After the raid battle ended, a group of players trudged back to town, looking dejected.
Kirito, that guy, left without saying a single word—no one knew where he'd gone this time.
However, since Akimi had to go repair his Nichirin Blade, he didn't pay much attention to it.
Two days later, when he and Asuna returned to the 25th floor from Haganezuka's place, ready to deal with the demons, they unexpectedly noticed a new issue of the small bulletin at the entrance of the item shop.
On the front page of this new paper was a piece of shocking news.
Of course, in SAO there were no NPCs that made newspapers.
The free newspapers placed outside item shops on each floor were founded and self-funded by Argos—the greatest information broker in all of Aincrad.
If it were just a new paper being handed out, there wouldn't be anything surprising about it.
But the bold red headline on it was enough to shock anyone—
"Shocking! Major Command Mistake in Boss Raid Leads to Heavy Casualties for the Clearing Group?!"
Below it was a brief explanation in small print, followed by the full report.
The gist was that during the boss raid, Kibaou pretended to know what he was doing but gave poor commands, which caused the deaths of seventeen members of the clearing group.
Now, Kibaou had already taken ALS members back to the Town of Beginnings.
This was the largest story in the whole paper.
Right after it came another, slightly smaller—
"Men Silenced, Women in Tears! Famous Guild Leader Steps Down After Failing to Lead in Battle!"
Yeah, this one was about Lind… Seems like he'd been ousted.
The new DDA leader was someone named Xilocart, who used to be the guild's vice leader.
Two of the three strongest guilds in SAO had now undergone major changes.
ALS clearly wouldn't be taking part in floor clearing for a while; DDA had changed leaders, and who knew what it would become in the future.
With ALS gone, the clearing group suddenly found itself short of high-level members.
The situation was starting to look unsustainable—out of the more than 300 members, probably only 30 to 40 could still participate in boss battles.
"Emm…" Akimi rubbed his chin.
"I remember ALS was already somewhat split internally… into Kibaou's faction and Thinker's faction."
Asuna nodded. "Back when we were clearing the 23rd floor, ALS didn't even join the field boss battle because of the quarrel between Kibaou and Thinker."
"Yare yare, what a pain… I really don't know how the next clearing's going to work." Akimi said with a troubled look.
Kibaou pulling his team away from the frontlines was definitely bad news for the clearing group.
Their numbers were already low, and now it was like adding insult to injury.
After a moment of silence, Akimi sighed, rubbing his eyes as he said, "Forget it, let's not think about that for now. First, let's fill our stomachs, then head to the labyrinth area to find the demon… And in two days, we'll go look for that kid Kirito and help him settle a major life matter."
Hearing that, Asuna blinked in confusion and asked, "Settle Kirito's major life matter? What matter?"
But Akimi only chuckled twice and said nothing more, which only made Asuna even more curious.
(Kirito's encounter with the Moonlit Black Cats was on the afternoon of April 8; here, the timeline is shifted forward by three or four days.)
After Akimi and Asuna had eaten their fill at a restaurant, they followed Akimi's familiar, the kasugai crow Suzaku, toward the labyrinth area to search for the demon on the 25th floor.
The 25th floor's labyrinth area wasn't exactly complicated, but the terrain was rather chaotic—you might be in a forest for the first ten minutes, then suddenly find yourself in a desert for the next ten.
That desert might have a patch of swamp, and within that swamp there might even be a stretch of grassland…
In short, it was a mess.
The monsters in the labyrinth were also varied, but all of them were ones that had already appeared on earlier floors.
With Suzaku leading the way, Akimi and Asuna had an easy time of it, reaching the demon's location in about an hour.
This place was the largest forest in the labyrinth area.
The dense canopy blocked most of the sunlight, letting only faint threads of light fall to the ground, making the forest look dim.
Moreover, the moment they entered the forest, the sky inexplicably darkened, making the already gloomy surroundings feel even heavier.
Now before them stood a two-story wooden Japanese-style villa that looked extremely dilapidated.
The large double wooden doors were missing one panel, and the remaining one had only half left; the window glass had long been shattered, coated with dust and mud, the whole frame hanging limply from the wall.
Inside, the entry hall was pitch-black.
Apart from a single broken chair at the doorway, nothing could be seen.
That chair had three of its legs broken and was barely standing.
Between the stumps of its legs there was a cobweb—though even that cobweb had several large gaps in it.
"Looks like the demon should be inside this wooden house." Akimi gripped his Nichirin Blade in one hand, the oil lamp he'd bought from Argo in the other, and stepped in cautiously.
Asuna followed closely, her expression just as wary.
But the scene before them took them by surprise—the entry hall was ringed with candles, their orange flames making the room quite bright, with no shadows at all.
Akimi stared in astonishment. "This… how is that possible? From outside, I couldn't see anything."
Behind him, Asuna's face also showed confusion.
Then, as if something had just occurred to him, Akimi spun around—and realized the problem.
The door they had entered through was gone!
"Lost in a ghost's maze?!"
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