Chapter 55 - Exhausting Day

"Well... I guess we now know why only we received this quest prompt."

From their hiding spot near the entrance of a lakeside cave, Drifter and his party watched as the smugglers handed over the crates to none other than the fallen elves.

Just two hours earlier, the players had been grabbed by Romolo, the shipwright, and given a quest to track a bunch of clandestine sailors around the << Caldera Lake >>. Thankfully, sailing in SAO wasn't anywhere as hard as it was in real life. They pretty much just pointed the ship in the direction they wanted to go, and the system always made sure there was wind to fill their sails.

After two hours of following the other boat through the dark lake, they finally set foot on land again, at the entrance of the very cave they were in now. The party anchored their sailboat to shore farther away, and walked the rest of the way.

This was how they found themselves spying on thirty fallen elves - way too many for them to deal with. Luckily, the quest didn't task them with eliminating the mobs, it just wanted them to scout the situation.

"The smugglers are leaving, but the fallen elves are going deeper into the cave. Do we follow?"

"The quest is still ongoing, so yeah."

Just as they stepped into the cave, there was an instant change in the atmosphere. Drifter sighed. It looked like this mission wasn't going to be as easy as they thought it would.

"A dungeon. On your toes, people."

Dungeons were different than your normal open map. For starters, they only activated for quest-related players. It also meant this wasn't just a simple tailing quest anymore, and that enemies would start appearing. More importantly, once in a dungeon, you couldn't send or receive messages to players who weren't also in said dungeon. That made dungeon dives a lot more uncertain and dangerous.

Soon enough, they found their first obstacle. Two << Fallen Elves Guards >> were patrolling the tunnels, and the party would have to go through them if they wanted to proceed. So much for the stealth mission.

As they habitually did, the party split up to deal with the mobs. Nautilus and Drifter would distract one while Kirito, Asuna, and Sinon focused on killing the other. To accelerate things, Yuna would buff them with << Firemare >>.

After the first clash, Drifter refrained from using skills, opting to use the mobs as training dummies. This wasn't because he looked down on them, but because such perfect practice targets were hard to come by. Sure, there were many humanoid mobs, but as of yet, there were none as similar to players as the elves. As for why he wanted to train how to better fight against humans... The story of Kirito's duel and his own experience at the start of SAO had shown him that monsters might not be the only enemy they would have to face. That was a thought he tried to push to the back of his mind every time it appeared, but it always resurfaced.

"Naut, think you can step back for a sec? I want to try and solo it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Stay nearby in case I'm biting more than I can chew, though."

After assessing the strength of the << Fallen Elf Guard >>, Drifter reckoned he could take it on alone. His ash-haired friend didn't ask many questions, and used a << Shield Bash >> to push the mob away, leaving it all to Drifter as he retreated.

The spearman held his weapon horizontally as the fallen elf charged him, sword raised. When the distance between them shrunk to less than two meters, he took a large step forward, spear shooting out to meet the incoming blade.

With a loud 'clang' of metal hitting metal, the mob's sword slid along the shaft of Drifter's << Caldea Fana >> harmlessly. The spear, on the other hand, continued forward with seemingly unstoppable momentum, having barely trembled due to the clash. With little resistance, it pierced through the stomach of the << Fallen Elf Guard >>.

Such a wound should be fatal, but this was still SAO, after all. The mob grunted in pain, but then resumed attacking as if nothing happened. Drifter leaned back to avoid a slash, then pulled out his spear from the enemy's body. Switching the position of his hands, with the right grabbing the middle of his spear's shaft, while the left gripped the end of it tightly, Drifter flickered his wrist up, leaving a vertical gash along the left side of the fallen elf's torso and face.

When he was pulling back, his arm was nicked by the elf's sword, but Drifter ignored it. He took advantage of the small opening the enemy showed after the attack to cut down with a diagonal slash, leaving another red line in the mob's upper body. Without pausing, he then spun around, reversing his momentum to deliver another blow to the << Fallen Elf Guard's >> side.

One of the few - or maybe only - downsides of combat skills in SAO was what the player base collectively called the cooldown. However, contrary to other games before it, the cooldown in Sword Art Online wasn't having to wait a certain amount of time before using the skill again. In SAO, the cooldown meant being stuck in the ending position of your skill - the more complex the skill, the longer you were rendered immobile.

Take << Sting >> for example. It was a simple 1-hit skill - a stab. The ending stance when using it with a spear was right leg in front, feet half a meter apart, knees slightly bent, right hand holding the back end of the weapon, while the left hand was near the middle of the shaft, both arms stretched forward. Since it was such a basic skill, the time a player spent frozen - the cooldown - was less than half a second - and it could be even lower depending on their proficiency.

As for << Comet Break >>, Drifter's strongest single-hit skill, the cooldown was a full one and a half seconds. While that might not sound like much, it was enough for him to be killed ten times over amid battle. That was why he only used this skill when he had others to cover for him, or as a last resource.

But Drifter wasn't using << Sting >> or << Comet Break >> right now. He was fighting using normal attacks only, and there was no cooldown between them. His damage left to be desired, and it would take an awfully long amount of time to kill the mob, but his motions were a lot more fluid, without pause between them.

Without the urgency he would normally have in the labyrinth, where more enemies could spawn right behind you, Drifter took his time to slowly whittle down the mob's HP while training. It was nothing out of this world, just stab, swipe, slash, cut. The same old routine he had gone through a thousand times since he was first trapped in SAO. But he was getting better each time. More natural. It felt liberating.

For the next six minutes, Drifter and the << Fallen Elf Guard >> traded blows. Kirito, Asuna, Yuna, and Sinon had long since finished their battle, and were spectating. Drifter didn't even notice that he now had an audience, so focused he was. It was only when the fallen elf groaned one last time and fell to his knees, then shattered, that he looked around and saw his party watching him.

"Soooo... What was that all about?"

Drifter shrugged.

"Just trying something out. I wanted to see if I could stun-lock him by just using normal attacks. It didn't quite work. But I recommend you try it sometime, it was very... Fulfilling."

"Okay..."

"Also, Kirito, I think we should do a few practice duels between us. Just in case."

The others looked at him, unsure. Kirito frowned, but then seemed to realize something as his eyes widened. After a few long seconds, the swordsman nodded.

"Good idea. We can use lower-level weapons since it's just for training purposes."

"All right, are you boys done? I swear you can't go a minute without wanting to wave your swords around."

Asuna interrupted them, seemingly exasperated, but Drifter had the distinct feeling she had caught a hint of the underlying meaning in Drifter and Kirito's conversation, and was trying to change the topic. So, he went along with it.

"Mine's a spear, not a sword, Aa-chan."

Just about everyone groaned. Drifter speaking coyly and using Argo's nickname for Asuna was something they never wanted to hear again.

"C'mon, we have a dungeon to clear. And it's gonna be a long one by the looks of it, so buckle up."

...

Kirito was right. The dungeon was quite monotone, the only type of enemies being the << Fallen Elf Guards >>, who always appeared in pairs or trios. But even so, by the time they reached the end of the cave, over five hours had elapsed, and the party was exhausted. After all, they had spent the entire day running around completing quests, and now the entire night fighting. However, whenever they thought of giving up for today and coming back when they were well-rested, the players would tell themselves that they had come too far to give up now.

It was only when they reached the end of the dungeon that they came across a different mob. This one was taller and bulkier than all the other elves Drifter had come across, who were usually quite slender. The << Fallen Elf Foreman >> in front of him was not just strong - he was jacked, with bulging muscles that wouldn't look out of place in a bodybuilding competition. His weapon of choice was also interesting: a whip. Drifter had never seen one of those before in SAO.

'This is gonna be interesting.'

"Kirito, what's the battle plan?"

The swordsman was frowning, which was never a good sign. More likely than not, he also had never met a whip-wielding enemy. His next words confirmed that.

"The same as always, I guess. He's probably going to have the range advantage on us - apart from Sinon - and also flexibility. Nautilus, you will have to be especially careful. That whip can probably go around your shield, so don't blind yourself. Other than that... Improvise."

Their leader sounded uncertain, but Drifter couldn't fault him for that. They had learned the hard way that going into a fight without proper intel was never advisable, but sometimes you simply didn't have an option.

"Who are you?! And what are you doing here?! Guards, take those filthy humans away! Guards! Where are you?!"

The moment they entered the aggro range of the << Fallen Elf Foreman >>, he surprisingly didn't attack them immediately. Instead, the mob started screaming for help - presumably from the << Fallen Elf Guards >> the party had killed.

"Guards?! Why is no one answering?! Useless pieces of garbage, a waste of resources! You better bow down in your own accord, humans, or I shall whip you like the dogs you are! Lowly being like you have no place..."

The obnoxiously xenophobic curses sprinkled in between his cries for help were obviously made to anger the players, but they just tuned it out. Like most times, Sinon was the first to land an attack, her arrow piercing right into the open mouth of the screaming fallen elf.

"Agh! You!"

The party didn't hear what the << Fallen Elf Foreman >> said next, and didn't care. They launched everything they had at him, hoping to defeat the enemy swiftly, and partly succeeded. They quickly discovered two things, however. The first was that Kirito had been correct, and the whip's flexibility was a problem. It would bypass Kirito and Nautilus, who were the vanguard, to strike at Drifter, Asuna, and sometimes even Sinon and Yuna, the weapon stretching impossibly far. The mob didn't seem to have a fixed aggro list, and attacked people at random.

The second thing they discovered was that the fallen elf was a right bastard. He aimed for their eyes, attempting to blind them, latched his whip around their necks to suffocate them, and tied up their legs to trip them. Every dirty trick there was, the foreman used it.

It was only twenty-eight minutes later that the fallen elf screamed one last time and died. The fight went for an uncannily long time, even though the mob only had one HP bar, because the << Fallen Elf Foreman >> wouldn't stop running around.

"Tha was... So annoying! Argh!"

"Agreed. If I never see a whip-user again, it will be too soon."

The others nodded alongside Asuna and Yuna. The fallen elf hadn't actually managed to hurt the party much, since his choice of weapon severely lacked in the damage department. However, he had been extremely infuriating and slippery. If it was just one or two players against him, the foreman could probably toy them to death.

While his friends were discussing the battle and going over what they could've done better - a good habit they had picked up somewhere along the way - Drifter walked over to one of the many crates the smugglers had delivered to the fallen elves. The moment he pushed it open, a notification saying he had completed the quest popped up in his HUD, but the spearman waved it off. He was looking at the contents of the box utterly confused.

"It's... Empty?"

"Hum? What do you mean, Drifter?"

"This box, it's empty. Check the others."

They did just that, and discovered, to their consternation, that all the crates were empty.

"What the hell? All that just for a good amount of nothing at all?"

"Maybe they were supposed to receive something instead of delivering it?"

"Anyway, the quest is complete. Instead of burning our last brain cells trying to figure out the stupid plot, can't we go back to Rovia? We've been awake for almost 20 hours."

It was only when Sinon spoke that Drifter realized how long they had been out. Suppressing a yawn as all his energy left him, he nodded.

"I concur. We all need a good night's sleep and..."

"Hold up, shush. Someone's coming."

Drifter paused to listen, and then cursed under his breath.

"Shit, more fallen elves!"

"And a lot of them judging by the noise."

"The only way out is the one we came from. Prepare to fight!"

"No! Into the boxes, now! Hide!"

"What? Are you crazy, Asuna?"

"Not crazy, just following what the quest log is telling us to do. Quick, hide!"

Only then did Drifter notice the follow-up quest. After a short moment of confusion, they each entered a crate and closed it. And they were just in time, because the newly arrived enemies entered the cave, oblivious to the fact that dozens of their brethren had just been killed there.

"Check everything, make sure the preparations are perfect!"

"Yes, sir!"

"All the items are here, sir."

"Good, move to the next zone. Careful not to blow our cover!"

"Yes, sir!"

Drifter was glad they hid quickly, because he could hear at least several dozen people moving around the cave.

Whether it was by game design or luck, none of the boxes the players were hiding in were checked. Just before the fallen elves left, the voice belonging to their leader echoed in cold laughter.

"Hehehe... Soon it will be time for us to bring the foolish dark elves and forest elves to their knees, my brothers. In five days we will burn their cities to the ground, and shatter their beliefs. We will destroy them!"

"Yeah!"

When the fallen elves were long gone, still shouting and celebrating, the players left their hiding spots and looked at each other. They now had a time limit.

"Kizmel needs to know about this."

"Yeah."