Sword Art Online - Volume 22 - Chapter 1.6

6 

“…By the way, what was the name of this quest?” I asked. 

Argo opened her window and answered, “It’s ‘The Three Treasures of the Wicked Witch of the West.’” 

“Sounds normal enough. Especially for one so surreal…” 

The three of us stepped out onto soil again—Argo for the first time in two days, Asuna and I for the first time in fifteen minutes—while the next key character in the quest stood wavering before us. 

But once again, it was not human. It was a figure with a torso made of two crossed sticks, and a round fabric head that was stuffed full—a scarecrow. It looked silly, but it was a monster by definition. Scarecrow mobs were not uncommon on horror-themed floors. 

And the scarecrow wasn’t the only thing greeting us. To its left was an enemy that resembled a hollow suit of plate armor. And on its right was a werelion, which had a human head on a lion’s body. None of the trio were attempting to attack us. Their color cursors were yellow, indicating they were nonaggressive now. 

I was just wondering what was going on when the scarecrow began to talk. 

“Oh! We’ve been waiting for you!” 

At that, the ! symbol over the scarecrow’s head turned into a ?, indicating that a quest had initiated. The symbol over the dog’s head vanished. 

“You’ve been…waiting for us?” I asked, playing along. The scarecrow nodded its head much harder and began to tell its story. It went roughly like this. 

We’re Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion, and we’re on a journey to become real humans. But the girl we were with got kidnapped by the Wicked Witch of the West. We want to rescue her, but the witch stole the stuffing from Scarecrow’s head, the jewel in Tin Man’s heart, and Lion’s golden mane of courage. So we cast a whirlwind spell on the girl’s dog, Toto, and sent it beyond the walls to find a warrior who will fight the witch for us. 

“Ah…ha-ha-ha…I see…” 

I glanced behind us. 

According to the map, we were in the northwest part of the twenty-second floor. We were surrounded by vertical cliff walls that made it impossible to walk here. Those had to be the walls the scarecrow mentioned. 

That gave me a broad idea of the quest itself, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of how strange the quest was. For one thing, there was no magic in SAO, so things like witches and whirlwind spells didn’t make sense. Plus, the scarecrow and the lion were easy to understand, but why was the living armor called Tin Man? 

These were probably not the most pressing questions at the moment, but I couldn’t help myself. Next to me, however, Asuna murmured, “Okay…I get it. I know what this quest is.” 

Argo nodded, too. “So do I. No wonder the house was flyin’.” 

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, turning left and right. 

Asuna gave me a grin and said something that took me completely by surprise. 

“You must have read it when you were a boy, Kirito. Some of the details are different…but this quest is clearly based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!” 

“…Ohhh…Oh, now I get it!” 

To be honest, I couldn’t remember every part of the story. But a girl with her pet dog being blown into the air in her house by a tornado, then falling into another world where she met a scarecrow, a tin man, and a lion before finding her way back to the real world—yes, that seemed familiar to me. 

Well, that explained why the living armor monster was the “tin man,” but it also was a foreboding sign for the quest ahead. 

“…I bet that means this one’s going to take forever,” I groaned. Asuna gave me a curious look, so I explained, “I mean, we’ll probably have to get the scarecrow’s brain, the tin man’s heart, and the lion’s mane in order, right? How many hours will each one take…?” 

Asuna and Argo shared a look, then grinned for some reason. 

“Kiri-boy, you don’t really remember how the story goes, do you?” 

“Uh…W-well, I suppose not…” 

“Ha-ha, I don’t think we’ll need to collect any items. Let’s just skip past all of that and head straight for the witch’s castle!” 

“Wh-whaaat?!” I shouted. The scarecrow, tin man, and lion also made shocked faces, although maybe that was just my imagination. 

On the map, the elliptical quest area had three golden ! symbols to indicate quest checkpoints, with one other ! that was gray (the final destination, but not yet activated). Ordinarily, we would have to tackle each of the three golden symbols first before heading to the last one, but Asuna and Argo were resolute in their direction. 

The two girls led the way on the road paved with yellow bricks, followed by three monsters that wanted to be human, and me, the least certain member of the group. Argo kept an awkward distance from Asuna, presumably because of the cute little dog in Asuna’s arms. 

Since the ! over Toto’s head was gone, and it was no longer the point character for the quest, Argo and I suggested that the dog be left in the log cabin. But Asuna refused to let it go, and she pouted with the occasional snarl, so we couldn’t insist. I was fine with or without the dog, but it seemed like this was going to really test Argo’s resolve. 

If she was actually that uniformly upset, then she had to be telling the truth about her phobia—she wasn’t just role-playing for the sake of her character. Argo must have been deathly afraid of dogs in real life. But if I were in her position, would I be able to let my innermost feelings be expressed this openly? If I were her, I would be desperate to uphold the image that I’d built around me, and I’d push down my true feelings and attempt to act unbothered. 

And if that was how I felt, then could I call the feelings I felt for Asuna genuine love…? 

“…What do you think?” I muttered to one of our accompanying NPCs, the lion whose courage had been stolen. 

Nearly all of the myriad NPCs placed throughout Aincrad ran on simple algorithms that performed some basic question-and-answer routines, which made actual conversations impossible. So I wasn’t expecting the character to give me a real answer. 

“Did someone take something from you, too, pal?” the lion mumbled back, which took me a bit by surprise…Well, maybe a lot by surprise. 

“Hmm…Yeah, maybe that’s true. Until this point, I don’t remember ever truly falling in love with someone,” I said, letting my momentum answer for me. The lion nodded, looking even more downcast. He was very shabby by the standards of the game’s werelion monsters, which appeared around the fortieth floor. 

“I see. The fact is, I don’t know the truth, either. I can’t recall if I was truly c-c-courageous before the witch took my mane away.” 

He sighed and hung his head, revealing a part of his mane at the back of his head that had been cut abruptly short, as though barber’s clippers had chopped it right off. 

With that in mind, I looked at the scarecrow bouncing along next to the lion and saw a rip in the back of his head bag that had been roughly sewn back together. Past him, the tin man’s breastplate featured a large hole that had been covered with two bandages in an X shape. These were evidence of the Wicked Witch of the West having stolen the things that were most important to them. 

Of course, I couldn’t remember any witch stealing my ability to love another person. If my heart had been sealed away, then it was me who had done it—I’d been keeping everyone, even my family, at arm’s length ever since I was a child. 

So where could I go to find that heart? If I married Asuna and lived with her, would I be able to find it? But what if the lion’s suspicions were true in my case, and I never had one to begin with…? 

Just then, as though psychically sensing my unease, Asuna turned and glanced at me over her shoulder. She tilted her head and smiled, just like always. Then she pointed in the direction we were going and called out, “C’mon, Kirito! You can see it just ahead!” 

Argo extended the metal claws she had equipped on the backs of her hands and struck them together with a ringing sound. “If I don’t know about this quest, then nobody knows about it! This dungeon is untouched! We’ll find lotsa treasure inside!” 

“Look…I hate to be a downer, but it’s just the twenty-second floor, so it’s not going to be anything earth-shattering,” I said, playing the cynic about loot for once. I hurried to catch up to the girls, and as I moved, a castle came into view beyond the trees. It had several thin spires and walls such a dark gray, they were nearly black. Standing against the deepening red of the sky, it was truly worthy of being called a witch’s castle. 

If we found the witch deep within that castle and defeated her, the quest should be over, but we couldn’t get inside at the moment. After all, they weren’t going to open the final dungeon and situate the boss inside until we completed the first few steps and returned the missing parts to our traveling companions. And to be honest, it felt just mean to ignore their plight… 

But meanwhile, Asuna and Argo continued walking at a brisk pace and awkward distance, and within a few minutes, the castle gates came into view. They were a good fifteen feet tall, made of black cast iron, and firmly shut. They wouldn’t be opening anytime soon— 

Click-click-ka-ching. 

It was an undeniable unlocking sound. The gates swung open smoothly and automatically, leaving me standing there with my mouth agape. The little dog in Asuna’s arms barked, but obviously it hadn’t caused that to happen. 

The two women looked at each other and nodded with satisfaction, but I had no idea why it had happened. I glanced at the others, who were missing their parts, and gave them an uncomfortable shrug, then walked into the castle. 

Instantly, there were growls all around, and four monsters popped into the front entrance of the castle. They were werepanthers, monsters with burly torsos and panther heads. Witches kept black cats as familiars, so that seemed to fit the image, I supposed. 

“Gyaaaaowr!” 

The panthers howled again and drew scimitars with jagged edges. The scarecrow, tin man, and lion shrieked with terror and huddled on the spot. It wasn’t clear if they were inflicted with the Fear status or just normally afraid, but they certainly didn’t seem like they were going to be any help against the boss later. Not that I expected much from them in the first place, however. 

Shaking my head, I drew Elucidator from my back and targeted the two werepanthers charging from the right side. One-handed swords featured few single-attack, area-effect skills, but I did have one to use: Serration Wave. 

The sword smashed against the ground and vibrated at a high rate, sending jagged, saw-edged visual effects radiating outward. The effect swallowed up the two werepanthers and left them unbalanced. It was a technique for immobilizing enemies, not dealing big damage, but these were twenty-second-floor monsters. The werepanthers lost all their HP before they could recover their footing, and they burst into pieces, one after the other. 

The other two werepanthers were easily handled by Asuna, despite holding the dog in one hand, and Argo, who was actually quite powerful on her own. One of the werepanthers dropped a key with a quest item tag on it, so we used it to open a small door at the corner of the castle building. 

I glanced at the sky one more time before going inside; it was red going on purple now. We had an hour at best before it would be night. The castle was of a considerable size, so it seemed unlikely we would wrap it up before sunset. 

But once again, Asuna read my thoughts and patted me on the back. “Don’t worry. I brought plenty of food with us.” 

I’m not worried about food—I’m worried about whether I’ll be able to marry you before the end of the day, I thought, though I couldn’t say it to her face. Instead, I hesitantly agreed with her. 

Argo blithely said, “Ooh, can’t wait for that! I’ve heard the rumors that you’ve developed your own take on soy sauce, A-chan!” 

Just ten minutes after entering the wicked witch’s castle, the combined party of me, Asuna, Argo, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion, and dog had already reached a big door that probably belonged to the boss. 

Part of that was because our combat level was far beyond the quest’s difficulty, but the most gamebreaking part of it all was Argo’s incredible mobility. Balconies that should have required a detour to reach, jumps that even I wasn’t sure I would attempt—she found risky shortcuts all over the place and pulled them off with ease. Thanks to that, the sky was still red through the narrow windows to the outside. 

“…I suppose we can hold off on eating until after the boss fight,” Asuna noted, a bit exasperated. Argo agreed. The monster trio still looked a bit bothered, like they weren’t sure things were supposed to be happening in this order. The scarecrow hopped forward to speak for the group, his mouth a hole in the burlap bag with a single stitch through it. 

“They say the Wicked Witch of the West uses all kinds of fearsome spells,” he babbled. “If only my head weren’t empty, I might be able to remember what kinds…” 

Ahhh…we probably should have done the subquest steps in order, I thought. But Asuna calmly patted the scarecrow’s shoulder (which was just a stick) and reassured him, “Don’t worry. The three of us together should be more than strong enough to rescue Dor—to rescue your friend. C’mon, let’s go.” 

She turned briskly on her heel and pushed the door open without a moment of hesitation. 

The room beyond was large and rectangular, in true boss-chamber fashion. The moment we stepped inside, candles in chandeliers hanging high overhead lit up with eerie green flames. They got brighter and brighter farther into the room, and there was a large cage near the back wall. 

Trussed up on the floor of the cage was a girl. Next to her was a large bubbling pot and an old crone dressed in black, stirring with a long ladle. 

“Whoa…that’s the witchiest witch I’ve ever seen,” I murmured. As a general rule, SAO had no offensive magic, and for that reason, there weren’t any magicians. A monster of this type was extremely rare. 

How is the old witch going to attack? I wondered. But the scarecrow shouted, “Oh, Dorothy! Help her! She’s going to be turned into soup!” 

Next, the tin man rattled forward. “Dorothy! Danger! Help! Hurry!” 

Lastly, the lion spoke up, what little parts of his mane remained standing on end. 

“Just you wait, Dorothy! We’re comin’ ta…comin’ ta…” 

But then the lion’s mane wilted again, the tin man’s armor fell silent, and the scarecrow’s spine bent. 

Asuna, Argo, and I stepped forward to take their place. We approached carefully—the witch’s side was facing us, and she continued stirring the pot. 

Just as the party reached the midpoint of the chamber, the black-robed witch looked up from the pot and over at us. Her shining yellow eyes narrowed, and she screeched, “Would you like to taste the soup? One swallow will make you youthful again, and two will fill you with strength. The flavor’s delicious, too! Hee-hee-hee-hee!” 

Since being careless enough to say yes would start an event scene that would end with poor Dorothy bubbling away in the pot, I made our intentions crystal clear. 

“No! We’re here to save her!” 

“I see, I see. What a shame. In that case,” said the witch, scooping up the ladle from the bottom of the pot and blowing, “I’ll just have to add you to the soup! Heeee-hee-heeeeee!” 

She hurtled the contents of the ladle at us. The liquid turned into a horrid purple mist that surrounded us. 

Instantly, there was a new green-bordered Debuff icon under my HP bar in the upper left corner: paralysis. 

“Ugh…” 

No sooner was the grunt out of my mouth than all of us, including the trio of companions, collapsed on the floor. The fact that even our high-level resistance didn’t work suggested that it was a forced paralysis event, but it was still dangerous. I tried to pull a healing potion out of my pouch—in normal paralysis, I could still move my right hand, but now it was immobilized. 

“Hee-hee-hee…Well, well, well. Which one of you should I cook first…?” 

The witch danced closer, using her ladle in place of a magic wand. I was getting worried that we were actually in considerable danger. I tried desperately to get to my feet, but my body would not budge. 

“Hee-hee! Don’t waste your time, deary. The only thing that can break this spell is the roar of a lion.” 

Ohhh, I get it! 

It was a very obvious hint. I swiveled my eyes—the one thing I could move—to look behind us. The scarecrow and the tin man were paralyzed, just like us, but the lion was the only one without a Debuff icon. If he gave her one good roar, it should free all of us from our paralysis. 

And yet… 

Alas, the lion’s mane was flat against his neck. He was cowering and blubbering, cradling his head between his arms. Are you kidding me? I thought. But then I remembered. 

It wasn’t his fault. The witch had stolen his courage. If we had done the subquest and recovered the golden mane that was the source of his courage, that would be one thing, but right now, he was helpless. We could have predicted this would happen, but the girls had insisted we didn’t need to bother with the other steps… 

“ARF! Harf-arf-arf!” the little dog barked, interrupting my thoughts. 

But that wasn’t the only thing that happened. The lion’s trembling stopped, and his wilted bits of mane began to bulge upward again. But why? 

As I watched, wide-eyed and trapped on the floor, the lion got up to a standing position. He still looked miserable, but there was a new strength in his eyes that wasn’t there before. 

“I’m…I’m here…to help Dorothy!” he shouted, then sucked in as much breath as his lungs could take—and let out a roaaaaaar! The bellowing simply obliterated the paralysis icon affecting me. 

The witch tried two more paralysis attacks after that, but following the lion, the tin man got up and dispelled the effect, and the scarecrow took his turn last. Once she was presumably out of magic, the witch panicked and simply charged with the ladle in her hand. 

With her long black robe and pointy hat, the witch didn’t look like much of a melee fighter, but I was a bit shocked when the end of the long ladle began to glow red above her head. As befitting a resident of this world, she could apparently use sword skills of her own that treated the ladle as a poleax. 

“Kweeeaaaahhh!” 

She swung the ladle down with an ear-shattering screech, but my Vertical Arc easily blocked it. The skill hit the witch as a counterattack and knocked her back, leaving an opening for Asuna to switch in. 

It really didn’t seem necessary for Asuna to keep holding the dog in one hand, but she was talented enough that she could execute sword skills regardless. A merciless five-part thrust attack knocked the witch farther away. Before she could even hit the ground, Argo was there. With sprint speed faster than even Asuna, Argo circled under where the witch was falling and unleashed a twirling, slicing skill with both of her metal claws. 

That was a trio of high-level skills in combination, but the witch was a quest boss, after all, and she retained just a tiny bit of HP. She plopped onto the ground but got to her feet right away and rushed to the cauldron at the back of the chamber. As soon as our skill delay allowed, we ran after her, determined not to let her use the mystery soup for another curse spell. 

But suddenly little Toto shot out of Asuna’s arms and launched itself after the witch like a cannonball, biting the black heel of her shoe. The witch lost her balance, stumbled forward, and rolled with great velocity, plunging headfirst into the bubbling pot. 

A few seconds later, a massive monster death effect burst up out of the cauldron. 

When freed from the cage, Dorothy hugged her precious Toto and thanked us over and over. She said that she would be continuing the journey with the scarecrow, tin man, and lion, searching for the Emerald City that existed somewhere else in the world. 

Back at the log house, we watched Dorothy and her friends go. Asuna looked sadder than the rest of us (probably because of the dog), and Argo looked relieved (probably because of the dog). I patted them on the back together. The final ! of the quest was floating over the log cabin. If we walked inside and closed the door, it should take us back to where it should be. 

“Come on. There’s no place like home,” I said, looking to the western sky, where the setting sun was sinking behind the clouds.