In the perilous world of SAO, teleport crystals offer a brief escape from dungeons or ambushes, but they're no guarantee of survival. Higher floors made these crystals more accessible, yet even seasoned players still faced deadly risks during boss fights.
Teleporting requires complete stillness—no movement or skill use. During those few seconds, players are entirely vulnerable. Although the teleportation process is short, those seconds often determine life or death.
"What? How dare you?" The Smiling Coffin member, stunned as his teleport crystal shattered, didn't immediately show fear. But as his health bar plummeted into the danger zone, and he saw Daniel's unyielding, calm gaze, panic overtook him. With a desperate, furious scream, his character burst into fragments.
"Blake!" The two remaining Smiling Coffin members, seeing their comrade fall, turned pale with fear and bolted in the opposite direction, too panicked to remember their teleport crystals.
Though the members of Smiling Coffin had levels comparable to the top players in the boss-raiding groups, their terror showed when the tables turned on them. Killing for sport was thrilling when they held the advantage, but facing death themselves was a different story.
The members of Smiling Coffin had rampaged through SAO partly because of their twisted psyches, but also because most players, even if enraged by their actions, would hesitate to kill them. Even when the top players eventually hunted down Smiling Coffin, the leaders survived and were merely imprisoned. In the original timeline, three officers of Smiling Coffin would later wreak havoc again in GGO.
One of them, Johnny Black, didn't have notable combat skills. His reputation within Smiling Coffin stemmed from his expertise in poison crafting, especially paralysis toxins that immobilized his victims, leaving them defenseless. In a world where physical prowess was everything, even Daniel would be in serious trouble if paralyzed by Black's poison.
Though Daniel's clones could also create paralysis toxins for use against other players, he'd never actually used them. Johnny Black's favorite tactic was to immobilize his targets with paralysis before finishing them off with his poison-coated dagger.
"Are you alright?"
With Smiling Coffin defeated, Daniel offered the paralyzed player a bottle of antidote. SAO was designed for party play, with antidotes and other support items being essential, especially against other players. Without an antidote, even a minor scratch from Black's poison could be fatal. As in the original story, Kirito nearly fell to Black's poison attack.
"Thank you," she said after drinking the antidote and recovering her movement. Standing, she introduced herself as Griselda, the leader of the Golden Apple guild—a small group similar to the Moonlit Black Cats. Though her guild had fewer members, their overall strength was a tier above the Black Cats, making them one of the game's "second-tier" guilds.
"If you don't mind me asking, why were they after you?" Daniel asked, noticing her melancholy.
"I think someone hired them to kill me."
Murder guilds, like Smiling Coffin, occasionally accepted contracts in addition to killing at random. SAO had effectively become a miniature society, complete with vendettas and conflicts leading to hired killings.
"May I ask you to be a witness?" Griselda hesitated, then made her unusual request, her expression both serious and sorrowful.
"You know who hired them?"
"Yes, I do," she replied, her gaze distant. She sighed, bitterness clouding her face.
Using a teleport crystal, Griselda and Daniel arrived at Golden Apple's base on Floor 20. Upon entering, they saw a man's face turn pale at the sight of Griselda.
"So, I survived. Surprised, aren't you?" Griselda's voice was calm, but her eyes held pain.
"N-no, of course not…" the man stammered, avoiding her gaze.
"What happened, Guildmaster?" asked a young woman standing nearby, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"This is the leader of Akatsuki, and he saved my life," Griselda began, explaining what had happened.
"Didn't you ask the Guildmaster to go sell the ring? So why would you betray her?" the woman, Yulier, snapped, glaring at the man.
"It wasn't me!" he protested, visibly shaken.
"It doesn't matter anymore," Griselda said wearily. "We're getting a divorce." She opened her menu and, after a moment of hesitation, tapped the option to dissolve the marriage.
In SAO, divorce was as simple as a tap of a button—unlike marriage, which required mutual consent, either party could initiate a divorce on their own.
After finalizing the divorce, Griselda took a deep breath and selected another menu option, ejecting her husband from the guild.
"Fine, I admit it!" he finally screamed, his face twisting in rage. "But it wasn't for the ring—I just hate who you've become. Ever since we got trapped in here, you've become a different person. Why can't you see this is hell?"
His outburst only deepened the disgust of the others.
"You're a disgrace," Yulier snapped. "Calling you trash is too good for you—you're beneath even that. At least trash doesn't betray those who helped it."
From his tirade, Daniel gathered the full picture. Griselda's husband, Grimlock, had entered SAO as a confident, accomplished man. But while Griselda had adapted, growing bolder and more resilient, Grimlock had cowered, his confidence shattered in the face of SAO's brutal reality. Over time, resentment festered between them.
Seeing her husband plead only deepened Griselda's sorrow, but ultimately, she took pity on him and allowed him to leave instead of being sent to Black Iron Palace.
"Thank you for saving me," Griselda said to Daniel after Grimlock left. "Please, take this as a token of my gratitude." She handed him a rare ring with +20 agility—a highly valuable item that would enhance a player's speed and reaction time considerably.
"There's no need. I saved you without any expectations of a reward," Daniel replied.
But after some discussion, he agreed to buy it for 300,000 col, plus a few high-quality items. Though he had no need for the ring, Asuna could benefit from it.
Outside, Daniel sighed as he checked in with his clones. "No trace of Smiling Coffin's hideout yet?"
"None," they reported back.
Without direct access to the game's data, finding the main hideout would take more time. "Fine, we'll deal with them once I have the data from Kayaba," he decided. For now, he was content to bide his time.
Soon after, Daniel obtained a wedding ring from a dungeon drop. That night, as they sat in their cozy cabin after dinner, he turned to Asuna.
"I have something for you," he said, pulling out the agility ring.
Asuna's expression brightened momentarily, but her enthusiasm faded once she examined the stats.
"It's... nice," she said, but she looked disappointed.
"Not interested? Then how about this?" he said, producing a pair of wedding rings.
Her face instantly flushed as she reached out shyly, only for him to close his hand around hers. She looked at him, wide-eyed.
"Before that… I need to tell you about something that happened today," Daniel said, recounting Griselda's story.
Griselda and Grimlock's story was more than a simple betrayal over a ring. Grimlock had once been a confident, successful professional in the real world, while Griselda had been shy and dependent. But in the face of SAO's life-or-death stakes, Griselda had found courage and strength, while Grimlock had collapsed under the pressure, unable to bear his wife's newfound resilience. Eventually, jealousy consumed him, leading to the attempted murder.
After Daniel finished, Asuna remained silent for a while, processing the story.
"You're saying you have another side to you too?" she finally asked, glancing up at him.
"I do. But it's hard to explain here, in this world."
"And the person I know now—is that the real you?"
"Yes."
Asuna considered this, then nodded. "Alright. You're not the only one with another side, you know. I have mine too." She gave him a sly smile and took one of the rings.
"After all, this is just a game. Let's enjoy it without overthinking things. Who knows? Maybe when we're back in the real world, I won't even like you as much as I think I do now. But until then… let's give it our best, alright?"
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