Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 8 - Chapter 21

21

“I WILL SELL MY EQUIPMENT TO RAISE MONEY, TOO!” insisted Kizmel. It took all of our efforts to dissuade her from this plan of action, and after filling our stomachs with room service meals, we started on a full breakdown of our plans.

In the evening section of the monster arena, which started at nine, Asuna and I would bet using our war chest of two hundred thousand col as our starter money. That was fifty thousand each from me, Asuna, Argo, and Kio. After checking with her, I found out that it wasn’t all of Argo’s money, but if she came out of this with nothing to show for it, she’d be living on good old black bread for a while—no cream this time.

Asuna asked Liten for the latest favorites according to the cheat sheet, which she happily leaked to us. We knew we would win the first four matches, then. The problem was the final match, the outcome of which was entirely under the Korloys’ control. In any case, when we, the ALS, and the DKB started betting with a total of a hundred and fifty thousand chips, Bardun should come racing down from the third floor, which would be when Argo and Kizmel, masters of infiltration, had a window to sneak into Room 7. Just in case Bardun sent assassins of his own, and given the possibility that her master might take a sudden turn for the worse, Kio would stay in the bedroom tending to Nirrnir.

While the final match was happening, hopefully Argo and Kizmel would find the means of contacting the Fallen Elves. If not, we were planning to bet on different monsters than Lind and Kibaou, so no matter what, at least one of the three groups would reach a hundred thousand chips. Once someone claimed the Sword of Volupta, which had shone as an unclaimed prize behind the counter for centuries, Bardun was sure to be away from his room for a while.

Preferably, we would get the legendary sword, use it to beat the boss, then sell it back to the casino so we could give Kio back her fifty thousand col. But this was the sort of plan where any kind of greedy overreach would endanger the entire scheme, so I told myself that if Lind or Kibaou got it, that would be perfectly fine. By eight o’clock, we had finished our briefing.

For the next twenty minutes, Asuna and I worked on our disguises to fool the Korloy family. In execution, this meant Asuna wearing Kio’s personal black dress, and me in Nirrnir’s dad’s black tuxedo, both of us sporting masquerade masks.

The masks seemed like a bit much to me, but there were a number of NPCs dressed up in costumes as well; obviously, I couldn’t show up with the tux and a burlap sack over my head again. The ALS and DKB would see us by our color cursors, and they’d probably wonder what the hell we were up to, but I chose to believe that they wouldn’t mess with us until the matches at the arena were finished.

Lastly, we made sure there weren’t any glaring holes in our plan, and right at eight thirty, we were all set to leave Room 17.

Except that Kio held us back for a moment. “Asuna, Kirito, I am so very grateful. On behalf of my master…and speaking of course for myself, you have my deepest thanks.”

“Let’s save all that for when she’s feeling much better.”

Asuna, wearing a black butterfly mask, gave Kio a quick hug. Of course, I couldn’t do any such thing, so I just gave her a meaningful nod. After a brief glance toward Argo and Kizmel, we left the hotel room.

Huazo and Lunnze, who’d been standing guard by the door, already understood the gist of the plan. We gave them a quick nod and headed for the hotel entrance. As we passed the front counter and crossed the hall, I glanced at Asuna. Through the mask, I could tell she was just a bit miffed about something. I assumed at first that I’d done something wrong…then realized that the problem was that I hadn’t done anything at all.

“Um…you look very nice in that dress, Miss Asuna…” I said, feeling awkward. She gave me a silent look, then suddenly reached out with her left hand. I tensed, expecting one of her usual punches to my side—but instead, she grabbed my wrist. After adjusting my arm so my palm was facing upward, she lined up next to me and placed her hand in mine.

We started walking down the spiral steps like that. I hastily slowed to match her pace and asked under my breath, “Um…what is this?”

“Shut up; this is just what you do.”

That seemed like an unfair response, but I realized that arguing wasn’t going to get me anywhere. All I could do was walk—and pray no other players witnessed us. I was already feeling strange enough in the shiny leather shoes, which I’d hardly ever worn in the real world, but I couldn’t complain to Asuna, who was easily managing the preposterously delicate high heels on her feet.

Fortunately, I didn’t trip and fall down the stairs or see anyone I knew. When we reached the first floor, I pulled loose the hand I’d been using to escort Asuna, exhaled silently so she wouldn’t hear, then headed for the chip purchase counter in the gaming room.

There was no way to prevent my voice from cracking when I told the lady in the bow tie, “Two thousand chips.” She smiled and replied, “Of course, sir,” which brought up a payment window. I dispelled my hesitation and hit the OK button, instantly obliterating the two hundred thousand col in my inventory. Two large coins appeared on the counter, with 1,000 VC stamped on the front. I plucked them up and dropped them into the inside pocket of my tuxedo jacket.

The next two hours would determine whether these chips turned into one hundred thousand or simply vanished into nothing. It brought the nightmare of the beta test back into vivid memory—and a prickling sweat to my skin.

At the time, having my entire fortune riding on the last huge bet sent my pulse racing so fast that I thought I’d pass out. And now it wasn’t just my fate riding on the line, but Nirrnir’s life and Kizmel’s honor.

There was no longer any possibility for me to cut them loose and say that whatever happened to mere game NPCs didn’t matter in the end. Aincrad had a built-up history of centuries, possibly even a millennium, and Kizmel, Nirrnir, Kio—even the swordfighter in Harin Tree Palace, Lavik, and Viscount Yofilis—were all true people who spent their lives in this world…

“Come on, let’s go.”

She pulled on my arm again, and I looked up, distracted from my thoughts. There was Asuna, looking at me just the way she always did.

Belatedly, I realized that although I was carrying a weight far heavier than anything I felt in the beta, I wasn’t doing it alone anymore. I took a deep breath and said, “Yeah…I’m ready.”

Tapping the two coins in my jacket pocket through the fabric, I started walking forward. Asuna took my side and naturally placed her hand on my arm.

“Um…is this what you do, too?”

“It is what you do,” replied my temporary partner without missing a beat. I glanced sidelong at her face, which was now a few inches higher thanks to her heels, and thought I caught a hint of a mischievous smile on her lips below that butterfly mask.

I couldn’t help but think, Is it really…?

The monster coliseum on the basement level of the Volupta Grand Casino, also known as the Battle Arena, was even louder and more enthusiastic than last night.

The spacious hall was packed with dressed-up NPCs, their voices so excited that it drowned out the pleasant string accompaniment playing on the upper floors. After a quick examination of the scene, I found the DKB hanging out in the dining area on the left side of the hall, while the ALS were gathered on the right, talking excitedly around a table.

They were dressed in rough, ordinary clothes and clearly hadn’t done anything more than remove their combat gear, but almost all the NPCs were dressed in formal wear, plenty of whom had masks on, so at a quick glance, most people probably wouldn’t recognize us. We had fifteen minutes until the first match, so the first thing to do was head to the ticket counter next to the bar and get a list of the night’s odds.

Which one should I pick? I wondered. Ultimately, I went for the dining area on the right, where the ALS sat. I guided Asuna to an open table in the corner, whispered, “Wait here,” then headed for the ticket counter. The magical, automatically updating odds sheets were free to take, so I grabbed one and quickly made to return to my seat.

But then a voice said “Yo, ya finally made it, eh?” and a hand patted my shoulder. I jumped, froze, and awkwardly turned around.

It was a man with short brown hair with spiked bunches like a mace, a short, triangular beard on his chin, and scowling features that suggested an extremely stubborn personality—the leader of the Aincrad Liberation Squad, Kibaou. One of his eyebrows rose as he took in my appearance from head to toe.

“The hell you dressed like that for?” he said, at which point there was no way to play innocent. Plus, to his eyes, the name KIRITO would be emblazoned right over my head. I gave up on slipping away and returned the greeting.

“Heya, Kibaou.”

“…Well, I don’t got the time, and I don’t care about yer clothes. Where’s yer partner?”

“Uh…over there,” I said, pointing at the table in the corner. He turned and started windmilling his hand toward us.

“C’mon, get on over here!” he roared, drawing disapproving looks from the nearby ladies and gentlemen in their finest garb. Asuna realized—as did I—that he could potentially ruin the whole plan by drawing the attention of any Korloy people in the room, so she quickly wove her way through the crowd and murmured, “Good evening, Kibaou.”

“Yeah! Evenin’. Well, well…you look a lot better in those clothes than he does.”

What the hell do you want anyway?! I had to bite my tongue to keep it in my mouth. “Listen, Kibaou, we don’t have time, either…”

“I know, I know; I’ll get to the point.”

He took us to an empty table nearby, glanced at his fellow guildmates at their table, then said, “I heard from Liten about how the cheat sheets were a trap set up by the casino. I gotta thank you for that.”

The sight of his spiky head actually dipping an inch in gratitude shocked me. Asuna had given Liten a warning that it was 99 percent likely to be a trap in exchange for learning the sheet’s odds; I just didn’t expect it would lead to a personal thank-you from Kibaou.

I guess people really can change, I thought.

But then he said, “The thing is: We already had our suspicions last night. I mean, followin’ every last bet the paper says and winnin’ every one? Seems a little too good ta be true, know what I mean?”

“But…you still bet according to the sheet in every match, right?” I pointed out.

Kibaou put on a bitter scowl. “Well, I mean, it did get nine outta ten matches dead-on. All five matches earlier today played out like it said, and I assume the first four tonight will, too. But we’re gonna bet against the sheet on the last one. I just wanted ta tell you that,” he said, then turned on his heel, gave us a quick good-bye, and started walking back to his people.

“H-hold on! Not so fast!” I exclaimed, grabbing his moss green shirt and turning him back around.

“What?”

“I mean…if you want to bet the opposite, that’s your business, but did you talk with Lind about it?”

“Why would I?”

“Why? Because…if the ALS and DKB bet on different monsters in the final match, it ensures one side will win…”

“Listen, pal,” he said, looking exasperated and jabbing an accusatory finger at my chest, “I know it ain’t ideal to always be buttin’ heads with them over every little thing. Like you said, if we bet on both monsters, one of the two of us is gonna win, guaranteed. But it ain’t gonna work out like that this time. You saw the specs on that sword, didn’tcha? That’s a balance breaker. It’s even more broken than that guild flag. Neither Lind nor I is the big enough man to step aside and give our rival all the glory!”

He pulled back his finger and smacked his chest with his hand, then walked back to his companions. Three seconds of stunned silence later, I looked at Asuna.

“…I’ve never seen someone brag about not being a big enough man before,” she noted.

“Well…I guess that’s more trustworthy than someone who would claim they were the bigger man…” I murmured back.

The clock said we had just seven minutes until the start of the competition. I quickly laid out the odds paper on the table so we could examine it together. To my surprise, the paper already had altered entries for the first match, which was where the monster was due to be substituted. The Rusty Lykaon had been replaced with a Quad Scissors Crab, apparently.

According to Liten, who’d been feeding information to Asuna, the older man with the cheat sheets showed up out of nowhere just before the night matches began, handing out updated odds for the altered first match. If I didn’t know what he was up to, I’d be amazed at his helpfulness. We used a brass pen attached to the table to mark the latest predictions next to the monsters on the list.

Match One: Scaly Badger ( ) vs. Quad Scissors Crab (×)

Match Two: Studded Stag Beetle (×) vs. Squiddy Vine ( )

Match Three: Lightning Squirrel ( ) vs. Rocket Gopher ( )

Match Four: Bestial Hand ( ) vs. Ferocious Hand (×)

Match Five: Tiny Glyptodont ( ) vs. Verdian Bighorn ( )

“…Interesting that there are no rockets in this world, but it’s there on a monster’s name,” I remarked, spinning the heavy brass pen after I’d checked all the names.

Once again, Asuna exhibited a shocking depth of knowledge. “From what I recall, the word rocket comes from a spool of thread around a stick. Surely they have those in Aincrad.”

“Oh…I see.”

“Also, there’s a family of rodents from North America known as pocket gophers, so I would assume that Rocket Gopher is a pun on that.”

“Oh…I see,” I repeated, feeling like an automated chat bot, so I added, “so it’s just like the melibe viridis and hematomelibe, huh?”

“Please don’t bring that up,” Asuna said, glaring at me through her mask. She slid her finger down the list of odds. “It seems like they’ve got the Nachtoy monsters on the left side and the Korloy monsters on the right.”

“Huh…? Oh, you’re right.”

I hadn’t noticed yesterday, but now that she mentioned it, all the Nachtoy family’s monsters were listed on the left side of the sheet. So the cheat sheet suggested that the Nachtoy side would win the first and fourth matches, while the Korloys would win the second, third, and fifth matches.

But if the final match was the only one that would run counter to expectations, like yesterday, then it would be the Nachtoys’ Tiny Glyptodont that won. Kibaou said he was betting on that one, and perhaps Lind’s group would do the same.

If so, then the Glyptodont’s odds were going to be much lower. Depending on how much was won through the first four matches, it was possible that winning the final match might still leave us short of the required hundred thousand chips. But that wasn’t my concern…

“So who are we betting on in the last match?” Asuna asked.

I shrugged. “Depends on how Lind-Kiba play things, but if they both bet on the Nachtoy monster, we’ll probably end up betting on the Korloy monster.”

“Hmmm…If the Korloys are able to manipulate victory and defeat however they want, wouldn’t they want to make their monster win, because they’ll make more on the losing bets?”

“That would be the rational decision, yes.”

“……I have a feeling that this is going to make your popularity drop among the Linds and Kibaous of the game even more than the guild flag incident did…”

“Can’t get any lower than zero, so I’m not that concerned…”

At that moment, the hall was suddenly filled with the sound of a tremendous gong crash. Spotlights shone down from the walls at a booth toward the center of the floor.

“Ladiiiies and gentlemeeeeen! Wel-come…to the crown jewel of the Volupta Grand Casino, the Battle Arenaaaa!”

It was the same stylish NPC with the white shirt and red tie who had emceed the event last night, bellowing from the spotlights. It was literally the exact same speech, even.

“The first match of our night schedule will be starting shortly! Ticket sales are ending in just five minutes, so get those wagers in now, while you have the chance!”

The rumbling murmur in the crowd rose in pitch and volume, and a dozen or two NPCs moved toward the counter. I had to summon my courage before joining them, converting chips worth two hundred thousand col into a single ticket.

“…Well, here goes. I’m about to bet on the Scaly Badger in the first match,” I announced, feeling sweat slicken my palms.

“Right,” said Asuna. “I’m going to buy some drinks and get us seats up front.”

“…Thanks.”

For being so terrified of ghosts, she sure is fearless when it comes to situations like this, I thought, hurrying off to the ticket counter.

The Scaly Badger was, as the name suggested, a large badger-like monster covered in hard scales, while the Quad Scissors Crab had four huge claws rather than two. The crab nimbly caught the badger many times, but it could not break the metallic scales; the badger crushed an arm and a leg with its sharp teeth to finish off the crab. The cheat sheet was right on this one: We now had 4,320 chips.

The Studded Stag Beetle in the second match was an insect whose black carapace featured tack-like silver protuberances along its length. Its enemy, the Squiddy Vine, was a plant monster with ten long, wriggling, squid-like limbs. The stag beetle attempted to sever the vines with its jaw, but the vines bent and stretched like rubber and were surprisingly hard to cut. It wrapped up the hapless stag beetle and crushed it. We had 8,424 chips now.

In match three, the Lightning Squirrel measured about sixteen inches, tail included. Its fur was pure blue, and its front teeth were long and sharp. The Rocket Gopher, like Asuna said, was a short, squat rodent, colored a dull gray. The squirrel, in keeping with its moniker, was blindingly fast, leaping all over the cage, and it tore at the gopher with its teeth and claws. I started to worry that we’d made the wrong choice, but right after the gopher’s HP bar turned red, it shot fire from its tail and shot through the air just like a rocket, obliterating the squirrel. Twenty-one thousand, eight hundred and eighteen chips.

In the fourth match, the Bestial Hand and Ferocious Hand were disgusting-looking crustaceans that resembled human hands—only three times the size. The Bestial Hand was the base species, while the Ferocious Hand was a color alternate. The Bestial mainly attempted to grab the other, and the Ferocious had a special stunning ability. At first, I thought this one might go against the expectations again, but the stun didn’t seem to work against its own kind; the Bestial’s superior gripping strength helped it crush the Ferocious Hand.

In the end, all four matches turned out the way the cheat sheet said they would. We would have lost everything if any of them had gone the other way; it made me sick to my stomach that I didn’t know how they were manipulating victory and defeat. Was there a monster dyed a different color like the Rusty Lykaon? Was one of them given a stimulant or tranquilizer to alter its nature? Yesterday I assumed that the latter would be a dead giveaway thanks to a buff or debuff icon, but I wasn’t the one fighting them, and you couldn’t assume that an event battle would act like ordinary game play.

In any case, we had no other choice than to bet all 62,013 chips on the final match.

As she stared rapt at the six ten-thousand-VC chips, the two one-thousand-VC chips, the single ten-VC chip, and the three one-VC chips, Asuna murmured, “I see now.”

“You see what?”

“If it’s this exciting when you already know who’s going to win and lose, I suppose I understand just a tiny bit of what you felt like when you went bankrupt in the beta.”

“That’s good to hear…I mean, it’s probably not good,” I commented, taking a sip of the champagne gifted to high rollers—though the official item name was just Sparkling Wine. “At any rate, our winnings are over sixty thousand now, so even if we lose it all, we should be able to earn passes to the beach for the two of us.”

Behind the butterfly mask, Asuna’s eyes went wide, blinking with surprise. Then she blurted out, “Oh! That’s right. It’s what I wanted in the first place from all of this. I completely forgot.”

“Even if we get the passes, it’ll probably be a while before we can actually enjoy the beach, unfortunately. Plus…”

I didn’t finish that sentence, but I trusted that Asuna understood. If we weren’t able to save either Nirrnir or Kizmel, we weren’t going to be in the mood for the beach anytime soon. Step one to fully enjoying the white sand and crystal-blue water was getting that dragon blood and the four sacred keys.

Whether that succeeded depended on if we, Lind, or Kibaou reached a hundred thousand chips after the final match—and if it lured Bardun out to the arena, like we hoped.

“Ladiiies and gentlemeeennn!” boomed the announcer NPC again, accompanied by the gong. “It’s time for this evening’s grand finale! The pitched battle between our two last combatants will be starting momentarily!! Ticket sales will be halted in five minutes! Bet large and bet often!!”

The furor inside the hall rose yet again, and many visitors pressed toward the counter, Lind and Kibaou surely among them. I wanted to get it over with, too, but I couldn’t make my move until I knew which one Lind-Kiba were betting on.

After ten agonizingly slow seconds, Asuna opened her player window just above her lap. She glanced at her messages, then leaned closer to me and whispered, “Both the ALS and DKB bet on the Tiny Glyptodont.”

That information was coming from the ALS’s Liten and her boyfriend, the DKB’s Shivata. Both understood that the cheat sheet was coming from a fishy source and agreed to help inform us of their guilds’ choice. Only because they liked Asuna so much, of course.

“I see…So they’re both betting against the sheet,” I muttered, checking the odds table. The Nachtoy clan’s Tiny Glyptodont had a triangle symbol next to it, while the Korloy clan’s Verdian Bighorn had a circle. If the sheet was as accurate as it had been so far, the bighorn would win, but both Lind and Kibaou suspected the sheet was a trap laid by the casino, and they intended to take advantage of it by betting on the opposite.

That should be the right choice. We knew the sheets were a trap, and if I had a simple choice between the two, I would bet against the monster listed on the paper. Kio claimed she could not imagine Bardun Korloy failing to envision someone breaking his pattern, but whether the trickery employed in the final match was color-changing or chemical agents, it was hard to imagine any means of reversing that in the less than ten seconds between the end of the betting and the start of the match.

In any case…

“If Lind-Kiba bet on the Nachtoy monster, then we’ll just have to bet on the Korloy monster, as much as it pains me. That way, we’re still covered if they’ve set up an extra layer of cheating,” I said, tapping the Verdian Bighorn’s name on the sheet.

Asuna nodded. “Right…but even still…”

She didn’t elaborate, so I glanced at her through the mask. She just shook her head.

“Sorry, it’s nothing. Go and get the ticket…and another champagne, if you don’t mind.”

“Got it.”

I stood, clasping the coin in my palm, and hurried to the purchase counter.

Sixty-two thousand and thirteen chips—equivalent to 6,201,300 col—were exchanged for a single slip of paper. Now Lind-Kiba and I were wagering over a hundred and fifty thousand chips alone, and with all the other visitors added, the total had to be over two hundred thousand.

Next, I got two glasses of champagne from the bar counter nearby and returned to our seats. Asuna sent her message, which she’d composed in advance, to Argo on the third floor. Lastly, we just had to see if Bardun Korloy would come down to monitor the situation…

“Threeee minutes remaining to make your wagers! It’s the last and biggest bout of the night, so make sure you join the fun!!” roared the NPC announcer from the spotlight. The odds list was changing rapidly as the bets poured in. For now, the Nachtoys’ Tiny Glyptodont had a payout of about one-point-seven. The Korloys’ Verdian Bighorn was at two-point-three. The Glyptodont, which the ALS and DKB were riding high on, was under a double payout at this point.

“I wonder if they’ll be able to reach a hundred thousand chips,” murmured Asuna.

I did a quick mental calculation. “Um…if they’ve made at least sixty thousand, like us, then they should just clear that total. And if we win, we’ll be over a hundred and forty thousand chips…”

“How are you so fast at calculating the winning amounts?” she asked.

“Huh? Uh, it’s just simple multiplication, so…”

Asuna performed a quick operation on her window, which was still open. She raised her head and whispered, “Bardun’s on the move.”

“Finally!”

The warning had come back from Argo, who was lurking in the hotel’s hallway, watching the front desk. That was one hurdle to the plan cleared.

But the difficult part was only just beginning. Our luck was up to the heavens now—in the form of those two monsters—but for Argo and Kizmel, they had to sneak into Room 7 and find the item Bardun Korloy was using to make contact with the Fallen Elves before he and his armed guards returned. And we had no idea what kind of item it might be.

“It’ll be fine. It’ll work out,” Asuna whispered. She reached for the hand resting on my knee and squeezed it.

Yes, our present course of action was just to trust that our companions would be up to the task. We had our own job: to do everything needed to delay Bardun returning to his room, if it should come to that.

“One minute left to buy your tickets, folks!” the NPC announced. I thought I heard a faint swell of strings and looked over my shoulder.

Through the open doors to the arena, an elderly gentleman was entering the room, guarded by four men in black clothing. His slender frame was clad in an elegant three-piece suit, and he had a finely kept mustache and beard—it was unmistakably Bardun, patriarch of the Korloy family. The squat form of his butler, Menden, was visible behind him.

“There he is.” Asuna sent Argo another message of confirmation, then closed the window resolutely.

Bardun’s group proceeded straight through the crowds of NPCs in the hall, until they marched into the VIP box seats just behind the announcer’s booth. Asuna and I were in place at the front line where we had a good view of the cage, so we couldn’t see Bardun’s face unless we looked over our shoulders. But I didn’t want to stand up and draw any attention with the match beginning in less than a minute, so moving seats wasn’t an option.

I faced ahead once again. The gong crashed louder than ever.

The many lamps placed high on the walls automatically focused their light—however it was that it worked—creating four spotlights that split the darkened hall. They illuminated the golden battle cage, which shone even brighter, drawing the eye.

The rectangular cage, separated into two parts by its partition gate, was about twelve feet across on the short side—and thirty on the long side. But the two monsters that were about to make their appearance would surely make this seem cramped. Kio had told us that the only monsters listed on the ranked chart were the right size to fight within the cage and did not possess any special attacks that might harm the audience or structure. These two, I presumed, would represent the very limits of those bounds.

A heavy rumbling left ripples in our champagne. Two spots on the stone wall lining one side of the cage pulled back, then began to rise.

“Now starting the final Battle Arena match of the evening!” the bow-tied NPC announced enthusiastically as two spotlights focused on the right gateway—the passage leading to the Korloys’ underground monster stable.

“Our first combatant…hailing from the Verdian Plains to the east of Volupta, the two-horned beast that scattered travelers and smashed carriages! The Verdiaaaan…Bighooooorn!!”

A scraping of hooves—clok! clok!—issued from the passage, and a black-and-brown quadruped appeared, featuring curved, twisting horns. It looked somewhat like a goat or cow, but it was nearly six feet long, and there were sharp fangs lining its jaw.

New spotlights alighted on the left doorway, which led to the Nachtoy stable.

“Next! From far to the west of Volupta, ruling over the bleached white plains, the bizarre creature that smashes through all comers with a head as hard as steel! The Tinyyyy Glyptodonnnnt!!”

Thudding heavily into the cage was something that looked like a real-world armadillo, with a mountain of a shell on top. Its head was much bigger than an armadillo’s, however, and it had a jutting, hammer-like forehead. It was just as large as the giant goat on the right side.

“The bighorn I get, but what’s a glyptodont…?” Asuna muttered. I already knew the answer, because I’d looked it up out of curiosity during the beta period.

“An ancestor of the armadillo that died out thousands and thousands of years ago in the real world,” I whispered. “I guess they’re still alive in Aincrad.”

“You’re right. It looks exactly like an armadillo,” she replied, ignoring the second half of my comment. “But what’s supposed to make this one ‘tiny’…?”

“I’m guessing there’s a non-tiny glyptodont out there somewhere. I didn’t see one in the beta, at least.”

“I hope we never come across it,” she said, making a face.

The announcer NPC shouted, louder than ever, “Beast against beast! Whose mighty head will give way first?! Let the match…begin!!”

The gong smashed, and the fence partition inside the cage began lowering into the ground.

The bighorn lowered its impressively protected head and scraped at the floor of the cage with its hooves again. The glyptodont jutted out its hammer-like head from its armored body, tensing its limbs.

When the fence was completely out of the way, the two creatures roared, the combination ugly and discordant. They charged from opposite ends of the cage with great ferocity. While large, each was only three feet wide at the most, and there was twelve feet of lateral space in the cage, giving them plenty of room to pass each other—but they had no intention of doing that.

Even I wouldn’t want to defend against these monsters’ attacks. They hurtled directly along two ends of the same line and smashed head against head with vicious force.

They were only normal attacks, but a light effect appeared on impact, white with red streaks, followed by a fierce shock wave. The marble floor shook, and it even caused some of my leftover champagne to spill.

Both bighorn and glyptodont merely stumbled briefly before regaining their balance and taking distance again. The HP bars of both were about 20 percent down.

“Th-the entire arena just shook! What a powerful collision!!” the announcer called out, prompting a wave of applause and cheers from the crowd. But I wasn’t in such an excitable mood. I knew I didn’t have the right to pity the monsters who’d been captured and forced to fight, but if I was able to compartmentalize my feelings that strictly, I wouldn’t have let emotion take over and freed the Rusty Lykaon from the stable in the first place.

At the very least, I had to keep my feelings level and watch out for any signs of wrongdoing in the match. If my guess was correct, the Korloys would attempt to maximize their profits by flipping the outcome back around so that the Verdian Bighorn won, matching the cheat sheet. I just had no idea how they were going to do it.

Neither of the two monsters seemed to be in anything less than fine condition, and presumably there were no color variant species on this floor, so dye-based cheating was out. It seemed like the best method would be to throw something in from outside the cage, but not a single person watching was up close to the cage due to the shock wave of the monsters’ impact. If you’d been close enough, you would have easily suffered splash damage.

The bighorn and glyptodont backed away to their respective corners, then lowered their heads. Under the glare of the spotlights, I could see each enter the charging motion—the bighorn pawed at the floor, while the glyptodont spread its limbs and tensed. A moment later, the second charge was on.

Neither monster was anything more than standard fare, but the impact that shook the room seemed worthy of a boss monster’s strongest attack. I could only imagine the sight of stacked chips falling and roulette balls escaping in the first-first casino, and my mounting concern made me sneak a glance at the VIP seats behind us.

The seating area was in the dark, but the VIP seats were close enough to the announcer’s booth that the proximity to the light made them barely visible. Bardun Korloy was seated in the center of a sofa with his legs crossed, drinking champagne. The serene look on his face betrayed no hint that he was concerned about damage to the casino or the exposure of his cheat sheet ruse.

“Don’t look too hard, or he’ll notice,” Asuna whispered, so I quickly straightened my neck again.

The second clash of bighorn and glyptodont did another 20 percent of damage to each, but it seemed that the bighorn’s HP loss was just slightly higher. I remembered the two being about as tough as the other during the beta, but the bighorn’s habitat was in the front half of the floor, while the glyptodont could be found in the back half. It would make sense, therefore, that the glyptodont would have a slight statistical edge.

“At this rate, it seems like the glyptodont is going to win,” I whispered, tilting my head to the right.

Asuna leaned in likewise. “I was thinking the same thing…Does that mean the Korloys weren’t able to cancel their trick before the match started?”

“Probably. Or maybe they never assumed their trick would work a hundred percent of the time from the start.”

“Uh-huh…”

She sounded uncertain, however. I could sense that frustration, too. The trap with the Argent Serpent was extremely clever. Anyone who could devise and carry out such a plan would have to have a backup in case the target audience saw through the cheat sheet. After just a single loss, both Kibaou and Lind suspected foul play, and they were betting accordingly tonight.

If the glyptodont won, Lind-Kiba would each win over a hundred thousand chips and take the grand prize of the Sword of Volupta away from the casino. Would a man as crafty as Bardun Korloy simply say “Oh well” and let it happen?

There had to be something more, I knew. I kept my eyes peeled on the cage.

But there was nothing I could see wrong with the walls, the floor, or the ceiling. There was no betting gentleman ready with a poison dart or a fine lady about to sprinkle medicinal herbs.

“Again?! Are they going to do it again?!” shouted the NPC as the spotlights blazed down on the two monsters.

“Hmm,” Asuna murmured. I noticed that her eyes were wide and blinking rapidly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing…I’m fine. I think my eyes are getting tired from staring so hard.”

“Huh…”

I was marveling that this phenomenon could happen in the virtual world, too, when the monsters charged for a third time.

The vibrations rattled through the floor. Instantly, I was struck by a strange sensation. The supposedly superior glyptodont was just a bit slower than the previous two times.

That wasn’t an illusion. When the two collided, it was about three feet to the left of the cage’s center. The impact was still as fierce as ever. The champagne glass that had withstood the shaking so far tilted over, and I had to use both hands to catch it.

All of the light and smoke effects inside the cage faded. The bighorn’s curled horns were raised high in the air, and the glyptodont shook its low head back and forth. It seemed that the slower speed of its charge was making a difference, because now the bighorn’s HP bar seemed to be better off.

“But why did its speed drop out of nowhere…?” I muttered.

Asuna shook her head. “I don’t know…There wasn’t any exterior interference…”

“Exactly,” I agreed, searching carefully. But there were no foreign objects sticking into the glyptodont’s massive body and no sign of any liquid splashed onto it.

The bighorn had a little over 40 percent of its health left, while the glyptodont was at about 38. Two more charges would probably do it. If the glyptodont continued to fall further behind, the bighorn was going to emerge victorious.

Was this change an effect of Korloy manipulation? And if so, how…?

“Ah, there it is again…” Asuna mumbled, blinking.

“What’s happening to you?”

“I don’t know…Something’s wrong with my eyes. It felt like the monster’s color just changed a little bit…”

“Huh…? The glyptodont’s?”

“Before, yes. But this one was the bighorn’s.”

I quickly looked at the cage again, but I couldn’t sense any change in color. The glyptodont’s gray shell and the bighorn’s blackish-brown pelt were exactly the same as when the match started…

No.

It wasn’t the monsters. It was the stones they were standing on. There was just a slight difference in color between the two, I thought. Under the glyptodont’s feet, the stones were a neutral gray, while the spot beneath the bighorn’s hooves was just the slightest bit green…

“Huh…?!”

I sank down a bit and turned around without drawing attention to myself. I wasn’t looking at the VIP seats, but much farther back, at the four spotlights near the top of the stone walls of the casino. The illumination from the large lamps up there was reflected through concave lenses before being focused into tight beams of light. From my perspective, the two on the right were the color of natural flame, but the two on the left were just a little bit greenish. Asuna’s keen senses picked up on the difference in the monsters’ colors, but I could only tell the difference on the floor tiles.

There was no way that such a subtle difference in color was intended to be part of the ambience. Most likely, there was some kind of debuff effect in the green-tinted light.

They were using it so the bighorn would win by surprise…But wait, that didn’t make sense. According to Asuna, the green spotlights were shining on the glyptodont earlier, but now they were over the bighorn.

If the Korloys were the ones operating the lights, it would mean they were inflicting damage on both monsters.

“……!!”

Suddenly, one possibility leaped to mind. I straightened up and reached to open my window—only to stop myself. Argo was sneaking into Bardun’s chamber now, so I couldn’t ask her to relay any messages to Kio.

Instead, I pulled the odds sheet out of the pocket of my tuxedo. At the very bottom in tiny script was a list of arena rules and regulations.

Penalties for interfering with the monsters inside the cage…

Nullification of one’s claim if the ticket is lost or destroyed…

Payout of winning tickets have a deadline of midnight on the day of the event…

And then, hidden among the fine print, I found it.

If both monsters should become unable to fight for a period of at least three minutes, or if both monsters should die simultaneously, there will be no declared winner, and no chips will be paid out.

“…That’s it…!”

“What?” Asuna asked, looking confused. I pointed out the item near the bottom of the list. Two seconds later, she tensed up and froze, her black dress twitching briefly.

“In a tie…all wagers are forfeited to the house?!”

“This is what they’re going for. That green light is slowing down whatever monster it shines on. They’re using it to fine-tune the damage amounts, so that their final collision ends up knocking them both out.”

“But…surely it’s not that easy to force a tie…”

Asuna had a point. If animals in the real world continued bleeding in a near-death state, they would eventually perish, but as long as a monster in SAO had one hit point left, it wouldn’t die. And while the attacks might seem to happen simultaneously, in almost every case, the system registered a time difference of less than a tenth of a second, with the first hit given precedence. In order to cause a tie in PvP, the person who took the first attack and lost all HP had to either inflict some kind of exceptional damage via a skill or item—or manifest some kind of actual miracle to keep their avatar moving until it counted as a tie.

The same was presumably true of battles between monsters, but it had a much higher probability of turning into a draw in this particular matchup. The bighorn and glyptodont both used head-butt attacks exclusively, meaning their attacks and the damage suffered would happen simultaneously. If Bardun Korloy had chosen to pit a bighorn against the Nachtoys’ glyptodont specifically for this reason, then his slyness and cunning were the real deal. Although I had no proof, I suspected this was not a preprogrammed part of the quest but the work of Bardun’s excellent AI planning and preparation for any outcome.

Inside the cage, the two large beasts were readying their fourth charging attack. The bighorn scraped the floor with its front-right hoof, and the glyptodont tensed its thick limbs against the ground.

The creatures raised their heads high, then bellowed with such volume that the quaking of the air was practically visible.

That was bad. It was a special attack—a finisher. It would still be a head-butt but with twice the power. If they collided directly with full force again, the bighorn might survive with its hit points advantage, but it was also under the debuff lights. The fine-tuning of the damage amounts could easily succeed at killing them both, fulfilling the requirements to cause a tie.

The two creatures growled, waiting for their chance to charge. We had to do something about the debuff light within the next ten seconds, or we, the ALS, and the DKB would lose all our chips together.

Could we block the light with a cloth of some kind? No, that was impossible. The spotlights were shining down from high up on the wall behind us, and no amount of stretching would allow us to reach the angle of the beams. A smoke screen? No, we had no way of creating enough smoke at once to block the light. If we couldn’t block it, we’d have to do something about the lights themselves, but they were well over a hundred feet away. Even an instantaneous dash would never reach them in time.

Within half a second, I had brought up and rejected three different ideas. If only I had magic spells! But even if I could shoot a fireball across the arena, it would only cause a riot. I’d be accused of interfering with the match and penalized, possibly even imprisoned.

No magic, no bow and arrows; I could probably throw a knife or pick the needed distance, but there was no time to find them in my inventory. If only I had something to throw, preferably heavy, hard, and long…

There was a champagne glass in my hands. I looked down at the floor, then at the mini table affixed to the back of the seat in front of me.

There was a cup-shaped holder in the corner of the table that contained a number of items for the guests’ use—a hemp napkin, a small fork and spoon, and a brass pen, the same kind found at the table in the dining area.

I set down the champagne glass and grabbed the pen. It wasn’t as fancy as a fountain pen from the real world, just a hollow container of ink with a hole at the end for it to ooze out of, but that made it tough and reasonably heavy.

There was another brass pen on the table before Asuna, which I picked up and handed to her, making a pointed glance at the spotlights behind us. My partner took my meaning and nodded back.

Inside the cage, the glyptodont and bighorn stopped growling and lowered their heads.

Asuna and I turned around, using the backs of our seats as cover. The audience area was totally darkened, and everyone else was enraptured by the combat. If I used a sword skill, it would draw some attention, but neither Asuna nor I had the Throwing Knives skill. That meant we’d have to hit spotlights a hundred feet away, without any kind of assistance from the system.

The targets were light condensers about eight inches across. Striking them with the pen wasn’t going to extinguish the flames that were the source of light, but if the lenses cracked, the light would scatter, which should disable the debuffing effect.

“There are pens on other tables, too; don’t hold back, just throw!” I whispered, right into Asuna’s ear.

But in truth, we didn’t have time to try again if our first throws missed. Behind my back, I could practically sense the monsters in the cage starting their charges. Ducking behind the back of the chair, I pulled back my hand as far as it could go. Asuna did the exact same thing at the exact same moment.

System assistance or not, Asuna and I had level-20-plus stats, concentration forged by many deadly situations, and (probably) the protection of the Holy Tree’s priestess.

We can hit it!! I thought, willing victory into the brass pen as we hurled our missiles.

As the two pens sailed through the darkness, they flickered just once, reflecting the light.

Behind us, the two monsters began to charge.

Then the two distant spotlights shattered, both concave lenses and reflective mirrors breaking to pieces. The roar of the crowd was so great that it was impossible to hear the shattering.

The debuffing light refracted in all directions. I turned back around and saw the bighorn and glyptodont, glowing blue and red, respectively, charging toward each other.

The bighorn seemed to be just a bit slower to start, but it straightened up and accelerated again. The curled horns and jutting shell slammed into each other right at the center of the cage.

I gritted my teeth, bracing against a shock wave twice as powerful as the previous. The crowd screamed as champagne glasses shook off of tables, shattering into blue shards. The light effects the two monsters created were so strong that nobody seemed to notice that the spotlights were only half as bright as before.

If anyone would notice the difference it would be Bardun Korloy…But right now there was something more pressing.

In the center of the cage, the light and smoke of the impact were still swirling viciously. I couldn’t make out the monsters very well, but the two HP bars visible in the air were dropping at exactly the same speed.

They were under 30 percent, 20 percent…10 percent.

Was our incredible pen toss wasted? Were the bighorn and glyptodont going to fall in unison, leading to a draw and earning the house all the incredible number of chips bet on this final match?

Asuna’s left hand reached out and grabbed my right. I squeezed it without thinking, and she clutched for all that she was worth.

At last, the visual effects were waning, revealing the forms of the two huge beasts. The bighorn and glyptodont were standing motionless in the center of the cage, heads pressed against one another. Their HP bars were still draining: 7 percent, 5 percent, 3…

Then the bighorn’s HP stopped dropping.

The glyptodont’s HP continued, however, and fell to 0.

The stout strength went out of its limbs, and the small mountain of a beast sank with a rumble to the floor of the cage. Blue light surrounded its body, which momentarily compressed before exploding into countless pieces.

In the shocked silence that followed, the bighorn slowly lifted its head.

“Wha…wha…what a collision!!” raved the NPC announcer as the crowd erupted into jubilance and anguish. “The winner of this ferocious bout, one of the greatest and most intense in the history of this Battle Arena is…Verdian Bighooooorn!!”

The victorious bighorn tossed back its horned head and bellowed triumphantly.

I let out the breath I’d been holding and glanced over at Asuna, who returned the look. She might not have realized she was still holding my hand—or maybe she did.

Either way, she murmured, “So…who were we betting on, again?”

“I think it was the bighorn.”

“So we won the bet? How many chips does that make?”

“Um…”

In my head, I tried to multiply the roughly sixty-two thousand chips we’d won before this by the odds on the bighorn, only to feel a sudden prickling on the back of my scalp.

I stopped calculating and peered between the chairbacks behind us. Bardun Korloy was standing up from his spot in the VIP area, pointing boldly in our general direction, his eyes smoldering with fury. He didn’t miss the sight of the pens flying through the darkness, it seemed. Four men in black suits left the VIP area, heading our way.

“Uh-oh…”

I hunched my neck and tugged on Asuna’s hand. We stayed crouched, passing between the legs of the other audience members and the backs of the chairs ahead of us as we made our way left down the row. Once we reached the steps at the end, we turned and hurried upward into the dining bar area, then toward the exit.

“Wh-where are we going?”

“Let’s go back to the third floor to change. I’m worried about the others, too.”

“Good point…”

Beneath her butterfly mask, Asuna’s lips pursed. We were slipping through the crowd at the dining bar, keeping our heads down, when a recognizable voice bellowed with rage and agony off to the left somewhere.

“How’d it come ta this?!”