The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

CounterQuest Arc: Chapter 103 - The Tree that Never Yields

8 March 2024

Smurphia Village, 38th Floor

As soon as my vision cleared up from the portal, the sight that was before me blew my mind instantly.

I'd always had this gut feeling that I hadn't fully explored the Floors, even if the system indicates that I would have fully mapped them.

The 38th Floor, in particular, was now revealing to me such a secret that almost no player could have discovered in normal circumstances.

The trees here were still as gargantuan as the ones before, but their canopies completely covered whatever was above.

I couldn't tell if the ceiling of the 38th Floor was above the trees, but since this place was considered an instance, I guess it didn't really matter.

I had been to another instance before, so the lack of locational information wasn't surprising. It would be safe to assume that we were still considered to be in the 38th Floor, no matter where this instance might actually be located.

Of course, the increase in tree canopy wasn't the mind-blowing thing here. With the tree canopy here becoming the ceiling of this instance itself, the current environment would no doubt be plunged into pitch-blackness.

The only light source available right now was a special tree right ahead in the distance. For one, it was the only tree that wasn't as tall as the rest, but was still large enough to tower over us.

The leaves of this tree were also exceptional. Anyone could tell even from this distance that they were more brightly coloured than the canopy trees, all of which were shining through this instance without fail.

Rakuno and Misuko were waiting for everyone else to emerge out the portal.

"I assume that that's the tree we're going to?" Misuko studied the scenery.

"If that's not the one, then where else?" Rakuno chirped.

"I'm glad it's this easy." Misuko nodded, smiling as she did so.

She turned to us, pointed to the very obvious landmark ahead, before moving on with Rakuno.

The way to the shiny tree never needed any explanation. The path was clean, neat, and most importantly, a straight beeline to its destination.

It would seem clear that the path was man-made. Or rather, as I would soon to find out later on, it wasn't made by humans, at the very least.

The path ended as soon as we could see this special tree in its full view. The tall trees were even covering up above the special tree with their extremely wide canopies. It felt like the canopy here was more akin to a ceiling made out of leaves, so I'm just gonna call it that.

Subsequently, there was no sense of time here. Unless you consulted your handy system menu every single minute, you'd have lost track of what day it would have been.

What shocked us though, was the sheer size of the shining tree. It occupied the space of around 10 of the tall trees that were surrounding it, big enough to hold many branches that formed an intricate system so complex that in the distance the branches looked like jumbled up hair.

At the foot of the special tree, were clear signs of civilization. It was a village with cottages, but they seemed pretty low in height from my perspective.

Several figures popped out of the nearest cottages, probably having noticed our arrival. Most of us in the party marvelled at them, and for me, those low cottages instantly made sense.

This was a village of dwarves. And this was the first time I'd met such beings in this world.

Before that, the only kinds of NPCs I'd seen were other humans and elves. The elves themselves were an integral part of the first few Floors of Aincrad, and after the 10th Floor, nothing much came up on the elves, let alone any other evidence of human-like races even existing.