The stairs to Floor Twenty-Seven were open.
As soon as the other studios camped outside realized the gate had unlocked, they stopped wasting time. Their players regrouped with sour looks and hurried toward the newly opened floor. The Floor Boss was dead. There was nothing left here worth fighting over.
That was how professional studios operated. Pride did not matter, and neither did avenging teammates who had been killed. If there was profit to fight for, they fought. If there was not, they moved on. Everyone had spare accounts, equipment, and manpower. A war between them could continue forever if they let it.
A four-man team defeating a Floor Boss sounded outrageous, but even without Satoru, Souji and the others each had more than two years of FullDive experience. They were hardly casual players. For those two years, they had treated the virtual world like a full-time job.
Their former Sword Saint colleague was proof enough. The other three had never gone so far as to dissect every inch of a game's systems the way Satoru did, but they were still among the Salamanders' best front-line players.
And the Salamanders were one of ALO's strongest races.
Then there was the gear.
They had gone in wearing equipment only money could buy, their inventories packed to the weight limit with Healing Crystals. Whenever the Magic Warrior took half an HP bar from one of them, that player simply used an item and restored a full bar.
The fight had never been particularly dangerous. In the end, the Magic Warrior looked less like a boss and more like a sheep cornered by four wolves.
It proved one of gaming's oldest laws: in any game ruled by resources, enough resources let you do almost anything.
All the skill in the world meant nothing if an entire flurry produced a single white 100 and failed to break the enemy's defense, only for one basic attack in return to flash a red 999,999.
Even with a Fluctlight behind his reactions, Satoru had always insisted on building his characters as far as possible. He had understood that law long ago.
The other three understood it just as well. None of them seemed particularly excited about clearing a Floor Boss with only four players.
"Well, that's over. I won't keep you any longer."
They stepped out of the boss chamber. The entrance was crowded with flickering respawn markers, each counting down toward revival. A few players from the other races had already returned. They spared the four men a glance, then left with their respective groups.
There was no longer any reason to fight.
"You're logging off already?" Souji asked. "You haven't even been here a few hours."
Ichiro strode off to greet their returning allies. Eugene, meanwhile, had caught hold of his older brother, Sakuya. He kept a wary eye on Satoru, troubled by the growing suspicion that this stranger somehow ranked above him in his own brother's heart.
"There's nothing left for me to do here," Satoru said.
He knew Aincrad far too well.
At least, he would until Floor Seventy-Six opened.
"Fair enough." Souji nodded.
"Let me give your equipment back."
Satoru opened a trade window and dragged the expensive armor he was wearing into it. They had known each other for years, so Souji was hardly worried about him stealing the gear. Satoru had no use for it anyway.
But Souji was adding something to his side of the trade as well.
"Here's a standard set. Put it on. I can't send you through the Labyrinth Tower in your underwear."
He gestured toward the equipment.
"You can only log out instantly inside a safe zone. With no armor, no weapon, and durability that low, getting killed by some random mob on the way out would be ridiculous."
Yurnero's current level was low because Satoru had not returned with his old SAO-era data. He had converted Samuro, his GGO account, into New ALO that afternoon.
If this had been the Yurnero from several years ago, already closing in on Level 100, the Floor Boss might not have lasted ten minutes.
VRMMOs built on The Seed shared an account-conversion system, allowing one account to move between games. But a character could not retain identical power everywhere without destroying the target game's balance. A conversion placed the character near the target game's normal level range, then adjusted the result according to the strength of the original account.
A top-tier character in one world could never arrive just as dominant in another. Original equipment could not be brought over either.
Samuro was the product of a full year in GGO, an extreme AGI build whose durability had never been impressive. After conversion, Yurnero landed in the upper-middle range of ALO's player base. He was still built around AGI, but his already modest durability had fallen even further.
Souji had a point.
Crossing the Labyrinth Tower without armor or a weapon could genuinely get him killed.
Satoru was confident that his AGI and reflexes could outrun ordinary mobs. Still, the image of a red-haired Salamander sprinting through the dark wilderness in nothing but his underwear, then bursting into a safe zone full of resting players, made even his stomach tighten.
He accepted the equipment.
The set was good without being extravagant, probably the standard gear the studio had recently issued to its members. Once Satoru equipped every piece, dark red plate covered him from head to toe. Even the uniform appearance appealed to him.
The absurdly expensive set he had worn for the raid had been enhanced to its limit and covered in enchanted sigils. It glowed brightly enough to pass for a light bulb. Satoru had always preferred simpler gear, and wearing it had made him strangely uncomfortable.
"That set wasn't expensive," Souji said with a wave. "Keep it."
"What about the crystals in my inventory?"
Healing Crystals were consumables, and costly ones at that.
"Keep those too."
"There are more than thirty left."
"Are we really going to count every last crystal between us? Besides, one open-world guild battle can burn through hundreds of them."
Souji clearly did not care. The studio had its own gathering team, but collecting more than thirty Healing Crystals would still take two or three days.
Satoru sighed.