Under the eaves of one of the 56th floors characteristic anthill-like buildings, Drifter shared one of Asuna's sandwiches with Shivata.
While the spearmaster was indifferent, Shivata was quite clearly fretting over something. Drifter chuckled.
"You can say it, Shivata. I'm not gonna go ballistic or something like that."
The DKB vice-leader grimaced. Sometimes Drifter was way too observant.
"Sorry, brother. It's just... are you sure about this?"
Drifter chuckled, but there was no mirth in it.
"Bringing the boss to the village? Yeah. I don't like it, but yes."
Shivata glanced at him from the corner of his eyes.
"Everybody could see what Kayaba wanted us to do... which is honestly the main reason why we refused to even bring up using NPCs as bait."
Kizmel, Yui, and the general fear of Reaver's Requiem's reaction had also played a part in it, but pettiness towards Kayaba was definitely the biggest reason. They just hadn't expected--
"You didn't think we would be the ones to propose using the village as the battlefield."
"Well... yeah."
Drifter chuckled again.
"I'll admit, our decision wasn't really guided by logic. On one hand... we can't let more players die to the field-boss. And I'm man enough to admit to the hypocrisy of not really thinking of the NPCs that might die in that case. Most of them are just lines of code."
Shivata wasn't sure the spearmaster really believed that. They had known each other and fought side by side for over 2 years. Other than Reaver's Requiem itself and a couple others like Argo the Rat and Shadow Blossom Akari, he was probably one of the people who knew the Broken Spear best in the entire world.
"And on the other hand?"
"On the other hand, just the idea of doing what Kayaba wants makes my stomach churn. Add to that what it would mean for Kizmel if we sacrificed beings who are just like how she used to be..."
The spearmaster paused. And when he spoke again, his voice was reduced to a whisper, and Shivata had to lean closer to listen.
"If Kizmel died today, I would mourn her just like a real person. No doubt about it. No matter how contrived her existence is, to us she is real. And while most of the time I can shrug off NPCs dying, or even killing them, this time if we let it happen, I just know they would feel real too."
Like Drifter had said, it wasn't logical. And his words weren't making much sense either. But they didn't need to for Shivata to understand what he meant.
Both of them knew death all too well. They had seen strangers and friends die, had mourned it and - in a shameful part of them that they tried to ignore - rejoiced on it.
They had killed.
And Drifter had died, so nobody knew death better than him.
Which was exactly why the frontliners agreed to Reaver's Requiem's - honestly ill-fated - unspoken request not to use the NPCs as bait. Because they couldn't put forth that suggestion and ever look Kizmel in the eyes again.
"And now that we have Yui, it's even more impossible."
Shivata had met the little girl, Kirito and Asuna's daughter - and that was still a wild thing to process - twice. She was utterly adorable, and if the Reavers hadn't explained her situation to him, the tank would not have, in a million years, thought she wasn't another poor child trapped in SAO.
"So it all comes back to the age-old adage: Kayaba's a bastard."
"Yup."
Drifter popped the 'p' in the word, and Shivata shook his head in amusement. It took a lot to keep a frontliner down.
"What do our spotters say?"
"Kura scooped up a pair of mobs 25... now 26 minutes ago on the south-east side, near that rocky pillar map."
"4 minutes left then. I'll get everyone ready."
There was something to be said about the might of players when they put their minds to something. With the Assault Team rushing to map the 56th floor, the clearers speed running quests, and Akari, Ceba, and other lore-chasers, all coordinated by Argo, working together, they had learned everything there was to know about Kura the Sky Lord inside Drifter's 48 hours deadline.
For example, they had learned that the field-boss would show up at different maps of the floor - unfortunately at a seemingly random order - to capture prey exactly every 30 minutes.
A timer had been set the moment they confirmed that particular piece of information. Every player who entered the floor knew to seek shelter in a safe zone or, if one wasn't available, to put everything aside and look to the sky when that timer went off.
Unfortunately, even that safe measure had been unable to prevent all deaths, and two more players had been snatched up, never to be seen again.
But even in tragedy, there was something to be learned. The players discovered that the force of the wind that blew through the floor whenever the boss was about was a fairly good indicative of how close it was.
Reacting in time was another story entirely.
But it wasn't impossible. That had, perhaps, been the greatest gain the frontliners received in those two days.
As long as Kura the Sky Lord was damaged before it could pick up someone, no matter how insignificant that damage was, it would not only abandon its hunt, but linger to engage the players.
That had almost resulted in a party wipe the first time it happened. Were it not for the decisive actions of the clearer party leader, who ordered an immediate retreat when she saw the field-boss wasn't leaving, it was very possible 6 more names would have been scratched off the wall.
But dark thoughts aside, this discovery gave the Assault Team a very clear strategy: wait for the field-boss to appear, get Sinon and/or Drifter to shoot it down, and kill it - that was the simplified version, of course.
The reason they had chosen to lay their ambush in the safe zone-less settlement was equally simple: the more beings gathered in a single place, be them players, NPCs or mobs, the higher the odds the field-boss would show up.
As it was, they were about to cross the 3 hours mark in their wait. The cycle of 30 minutes of inactivity followed by 60 seconds of tense scanning of the skies left them all restless, hence why Shivata had come to chat with the spearmaster.
Their wait was about to end, however. Drifter felt it even before the wind started blowing through the town and the NPCs dashed for the safety of their homes.
In another display of SAO's sometimes disturbing realism, every hair in his arms stood up and a shiver ran down his spine. The sandwich he was eating dropped to the ground and shattered while his gaze instantly snapped up.
"Get ready! Here it comes!"
His bellow reached the ears of every frontliner, and they abandoned whatever they were doing to take their positions. No one questioned how the spearmaster knew the field-boss was on its way when there were still 2 minutes on the timer.
Reaver's Requiem, Fuurinkazan, Legend Braves, Knights of the Blood Oath, Dragon Knight Brigade and a dozen other frontline guilds rushed out from the buildings where they had been taking solace from the sun. In a matter of seconds, they had formed several tight circles of 2 parties each, all looking at the sky.
Drifter's own group was formed by most of Reaver's Requiem - minus Sinon, who was nearly on the opposite side of town as him, and a couple others.
As the only two in the Assault Team with long range skills, the two Reavers would be critical in hitting the field-boss before it could grab someone, and hence had split up to cover more ground and ultimately raise their chances.
But they weren't the only ones. In preparation for this battle, Drifter had also spread out all players who were skilled with throwing picks - like Kirito. The Black Swordsman was huddled with Fuurinkazan and Ambros' guild.
And last but not least, Drifter had brought in some outside help. His gaze briefly flickered to the Legend Braves, who surrounded Nehza protectively. The man himself was, by far, the most nervous player there.
It couldn't be helped. Nehza wasn't a frontliner, or even a clearer. He made his living as a slightly above-average blacksmith and was one of Argo's countless information sources.
But he had a pair of chakrams which, while not as effective as Drifter's spear or Sinon's arrows, were still a long-range weapon.
Orlando and his Braves hadn't been eager on pulling Nehza into this mess, but Drifter had managed to convince them. The chakram-user wouldn't need to fight, just strike down the field-boss for that first exchange. Afterwards, the frontliners would take care of everything.
A little under a minute and a half passed while the frontliners scanned the skies. None of them relaxed, because they knew this was just the calm before the storm.
And then the wind started blowing.
"Get ready!"
Drifter repeated himself, slotting his spear neatly on his forearm and raising it over his head in the starting pose of Serpentcoil Impale.
In another group, Kirito held three throwing picks between his fingers, while Sinon nocked an arrow onto her bow. Nehza gulped and tried to stop his hands from shaking.
The wind picked up, now a thunderous roar whipping their hair and clothes. The NPCs had already ran for safety.
"North side!"
Drifter didn't know who shouted it, but his body instinctively turned towards the direction called.
Far away and high in the sky, there was a little white dot. And then Drifter blinked, and the dot had grown to the size of a button. And when he blinked again, it was as big as a fist, and he could now vaguely distinguish the glistening beak and the pair of beating wings.
His beloved twisted bident started glowing silver as he activated Serpentcoil Impale. Now Kura the Sky Lord was clearly visible to all, its form having grown to the size of a person. Drifter estimated they had about 4 seconds before the field-boss reached them.
He let his spear fly.
The weapon tore through the sky, aimed not at the field-boss, but at where Drifter thought it would be.
At the same time, Sinon shot 3 simultaneous arrows, each taking a slightly different arch as they sped towards Kura the Sky Lord.
Nehza, Kirito, and the others with throwing picks waited until the field-boss was almost on top of them, but their weapons were all thrown off course by the violent wind.
"Srrrrriiiiikk!"
Drifter's spear and Sinon's arrows, however, flew true. The field-boss screeched when Serpentcoil Impale pierced a hole through its neck, and two arrows buried into its chest and right wing, the last one clipping the other appendage.
And then, to complete the combo, the chakram that had seemingly missed earlier curved and slammed into the back of the field-boss.
"Srrrrriiiiikk!"
Kura the Sky Lord shrieked once more as it went down. While it could shrug off Nehza's chakram on account of him being just a mid-level player, Drifter and Sinon were an entirely different story.
Serpentcoil Impale remained, to this day, in the top five of Drifter's skills when it came to sheer damage. And the skill Sinon had used, Scarlet Bloom, while somewhat lacking in pure destructiveness, it had still been fired by one of SAO's top players, and using a bow and arrows crafted by Liz - it packed quite the punch.
"Woooah!"
The frontliners cheered when they saw that the field-boss had been struck before grabbing anyone, triggering its fighting routine. Abandoning the small formations they were in, the Assault Team surged forward to surround Kura.
Drifter recalled his spear, but didn't follow them. For the first time in forever, he had willingly excluded himself from a battle during planning. His task was to stop the field-boss from taking flight again.
Resting his spear on his shoulder, he kept a watchful eye on the fight. It was quite the unique experience for him as, while his situational awareness had always been one of his strengths, he was usually in the thick of it.
Still, just a couple minutes of watching revealed to him that taking personal action would be unnecessary.
After being grounded, and unable to take flight again due to the frontliners taking turns rotating to attack its wings, Kura the Sky Lord's battle power diminished by at least half, and it became clear it wasn't any stronger than other field-bosses. It was only its speed and gimmicks that made it seen so.
While the Assault Team utterly butchered the field-boss like it was a giant chicken, Drifter couldn't help but wonder what Kayaba felt watching this.
-----------------------
2 hours later, 55th floor, Granzam, Knights of the Blood Oath Stronghold, Guild Leader Office.
Kayaba intertwined his fingers as he went over his gains from Kura the Sky Lord's raid.
Truthfully, they had been negligible. One could argue Broken Spear Drifter had used the NPCs as bait like he intended when he chose the village as the battleground, but with how many preparations the titled player had made, and how through they were, the NPCs were never in any danger.
In other words, Kayaba's experiment had been a failure.
Well, not entirely. He had acquired some data, only it was the opposite of what he wanted. And fairly useless.
He already had an excess of data concerning how the awakened NPC Dark Elf Kizmel felt when it was happy.