and stable hands were preoccupied. I rushed past the four of them, and rather than using the side path I took around the casino building, I headed for the double gates at the back of the rear yard. Obviously, I couldn’t go running past the front door holding an actual monster in my hands. But this route wasn’t going to be easy, either.

The gates were the sliding kind, thick panels reinforced with steel. Not even a two-handed hammer could break through these, much less a sword. The two latches on the top and bottom might break if I used a sword skill, but with the handlers on my tail, I didn’t have any time to waste dealing with this gate.

That left just one method of escape: to jump over the eight-foot wall while carrying the lykaon.

It was the same height as the iron gate blocking the side path winding around to the rear of the casino, but this time, there was no perpendicular wall right next to it I could climb up. The stone walls on either side of the gates were taller and completely smooth. The only things I could even potentially use as footholds were the two latches holding the connecting parts of the gates in place.

The latches were the kind that had metal rods with a hook on the end that you dropped into the receiver, but they were so large that the toes of my boots could just manage to find purchase on top of them. My chances of success while holding the lykaon, however, were fifty-fifty at best—and I had to do it twice in a row, so that made it 25 percent.

Within three seconds of sprinting, I confirmed the circumstances, and in a fourth, I made up my mind. As I rushed toward the gates, I shouted to myself, “Go!”

If any amount of fear or hesitation made its way from my mind to my avatar, I would fail. Attempting to use every last mental signal for the NerveGear on my real-life head, I willed all my strength into my right foot and launched myself off the cobblestones.

Like a long jumper, I bounded nearly fifteen feet and caught the toe of my left foot on the lower latch. Trusting in the firmness of the sensation coming through the tack in the sole of my Spiked Short Boots, I jumped vertically this time.

My right foot just barely reached the top latch. But this was the end of my run-up momentum. The only thing left that could carry the lykaon and me another three feet was pure strength.

“Yaaaah!!”

Shouting wasn’t a good idea, given the possibility that guards might be waiting on the other side of the gate, and it wasn’t clear that shouting in a virtual setting would have any effect on your actions, but regardless, I converted that yell strength into my second vertical jump. My left leg reached up high enough to cause a creak in my groin, and it just…barely…failed to reach the top of the gate. I could reach out with my right hand to grab it, but if I did that, I would drop the lykaon.

If only my legs were one inch longer!

I dispelled my lament and instantly changed plans. Before I could start to fall, I kicked off the gate with my left foot and did a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, facing the courtyard. The guards and stable workers were still clutching their faces, but the two handlers were already in the middle of the yard. If I did nothing, I would fall back to the ground, but even assuming I suffered no damage, I didn’t have time to jump up again.

I did, however, have one last trick up my sleeve.

As I fell, I folded my legs and bent my top half over. A high-pitched whine arose, and yellow light glowed in my right leg.

That foot stepped onto empty air, then shot into the air. A propulsive force that completely ignored all the laws of physics catapulted me directly up.

This was the Martial Arts backflip kick skill, Crescent Moon. It left a yellow arc of light in the air.

Because I was relying on the game to push me upward, it wasn’t as powerful of a lift as if I’d actually jumped off of solid ground, but it was just enough for my upside-down head to clear the top of the gate. The tuckered-out lykaon barked softly, alarmed by the flip, but luckily, it didn’t panic. It probably didn’t have enough strength to do that anyway.

I did another two flips and a twist before my feet hit the ground. I looked around rapidly in a crouch—as I feared, there were fully armed guards on either side of the gate. Their eyes bulged within their helmets.

“Wh-what?!”

“Where did you…?”

But while they wasted time talking, I was already upright and running. The stone wall that surrounded the rear of the casino was also the wall of Volupta itself; a graphic reading OUT OF TOWN appeared before my eyes and vanished. I could hear the howls of the handlers behind me, but they rapidly dwindled.

Up ahead was grassland in blazing midsummer sun, as well as an unpaved path scarred with countless wagon wheel marks. It curved ahead to the right and would surely lead back to the road that went through the west gate of Volupta, which I’d passed through with the rest of the group just hours earlier. But I couldn’t run into the town with the monster, and on the open road, I was visible to anyone who came chasing me.

I looked over my shoulder as I ran and saw the two armed guards and the handlers starting to run after me. I’d gotten a lead of at least a hundred feet on them, but I was also carrying a creature the size of a large dog, so I wasn’t sure I could outrun them on flat, open ground. I needed to break their sight line to escape.

As soon as I faced forward again, I remembered something: If I continued straight where the path curved, I would reach the riverbed where we searched for the wurtz stones earlier, less than five hundred yards ahead. And on either side of the river were patches of overgrowth that would be a perfect place to hide.

“Hang on a bit longer!” I urged the exhausted lykaon, shifting my feet into a higher gear.

I was running like a ninja, keeping my body inclined as far forward as it could go and keeping my stride as even as possible. The shouts grew quieter in the distance, but if I got too desperate in my escape, I could trip and lose my balance. I focused on the ground ahead, evading any stones hidden in the grass or dead branches.

After reaching the top of a gentle hill, the green bush patches came into view, framing the silver gleam of the water between them. That was the largest river of the seventh floor, starting from the mountains in the north and flowing across the plains into the sea to the south. I was curious where so much water actually went once it reached that small sliver of sea, but that was not a mystery to wonder about at this moment.

There was a spot of about five or six bushes clumped together that I eyed as I hurtled down the hill. The game tended to generate denser bushes near trees, and that would offer me adequate hiding space. The only question was if I’d get in position before my pursuers reached the top of the hill and saw me.

I practically toppled down the last hundred yards of the slope. It felt like the game was rolling whether or not I fell with every step; I could only trust my stats and true luck. My focus was on the edge of the rapidly approaching brush, and once I was just fifteen feet away, I leaned backward and slid on my back, holding the lykaon tight with both arms as my foot led the way into the mass of leaves.

Nearly all trees and bushes in SAO could be lumbered—i.e., destroyed—but some trees had a basic core that was indestructible. If the system had designated this particular bush as having one of those impenetrable walls, it might bounce me off. Fortunately, the bush merely sprayed loose leaves as it welcomed me inside. Even luckier, the interior was a kind of hollow surrounded by several bushes, making it a good hiding spot.

I ripped off the burlap sack I’d been wearing this whole time and peered through the branches at the slope I’d just run down. After about five seconds, my pursuers appeared at the top. The two guards and two handlers looked around, searching for any sight of me. If they were players, or advanced AIs, they’d probably realize I was hiding in the brush, but these ones had typical NPC or monster-pursuit algorithms.

The four men stared all over the open field, and their faces swept over my hiding spot several times, but they weren’t coming down the hill. Eventually, they stopped searching and traded a few words. Immediately after, their red color cursors turned back to yellow.

After they had turned around and descended the hill toward the town, I finally let the air escape from my lungs. That was when I recalled, at last, that I was still holding the Rusty Lykaon.

The lykaon rested its head on my arm and panted rapidly. I checked its HP bar quickly and saw that the remainder was under 20 percent—and decreasing slowly but surely. Maybe the handler’s whip had poison on it? But then there should have been a debuff icon, and there was no reason for them to weaken a monster that was supposed to fight in a match for them.

That meant the DoT (damage over time) effect was from some kind of hidden negative status effect. And in most cases, such things were hidden because they were part of a quest. Which meant…

“…It’s the dye!” I snarled, sitting upright.

Minutes earlier, I’d escaped by throwing the Rubrabium Dye at the guards. I was hoping just to confuse them for a few seconds, but the NPCs had collapsed and clawed at their eyes. That suggested that the dye was poisonous and would probably cause continual damage if it went into your eyes or a wound.

Meaning that the lykaon was losing HP because it was struck with a whip while the dye was thick in its fur. Maybe I could take it over to the river and wash out the dye…But no: If simple water could wash out the dye, Nirrnir wouldn’t have bothered to make a bleaching agent.

If I couldn’t get the dye out, then if I healed its wounds, recovering HP, the damage should stop.

I quickly opened my inventory, grabbed the burlap sack I’d dropped, then materialized a healing potion, which I opened and held out to the lykaon’s mouth.

“Here. Drink this.”

But the lykaon just panted, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. It did not try to drink. I tried dripping some of the red liquid on its tongue, but it just dripped off onto the ground. In an older MMORPG I’d played before, healing a tamed monster’s HP required the appropriate skill, so perhaps it worked that way in SAO, too. That would mean I had no way to heal the lykaon now. A healing crystal might do the job, but the only crystal we’d found on this floor was in Asuna’s possession, and I didn’t want to use what could be our lifeline on a monster.

It was a sudden impulse that led me to save the lykaon and escape; was that gesture pointless? No, I would also be eliminating a chance to reveal the Korloy family’s wrongdoing, so it wasn’t just pointless, it was a setback. How could I apologize to Argo, who took on the quest; Nirrnir and Kio, the clients for the quest; and Asuna, who worked so hard to help gather the materials for the decolorant…?

“……Ah,” I gasped.

There was perhaps one other way to save the lykaon. The chance of it actually coming to be was low, but if I gave up now, I’d never forgive myself.

I went back to my open player window and wrote a quick message to another player. Then I cradled and stroked the dying lykaon’s neck, until a response arrived two minutes later. I gave it a quick read, exhaled, then put the potion back in my inventory and pulled out a leather waterskin instead.

“You might not like the potion, but I bet you’ll drink water.”

I poured out some liquid into my palm and held it up to the beast’s snout. The lykaon lifted its head a tiny bit and lapped at the water. Of course, that alone wasn’t going to heal its HP, nor stop the damage. At the very least, I wanted to take off the iron collar with the dangling chain, but it was fastened very tight, and I couldn’t loosen the nut with my fingers.

Instead, I let the lykaon’s head rest on my lap, and I waited patiently.