~"Not on the front?"~I asked Felis, who was lying on the sofa in our guild house.
-"Nah, Mei gave me time off."-Felis turned to me after hearing me enter.
~"Mobius didn't object?"
-"She is too focused on catching her newest 'pet' to care about me."
~"I hope this time it's a wild 'pet' and not someone's dragon, like the last time."
-"It's some rare tiger or lion... I don't remember, but on the subject, how's Silica doing?"
~"She's all right. I gave her some support as an apology for Mobius, and thanks to that, she is catching up in level with some supporters on the frontline."
-"Good."
~"Want to come with me?"
-"For what?"-She raised her head from a cushion.
~"There is a group of aspiring supporters that needs to pass a field test to be able to work with Cleaners on the frontline."
-"A test? Why not. Sounds fun."-With a smooth move, Felis jumped up from her lying position and landed on my back, making me carry her in a piggyback.-"Let's go!"
~"Sure."~I ignored her antics as I knew she would come down after a moment.~"Do you have your chakrams on you?"
-"Yep!"-She tried to nod while her chin rested on the top of my head.-"What about you? What weapon this time?"
~"Naginata. There are a few techniques that I learned from Ei that I wanted to test if I can replicate them with sword skills."
-"Another new weapon? It should be what, tenth? Eleventh?"
~"Thirteenth if you count martial art."
-"Your unique skill is broken. Removing the penalty of resting levels of skills you unequip and making your maxed skills not count to the limit. What's more, weren't unique skills designed for the late game? How come you acquired it before we even cleared half of the game?"
~"Sitting all that time in the meetings gives me ample time to level meditation, so you shouldn't be surprised that I maxed it so quickly. As for martial arts, I need to keep up with you in levels, so I spend most nights hunting and completing some harder quests and dungeons."
-"No sleep?"
~"Aside from some small debuff, not sleeping will only make you feel exhausted. With some fortitude, you can ignore that feeling."
-"Like hell you can!"-Felis squeezed me harder with her legs.-"Sis Mei said that it should be impossible to ignore stimu... stima... feelings that Nerve Gear simulates."
~"If something as simple as impossibility stopped me, I wouldn't be where I am today. Let's go. It would be inappropriate to be late for someone's test."
After a quick teleport, we arrived at the fortieth floor, which was still considered a frontier as it was no more than five floors from the currently highest floor, which was the forty-fourth. The central city of this floor is called Jaileum, but to be honest, it is not worth remembering as there is nothing interesting here.
Felis and I walked toward the city gate, where our meeting point before the test was set, and as we approached, we could hear the sounds of a lute and a girl singing. The song she was singing was something the two of us easily recognized, as it was Eden's 'Rubia' from our concert.
-"It would seem there is a fan of yours nearby."
~"I think that calling her Eden's fan would be correct more."
-"If it was a man, maybe, but as it's a girl, then she is definitely your fan."-Felis showed her mischievous smile while trying to tease me.
~"Let's hide and listen."~I rolled my eyes and equipped the sneaking skill.
Felis snickered and followed my lead.
While hiding our presence, we approached a group of six players. I already knew all the applicants as I needed to approve them before the test, so I wasn't surprised to find a familiar face in the group.
-"Little Sachi?"-Felis, on the other hand, was quite surprised by seeing her here.
~"She wanted to become a supporter to help her boyfriend on the front. After Kevin took Kirito under his wing, the two of them would spend weeks fighting on the front, barely ever returning to the cities, so she decided to join them."
-"Sweet. To think that the girl who was traumatized for weeks after that trap would join the frontline for her sweetheart. Alicia must be swooning over that story, then."
~"Don't even remind me of that."
We quietly talked while listening to the singing girl. From the applications, I knew that she was named Yuna, and despite being average in fighting, her talent lay in uplifting and motivating others.
Aside from her, a person worth remembering was Nautilus, a childhood friend of Yuna and a member of KoB, who was demoted because of his poor ability to cope with stress. He was to be a supporter until he learned better methods to cope with stress.
The remaining three players were not worth remembering, so I won't mention them. We stayed silently for the remainder of the song, appearing after it was finished.
~"You have a nice voice. I believe Eden would happily teach you a few songs."~I spoke after the group noticed us.
-"Lord Emperor..."
~"Just call me Yue. You are not my subjects, so there is no need to call me Emperor."~I spoke, mixing truth in jokes.~"Felis will join us this time. I hope you don't mind."
Six of them shook their heads.
~"Good. You should be aware of how the test will look like, but to be sure, allow me to remind you. We will be joining a raid of this floor dungeon with you acting as supporters. Your role is to follow the commands of the raid leader and help when it's appropriate. I will grade you according to your ability to work with a raid, acting on your own when needed, fending off or avoiding strays, and lastly, contribution to the raid. Any questions?"
-"Sir Yue, what raid will we be joining?"-Yuna asked me.
~"Fuurinkazan guild's party joined by a few solo players and smaller groups."
-"I see, thank you."
-"What a polite girl. You remind me of Ayaka."-Felis approached her and played with a small braid on the side of her face.
~"OK, we can talk on the way, let's move out."~I started walking outside the city.~"Do you want to fight with monsters on the way to the dungeon?"
-"Please allow us to fight."-Nautilus answered my question.
~"Sure. Felis and I will deal with bigger groups and stronger monsters while leaving those you can deal with for you."
As we walked out of the town, I graved my naginata and took the leading position while Felis closed the group, keeping an eye out for any attacks from behind. The guys in the middle were also on guard, which earned them a point for the test.
On our way, we encountered a few battles, but it was nothing problematic, so we arrived at the dungeon sometime before the agreed time. Even so, the Fuurinkazan guild, along with most solo players, were already waiting there.
-"Yue!"-The leader of the Fuurinkazan guild, Klein, called out to me.
~"Luckily, we are not last."~I nodded in greeting before turning to a solo player standing by his side.~"Didn't expect you here, though, Kirito."
-"Well..."
~"Most likely Alice sent you here, am I right?"
He nodded, showing an awkward smile.
~"Just be sure not to meddle in the test."~I reminded him to keep his protective tendencies in check.
-"I'll be careful."
~"From now on, I'll be staying in the shadows, only stepping in if some dangerous situation happens."
-"You can leave the rest to us."
I nodded and entered stealth, joining Felis on the side.
-"There is something off."-She told me while looking around.
~"Your intuition?"
-"I'm not sure... It should be... but it's strange."
~"Explain."
-"I don't feel danger like normally, nor that lucky feeling. It's like something important will happen inside, but I don't know what."
~"Should we stop?"
-"NO! I mean..."-She looked troubled by how to express herself.
~"I get it. If anything happens, I'll evacuate everyone. Just follow your feelings."
-"Thanks."-Felis smiled while rubbing her head on my arm like a cat.
As this was not the first clear of this dungeon, there was already a solid strategy for it, so all players present were aware of their tasks and roles before even entering. The new supporters made them more careful in their raid, but after getting some understanding of their capabilities, Klain smoothed out the details, and the raid started to move smoothly.
Felis and I remained in the shadows behind the main raid party so as to not gain aggro of the monsters nor strengthen them with our presence. I remained focused on the battle before us while Felis looked around for the source of her strange feeling.
~"Any leads?"
-"It should be near the boss. The closer we get to it, the stronger the feeling."
~"Then let them clear the dungeon first, and we'll look for it more carefully after."
-"Good."
Not long after, we arrived at the boss's room, and a short rest later, the final battle started. While there were a few mishaps resulting in injuries, no casualties occurred, so overall, the raid was a great success. The new supporters also performed well, earning their new status with good grades.
They still needed to perform a week-long internship in one of the top guilds, and after drawing lots, Yuna picked our Flame Chasers while Sachi got the KoB. Nautilus will also go to KoB as he is part of that guild.
After making an appointment with Yuna to meet two days later, we parted ways, leaving the boss room and moving to the side room that the raid had skipped.
Inside, aside from a few monsters, there was nothing, at least that's what it seemed like.
~"A bug?"~I spoke after noticing a slight distortion on one of the walls.
-"Uh? This is it!"-Felis approached the distortion.
~"Be careful."~As I tried to warn her, Felis touched the wall, and the space around started to fragment, making us fall into darkness.
It took us a second to recover ourselves in the middle of a freefall, but after orienting ourselves properly, we started to look for a way out of this predicament. Luckily, before anything bad could happen, we were teleported out of this place.
When the light of the teleportation receded, we could see that our surroundings changed to an empty space with multiple holographic screens floating around. In the middle, there was a portal similar to the ones in the cities on different floors.
-"This place?"
~"Those screens... This should be some kind of monitoring place or maybe a testing zone."~I pointed out an image that showed a somewhat similar environment to one on the fortieth floor, but I was sure there was no such place on said floor.~"That monster doesn't exist on the fortieth floor."
-"True..."
~"Do you still have this feeling?"
-"Hmm... There should be some lucky things around, but nothing like what it was before."
~"Then this place is what is truly valuable here. Look around for traces of anything that can help us understand this place. I'll deal with the console."
After approaching the floating console next to the teleporter, I started to browse through countless files and images accessible from here. I quickly uncovered that this place was named 'Hollow Area' by the developers, and its purpose was to act as a testing ground for any new features.
To facilitate that, one could access administrative functions from the console that I was using, allowing them to have limited administrative authority. Because of this, the value of this place could hardly be expressed in words.
Even after fiddling with it for a few hours, I was able to uncover details of many still unexplored floors and zones, along with some secrets. What attracted me especially were the last-minute changes that Kayaba made when turning SAO into the death game.
-"I'm back!"-Felis ran toward me from a portal leading to an adjacent space.
~"How was it?"
-"There are some dangerous monsters, but it's a good place for training and leveling. What about you?"
~"The data I accessed can easily make our life much easier, not to mention the possibility of accessing the outside world using some backdoors."
-"Ohh! Then can you call Nuwa and Fuxi?"-Felis grabbed and shook my arm.
~"It's possible."~I nodded and got to work.
It was a little harder to operate the console with only one hand, but as Felis got herself comfortable by leaning on my arm, I decided to let her be. While hiding my actions from both the Cardinal System inside and people monitoring SAO from outside, I established a direct connection to our Rath.
As I was securing this channel, I saw that someone on the Rath side noticed my actions, and after checking the origin of this connection, they assisted me while opening the communication channel.
-"Has the connection established..? Yue! Good to see you again."-A nerdy-looking man called out to me from the screen that appeared.
~"I'm also happy to see you, Takeru. Is everything alright on your side these past months?"
-"I'm good. Just some more aggressive guys trying to enter our systems from time to time. Seijirou, on the other hand, has his hands full."
~"Good to hear that."
-"The only issue is that we were unable to secure rights to SAO and its servers. RECT got those before we could intervene."
~"Sigh. That changes our plans, but we should be able to manage."
As I was speaking, the sound of opening doors sounded from the other side, and after a few hurried steps, Takeru was pushed out from view and was replaced by the exited face of Fuxi with serious as usual Nuwa next to her.
-"Yue! Felis!"
-"Fuxi! Nuwa!"-Felis waved to the two sisters.
~"How are you two?
-"We miss you..."
-"There are some issues, but we were able to achieve most of our objectives."-Nuwa interrupted her sister before she could say something shameful.
~"I already heard little about that, but let's not talk about that for now. I'll gather the rest of everyone from this side while you call Seijirou back, and then let's meet a day or two later."
-"Good. I'll prepare everything you need to know."
~"OK. Takeru, reinforce and further secure this channel."
-"Will do, Boss!"-Takeru spoke from the side.
~"Then we will contact you after a while."
-"Bye!"
Moments later, the communication was terminated.
~"We should return. We still have to deal with the aftermath of the test."
-"Sure, I'll go and inform the rest about our finding."
~"Thanks. Let's go."
Stepping onto the teleporter, two of us disappeared moments later.