The first step of the << Elf War >> campaign on the 8th floor was like many others before: an escort quest.

Quite easily, the Reavers had found the NPC who triggered the quest. He was literally waiting for them outside the gates of Frieven when they stepped out.

The NPC, a << Dark Elf Scout Recruit >> called Quore, told them he had been sent by Kizmel to guide the players to their base on this floor. According to Kirito, they had skipped two steps of the original questline, once again showing the advantages of saving their dark elf friend on the 3rd floor.

Of course, the system would never let things be that easy. The fallen elves had somehow gotten notice that the players planned on uniting both kinds of elves to oppose them, so during their trip to the dark elf camp, it was expected that they would be ambushed by fallen elves several times. They had to keep Quore alive through all that, since he was the only one who knew the way and, unbeknownst to them - or it would be, if Kirito wasn't a beta-tester- he was also the nephew of the current dark elf queen, so relations would get pretty unstable if they let him die.

All of the above really wouldn't be a problem if Quore wasn't an obnoxious, arrogant, and frankly disgusting person. Not to mention the constant sneer he carried, and clear contempt in his gaze, he was also very vocal about how he thought it was beneath him to guide some 'lowly humans'.

"Hurry up, humans! How can you be so damn slow?! Humph! I don't know what Royal Aunt was thinking when she told me to obey that knight. Befriending humans, what a shameful act!"

Drifter dodged a sword from a fallen elf at the same time Vallerk blocked two spears aiming for Quore. They were actively being ambushed, and the damn noble was still complaining.

"Ugh. Are you sure I can't punch him, Kirito? Not even a little?"

"As much as he deserves it, no. We need him to arrive safely at the dark elf camp to complete the quest, Yuna."

"It doesn't say he has to get there unharmed, though. Just alive."

"No. Besides, it would cause trouble for Kizmel if we did that."

"You sound like Drifter."

"Hey! I'm not even in this conversation!"

The Reavers' playful banter went right over Quore's head, which was one of the reasons Yuna was just joking when she said she wanted to rough him up, and not actually being serious. If it had been Kizmel, she would have already interjected in their conversation - probably to lightly admonish them while actually agreeing - but Quore was just a NPC following a script.

"Why did Kizmel send that idiot of all people to guide us anyway? Did we piss her off somehow?"

"Nah, Sin-chan. Quore's been maintained from the beta. He's royalty, so he's important to convince the dark elf queen."

"How so, Argo?"

The info-broker had temporarily joined Reaver's Requiem to aid them in the << Elf War >> campaign, since only guild members could share the quest progression. It was a loophole they were more than happy to employ.

Swiping her claws, Argo sliced the wrist of a << Fallen Elf Scout >>. Despite it not being her focus, the info-broker wasn't half-bad in combat. Barely at the level of a clearer, as she would readily admit, which still put her amongst the strongest players.

"Well, we probably just have to follow the plot. In the beta, Quore was kidnapped by the fallen elves 'cause they wanted to ransom him for the << Secret Keys >> the dark elves have. By savin' him, the queen owes us a favor and also sees that the fallen elves are the real menaces."

Kirito nodded along with Atgo to show that this was also what he remembered. Knowing that, the players simply decided to tune out the dark elf noble from here on out, ignoring him as if he were background noise. They just had to make sure he stayed alive until they got to the base and he got kidnapped. Considering the Reavers were out in full force, with all twelve of them plus Argo taking the field, it shouldn't be very difficult.

Maybe it would be smarter to have a portion of them go farm mobs and materials, since the progress was shared by all the guild, but the experience gain from the campaign was just as good as if they spent the entire day grinding. Besides, Kizmel always had special items and even weapons and armor she gave them.

The Reavers weren't aware that their little unplanned exploit had been noticed and patched for the future. While he wouldn't correct it directly, since that would be unfair to the players - and he was all about fairness - Kayaba had already instructed the Cardinal System to make saving NPCs who were supposed to die a lot more difficult - veritable impossible, really. The game master might respect the determination and skills the players showed, and which allowed them to break the plot - which was why he stopped the Cardinal System from erasing Kizmel - but he wouldn't let it happen again, since it disturbed the balance of the game.

"Three more spawning to our left!"

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"Nautilus, intercept them! Ran, Silica, you are on offense. Sinon, cover them!"

The players followed Kirito's orders with fluid motions, Nautilus barreling into the first mob with a << Unrepentant Charge >> and staggering it. That wasn't all, because the shield-bearer also calculated his move so he would be blocking the path of the other two fallen elves.

From the back, Sinon seamlessly changed her target from the mob fighting Asuna to the three new creatures. An arrow flew through the gap between Ran and Silica, and embedded itself in the eye of a << Fallen Elf Attacker >>.

After that wave of attackers was dealt with, under Quore's repeated complaints that they were too slow, the Reavers finally saw the dark elf camp appear amidst the trees. A figure waved at them from the top of the palisade.

"Kizmel!"

"Asuna! And Drifter, Kirito, and everyone else, you are finally here! I trust you didn't have any problems?"

"Some fallen elves tried to stop us, but we took care of them. How you doing, Kiz?"

Drifter bowed slightly to the dark elf, his right hand across his chest with three fingers out, just like she had shown them before, and Kizmel returned the greeting, smiling at the affectionate way the Reavers shortened her name when talking to her sometimes.

"Knight Kizmel! I have completed the task you assigned to me, and will be retiring to my quarters. You can continue to mingle with those... Humans."

Quore interposed himself into their conversation, throwing a glare full of disdain at the players, then stomping away. Kizmel looked at his back and exhaled, exasperated. Sinon gestured with her thumb.

"What's his deal, Kizmel? Why would a noble become a soldier?"

"Ah, it is traditional amongst our people that peripheral members of the royal family serve in the army for a time, as a show of patriotism and devotion to Lyusula."

Kizmel shrugged as she explained. It could be seen she didn't agree with the way those arrogant nobles entered the army only to put on a show, but it was out of her control. The players also quickly lost interest in the subject, and started to catch up with the dark elf, even if it had only been a few days since they last saw her.

"The fallen elves are getting bolder. My people have four of the << Secret Keys >>, and I know the forest elves used to have the remaining three. However, they were stolen by an unknown group. The forest elves are accusing us."

"It has to have been the fallen elves."

"That is what I believe too. But proving it will be difficult. Relations between both kingdoms had been tense lately, to say the least."

Kizmel shook her head in dismay. She might not have cared much before, but after meeting Drifter and the others, she was growing tired of this unending war between the dark and forest elves.

"What if we recover the keys and hand them back to the forest elves? That should gather us some goodwill, shouldn't it?"

"Right. It might be enough to create, if not an alliance, at least a temporary truce."

There were more than a few holes in their plan, but the Reavers were assured it would work, based on the experience from the beta test. Kizmel also wasn't too fussed about it, since she didn't have a better idea. Besides, her human friends had always proved to be reliable.

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When night arrived in SAO, most players returned to the safe zones. It was harder to see when it was dark, monsters spawned in greater quantities and had a higher chance of going berserker, and, overall, fighting at night was a lot more dangerous and simply not worth the effort.

Not all players thought like that. Some persisted in grinding even in the darkness, although they mostly occupied areas close to the cities and where the level of the mobs was lower.

But you could also get players like Morte, who didn't give a damn about about gaining experience. In fact, Morte's level was even lower than that of most clearers, despite having been a frontliner until three floors ago. He had stopped training after being kicked out of the Aincrad Liberation Squad - unfairly, in his opinion. He hadn't even killed anyone at that time! Granted, he did so right after, and two at once on top of that, but he still thought Kibaou was being biased. And cowardly. What was the problem with him trying to kill that info-broker anyway? She was just a child, not anyone important!

Well, Morte considered he was better off now, despite the scolding he received from his boss - and which still scared the living shit out of him even now. But his boss didn't kill him, and he didn't need to put on an act anymore, so that was a net positive in his eyes.

His level was lacking, that was true. But that was just because Morte stopped hunting virtual creatures, which gave him no pleasure whatsoever, and could now focus on his real prey. The cursor above his head was a few shades darker than three floors ago.

That also meant cities were a no-go to him, which was somewhat of a bother. He still needed to repair his equipment and buy consumables, as well as gather information, but if he crossed even one toe into the safe zones, he was immediately pursued by NPC guards who were many, many levels higher than him. Since going to prison would ruin his fun, Morte was wisely staying away from the cities.

But he still had to go somewhere to fix and buy his stuff. And Kayaba - bless the brilliant psychopath - had thought of red players when he designed SAO. While Morte couldn't go into the cities, there was somewhere else where he was welcomed.

Whistling with his hands in his pockets, the murderer entered the hidden fallen elf base. The guards didn't bat an eyelid. Every floor had places like this one. They were also safe zones, meaning you couldn't hurt other players in them, and a lot smaller than cities, but they had all the facilities a player needed. Also, they were basically the inverse of normal cities. Here, orange and red players could stroll around without a care in the world, but green players would be immediately attacked by the NPCs - not arrested, but attacked.

Walking around, what Morte saw were mostly fallen elves NPCs. He spotted only two other players, both of them with orange cursors, who immediately turned and ran when they saw him. The red color of his cursor was very eye-catching. He guessed they were just some people who fought others over loot, and were waiting for their cursors to go back to green. Maybe he should remember their faces. Those types of players were usually alone. Easy targets.

Scratching his chin in thought, Morte threw his equipment to the blacksmith and told him to fix it. Easy targets. Easy targets weren't as fun. They just ran away and didn't fight back. Not like the frontliners. They resisted. Even tried to hunt him. But they were always in groups. And Morte was crazy, not suicidal.

Now that he thought about it, weren't some of the frontliners doing something related to elves? And it was Reaver's Requiem, the guild full of people he wanted to kill. Well, he wanted to kill pretty much everyone, but especially them and Kibaou.

Morte glanced at the NPCs around him. Fallen elves. And Reaver's Requiem was doing a quest campaign with elves. Elves, elves, elves. Would you look at that?