Chapter 126 - Black Iron Palace

Drifter stared in the direction the red players had vanished. He refused to collapse, no matter how mentally exhausted he was.

All that time he spent talking and provoking Red-Eyed XaXa, he was quite literally flirting with death. All it would have taken was one more coincidence, and for the red player to not have underestimated them. If three of them had gone after Griselda instead of him, she would be dead, and they would have been able to pick off the Reavers one by one.

"Drifter!"

A human-shaped missile slammed into him, and Drifter leaned onto his spear to support both of them. Then he swept Yuna in a desperate embrace, and kissed her deeply.

"I told you I would be fine, songbird. See? Mostly intact."

Touching his forehead to hers, Drifter whispered softly while staring into her brown eyes. Worry was still evident on her expression, as was her relief at finding him alive.

"You... You stupid dummy! Don't you ever dare leave me behind again, got it?!"

"Never, Yun'. Never."

He leaned in and kissed her again, slowly this time. Public indecency be damned.

When their lips finally separated, Yuna still kept her arms wrapped around him in a show of protection, or maybe possessiveness.

The spearmaster looked around. The Hill of the Cross had probably never seen this many visitors at once. Even Keita, Sachi, and the other three were there, despite Drifter's express orders that they should stay in Ralberg. He couldn't find it in himself to be angry with them for disobeying. That had to have been a much harder decision than following his command and staying safely in the zone, but they still did it, for him. If the Black Cats' loyalty to Reaver's Requiem hadn't been proved yet, now it was indisputable.

"Ya look beaten up as shit, Dri-bou."

The spearmaster smiled at the insult, and grabbed Argo before she could escape his reach. Hugging her to his side like Yuna was doing to him, he stroked the info-broker's hair. For once, she didn't complain or struggle. Her eyes were still red.

"Good to see you are back to normal, little rat. That whole panicking thing really doesn't go well with the merciless information merchant persona you have going on."

"Ugh... Yu-chan, scold him for me, will ya?"

Yuna flickered Argo's forehead.

"Ack! Yer all bullying me!"

Drifter grinned, amused by the two girls' antics. Yuna might have called him a dummy, but she wouldn't truly scold him. This wasn't like it had been with Morte. This time it was much more urgent, and the songstress had been aware of it from the beginning.

After finishing with the two girls, Drifter walked towards Griselda. While everyone seemed relieved and happy, and Drifter, Kirito, Asuna, and Kizmel were being enthusiastically interrogated by their friends, the older woman was lost.

She was sitting at the base of the giant dead tree crowning the Hill of the Cross, eyes glazed over. Liz, Agil, Wolv, and Shigio were watching over her, seemingly lost on what to do. Drifter approached her.

"Griselda. I suppose asking if you are okay is a stupid question, isn't it? But we need some answers."

The woman blinked, and her eyes focused again. She looked at Drifter, Kirito, Asuna, and Kizmel, got up, and bowed deeply.

"The four of you... Thank you. You saved my life. Thank you."

Drifter put a hand on her shoulder and lifted her up. Then he grabbed the woman in a hug. She looked like she really needed one.

"T-Thank you! Aaahhh!"

Griselda buried her head on his shoulder and started sobbing. Her voice broke, and Drifter felt the tears wetting his clothes. Yuna came over his other side and threw her arms around both of them.

The couple stayed like that, holding the older woman until she had no more tears left to cry. For now, at least.

"Uff... Thank you. I-I am better now."

When she let go of Drifter, Griselda took a step back and thanked him and the Reavers again. She rubbed her face to get rid of the last traces of tears, which quickly became dust and disappeared in beautiful flickering light crystals. Yuna still had an arm around her, and Griselda was leaning heavily on the songstress.

"There's no corner of Aincrad where we would let those bastards harm you or anyone else and get away with it, Griselda. It's over now."

"Yuna's right. We did nothing more than you would have done if our positions were inverted. But we need to hear the whole story before we can put this behind us."

Drifter threw a significant glance at a spot about 20 meters away. Vallerk and Silica were standing guard over the crumpled form of Grimlock. The man hadn't even tried to run away. He was curled up in a fetal position, mumbling incomprehensibly and shaking.

Griselda looked at her husband with complex emotions. There was confusion and hurt and sadness and fear. No love. Not after what he did. Not anymore. She took a deep breath.

"I... I'm not sure I can say much to clarify. I have yet to understand all of it myself. Keiji- Grimlock called me here. I should have suspected something, but... He is my husband. Was."

Drifter didn't see what she did, but after a few swipes on her menu, the ring on Griselda's hand disappeared. He was fairly certain she had just dissolved her in-game marriage to Grimlock.

That action seemed to take a huge burden off Griselda's shoulders, and she even managed a shaky smile.

"He started saying many things. That we were alone. Nothing of it made much sense. He said he loved me. And that I had changed, so he didn't love me, but did. A-And about how he only wanted the me of his memories. H-his sweet, caring, and o-obedient wife. And then those red players... Laughing Coffin... Appeared."

She looked away from Grimlock.

"I-I have to thank you again. Especially you, Drifter, Kirito, Asuna, and Kizmel. I think... Grimlock hired Laughing Coffin to kill me. You stopped them. Stopped him."

Drifter patted Griselda on the shoulder again. She had just gone through something horrible. But she was a tough woman. Then his gaze moved left of Grimlock.

"And that brings us to the biggest surprise and problem of tonight. Laughing Coffin."

The member of the red guild that Akari and the other Fuumaningum player managed to capture was still paralyzed. Akari was sitting on him, a dagger held loosely in hand - not close enough that he could try suicide, she had been there when Morte made Drifter a murderer. Her subordinate was standing silently by her side. Drifter would have to remember to thank him later. Without him, Griselda would be dead, and they would be none the wiser to the existence of the killer organization.

"Laughing Coffin?"

Argo questioned. Of course. Only a few of them had been there when Red-Eyed XaXa revealed Laughing Coffin.

"Later, little rat. That's going to be a long discussion, and here's not the ideal place. Kirito? I think it's time to finally use that Corridor Crystal. Black Iron Palace, I believe."

The swordsman nodded. Pulling the large blue crystal out of the guild storage, he inputted the coordinates and activated it. The large plaza of the Town of Beginnings, and the massive dark structure of the prison, appeared in front of their eyes.

Vallerk and Agil lifted Grimlock and pushed the sobbing mess of a man through the portal. Akari nicked the red player with another dose of her paralysis potion-coated dagger just for good measure before allowing Drifter and her subordinate to hail him up.

Normally this kind of rough manhandling wouldn't be possible. The system itself would block it. Even Grimlock had to 'voluntarily' step through the Corridor Crystal.

But red players didn't have rights. Drifter and the role-player carried their 'package' through the portal, still paralyzed and still in combat state, both of which should not be possible inside a safe zone. They were relieved of it by the NPC prison guards, who dragged the red player away. The murderer was cursing and laughing all the way.

The Cardinal System was extremely intelligent. It recognized Grimlock's crimes, but at most it could give him an orange player status. He would be imprisoned for 60 days only. He hadn't actually killed anyone.

There was no such light sentence for a red player. Whether they only murdered one person or a hundred, it was a life sentence. The criminal would stay in Black Iron Palace for the rest of SAO, however long that was.

"Griselda. Griselda! You can't do this! I-I love you! Th-This is your fault! Griselda!"

The players watched Grimlock be escorted away with uncomfortable expressions. The man had completely broken down. He was shattered. Shards of what he once was.

"Keiji..."

"C'mon, Griselda. You can visit him another day, after you have calmed down. You might actually collapse if you go now."

"I... You are right. Thank you, Asuna. I- I should probably go back. My guild needs to... Oh, Golden Apple. What am I going to do about them? How do I tell them?"

"You can think about it tomorrow. And you are not going back. You can't be alone tonight. I vote for the hot springs. It always calms me down, and I think we are all too hyper to sleep anyway. Plus Argo has a lot of investigating to do."

"Ya can be damn sure I do! C'mon Gris-chan! I'll show ya firsthand how a proper info-broker works!"

...

It was close to 4 in the morning when Drifter, Kirito, Argo, and Akari met outside, in one of Ralberg's plazas.

True to their word, they had spent two hours in the hot springs to relax, and avoided any topic that might trigger Griselda. So no mention of her husband, guild, red players, Laughing Coffin, and what happened tonight. It would have been a very awkward conversation if Griselda hadn't been so physically and emotionally exhausted that she fell asleep within 15 minutes.

They only woke her up when they were leaving, and Asuna and Yuna brought her back to an inn. The two girls would sleep with Griselda tonight, just to be safe.

After dismissing the other Reavers, Drifter, Kirito, and Argo walked out of the hot springs. Akari was already waiting for them there. Silently, the four took the teleporter to the 19th floor.

"We'll put aside Grimlock and Griselda's matter for now. But we need to talk about Laughing Coffin."

After a long time of staring into the night sky, Drifter broke the silence. When none of his companions said anything, he turned to Akari. His gaze was sharp, and the ninja frowned under her mask.

"Fuumaningum deals in outlaw zones, Akari. I know about it, and no one here sees anything wrong with it, so we aren't gonna have any problems related to that. But did you already know of Laughing Coffin before today?"

Relaxing slightly, the role-player shook her head.

"No. We have identified several red players, but there was never any indication they were joining in an organization."

"A red guild. This is bad. Since I'm assuming you are Argo's arm in the gray side of SAO, you don't have anything on them either, do you, little rat?"

"No. Sorry, Dri-bou, Kii-bou, Akari-chan. I should have known about them."

"Don't beat yourself over it, Argo. We thought Morte was an outlier. There was never any reason to suspect there were so many red players, much less that they would work together."

Kirito extended a hand to pat Argo's head. Drifter and Akari nodded in agreement.

"They are all insane. I don't think anyone here questions that. We need to investigate them, Argo. We need to nip Laughing Coffin in the bud. We can't have murderers running around while we are already struggling to climb Aincrad."

"Aye. Don't worry, Dri-bou. I didn't find 'em before 'cause I wasn't lookin'. Now Imma turn over every stone to uncover the bastards."

The spearmaster smiled. If Argo said it, he could trust her to make good on her word. Of course, there was always the question of what they would even do after finding Laughing Coffin, but they could think further on that later.

"Let's assess what we know for now. Thankfully that demon had very loose lips. He blabblered on incessantly. Good job on keeping him distracted, Broken Spear Drifter."

Great, they were back to role-playing now. Drifter just sighed in exasperation.

"He did let us know a lot. Let's see... Laughing Coffin. A guild of red players. At the very least 7 of them, probably many more, since I doubt they sent their entire force to deal with Griselda. Their attire is very distinctive, but I would say the red cursor is even more of a dead giveaway, so I don't know if that helps much. Humm... They all had this on their wrists."

Drifter changed his menu to public and drew a sketch of Laughing Coffin's logo. It wasn't the best, but still recognizable.

"What do you know about tattoos in SAO, little rat? How do you get one, and where? Are they permanent, or can you change it whenever you like?"

"Never had a reason to look into that, Dri-bou."

"Now you do. All seven had the symbol tattooed on their wrists, so that can be an identifying mark, Akari. It would be good to know if all red players are part of Laughing Coffin, and if not, how many."

"Hm."

"Next, Red-Eyed XaXa. He's the only one who gave his name, although I think the Red-Eyed epithet was made up in the moment. Skull mask, flashing red eyes. His signature would be the estoc. That's not a common weapon. He is probably... A mid-tier leader in Laughing Coffin. He was clearly in command of that group."

"Not the leader?"

"No, he mentioned someone he called boss. Honestly, XaXa was really good. Frontliner good. And properly mad. If even he addresses someone so respectfully, Laughing Coffin's guild leader must be as good as us, Kirito. And one cruel fucker."

Drifter rarely swore openly like that, but he was in a bad mood. They had saved the day, rescued Griselda, and arrested Grimlock and one of the red players. But having learned what they did today, no one could see it as a victory.

"Unfortunately, that's about it, Argo. You have a lot of work ahead of you."

"For this, I'm willin' to go into overtime, Dri-bou. I want those monsters outta circulation as much as ya."

"Start with the red player Akari caught. I don't think it will be of any use, but we have to exhaust all our leads."

"You don't think he is going to speak, Drifter?"

The spearmaster shook his head.

"He has no reason to. We wouldn't torture him even if there was an option to do that, amd we can't promise him freedom. Now that he is in Black Iron Palace, everything is under the system's control."

"Not to mention we can't release a monster like him again, even if it was up to us."

"Exactly. So, if anything is going to make him crack, it'll be solitude. A long time of staring at the same four walls without anyone to talk to will probably drive him more insane than he already is, though."

"Good riddance, I say."

Argo spat on the ground, and Drifter couldn't help but nod along. The red player deserved everything he got, and worse.

"I still think it's worth a try. I'll go with you to interrogate him tomorrow, okay, Argo? I don't want you going there alone."

"I'm not a child, Dri-bou."

"I never said you were, little rat. But promise me."

Argo glared at him for a few minutes, but eventually relented.

"'Kay."

"I know you don't like it, but I'm just worried, little rat. Those guys are vicious. You know that.

The info-broker didn't contest him, and let Drifter pull her into a hug, burrowing into his side much like her namesake. The spermaster looked at Akari.

"We'll need Fuumaningum's full support, Akari. I'm afraid the most dangerous part will fall to your guild. It's understandable if you want out."

"Don't mock my honor, Broken Spear Drifter. Fuumaningum I'll gladly fight against the demons."

"Hmm."

The spearmaster hummed in acknowledgement, already having expected that. Lastly, he turned to Kirito.

"That leaves informing the Assault Team to us, Kirito. I'll respectfully leave it in my guild leader's capable hands."

The boy groaned, and, for the first time tonight, Drifter, Argo, and even Akari laughed.