With his head full of suppositions and considerations, Drifter separated from Agil and walked towards the central plaza of the Town of Beginnings, where the teleporter was located. His party was in the dark elf camp, and he wasn't about to trek through the wilderness in the middle of the night alone, but if he slept in Zumfut, it would save some time tomorrow.

At this hour, there was no one on the streets, neither player nor NPC. However, Drifter wasn't worried. This was a safe zone, he couldn't take damage here. In fact, the emptiness made it easier for him to think.

What Shivata proposed today has to be carefully considered, even if he was inclined to agree. If they could focus on finishing the << Elf War >> campaign, his party would save a lot of time - and that was the most valuable currency in Sword Art Online. How long did they have until their bodies in the real world decayed? How long did they have until somebody outside decided pulling the plug was a mercy? How long until the players gave up?

Drifter knew that asking everybody to wait until they finished the campaign before fighting the boss was not viable. He didn't want to do that. Every day more here was a day less in their lives. No one would be willing to wait, even if it meant taking risks. Not even him.

Opening his menu, Drifter started typing a message for his party, but then stopped. He could see in his HUD that only Asuna and Yuna were still awake, probably bathing. It was better not to bother them right now. He could tell them everything tomorrow.

Suddenly, Drifter halted his steps. His hand also shot to his back, and he pulled out his spear. This wasn't because he suddenly felt like training some new skill, but rather because two people had appeared in front of him.

If this was the real world, being stopped by two strangers in the middle of the night would already be enough reason to be put on edge. But this was Sword Art Online, a world where no law existed. Even if Drifter kept telling himself he was inside a safe zone, it was hard not to be spooked.

"What do you want?"

"We merely wish to pass to you our lord's message, brave warrior."

"This way of speaking... Fuumaningum?"

Only now did Drifter take a good look at the two players. They were dressed from head to toe in black garbs, covering practically their entire bodies, and leaving only their eyes out. On their waists were slim swords which resembled katanas.

Seeing that the two wannabe ninjas didn't have hostile intentions, Drifter put away his spear. He was still eyeing them warily, though.

"What is it with people not refusing to send a message today?"

"Our lord does not possess you on his friend list, and felt that an anonymous message would not only be overlooked by you, but also belittle your status, brave warrior."

One of the ninjas, a woman from her voice, answered his grumbling seriously, leaving Drifter tongue-tied. He was just complaining... Although she had a point - the part about him ignoring an anonymous message, not the second one.

"Please, call me Drifter. I really can't do role-playing right now."

"You are one of the courageous fighters who risk their lives against the demons who guard Aincrad. It would be an offense to address you directly, brave warrior."

"No, it's... Ah, you know what, never mind. So, what's the message? I'm getting a lot of those today. Actually, first, how did you even find me?"

The other ninja, a male, bowed.

"A great figure such as yourself doesn't go unnoticed, brave warrior."

Meaning, someone saw him go to the bar earlier. Still, Fuumaningum had an impressive network to be able to receive news so quickly. Drifter wasn't sure he likes the feeling of having people watch his every move.

"Aight. Say what you want then. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm not even drunk anymore, so make it short."

Was Drifter being unnecessarily grouchy? Maybe. But he had enough of how everyone seemed to want him to be a message boy today.

"Argo the Rat values your council. Our lord asks that you help set up a meeting between them."

"So everything ties back to Argo, hum? Why are you guys bothering her again?"

"We are not privy to our lord's intentions."

Shaking his head in exasperation, Drifter gave up. He was pretty sure Argo had mentioned employing people from Fuumaningum before, but apparently she had a one-way communication channel with them. Honestly, not his problem.

"I will tell her, but it's up to Argo whether she will take your leader on it or not. Can I go now? Or maybe you want me to deliver some message to someone else too, to keep the chain going?"

"Thank you, brave warrior."

Acting as if they didn't hear Drifter's snarky remark, the ninjas bowed one last time, and then ran into an alley. Before they even reached it, their figures were already blurry and vanishing. Their level of << Hiding >> was impressive, at least 30 points higher than his << Searching >>.

"Teleport! Zumfut!"

'Ugh, so much trouble. This was supposed to be a night to take off the stress. Let's see... Argo... Uhm? She is still awake? And... Nezha too? What are those two doing?'

Frowning, Drifter stepped out of the teleporter in Zumfut. The icon next to Argo's and Nezha's names showed they were both still awake even though it was nearly one in the morning. Swiping his finger, he opened his map, and his worry deepened. Argo wasn't in the city.

In SAO, there were some settings you could turn on and off in the friends list. By default, you could freely send and receive messages from friends, as well as trade items even if you weren't next to each other, as long as both were on the same floor. However, there was another function that you could choose to activate, which was the 'following' setting. If you turned it on, your position would appear on the map of the players you denominated. It was something Drifter had insisted Argo turned on for him after she recounted a close encounter with death she had during one of her many scouting outings. And, right now, Argo appeared on his map as being deep into the 3rd floor jungle.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

[ Drifter: What are you doing, little rat? Everything good? ]

Without any hesitation, Drifter sent her a message. Not only that, he spanned it to make sure she saw it. As long as she was out of combat, the info broker should have her HUD overcome by notifications at the moment. It worked.

[ Argo: Investigatin' somethin', don't worry 'bout it. Nezha's with me. ]

[ Argo: That will cost ya 50 cor btw. ]

[ Argo: How was the party? ]

Drifter snorted, but also let out a sigh of relief. If Argo had the time to demand payment, she was truly okay.

[ Drifter: Pretty good, all things considered. After-party not so much. The role-players stopped me, apparently their leader wants to meet with you. ]

[ Argo: Him again? Did they say what is it 'bout? ]

[ Drifter: Nope. I said I would be the middleman, but couldn't guarantee you would agree. Do you want me to reject it? ]

[ Argo: Nah, I'll talk to him, sort things out. Leave it to me. Thanks a lot, Dri-bou! ]

[ Drifter: No problem, little rat. I'm going to bed, you be careful. ]

[ Argo: Gotcha! Sleep tight! ]

Chuckling, Drifter closed his menu. Since Argo was still in the mood to joke, there shouldn't be any problems.

--------------------------

Somewhere else on the 3rd floor, Argo was having a very similar reaction to Drifter. She chuckled and thought Drifter was worrying too much, but still felt the warmth in her heart. Who told her to pick up such a considerate older brother?

Shaking her head, Argo looked at Nezha, who was crouching next to her. Although the man didn't have as high of a mastery in << Hiding >> as her, it was still passable. What she needed from him was his chakram skills, after all.

At the moment, Nezha was looking at Argo fearfully. That was because Argo had just asked him to do something which, in his opinion, was the same as courting death.

"Y-You want me to hit that thing?"

"Yeah, I already said that, didn't I? Just use your chakrams to cut off that flower over there, and I'll collect it, then we leave. Simple."

Nezha's eyes widened in disbelief. Sure, he had learned how to use the << Moonlight Chakrams >>, and plucking a flower from a distance wouldn't be hard. The only problem was...

"That flower is growing on the head of the field-boss!"

The former blacksmith all but hissed at Argo. He owed her a huge debt, that is true, but what she proposed was simply suicide. Attacking << The Indolent Treant >> with just two people was impossible.

"So? I don't need ya to kill it, just cut off the flower. Then ya can scamper, and leave the rest to me."

"Ugh..."

"Well, c'mon! Stop wastin' time and do it!"

Looking at the purple flower growing on top of the field-boss' head, he shuddered. The treant was basically immobile, so as long as he ran away as soon as he did what Argo asked, it wouldn't be able to catch up to him. Yet, he couldn't help but be afraid.

Taking a deep breath, Nezha readied his chakrams. When he looked to his side, the info broker had already disappeared. He knew that Argo had gone into hiding, and was probably as close as she could get to the field-boss without triggering its aggro.

Throwing away the last of his hesitation, Nezha launched one of his chakrams. The deadly ring flew through the air, leaving behind it only the sound of parting wind, and accurately hit the stalk of the purple flower. Not only that, but after cutting through the plant, it turned in the air, and went back to Nezha's hand.

"Raaaaaarrrghh!"

Right then, the formerly motionless << The Indolent Treant >> roared and stirred, its hollow eyes turning to stare at Nezha. When that happened, the player immediately turned tail and ran. So fixated the field-boss was on chasing him, it didn't discover that the flower Nezha cut had, at some moment, disappeared.

"Aff... Uff... I'm alive!"

Even though the field-boss' attacks never came close to him due to the fact that he escaped immediately, Nezha was still scared tremendously by the imposing monster. After all, it was hard to stay calm when a six-meters tall tree was trying to kill you.

"Of course ya are alive, idiot. I told ya there wouldn't be any problems. Now let's go, it's gettin' late and I need my beauty sleep."

Nezha didn't even have the energy to jump when Argo suddenly popped into existence next to him. He also didn't ask if she got what she wanted, because he knew he couldn't afford to know. Tiredly, he nodded and followed her.

-------------------------------

Morning of the next day, Drifter reunited with his party. However, he only needed to take one look at their sullen faces to discover something was wrong. Only Kizmel was going about her day normally.

"What happened?"

Kirito frowned, then sighed. It looked like he wanted someone else to explain it, but in the end it still fell to him to do so.

"After you left yesterday, we continued the << Elf War >> campaign. It was going well until we received a quest to take back an item a forest elf spy stole. We had to infiltrate their camp, but it was a stealth mission, not a combat one. Sinon has the highest level of << Hiding >> of all of us, so she went in with Kizmel. Everything went well, but just when we were leaving..."

At this point, Kirito trailed off. If it weren't for the fact he could see all of his friends in front of him, well and unharmed, Drifter would start to think the worst.

"There was a player waiting for us outside. He had to have been a beta-tester, otherwise he wouldn't have known where we would escape from so perfectly."

"He requested to have a duel with Kirito."

"What? A duel?"

Drifter couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was not like he had never heard of players dueling - it was a good way to train without risking your life - but the timing left something to be desired.

"Yeah. I refused, and wanted to ignore him, after all, we were still right next to the forest elf camp. But then he threatened to reveal our location..."

"You accepted?"

"I don't know if he actually had any way of doing so, but I didn't want to risk it."

"Hm. What rules?"

"Half Loss Mode."

Hearing that, Drifter breathed a sigh of relief. There were three types of duels in Sword Art Online. One was called First Strike Mode, where the player who landed a hit first won. The second was none other than the Half Loss Mode, which, as the name indicated, lasted until one player fell to half health. As for the third and final type of duel, it was called Total Loss Mode. The win condition was... Emptying your opponent's HP bar, and thus killing them.

"How did it go?"

"He was strong, very strong. We both lost equal amounts of health, and it got to the point where one more blow would end the duel. It was only then that I discovered he was actually controlling his damage output, so he could lower my HP as much as possible without finishing the duel. And then... He suddenly erupted with a single-hit skill I had never seen, but which was very powerful. If it hit me... I believe my health would have been fully emptied. In other words... I would've died."

"What?!"

"Kirito's telling the truth, Drifter, we all saw it. That guy, whatever his name was, he deliberately lowered Kirito's HP, and then tried to kill him with a single blow."