The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

Elf War Arc: Chapter 13 - Dungeon Crawling

30 December 2022, 4pm (based on menu time)

Underground Dungeon, 5th Floor

I charged forward and slashed at the Fallen Elf with the blade of my spear. The Fallen Elf staggered back as I proceeded to slash him again. A few meters away, Legolia was having trouble fighting against her Fallen Elf opponent. As the sparkling blue pixels that appeared in front of me faded away, I looked around at the dark-colored brick walls once more.

The theme of the 5th Floor was 'ruins'. Above me, on the surface, were remains of a destroyed city that had once used stone to make its buildings. Of course, there was no backstory about how the ruins came about, so it was never known whether the elves once lived here or not. The 5th Floor also never had a day and night cycle, unlike the previous floors, and always showed a starry night sky no matter what time of the day my menu told me.

I was currently progressing through the Elf War campaign on the 5th Floor, which required me to assist Legolia to investigate a potential Fallen Elf hideout. Sure enough, we encountered a few of them.

"Too easy..." I muttered. Maybe it was just that my level, which was now 15, was too high for the Fallen Elves. Plus, every time I take damage during combat, I always level up my Battle Healing skill, which automatically activates no matter how much HP I lose. That was partially how I could grind EXP for long periods of time without going back to the safe zone. Of course, I had to wait for my HP gauge to be full before I could confidently engage combat with an enemy monster once more.

" I suspect their hideout is further into this place." Legolia spoke, apparently leaving behind blue pixels floating around her.

" And I..... don't think so." I declared, suddenly noticing that a quest objective marker was suddenly coming towards us very quickly.

I held up my spear instinctively. But it wasn't enough for the sudden blinding blur that came at me slashed me diagonally in the chest, even though I was looking straight at it. Red pixels, which represented the blood of this VR world, leaked out of the giant slash mark.

"...!?" My face was briefly filled with shock, before trying to recover, using my spear to support myself from falling.

I looked to see Legolia clashing her longsword with the enemy's weapon, which I thought was a longsword or a dagger but...

"What the hell...... An axe user?" I said. I had never seen a Fallen Elf wield an axe as a weapon, until now of course. But the fact that he can swing his axe with frightening speeds was the focus of my concern.

Axe users usually deal very high damage, and can defeat the average monster in just 2 or 3 axe swings. However, they have very slow attack speeds.

The damage I took from the axe swing earlier was probably a surprise attack, but it easily took away about half of my HP. I took out a HP recovery potion and drank it, even though my Battle Healing skill was already bringing up my HP to the 60% point. I didn't want to leave Legolia fighting the Fallen Elf on her own.

I tried a swinging hit with my spear at the axe user, but he blocked it easily with the blade of his axe, which was about double the size of his head. He then took a big circular swing at me, which was slow but deadly....if it had hit me.

Legolia interrupted the axe swing before it even got completed halfway, and got a clean cut on the Fallen Elf at the same time. The enemy flinched and staggered back, trying to balance himself with his obviously heavy axe after the surprise attack.

I could spot his HP gauge being about 80% full before Legolia spoke in a demanding manner.

" Where is your hideout, Fallen one? Or else you shall answer to my blade!"

"Curse you elves for meddling with our plans! And to bring human warriors with you is a cowardly act!"

I didn't want to join in the dramatic dialogue (and I felt like I just got insulted just now), so I went straight to the point of what I wanted to say.

"Are you a commander of the Fallen Elves or something...? Cos you're stronger than all the other ones I fought so far."

The Fallen Elf readied his axe. " Why should I speak to you, human?

I guess that was the best answer the Fallen Elf's AI could give me.

" He should be of a higher position among the Fallen ones." Legolia said, before dashing towards the enemy. I watched as she struggled to deal with the axe blade that served as an effective method of defense for the Fallen Elf. But since Legolia's sword swings were fast and swift, he didn't attempt to swing his axe to attack.

I rushed forward, hoping to get one of my spear skills to hit the Fallen Elf's blindspot, which was his back. He lowered his axe amid the onslaught of attacks Legolia was executing. For a split second a few of her sword slashes got through and dealt damage, but I stopped rushing when the Fallen elf's axe blade was covered in green light effects.

" Shit! Get back!" I shouted. I roughly knew what axe skill the Fallen Elf was going to use. Legolia, being too close to him, tried to do a defensive stance with her longsword. The enemy spun around, stretching out his axe in the process, which looked like a green spinning top which was just perfectly spun, but stopped aftewards after 2 spins. Legolia braced the impact and was thrown onto the ground by the force. Her HP gauge was now 30% full.

The 2-hit axe skill, Whirlwind. It was one of the basic axe skills that was pre-unlocked to the player in the axe skill tree.

Special elf NPCs such as Legolia could use sword skills, unlike other normal ones which only fight with their bare weapons. It was my fault to have not expected such a possibility in the case of the axe-wielding Fallen Elf I was currently fighting right now.

I activated the 5-hit spear skill, Fatal Thrust as I rushed forward again, but the Fallen Elf was ready to defend with his axe once more. My spear blade, covered in red light effects tried to reach for him, and only the last of the 5 hits of the spear skill leaked red pixels out of his body.

The Fallen Elf grunted, and raised his axe in an attempt to diagonally cut me , who was just finished with the half-failed assault.

With a stressed expression on my face, I leaned back and pushed myself back way too hard, despite having plenty of time to dodge the frontal axe swing.

" Switch!"

I fell sitting onto the ground, while letting go of my spear, which thankfully landed on my lap. I half-expected Legolia to complete the Switch, as I forgot that she was injured from earlier on.

But when she did complete the Switch, the next few seconds saw me staring in disbelief.

I watched as the blade of Legolia's longsword glowed with blue light effects as she activated a sword skill I had never seen her use before.

It was one of the one-handed sword skills that can only be unlocked after leveling up the One-handed Sword skill to level 150.

As Legolia finished the Fallen Elf off with 4 clean slashes and eventually ended with blue light effects appearing to form a square around her, I was certain that Legolia had used the 4-hit one-handed sword skill, Horizontal Square.

No way. Even elf NPCs that have a status level as high as Legolia could never have known a sword skill with a hit combo of more than 3 hits. I've only seen elves using basic sword skills such as Horizontal and Rage Spike, both of which have only 1-hit combos.

Is Legolia that special to know such a sword skill that high in the one-handed sword skill tree?

I was starting to wonder about that, but decided to check the completion of the quest objective from my menu.

Still sitting on the ground, I noticed Legolia stretching her hand out to offer help to get back on my feet. As I got back up, the quest window indicated that I had finished another quest in the Elf War campaign.

I gladly pressed the button labelled 'Complete' lying at the bottom of the quest window, signalling my completion of the Elf War quest on the 5th Floor.