The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

PK Pandemonia Arc: Chapter 57 - Informant's Wish

While I had completely covered all the Floors so far (except for the recently opened 55th Floor), the only Floor that I hadn't truly explored in its complete form was the 43rd Floor, which had a field dungeon full of canyons located somewhere in the middle. It wasn't the enemy monsters that made this area so hard to travel around, but rather that it was designed so that the canyon walls formed paths that intersected with each other at times.

Essentially, it was a maze with giant walls. There were discussions about the maze at that time, with the most popular one suggesting that there was something special waiting at the center of the maze. I hadn't heard of anything that proved that theory, though, but it was soon widely accepted as the objective of the maze.

Even with the map recording the paths as I tried to find my way to the center, I soon had gotten lost, before eventually tracing back my path out of the literal labyrinth. To this day, the map of that canyon maze was still incomplete in my system menu.

I wasn't the only player who had this problem. Many other players had their tries in navigating the maze, but gave up like I did. The strangest part about the maze was that it had entrances in any direction possible. Despite that, the futile attempts kept piling up.

"I'm not a fan of going for another attempt at navigating that abomination." I replied, as I put my hand on my head in slight frustration.

Kyozo gestured me to the metal barrier, which I didn't mind heeding, as I went and rested my arms beside him. The scenery I was seeing at the height of 3 stories consisted simply of metallic walls, as I turned at Kyozo, who only had a hand resting on the barrier. He started to speak in the softest tone he could manage, probably hoping that it would be soft enough for me to hear clearly.

".....I know what's at the center of that maze."

I stood staring at him in utter silence. There was a reason why I gave up on trying to navigate the maze at the time, and that was because no one else did. Even the info brokers were stuck at the issue, and had learned nothing new on the maze, let alone having been to the center of the maze even once.

"Have you been there before?" I asked in a tone as soft as he had whispered.

"No," Kyozo replied. "But I had a......friend.....who claimed to have gone there."

At that moment, I felt the urge to turn around and walk off. The credibility of whatever information Kyozo was going to give me seemed to be dangerously dropping. I wasn't sure if I could trust an indirect account about an area that I had never been before.

Still, he was the only player who had wanted--albeit suddenly--to contact me about the source of the PKs just because I needed clues on it. I simply tilted my head slightly towards him, as he stared blankly at the giant walls.

"Your friend, huh?" I rested my head on my left hand in a laid-back manner. "I'm listening."

Kyozo nodded a little, and after taking a deep breath, continued with an explanation.

"At the center of the canyon maze lies a settlement. You know, buildings and stuff, just like the safe zones here. What's different about that place is that it isn't a safe zone. It's never safe there, from what I heard from my friend."

"So, the settlement isn't run by NPCs or anything?"

"No NPCs, no.....it's entirely run by orange players."

That was news to my ears. Players' cursors turn from green to orange when they attack other players, which put them in dangerous circumstances. Being banned from entering safe zones and having enemy monsters attacking the player on sight were a couple of the disadvantages an orange player has to live with until their orange cursor turns back to green after a few days.