Editing Sword Art Online:Caliber SS (section)

=== Part 2 ===
<!--(TL note: This part differs only slightly, removing references to Freyja etc)-->
The width of the descending stairs increased as we went down, and the decorative objects on the surrounding pillars and statues became more gorgeous at the same time. The «approaching boss room and resulting map data would be larger» tradition from Aincrad was also present here.

Standing at the end of the path were two wolves carved into the massive ice gate. So this was the throne room of King Þrym. About 10 meters away from the gate, I cautioned everyone to slow down, as I turned to gaze at the medallion Lyfa was wearing. The delicate light orbs which once adorned the medallion were now 90% tainted black. We probably only had around 30 minutes left.

I took a deep breath, and said:

“Based on the dungeon design, the BOSS should be behind those doors. This BOSS will be harder than the previous ones, we'll need to do everything we can to defeat him. Before engaging, we'll first identify his attack pattern and focus on defense. I'll give the signal to counterattack. When the BOSS's HP bar drops to yellow or red, his attack patterns will likely change again, so please be careful everyone.

I nodded and looked at the face of my companions, before adding:

“— This is the last battle, let's give it all we have!!”

“Yeah!”

This was the third cheer we had given since the start of this quest. Even Yui who was sitting on my head and Pina who was perched on Silica's shoulders cheered.

The gate began opening to both sides automatically once we were about five meters away. The cold air, along with a difficult to explain pressure, came from within. Asuna began re-applying supporting magics, and after confirming the numbers of buff icons below our HP/MP gauges, everyone made eye contact. We all nodded and rushed in at once.

The interior was an extraordinarily huge space in both horizontal and vertical directions. The wall and floor were blue ice, like the rest of the dungeon. The purple fire swayed eerily on the ice candles. High up on the ceiling were chandeliers of the same color, lined up. But what grabbed our attention was the dazzling reflection from the left and right wall lined along the interior.

Gold. Gold coins and ornaments, swords, armors, shields, sculptures and furniture, all kinds of golden objects were piled up to a scale where it was impossible to count. As the insides of the room sank into darkness, the full extent of the treasure was entirely unfathomable.

"............How much Yurudo are all these worth......?"

Inside the room; Lisbeth, the only person who managed a player shop here murmured in a trance. “I should have emptied my inventory!” I thought, but I never mentioned this to anyone.

On the right side of the party, Klein slowly made his way towards the treasure mountain, as if motivated by his bushidō way of life. However, as he approached the treasure――



"...... A bug flew in."



The low frequency mutter could be heard from the dark open space deep within the room, causing the floor to tremble.

"I hear an annoying buzz. Where is it? I'll crush the bad bug."

Boom, the floor trembled. Boom, boom, the trembles approached, it sounded as if it were so heavy that it might break the ice floor.

Once it reached the lighting range, a human shape appeared.

Giant ―― wouldn't be a suitable word. The humanoid evil-god was huge even compared to the bosses we fought in this castle so far. Its height must be at least fifteen meters. Even if I jumped with full force, I wouldn't be able to reach the knee of those giant tree trunk sized legs.

Its skin color was dull blue, like lead. Dark brown fur coiled around its arms and legs, and I wondered what kind of large animal the fur came from. A single part of the plate armor on its waist had the size of a small boat. While the upper part of the body was bare, the prosperous muscle looked as if it was able to repel any weapons directed at it.

Its muscular chest had its blue beard hung over it. Its head above it sank into a silhouette and we could only see its outline. However, the gold crown on its forehead and the blue and bleak blinking eyes below shone brightly in the dark.

In the old Aincrad, the system limit of the floor height was a hundred meters, the boss room inside the labyrinth zone was also under the same rule, it was unavoidable for all boss monsters to have vertical size in moderation. So up until now, I had no experience in fighting with an enemy which I had to look up to. As I couldn't fly, how could I fight like this? The best I could do was cutting no higher than its shins.

While I was thinking about various things, the gigantic giant ―― the double expressions are necessary to describe its size ―― took another step closer, and laughed like a gong being hit,

"Hu, hu...... the Alfheim bugs? Creeping into this place under Urðr's seduction? How about this, you small fry. Just tell me where that woman is hiding, and you can take the gold in this room with you, hmm?"

With the enormous body and the crown on its forehead, along with the speech just now, this guy was the «Frost Giant King Þrym», no doubt about it.

It was Klein who faced and replied to the great giant, who was an AI like Urðr.

"......Heh, a warrior just needs to eat, sleep, and laugh! Don't bother trying to tame us with a cheap invitation like that!"

While we made subtle expressions of relief from behind, as in front of us, Klein pulled his beloved katana from its scabbard.

With that signal, the rest of us took out our weapons as well.

They might not be legendary class equipment, but all of them either carried the name of ancient class weapons, or were carved to a satisfactory level by the master smith Lisbeth. However, the daring smile under the long moustache of the Giant King Þrym didn't fade due to the light from our weapons. Maybe it was natural, as our weapons to him were just slightly longer than toothpicks to him anyway.

The shining phosphorescence from the dark eye sockets glared at us from a very high place, the glance stopped at the eight person who stood there unarmed.

"......Ho, ho. I hear the buzzing of wings again. Very well then, I shall crush you beneath my feet, treat it as my gift, being turned into part of Jötunheimr!”

Thump, the giant king suddenly stepped forward, its large HP gauge appeared on the upper right of my field of vision. Moreover, it was stacked three layers. Cutting that off would be very troublesome.

As the HP gauge of those evil floor bosses in the new Aincrad were invisible in order to frustrate the player's mind, compared to those bosses, this battle's pace would be much easier to grasp.

"――Here it comes! Listen to Yui's instructions and focus on avoiding at the start!"

Immediately after my shout, Þrym raised his huge rock-like right fist high up near the ceiling ―― a blue frost storm wrapped its fist, then furiously swung down.



The last battle in Þrymheimr castle ―― but probably ―― was as expected, a large and fierce battle I had never experienced.

The King Þrym's early attack patterns were punches from both fists, three continuous stomping using the right foot, an ice breath in a straight line, and summoning twelve ice Dwarf minions from the ground.

The creation of the Dwarves was the most troublesome, but they were swiftly taken care of from the back of the party by Sinon's bow, cleaning them up in the blink of an eye by piercing their weak points with marvelous accuracy. The rest of the attacks were avoidable after observing its timing once, the counts from Yui also helped the three front row attackers in avoiding direct hits.

Once the defense was in place, it was finally the time to attack, however, this was certainly the hardest part. As I had feared, our swords could only reach Þrym's shins, and the thick fur protecting that area had high physical resistance, like the gold Minotaur. I took a small chance to attack it with a three hit sword skill, risking my HP to do so, but a low delay skill also had low attribute damage. The result was an unpleasant response, like hitting an indestructible object.

We fought hard in the battle for ten minutes before the first HP gauge finally depleted, causing the giant king to make an overpowered roar.

"Pattern changed! Be careful!"

As I shouted, Lyfa who was next to me said in a nervous voice,

"This is bad, Onii-chan. Only two lights remain in the medallion. We only have about ten minutes left." <!-- As opposed to the “success side”, they are only given 10 minutes here -->

"............"

Þrym had three HP gauges. However, we took more than ten minutes to deplete one gauge. It could be said that cutting the remaining two gauges within ten minutes would be very difficult.

But, for this opponent, the «Skill Connect» wouldn't work like it did when we were fighting the gold Minotaur. During monster delay ―― or to say the delay occurring after its attack, «striking the weak point to create heavy concentrated damage» was needed. However, Þrym was weak to neither sword nor magic, so even if the sword skill connected four times, it wouldn't be able to make much change to that amount of HP.

As if seeing the moment of my impatience――

Þrym suddenly inhaled a large amount of the air, inflating his chest like a bellows.

An overpowering wind occurred, sucking in the five people in the front and mid rows. It's bad, this is surely the harbinger of a full force wide area of effect attack. For evading, first of all, the sucking power of the wind magic must be neutralized. While I was thinking this, to my left, Lyfa started reciting a spell.

But, there was probably not enough time once I noticed the enemy motion.

"Lyfa, everyone, take defense!"

At my call, Lyfa suspended the spell, crossed her arms in front and bent her body. All members took the same posture, in that moment,

From Þrym's mouth, which had sent out a breath in a straight line many times up until this point, released a wide conal diamond dust.

The shining pale wind wrapped around us. The cold which penetrated Asuna's buff made it feel like our skin was being torn off. Gin, gin, with a sharp sound, the avatars of five people froze at once. I tried to escape, but the thick shell of the ice completely locked my movements. Lyfa, Klein, Liz, Silica with Pina being hugged tightly to her chest, and I turned into blue ice sculptures.

At the moment, our HP gauge still haven't decreased. But we couldn't feel at ease. As this kind of special skill would increase the damage taken in direct proportion to the time being suspended.

Þrym approached, then lifted up his massive right leg. Bad, pinch, danger. ―― as I screamed in my mind, at almost the same time,

"Nuuu―!"

With a thick roar, Þrym stomped furiously on the floor. The violent shock wave from it swallowed us while we were still frozen――

Gaching! the frightening sound of breaking echoed throughout the hall, those of us covered in ice shattered. My eyes went dark due to shock. My body slammed hard on the floor while the damage effect light continued on.

At the edge of my vision, the top five of seven HP gauges suddenly turned to a deep red.



While the five vanguards got caught in Þrym's large-scaled ranged attack, of course the two people in the back row weren't just watching.

Our HP gauges were taken by nearly eighty percent when suddenly, a soft blue light rained down on us, healing our wounds. It was Asuna's high ranked full recovery spell. The timing was perfect, which would be impossible to achieve without anticipating the occurrence of the damage and pre-casting the spell in advance.

However, in this game's large-scaled recovery magics, most of them were of the «Heal over Time» type, which didn't recovery all the lost HP instantly. So it'd be fatal if we were attacked again while our HP was still recovering.

Þrym stepped forward in order to deliver the final blow to us who finally stood up. The long beard that hung over its throat ―― was suddenly pierced by a rapid succession of fire arrows blazing bright red, causing a big explosion. It was Sinon's two-handed long bow sword skill «Explode Arrow». With ten percent physical, and ninety percent flame damage property striking the frost giant tribe's weak point, his HP gauge clearly decreased.

"Munuuuun!"

Þrym raised an angry voice and changed his direction to target Sinon. Flashy attacks on the enemy's weak point from the back row's damage dealers caused a massive amount of hate, taking over the hate of the vanguards, resulting in the enemy switching targets. It was a mistake beginners always did, but of course, this wasn't the case this time. Sinon acted as a decoy, knowing it would likely lead to her death, to buy us time for recovery.

"Sinon, give me thirty seconds!"

While shouting, I gulped down a recovery potion from my pouch. Next to me, the others also poured similar red liquids down their mouths. Pina, Silica's partner, seemed to have narrowly survived because of its master's guard skill. In this world, unlike Aincrad, there was a pet resurrection spell, but taking time to do so during a battle would be very difficult.

My vision switched between the irritatingly slowly increasing HP gauge, and the blue Cait Sith's continuing to avoid Þrym's fierce attacks. Even though Sinon had come to ALO not long ago, her body control was spectacular. In GGO, as a sniper who forfeited all defensive skills, running away was the only way if an attacker type approached, that experience was probably still with her now.

"......Prepare the attack."

Removing my eyes off the HP gauge, which had finally came back up to eighty percent, I called my companions. Re-gripping both of my swords, I began to start counting, in that instant――