The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

Chapter 6 - Useful Encounter

7 December 2022, 1pm

Urbus, 2nd Floor

The town of Urbus was the largest safe zone area of the 2nd Floor. From what I knew from the map provided by SAO's system, it probably occupied a fifth of the area of the whole floor.

Due to the castle of Aincrad having a cone-like structure, with the the 1st Floor right at the bottom, you could safely assume that the 2nd Floor, which was obviously right on top of the 1st floor, had a slightly smaller circular area than the 1st Floor.

That was how large the town of Urbus was.

Having already hunted enemy monsters for the past three days, I saw more of the landscape and terrain of the 2nd Floor. It looked more like a savanna, with plains scattered all over the place ( At least, that was what I had seen so far) .

Ox-type monsters were still commonly found in the areas I explored near Urbus, which allowed me to analyze their attack patterns. They loved to inflict the stun debuff on players, which rendered them immobile for a full duration of 3 seconds. I've suffered the stun debuff a few times before while fighting them solo, and mind you, 3 seconds was all it took for the axe-wielding oxen to decrease my HP by 40%. I had to use my Sprint skill to escape from them every time that happened.

You may think that 3 seconds was a very short time period, but when you're fighting in a death game, you would never ever take any risks during battles like these.

That was why I started to form parties with players who needed help with fighting the enemy monsters outside of Urbus. All of the players I partied with came to the 2nd Floor directly from the teleport gate in the Town of Beginnings.

I could confidently assume that, because none of them participated in the 1st Floor boss battle.

These players were very inexperienced in combat, and some of them didn't even know how to use their game menus well. But the fact remains that they only dared to step out of the safe zones to fight because the 1st Floor was cleared. If the 1st Floor was never cleared, they would have stayed in the Town of Beginnings, probably never having a single thought of stepping into the hunting fields to level themselves up.

I quickly became popular as a player to party up with because my level was clearly higher than most of the players who had invited me to join their parties, who definitely had a lower level than mine in average. I didn't know their levels, because the game system in SAO never displays a player's name (unless you formed a party with him) or level ( it's basically an unspoken rule in SAO that you shouldn't reveal your level to another player unless you really trust that player. It's really like part of your own personal information) , but I had guessed that they were only about level 7 or 8 in average.

Some of those players even sent me guild invites, which I rejected all too quickly. I'd already promised myself that I would only form parties with any player I chanced upon.

My habit of fighting with too many parties over the span of 3 days had earned me the title of 'Mercenary', which I was a bit annoyed about, but soon got used to being called that by players who walked past me in Urbus every few seconds or so.

I'd just gotten back to Urbus after hunting with a party of sword-and-shield users, who assigned me the role of the damage dealer in their group. It was especially tiring, but not that risky, as they fought in the role of tanks, which put me almost out of danger of taking damage.

Anyways, I was walking to the NPC blacksmith shop to enhance my Sharp Javelin+1 further. What I didn't expect to see on the way there was a figure running in a blur a few metres in front of me, through a cross-intersection of the streets. From my view, it was moving past me while reaching the left side from the right side of the not-so-narrow alley.