Breathing Techniques in SAO

"Uh… so, what's going on right now?" Asuna asked, looking completely confused.

"I… I don't know either…" Akimi was also baffled.

A boss-level monster had suddenly appeared in a safe zone — where monsters weren't supposed to show up — but before it could even attack anyone, it blurted out a cryptic line and then blew itself up.

"What do we do with this quest now?"

"Let's look around and see if there are any clues."

Eventually, the two of them found a lead among the many statues in the temple — one of the statues had Shackfen carved on its base, and it held a silver pocket watch in its hands.

The pocket watch had very intricate and complex patterns.

When they tried to open it, they found that it seemed jammed — it wouldn't open.

After trying for a while, they had no choice but to give up.

After that, they completed a few simpler quests before returning to Karluin, where they handed in the quest to Little Shackfen.

Upon completion, Akimi reached level 18, while Asuna reached level 17.

When they went to eat at the BLINK & BRINK restaurant, they found that it was still nearly empty.

"That's weird," Akimi muttered.

"Logically, Argo should've already included the Blueberry Tart's effects in her guide by now…"

Asuna nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. But… when we passed the item shop earlier, I don't think I saw any guidebooks…"

Both of them were puzzled, because based on Argo's usual habits, the first edition of her guidebook was always released by noon on the second day after reaching a new floor — at the latest.

"Hm?" Akimi noticed a message notification appear in his friends list.

It was a message from Kirito.

After reading the message, Akimi's brows gradually furrowed.

Noticing the change in his expression, Asuna asked, "What's wrong?"

"That Argo… she went into the deeper levels of the underground catacomb by herself," Akimi sighed.

"Really, she's such a handful… Kirito is worried about her safety and already went to look for her. He's asking us to help search too."

"Sounds like Argo's probably gathering intel," Asuna said.

"Most likely," Akimi replied, rubbing his temple in frustration.

"She's just an information broker who put all her enhancement points into agility… why does she have to work herself this hard…"

"Well then, let's finish eating quickly and go look for the ever-troublesome Miss Argo," Asuna said with a smile.

After finishing their meal, the two of them returned to the entrance of the underground catacomb.

In truth, the lower two levels of the catacomb were practically maze zones — the only reason they weren't officially called that was because the floor boss wasn't located there.

Since they had spent most of the day wandering the catacomb completing quests, the two of them had more or less fully explored the first level, and so they headed straight to the stairs leading down to the second level.

The second floor opened into a corridor that stretched far into the distance.

At the visible end of the hallway, there were six or seven doors on either side — the rest was hidden in darkness.

Akimi cautiously pushed open the first door.

Inside was only a coffin.

Out of caution, he didn't step inside or tempt fate by opening the coffin.

He slowly closed the first door, and then they moved on to the second, third, and fourth — all of which turned out to be identical rooms, each with a single coffin.

It wasn't until the fifth door that something finally changed.

The room behind it still had the familiar setup — a coffin in the center — but this time, there was another door on the opposite wall.

As soon as they stepped into the room, the entrance door suddenly slammed shut behind them, and the stone coffin began to emit that classic scraping sound.

Then the coffin lid slowly creaked open, and a glowing blue-white figure emerged from within.

Judging by its faint red cursor, it was a monster — its name: "Mournful Wraith."

The wraith let out a sharp, piercing scream and darted toward Akimi and Asuna at high speed.

Akimi drew his Nichirin Blade without hesitation, completely unfazed.

The pale red cursor indicated that this was a low-level monster, and its stats posed no real threat to them.

With an expressionless face, he muttered, "Water Breathing, First Form—Water…"

But at that very moment, Asuna also let out a loud, piercing scream the instant the wraith rushed toward them.

"AAAAAAAHHH—!!"

Asuna's sudden scream startled Akimi for a second, but he still managed to swing his blade, slashing through the Mournful Wraith and instantly dropping its HP to zero.

He sheathed his sword with a sigh and turned to look at Asuna helplessly.

She was now squatting on the ground, face flushed red, clutching her cheeks tightly.

"Was it really that scary?" Akimi asked.

Asuna hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"I don't even know why… I'm totally fine with zombies and skeletons and stuff… but I just can't handle ghosts — the kind that don't have a body…"

Akimi didn't really have a solution to that problem either — those intangible, untouchable monsters were genuinely creepy.

Even many guys were afraid of them, let alone a girl like Asuna.

After thinking for a while, Akimi reached out his left hand toward Asuna and said gently,

"Well… if you get scared, just close your eyes and hold my hand. I'll let you know when it's over."

As soon as she heard that, Asuna's neck turned bright red.

She stammered, "W-Who needs your hand?! I'm not scared at all!"

Seeing her being stubborn, Akimi secretly chuckled — then reached out and grabbed her hand anyway.

Asuna froze instantly.

Her face grew redder and redder, and her eyes began to lose focus.

She gave a symbolic struggle for a moment… then relaxed and gave in.

Holding the girl's soft little hand, Akimi repeatedly told himself in his mind:

I'm just trying to help her not be scared.

That's all.

She's only 15 — what else would I be thinking?

I'm not some hentai or anything…

Then the two of them walked silently to the other side of the room and opened the second door.

Behind it was a staircase leading downward — apparently to the third floor.

After continuing down for another ten minutes or so, Akimi found a parchment note dropped by a monster called "Sly Shrewman."

On the note was written:

[29, 22:00, B3F, (181, 203)]

"What do these numbers mean?" Asuna asked. "Looks like a date and time?"

Akimi rubbed his chin. "Yeah, it's probably referring to the 29th, 10 p.m., on Basement Level 3, at those coordinates."

In SAO, the coordinate system only has an X-axis and Y-axis, with the top-left corner of the map as the origin.

The X-axis increases to the right, and the Y-axis increases downward.

Each unit represents one meter, so the point (181, 203) should be interpreted accordingly.

Based on those coordinates, Akimi and Asuna were currently at (181, 244) — less than 50 meters away from the location written on the note.

However, it was obvious the note had been written by a player.

NPC-written notes always used clean, printed text, but this one… if you had to describe the handwriting, it wasn't exactly elegant — it looked more like it had been scrawled in a panic.

"Should we go check it out?" Akimi asked.

The current time was 21:40, twenty minutes before the time mentioned on the note.

So if they really wanted to investigate, they still had plenty of time.

After thinking for a moment, Asuna nodded.

Then the two of them quietly began heading in that direction.

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