[Arturia Polaris]

Sword Art Online: Vanquishing of the Laughing Coffin

Prologue

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May 2024

35th Floor – Miche

Meeting at dusk in a lost street of a town on one of the middle floors that is completely forgotten was never his style, but he had no choice. The Laughing Coffin put the terms of the meeting and you had to accept them or decline them, no negotiations. He was not regretting the choice he had made for getting revenge when he saw three players in black robes, faces covered by a shadow. These guys were serious. It had taken forever to track down the Laughing Coffin just for a small work like this, being a nobody in Aincrad.

He had to save up for a couple of months just to meet the fees the Coffin put forth when he contacted them. However it would all soon be worth it. He was finally going to get the revenge he wanted.

“Target.” A rusty voice broke the dark silence of midnight.

“...Wha-”

“Target.” The voice repeated itself. It's existence was something wrong in so many levels it made him twitch. The voice was croaky as though it was thirsting for blood.

“Right... target. Target is 'Laira'. She's on flo-”

A thud bounced off the walls... actually his body also bounced off the walls. When he realized that he was face up on the floor, a longsword piercing his heart, his HP bar ran out.

“It will be done” The voice ruptured the air waves one last time.

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May 2024

55th Floor – Grandum

Asuna held her head against the back of the seat. Although she had volunteered for the job, she found it extremely tiring. So much sadness was not what she needed to clear her head from the horrors of the frontlines. Heathcliff suggested that she take care of the bounties department in her off-time as a way to clear her head. Normally bounties would only be handled by the new players in the guild and all she did was listen to the serious issues.

This was serious, just last night there had been a murder on the 35th floor, and a killing of 5 people on floor 21, and there's reports of players spotting hooded figures walking to the teleport out of the area. Hoods would obviously point to an orange guild. Maybe a message to someone? But why would they kill someone if they want to send him a message? Maybe the message is to someone else?

“Vice Commander, what should we do?”

“For now, try to get the newspaper to comment on the events. We need to raise awareness about killings escalating. Also... tell them we're looking to find the ones responsable”

The guild member bowed and walked briskly out of the office.

She held her fingers together and brought up her friends list, just to check out where Kirito was walking right now. Apparently he was not walking, but sleeping. Of course, it was still early, but that slack sometimes annoyed her to no end. She remembered the events earlier that year when they had to solve the problem behind the “murders” on safe areas which ended with Kirito confront-

Before she knew it she was walking up and down the office.

Cloaks, hooded figures, moving in groups of 3... Everything points to the Laughing Coffin. She frowned. It was no hard evidence, it was all circumstancial, but she just had a hunch it might be spot on. Only they would just go around killing 4 players like that for fun.

She walked up to Heathcliff's office, he had to be informed of this event. He was always extremely worried about every player in the world. It was almost as though he was the father of them all. Asuna thought it was an excellent trait of leadership, being so paternal to everyone even those who he didn't meet or had no connection to. He treated every member of the guild with extreme trust and was a mentor to everyone. Maybe he would be able to bring some light to this problem.

“Oh, Vice Commander, what brings you here?” Heathcliff took his usual serious face after quickly turning off his menu display.

“Chief... we have a bit of a situation developing, it's not nice”

After explaining to him her thoughts on the matter, he sat with a frown on his face, as if deep in thought.

“Thank you for concerning yourself Vice Commander, I trust you on this matter.” He said, and with that he concluded the subject.

Asuna bowed and walked out, however he had one last message.

“Keep me posted on this matter, please” And with that, he opened his guild leader interface and went on with his work. Asuna bowed again and closed the door.

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Asuna met up with two guildmates and gave them two specific commands. One was to follow a lead on one player they knew was from the Laughing Coffin and try to follow them. The other was to find out if anyone would have wanted those 4 poor players dead.

Results came in pretty soon as it was found out that those 4 players were just walking around and they were just preyed on for fun, and the one who died alone could have been a suicide for all she knew. Nothing there... She was totally stumped, and decided to drop the matter until results came from her other informant.

Except they didn't arrive. Not even the informant. Something was odd about this, no messages were answered either.

The next day came with grim news, as it was found out that there was 3 more deaths. A couple of players who were in love... and her informer was also gone.

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Author's;Notes: This is the prologue to my new fanfiction. It's just a small tease of what's to come. Keep in mind it'll be a short story of at most 3 chapters (excluding the prologue) all about the crusade that was formed against the Laughing Coffin, the player killing guild of Aincrad. It is stated that the guild is destroyed in a massive battle with big casualties on both sides. My objective is to depict what the event was, according to my head.

The story is already planned out and it'll only be a matter of writing it out, which shouldn't take too long.

Arturia Polaris