Part 13 (1/2)

The demon roared with rage and attempted another downward strike. This time, I crossed my two swords and blocked it completely. As its stance became unbalanced, I decided to break free from my defending streak and launched a combo attack.

My right sword slashed horizontally towards the demon's midsection. My left sword followed immediately to cut vertically into its body. Right, left, then right again. I swung my swords as if the nerves in my brain were going into overdrive. The sounds of metal clas.h.i.+ng resounded loudly one after another as white lights flared through the air.

This was the extra skill that I had been hiding, ”Dual Blades”, and the technique I was using was its high-cla.s.s sword skill ”Starburst Stream”, a sixteen-hit combo attack.

”Ahhhhh!!”

Paying no attention to the few hits that the demon's sword managed to block, I kept on screaming as I hacked away relentlessly with my swords. My eyes heated up, and my vision saw only the demon. Although the demon's sword still struck my body every so often, its impact felt like it was happening in some faraway world. Meanwhile, adrenaline continued to rush through my body, and my brain waves spiked every time my swords. .h.i.t their mark.

Faster, faster. The rhythm of my swings already exceeded twice the normal speed, but it still felt slow to my heightened senses. I continued my attack at a pace that seemed to overtake even the system's a.s.sistance.

”...ahhhhhhhhh!!”

With this shout I launched the last of my sixteen strikes, which penetrated The Gleameyes' chest.

”Kkaaaaaaahh!!”

When my senses returned, I realized that I wasn't the only one screaming. The huge demon was roaring towards the ceiling as ma.s.sive breaths streamed out of its mouth and nose.

Then its body froze, and as soon as I noticed that- The Gleameyes shattered into countless blue shards. Fragments of blue light rained down across the room.

It's...finished...?

Feeling dizzy from the aftereffects of the battle, I habitually swung both of my swords once more before simultaneously sheathing them into the scabbards that lay crossed on my back. I immediately checked my HP. There was a red line with only a few dots left. As I stared at my HP without care, I suddenly felt strength leave my body and collapsed onto the floor without a sound.

My vision faded out into blackness.

Chapter 12.

”...-kun! Kirito-kun!!”

Asuna's calls, which were almost like screams, forced me awake. As I sat up, pain spiked through my head and caused my face to distort.

”Obination of lemon juice and green tea. It should fully heal my HP within five minutes, but my fatigue was going to last a while.

Asuna checked to confirm that I had drunk all of it. Then, as her face began to scrunch up, she put her forehead on my shoulder to hide it.

I raised my head at the sound of footsteps and saw Klein approach. He seemed a little apologetic for disturbing us, but started speaking nevertheless.

”We've finished healing all the remaining Army members, but Cobert and two of his men had already died...”

”...yeah. It's the first time since the sixty-seventh floor that someone died during a boss fight...”

”That wasn't even a fight. That idiot Cobert... You can't do anything if you're dead...”

Klein spat out. Then he took a deep breath, shook his head, and asked me in an attempt to change the mood.

”But back to the topic, what the h.e.l.l was that just then!?”

”...I really have to explain it to you ?”

”Of course! I've never seen something like that before!”

I suddenly noticed that aside from Asuna, everyone in the room was looking at me, waiting for my reply.

”...it's an extra skill: ”Dual Blades”.”

Expressions of amazement rose throughout Klein's party and the survivors from the Army.

All weapon skills had to be learned in a certain order depending on their type. Take swords for an example; you had to train the one-handed straight sword skill quite a bit before ”Rapier” and ”Two-Handed Sword” appeared on the list.

Naturally, Klein was interested, and he urged me to tell the rest.

”The conditions that have to be met are?”

”I'd have told everyone if I knew that.”

As I shook my head, Klein sighed and muttered.

”You're right...”

Weapon skills that didn't have clear conditions for appearing are called extra skills. They were sometimes even called random conditions. An example would be Klein's ”Katana”. But ”Katana” wasn't all that rare and appeared quite often as long as you kept training the Curved Sword skill.

Most of the ten-plus extra skills that had been found up until now, ”Katana” included, had at least ten people who used each of them. The only exceptions were my ”Dual Blades” and one other man's extra skill.

These two were most likely limited to only one person, so they should be called ”Unique Skill”. I had hidden the existence of my unique skill up until now. But from today, the news that I was the second unique skill user would spread throughout the world. There was no way I could hide it after using it in front of so many people.

”I'm disappointed Kirito. You didn't even tell me that you had such an awesome skill.”

”I would have told you if I knew the conditions for its appearance. But I really couldn't figure out how it happened.”

I answered Klein's complaint with a shrug.

There wasn't a shred of lie in what I said. About a year ago, I opened my skills window one day and found the name ”Dual Blades” just sitting there. I really had no clue on what conditions made it appear.

Since then, I only trained it when there was n.o.body around. Even after I nearly mastered it, I rarely used it against monsters unless it was an emergency. Aside from using it to protect myself in a crisis, I simply didn't like this kind of skill due to the attention it draws.

I even thought that it would be better if another Dual Blades user appeared- I scratched the area around my ear and muttered.

”...if it became known that I had such a rare skill, not only would people pester me for information...it might attract other kinds of problems too...”