The sound of water on the fourth floor could be heard even through the passageway.
Lin Yuan stepped out of the stairs, the stone path beneath his feet cut in two by the river. The town in the distance floated on the water, and players were busy looking for boats. He had no boat and could not open the map to check the ferry crossing, so he walked along the bank for half a day until he found a narrow bridge.
Several players were crammed onto the bridge, battling an aquatic monster. Each time the monster leaped, it would slap the water with its tail, using the splashing waves to obscure its true attack direction. Lin Yuan didn't join the fray; he watched from the shore for a couple of rounds before drawing his sword just as the monster lunged at him. It emerged from the waves, and he had already taken a step to the side, the blade landing where its tail met its torso.
The monster shattered into fragments of light. People on the bridge waved and thanked him, but he stared at the water and tried that step twice more. The player's sword skill allowed his body to accelerate suddenly at the last moment. He couldn't gain that boost out of thin air; he could only anticipate the tail's movement and shorten his initial acceleration.
He didn't go to the boss battle on the fourth floor. Nor did he go to the fifth and sixth floors. The raiding team would post the meeting time at the entrance of the maze, and sometimes he would be nearby, but he would take a different path. Diabel would occasionally send him new maps and the locations of supply points, and Lin Yuan would memorize the parts that he could use, and also tell the scouts about the monster moves he had seen. No one used his appearance as a condition for starting a battle anymore.
As the year drew to a close, the colors of the maze walls and the weather changed constantly. Some floors remained dark for days on end, while some towns only began to see human voices after the game was completed. Lin Yuan didn't have a level bar, so he couldn't measure his monthly gains with a number like other players. He used a more rudimentary method: could he take one less step on the same path as last time? Could he predict where the center of gravity would fall before the same monster swung its sword a second time?
He also didn't forget the characters that flashed on the third level of stone steps. On each new level, he would bypass the bustling main street and look at the cracks in the walls behind the maze and the old stone carvings that no one paid attention to next to the teleportation portal. Some places would light up a prompt for the player, but when he reached out, he would get nothing; other corners would make him feel awkward for a moment, but upon closer inspection, there were only normal bricks and stones left. He wrote down the location and his feelings at the time on a piece of paper he carried with him, not taking a single illusion as an exit.
One day in January, he met Nezha in the blacksmith's shop on the lower level. The blacksmith took the sword, which had many fine marks on it, and asked him how many levels he had recently leveled up.
"Not even one level."
Nezha looked up at him, then realized that this question was completely inappropriate for Lin Yuan. He didn't ask any more questions, and after checking the blade, he told Lin Yuan to come and pick it up the next day.
Lin Yuan paid the wages with the materials he had gathered. The player trade window still didn't recognize him, so Nezha asked Kirito, who was familiar with the situation, to settle the payment. Kirito noticed the newly calloused skin on Lin Yuan's old sword and laughed, "I thought you'd always be at the front."
I'll go my own way.
"That sounds like something I would say."
They parted ways at the shop entrance. Kirito had to rush to the place he had arranged to meet Asuna, while Lin Yuan wanted to test the repaired sword. The two did not make any plans to meet again.
By March, the progress on the floors was much faster than initially planned, but the cost was no less. On the night of the 25th floor raid, some people in the city celebrated the newly opened portal, while others carried back empty shields. Lin Yuan stood on the street and heard people say that a major guild had suffered heavy losses in the boss battle; he couldn't recall the names of those people, but he recognized a few faces he had seen in the third-floor camp.
Diabel passed by the street corner, his arm armor torn. He saw Lin Yuan, gestured for the people behind him to keep going, and stopped himself.
You're not here today.
"I know," Lin Yuan said.
Diabel gazed at the distant portal, offering no blame, nor suggesting that things would have been different if Lin Yuan had been present. After the third level, they had chosen their own fighting style and gradually made their way here. The victory belonged to them, and the loss could not be blamed on someone who had never agreed to join the team.
"We still need to organize the route tomorrow," Diabel said. "If there are any new discoveries, I'll have a scout deliver a copy to you."
Mine is the same.
The two then parted ways.
Not all the passing team members understood why they were exchanging information. Some looked at Lin Yuan as if asking for a guarantee, which he did not give. If someone happened to need help at the next door, he might still draw his sword; but the fate of the entire expedition team could not be tied to whether he happened to pass by.
A few days later, Lin Yuan heard that Kirito and Asuna were no longer traveling together regularly, and that Asuna had joined the newly formed Knights of the Blood. Some people speculated that they had quarreled, but Lin Yuan had no interest in asking. Everyone has a different path to walk, and separating doesn't necessarily mean that anyone did anything wrong.
He drew his sword in a deserted open space outside the city and repeated the step he had learned by the water on the fourth level. His heel touched the ground, and the sword blade followed suit, the movement much shorter than in winter.
Lin Yuan has no rank, and his sword doesn't consider rank either.