The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

PK Pandemonia Arc: Chapter 65 - The Unsettling

18 February 2024

Katalysis, 43rd Floor

By the time we stepped out of the stadium, Puma was--as I had assumed--out of sight and deep into the maze of buildings.

It was hard getting Rakuno out of her trance, even after she had stood up and followed me out. A simple hand wave in front of her eyes didn't work, either.

I guess, for a player who had never seen a PK before, they would be in some degree of shock, having looked at the victims and heard their frantic cries as they tried to fight off their unfortunately powerful killer. That image of bodies disintegrating into pixels already felt depressing enough for anyone who's probably never had an orange cursor before.

When Rakuno had finally looked around to find me beside her, she took a stare at me, probably wondering how I myself wasn't really affected with the Gladiorium.

".....Have you seen a PK before?" She asked softly. The tone in her voice didn't have the cheerful tinge that she usually spoke with before.

"Technically," I replied. "I have. But watching a player doing a PK is a first."

I turned to her, and stopped her by touching her left shoulder lightly. "I assume you're not fine about watching PKs happen in front of you."

There wasn't an immediate reply from under the pointed hat, though I waited with patience for a little while before she came up with one.

"It's my first time, you know."

She swirled her body, leaving my hand hanging, as she stopped to face me. When she looked up at me, her face was plastered with a simple smile.

"But I'm fine now. So, are we gonna track down the Council?"

At least she caught onto my next course of action quick. It was a priority that was right on my mind throughout the duration of the Gladiorium. To get close to those players would definitely mean getting questions answered.

"We better check on the others," I brought down my system menu. Touching the message icon, the window which showed my message history appeared before me. I was hoping for a message from Krieg about his infiltration into Katalysis, but there wasn't any.

Even if he had sent me a message, I wouldn't have known right away. By default, the message function notifies the player immediately of a message sent to them by a player in their friend list by displaying the message icon right in front of them. However, since that would grab unnecessary attention from players passing by, I had set it to silent mode, where it simply wouldn't do that.

The message window did display a new message from Tekion, which basically told me to meet him at the inn. Well, I didn't think he would have gone outside anyway, considering my orders of not going around the city alone and his lack of boldness to even take the risk.

"I got a message from Meghan," Rakuno was also having her message window out. "She and Alexis are at the city entrance."

"What for?" I closed my system menu.

"They've found something interesting," Rakuno stared at her message window. "She says we should come and see for ourselves. Hmm, I'd say we have the time, since we still have the whole afternoon to get lost in this city, haha....."

"Sure, let's just get lost in there again," I gave a sigh, as we headed for the maze of buildings. Though I thought that finding the entrance was hard, it didn't turn out as bad, as we realized that by just by following the main alleyways, we could get a sight of the entrance. If not for the crowd that we had to swerve and dodge through, I reckoned that we could have gotten there a few minutes earlier.