Chapter 56

The giant chess set in the room after the keys posed a real threat because Harry had no idea how to play the game. He did, however, learn that he had full command of the black set of pieces and used them to wage an actual war with the white pieces while ignoring the rules of the game; not a single piece on either side would remain standing when it was over (the last two white pieces finishing off the last of the black pieces before Harry blasted the last of them apart).

It was an epic battle that lasted a full two hours and when it was over, Harry was the proud owner of four marble crowns (two black and two white – one each from the four monarchs that had been part of the game), a two handed white marble broadsword (that was taller than he was and far too heavy for him to lift normally), a huge black marble shield emblazoned with a rampant lion in gold (which was even taller and heavier than the sword), and several blocks of both black and white marble in various shapes and sizes.

By comparison, the half-grown Mountain Troll in the next room was practically a pushover (and earned him first ever Troll Heart alongside of another heavy club, four yards of Troll Hide, and several liters of Troll Snot). Harry needed to rest for a bit after tackling the Troll before he moved onto the next room, taking a moment to sit down and eat while he considered the traps and monsters he'd encountered so far.

Out of the five challenges he'd faced, two of them had been fairly easy (the Devil's Snare and the Troll), one had been fairly simple if time consuming (the Flying Keys), and the last two had been difficult but not quite impossible. It bothered him that he had no idea just how many more rooms he had to clear before meeting the Dungeon Boss and the fact that he'd barely survived against the Hellhound and the Marble Statues meant there was a chance that he couldn't beat the Boss at his current level.

At the same time, Harry refused to leave the Dungeon challenge incomplete because he didn't think that he'd get another chance to run through the Dungeon now that he'd conquered a number of the rooms. He knew the staff of the school would try to stop him the moment they figured out that he was playing through the Dungeon because they'd been trying to make him forget that this was a game that he had to beat in order to escape so he could find his friends. Thinking of Agil and the others sent a sharp pain through Harry's heart as it had been close to eight months since he'd last seen any of them and he greatly feared that it was too late to save them now.

Hedwig's soft crooning as she dropped down onto his knee and nuzzled his cheek helped him to push aside the fear and grief that had gripped him and he thanked his familiar with a kiss on the beak as he shifted her back to his shoulder. He then pushed himself off the floor and moved onto the next room where he soon found himself trapped between two walls of fire blocking the entrance and exit. The logic puzzle and potion challenge was actually the hardest challenge up to this point because Harry had never learned how to solve logic puzzles; his mundane education cut short thanks to him getting trapped inside SAO nearly three years earlier and despite Agil's efforts to help him keep up on some subjects.

If he had been forced to solve the puzzle normally, he probably never would have made it through the challenge but whoever created the challenge didn't lock the task to prevent a player from taking all seven potions into their Inventory and figuring out which ones were the two needed to travel through the fire by the automated naming function of the Inventory Menu. Even then, Harry had only discovered that loophole by accident when he'd picked up the potions after he accidentally bumped into the table while he'd been trying to puzzle out the riddle (much like he'd collected his money from his vault).

To determine which bottle would let him go forward and which one would allow him to go backwards, he pulled both potions out of his Inventory and read through their properties. He then left the riddle on the now empty table, drank a quarter of the potion that would let him through the black flames that blocked the way forward and fed another quarter to Hedwig so she wouldn't be hurt by the flames (leaving them enough to get them back out if they couldn't move forward passed the next challenge).

He felt the potion slide down his throat like ice and shivered while Hedwig loudly complained and ruffled her feathery scales in irritation. Laughing softly, Harry closed his eyes and walked over the threshold of flames and breathed out a sigh of relief when the two of them reached the next room unharmed.

Whatever Harry had expected to find in the next room, it hadn't been a large empty room with nothing but a mirror sitting in the middle of it. He confidently strode to the center expecting a monster to appear once he passed a certain point but nothing happened. Confused, Harry slipped his shield onto his back and moved to inspect the mirror for any clues as to what he needed to do next only for the image in the mirror to capture his complete attention.

A soft gasp of surprise escaped his lips and he felt a huge grin pull at his cheeks as he watched himself dodge a noogie from Klein while Agil and Lisbeth laughed at him from one side. In the background, he could see Kirito and Asuna snuggled up together on a blanket spread out on the ground as they watched Hedwig chase pigeons in the sky with Aincrad floating off in the distance. It was a reflection of everything he wanted and to be so close yet so far away from his heart's desire was killing him inside as he pressed his hand flat against the surface of the mirror.

"Agil! Tousan, I can't believe I finally found you! I'm here! Kirito? Asuna? Klein? Lisbeth? Guys, can you hear me? Let me in guys! I've been looking for you for months!" Harry cried out in Japanese as he hungrily watched the scene continue to play out. "Please guys, let me in!"

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