Chapter 7: Chapter 7 - Minotaur Assault
7 December 2022, 2.05pm
Marome, 2nd Floor
I'd admitted that I never noticed Argo's voice tone until halfway through the journey to the village of Marome.
Whether it was the voice translation program working its magic again or not, I knew that the program preserves the tone of each player's voice from real life in SAO, while translating the language said by a player to another listening player.
Argo herself had an accent which sounded like a cowgirl with a high pitched voice, and also sounded funny at times. I guess that's what she really must sound like in real life.
The village of Marome, as I had expected when I reached it a second time, was obviously smaller in area than Urbus. The buildings there were much lower than those in Urbus too. And unlike Urbus, Marome didn't have a town square, which was usually home to the teleport gate of each floor of Aincrad.
Argo and I first visited the NPC blacksmith in Marome. "We seriously need to prepare for that boss, and my dagger doesn't enhance itself, y'know." Argo half-whispered.
"Um, same here." I agreed, thinking about my Sharp Javelin+1 that hadn't been enhanced for 3 days straight.
After achieving 2 successful enhances on my spear, one for Sharpness and one for Quickness, I put my Sharp Javelin+3 (1S2Q) strapped behind my back with satisfaction.
It seemed like Argo's happy with whatever successful enhances that worked on her dagger too.
"Just asking, but how strong's your dagger now?" I asked Argo.
"Hmm... I'd got it enhanced a total of 4 times now." Argo took her dagger from its small scabbard, and held it in front of me. " Try giving it a touch."
I slowing placed my finger on the dagger's blade, and a window popped out. The first words displayed on the window were a bunch of question marks, followed by '+4 ( Quickness+4 )' . Underneath them was a starting phrase written, 'Description : ' , followed by a bigger bunch of question marks.
"Huh? How come like that one?" I muttered out my Singlish slang while showing my confusion as I touched the window a few more times.
"Ye can't see anything except how many times it was enhanced, yeah?" Argo said. " No one can read a weapon's name and description except those who have the Appraisal skill or the owner themselves."
"Oh..." I stopped tapping on the window, and it disappeared a second later. Another second later I asked, "What's the Appraisal skill, exactly?"
"It lets you read a weapon's name and description regardless of its ownership. The stronger the weapon that's bein' appraised, the higher the level of the Appraisal skill required." Argo explained.
"By the way, how many times your spear's been enhanced, Z?"
"Why'd you call me like that?" I said, " Anyway, I enhanced my spear thrice already."
"I love givin' players nicknames." Argo replied." I think your spear only can be enhanced 3 more times though. Weapons found in the first few floors often have an enhancement limit of 6 times."
"Oh really? I didn't know that." I replied back. Looks like I'd better learn as much gaming knowledge as I can from this beta tester.
Argo sheathed her dagger back. "So, you ready, Z? The labyrinth's not that far."
"Eh? Labyrinth? The ones that lead to the floor boss rooms?"
"No, not those Labyrinths. Those kinds look like dungeons with many walls and rooms. That's why they were called Labyrinths, and are found in the giant vertical pillars that connected each floor to the one right above it." Argo explained.
"I'm talkin' bout the kind that are LITERALLY giant mazes."
I turned to look at Argo, who was now smiling right in front of me, probably because of my currently dumbfounded face.
"No. Freaking. Way."
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7 December 2022, 2.40pm
Underground Labyrinth, Marome, 2nd Floor.
An ordinary player like me would've never thought that the entrance to the secret boss location would be in a dark alley, sandwiched between an inn and the NPC weaponsmith shop in the small settlement of Marome.
Well, non-beta testers wouldn't even know that it exists anyway.
Argo and I reached the dead end of that same dark alley, where we found a trap door, despite the small amount of light flowing through the place.
"Mmm, it's definitely this one." Argo declared as she reached for the handle of the trap door.
"You thought that the game developers never created this from the beta test to the official game?" I asked as I looked at the trap door over Argo's shoulder.
"I was wishin' that the game devs did recreate all the secret boss locations that I found during the beta test. " Argo replied. "And one of 'em came true, didn't it?"
I decided not to ask about the number of secret boss locations Argo had found during the beta test.
Argo pulled the trap door handle up, and a staircase leading down to whatever that was down there appeared, with fire torches fixed to the walls of the stairs.
While we walked down the stairs, I looked onto Argo, who was walking in front of me, and commented, "Looks like this info's reliable."
"Not yet." Argo corrected. "We still haven't met the boss, so this info's still not sellable."
"Well, " I continued. "Thanks for letting me in on this not-so-reliable info, then."
"You're helpin' me check on the reliability of this info, so I guess you can have it free of charge." Argo held up her right hand in a thumbs-up sign.
As I looked at Argo's lonely little HP bar, right under my own, I felt that Argo and I should've formed a party with more players to raid that unknown boss.
But Argo wouldn't want anyone else to know of this place's existence yet, I thought.
We reached the enormous maze, which wasn't very deep down, probably because we'd have ended up at the ceiling of the 1st Floor if we went deeper down.
The walls of the maze towered over us as we stood in front of the maze entrance, which was basically an opening between two walls.
"Ever heard of the Minotaur?" Argo suddenly asked.
"Yeah...Why?" I had a growing feeling of realization just after I said that. "Wait... you don't mean...?"
Argo confirmed my realization."This maze was created based on the labyrinth that the Minotaur resided in, in the ancient Greek legends."
Ah, that particular story in Greek mythology. The one where some guy got thrown into some big labyrinth, which was apparently home to the Minotaur, a half-bull, half-man creature who kills trespassers who enter its labyrinth.
That same guy used a ball of yarn, given by his girlfriend, to navigate through that maze while finding a way to kill the Minotaur. That story was one of the few that I actually remembered in Greek mythology.
As I was thinking about that story, Argo looked at the ground, and started to walk around me, trying to find something. She was holding an object a few seconds later, and that object was.... a ball of yarn.
"Since when was that on the ground?" I pointed at it.
"By the stairs." Argo answered. "But never mind that. I think you can guess what this does, don't you?"
"It helps us to not get lost in this maze?" I deduced logically.
"It helps us to backtrack our path in this maze." Argo said. "Just like in that Greek myth. The boss room's in the center of the maze. The Minotaur'll be waitin' for us there."
Argo pulled out a string, which was still attached to the ball of yarn, and placed its end onto the ground of the maze entrance.
"This item's programmed to highlight our path as we go deeper into the maze. If we don't find the boss room in 10 minutes, we'll use this to go back to the entrance."
The part of the string that was touching the floor glowed red, and as Argo unraveled the ball of yarn a little more, a glowing red line had formed on the ground.
"Didn't you already find the boss room during the beta test?" I asked.
"For all I know, this maze's been changed from the beta test." Argo said."And besides, I can't remember the path to the boss room either."
"Well, obviously." I chuckled a little."It's a maze."
The first 5 minutes into the maze found us taking random directions in it. Argo kept unravelling the ball of yarn as we walked, and I looked back to check if the glowing red line behind us was still there.
Just as we took another right turn of the many right turns we took so far, we heard heavy footsteps.
We knew who those footsteps came from a little later.
A creature, which appeared about 10 metres away in front of us, faced us with its all too familiar ox-type face and horns. It was holding two axes as weapons, and had 2 HP gauges on top of it. The title sitting above the topmost HP gauge read, 'Beserker Minotaur'.
"Wasn't the boss supposed to be in its boss room?" I momentarily froze as I asked Argo for an explanation.
"I dunno.... 'bout that." Argo's voice was as shaky as mine."But we'd better be runnin' now. We can't fight it here."
We didn't scream while fleeing from the Beserker Minotaur, but we took off in the opposite direction as fast as we could.
"Follow the red line!" Argo shouted, just as we heard the Minotaur's roar reverberating throughout the maze.
I'd assumed that the red line would lead us back to the maze entrance. I never knew how wrong I was into thinking that way until we reached the end of the red line.
We were now running in a big, enclosed room lit up by fire torches all around. The room was almost perfectly circular in shape, like a cylinder.
"That was.....unexpected..." I said as I slowed down to a stop.
"It's the boss room!" Argo was already in front of me, looking around." Seems like this item's also programmed to lead us to the boss room."
"That thing can do that meh?" I asked, confused.
"Never seen this thing do that before in the beta test." Argo said." But then again, anythin' can change in the official game. The Minotaur leavin' its own boss room is an example."
"Well, I believe it's coming back to the boss room 'cause of us." I announced as I took my Sharp Javelin+3 off my back, having sighted the Beserker Minotaur enter the boss room. Argo pulled our her dagger as well.
The Minotaur clashed its own axes together and roared once more, ready for battle.
"Whether the boss's changed from the beta test or not, " Argo quickly spoke." It's got a few ways to inflict the paralysis debuff on players, so we'd better deal with it with caution."
"Agreed." I nodded back.
I dashed towards the Beserker Minotaur, and thrust my Sharp Javelin+3 forward. My thrust was too quick for the boss to defend it, and the tip of my spear embedded itself into the Minotaur's chest. Red light effects appeared on the chest, indicating damage dealt to the axe-wielding bull.
The first HP gauge of the Minotaur decreased by about 20%. Pulling back my spear off the boss's chest, I leapt back swiftly to evade the boss's axe swings.
The Minotaur suddenly flinched, and turned its body around. Argo was running from behind it, having just launched her attack on its back.
The Minotaur shifted its attention towards Argo, and started to chase her, with its axes ready to swing at her. I sprinted towards the bull and unleashed Twin Thrust straight at its body, to prevent the boss from finally catching up to Argo.
The Minotaur turned its head at me, and started to chase me instead, as it did to Argo.
The same flow of events repeated for a few minutes. The Minotaur's attack patterns were simple: any player that attacks it instantly gains agro, and becomes the target of the Minotaur's assualt.
Until the Minotaur only had its second and last HP gauge left.
It suddenly lunged at Argo in a blur, axes held high up to execute a downward strike. Had Argo tried to intercept it with her dagger a split second late, she would have suffered 2 direct hits from the boss.
We didn't suffer any damage at all so far, because of how predictable the Beserker Minotaur could be in battle.
But at that point in time, the Minotaur finally turned the tables on us.
Argo was still clashing her dagger against the weight of the axes forming down on her. The Minotaur roared again, and lifted its axes up.
What happened next was horrifyingly incomprehensible.
The axes, which were supposed to be held in the air about half a second ago (that was just an estimation of time) moved down under the height level where Argo was holding her dagger at, and shot up at Argo's chest in an upper-cut. The whole thing happened in blinding blur.
Argo flew from the impact and crashed onto the ground a few metres later.
"...What the hell?!" I shouted as I tried to get the boss's attention over to me by unleashing Twin Thrust on it. The Minotaur turned to lock on me as its target.
I checked on Argo for a quick moment. She was lying face down on the ground, but seemed conscious. Her HP gauge was in the yellow zone, about half left of her maximum HP. Beside Argo's HP gauge was an icon that had a shape that looked like lighting. I've already seen that icon quite a few times in the 2nd Floor.
Argo had been inflicted with the paralysis debuff.
Being inflicted with the paralysis debuff can render a player immobile for a long period of time. Unlike its weaker counterpart, the stun debuff, which only lasts for about 10 seconds, the paralysis debuff can last for as long as 600 seconds.
And that's only the minimum duration the paralysis debuff can last for.
Getting paralysed while fighting enemy monsters alone can be really deadly. Once you're paralysed, there's no way to even bring down your menu to search for your emergency teleport crystal to escape back to the safe zones. You wouldn't even manage a slight twitch with any part of your body at all.
And the enemy monsters nearby wouldn't just wait for the paralysis debuff to just wear off, do they?
That was exactly the situation Argo was in.
When I looked back at the Minotaur, it had already started its charge towards me. I managed to evade using my Sprint skill, but got grazed a hit on my right shoulder by one of its axes.
My HP gauge dropped by almost 30%. I was slightly shocked as I looked at the red light effects appearing on the cut on my shoulder.
That much damage for just a little cut? I thought. As I looked closely at the Minotaur's HP gauges. There were 2 icons beside them. One of the icons had an arm muscle in it, with an upward- pointing arrow fitted in whatever space the arm muscle hadn't occupied in the icon. The other icon had a picture of a shoe in it, with the same kind of upward-pointing arrow fitting together with it in the icon.
I recognized those buffs : the attack power buff and the speed buff.
So the Minotaur had buffed itself with those buffs when it had half of its maximum HP left. And I bet that the speedy uppercut it used on Argo was a Sword Skill not used by players.
The agro that both me and Argo tried to gain from the Minotaur turn by turn would randomly spread between us, resulting in the Minotaur randomly focusing on either of us regardless of the amount of agro each of us had gotten from it.
I had hoped that my Battle Healing skill would heal me up quick, but I knew it was too low-level to fill back up my HP gauge in just a few seconds.
Besides, Argo was in much bigger trouble than I was. And I got to make sure that the Minotaur doesn't start to target her again.
I charged at the Minotaur, attempting one more Twin Thrust at the boss, which was walking towards Argo, due to the agro suddenly gained by Argo, despite her not doing anything to attack the boss, let alone stand back up to fight.
Fortunately, the fact that the Minotaur wasn't focusing on me gave me the opportunity to land a direct Twin Thrust onto the boss.
Unexpectedly, lighting sparks materialized over the boss, making it collapse with a heavy thud. There was a new icon blinking beside the boss's HP gauge, which had the shape of a lightning spark.
"No way..." I was pleasantly shocked by the turn of events. I had just inflicted the Minotaur with the paralysis debuff.
But the paralysis debuff that affects enemy monsters lasts shorter than the one that affects players. Still, it lasts for about a minute.
Nevertheless, I had the golden chance to finish off the remaining HP of the boss, which its last HP gauge had 80% left.
I quickly thrusted my Sharp Javelin+3 at the lying lump of beef, hoping that the paralysis debuff icon wouldn't disappear too soon.
As the boss's HP gauge just dipped into the red zone (20%), I noticed the Minotaur starting to get up from its sudden immobilization.
"...Too late!" I shouted as I started to activate a new spear skill, one that I just unlocked recently in my spear skill tree.
Hellical Twice, the 2-hit spear skill, specialized in taking down enemy mobs in a wide radius, thus dealing AOE (area of effect)
damage.
I swiped my spear in a diagonal circular arc, and turned anti-clockwise almost immediately due to the momentum of the spear skill. My spear slashed at the space which was initially behind me, and I turned back to the struggling Minotaur in a 360 degree motion. This happened in just one second.
In the next second, I held up my spear in a back-handed manner (though with both hands), and swung in another diagonal circular arc which mirrored the first one. I turned clockwise in another 360 degree motion, watching the skill assist system guiding my spear slashing my spear at the space initially behind me.
It was a spear skill meant to take care of enemy mobs all around the user, after all.
I looked up just in time to get a glimpse of the red squarish area in the Beserker Minotaur's HP gauge decrease to nothing. The boss collapsed once again, this time shattering into many light blue fragments.
I sat myself on the ground with relief as the 'Congratulations!' sign appeared above me. Getting the last attack bonus on this boss alone was really no small feat.
A window appeared before me, showing the item and weapon drops I got from the boss. One of the drops caught my eye : the weapon drop, Minotaur Axe. It's probably an exclusive weapon drop only found in the underground labyrinth.
I went over to Argo, who was still lying on the ground, and brought down my menu. Selecting my 'Items' section, I scrolled down to a select tile titled 'Paralysis cure crystal (3)'. This indicated that I only had 3 paralysis cure crystals in my inventory.
Touching that select tile materialized a yellow crystal shaped like a cuboid. I held it in front of Argo, and said, "Use!"
The paralysis debuff icon beside Argo's HP gauge disappeared, and Argo got herself up and sat down beside me.
"Thanks." She said." And that was great fighting back there, although most of it was just luck."
"You mean when the Minotaur suffered paralysis?"
"Yep." Argo answered as she brought down her menu. "Don't you know that Twin Thrust has a high chance of inflicting the paralysis debuff on enemies?" When she finished talking, she already had a HP recovery potion in her hand.
"...Huh?" I brought down my menu and visited the 'Skills' section.
After finding the skill description of Twin Thrust (which I did for the very first time), I stared at the text, that said, ' Deals damage to enemies in 2 single thrusts. Has a high chance of inflicting paralysis to enemies.'
I made a mental note to read all the skill descriptions of all my unlocked spear skills in the spear skill tree when I get back to my inn in Urbus.
"I didn't know that..." I said, as Argo had just finished drinking her HP recovery potion. Her HP gauge, which was in the yellow zone, increased safely into the green zone, and would slowly regenerate after a period of time.
"You should've done your homework on how your own sword skills work." Argo stood up. " But anyway, I'm thankin' you again for gathering info on the Beserker Minotaur."
"So how would you sell this kind of info if it was supposed to be a secret boss location?" I stood up and tried to look for an exit in the seemingly enclosed room.
"I always figure out a way to advertise info for my business without letting too many players know about it." Argo put on her hood, which apparently fell over when she was paralysed. "By the way, if you're looking for the exit, we'll automatically teleport back to the trapdoor entrance 3 minutes after the boss gets defeated."
Just as she that, I felt a blue light enveloping me with a blinding flash. When I could see again, I was in the dark alley where we found the trapdoor entrance. Argo was standing in front of me as well.
"You can keep the drops from the boss." Argo said."You deserved it for the effort."
"But you said yourself that I only defeated the boss because of luck." I half-jokingly replied.
"Don't make me demand for half of the boss drops for lettin' you in on this secret boss location." Argo raised her eyebrows at me.
I chuckled a bit, but decided not to answer to that statement.
Argo closed the trapdoor, and announced, " Well, it's been good workin' with you, Z. Goin' anywhere else after this?"
"Just going back to Urbus. " I replied. " I'd be glad to party up with you next time though."
"Much obliged." Argo stretched out her hand.
I shook her hand back with satisfaction.
As we walked through Marome, Argo asked, " Any chance you're joining the 2nd Floor boss fight?"
"Nah." I replied.
"Figures. Apparently the 2nd Floor has 3 floor bosses."
"Three?!"
"Yep. There were originally 2 floor bosses in the 2nd Floor during the beta test. The third one was recently info I received. But I bet Ki-bo can probably get through that problem when the time comes."
"Ki-bo?"
"I believe he's a player you should've known during the 1st Floor boss fight."
It was easy to guess that. "It's Kirito, isn't it?"
"Bingo." Argo gave me a smile. "I'll inform you when the Beater and the floor clearers clear the 2nd Floor."
"Much appreciated. I'll look forward to that." I gladly replied.
Argo made a short wave, before running deep into the town of Marome to do whatever business she had left for the day.
I waved back, and made my way to the entrance of Marome, where I would embark on my cow-hunting journey back to the town of Urbus.
There was nothing that would make a level 13 spearman like me more satisfied than exploring and eventually defeating a secret boss in the 2nd Floor.
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