The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

Clashing Guilds Arc: Chapter 42 - Brief Break

25 October 2023

Tekion's workshop, Sanjun, 30th Floor

"Hey, have you heard?"

The colliding sound of metal rang through the forge as Tekion called out to me between the swings.

I opened my eyes, staring at the ceiling. Lying on a row of chairs by the door, I tried to turn to him, my body precariously rotating on the seats placed only side by side to each other. My nap didn't turn out much to be like one, seeing that Tekion's hammer didn't exactly gave me the necessary peace for my slumber.

"Heard what?" I asked, slightly reluctant to raise my voice in the noise.

"You know........that incident." Tekion said as he raised his hammer.

As if the next whack of the hammer had shocked me awake, my eyes burst open almost immediately. The next moment sent me rolling of the chairs, crashing the ground with noise that rivalled the hammer swings.

"........Ooof....." I mumbled, placing my right hand onto my forehead while still staring at the ceiling.

Tekion couldn't have known about the incident that me and Irokei got ourselves into, did he? Only the members of Horizon's Edge and a few outsiders know about it, and we swore not to disclose it to the public.

"Shouldn't you have already known? Everyone's been talking about the incident that happened in the 40th Floor Labyrinth." Tekion continued.

I quickly sat myself on a chair. "How you know about it.....? Like, who told you?"

Tekion gave me a perplexing stare, as sparks flew over his face.

"It's the reason why the night concerts stopped, Z."

I froze up in my seat. It was as if Tekion had given me a hint about the topic, even though he had expected me to get it. As the events of the ambush incident flowed back to me again, the realization that another incident--which happened on the same day--had become clearer to me.

But back then, I had never considered that the field boss fight that I had witnessed would turn into a full-blown incident as well. I was recovering from my incident for the past few days, but now that I had pondered enough about that....

"Wait, wait......" I said. "Were you talking about the raid on one of the field bosses in the 40th Floor Labyrinth?"

Tekion nodded. "The raid party only had a female player. That was the Song Enchanter, for some reason I wouldn't know. All I know is that stuff happened, and she perished during the raid."

I started to stand up, but paused halfway, knees bent in a slightly awkward manner. So that female player that I had seen through those jail bars.......was her?

"The worst part is," Tekion continued. "Her death was the only one in the raid. They said she had sacrificed herself in the process. It's real sad, Z.........I was thinking of attending the next night concert, you know."

"You a fan?" I asked simply.

"Heck, who else isn't?" Tekion's final whack with the hammer turned the metal he was working on into a longsword. "I would pay all my col--or my finest weapons--to watch the idol sing again."

I could feel his sentiment there. In a world where weapons and combat are everything, no one would think that music could ever exist in our lives. We would often forget about the non-combat skills that never seem to get the attention of players, just because they didn't help much in fighting enemy mobs and such.

Since we are in a death game, it really couldn't be helped. We're all trying to survive in our own ways, no matter where we are in this giant floating castle.