Hopeful Chant

Hopeful Chant (ホープフル・チャント) is an extra story written by the author of the Sword Art Online light novel, Kawahara Reki. The story was distributed as a present to visitors of Sword Art Online The Movie -Ordinal Scale- in Japan in the third week of the official cinema release between March 4 and March 10, 2017.

Part 1
On October 15, 2023, three Knights of the Blood parties under the command of Asuna engaged the Ruthless Warder Chief, a mid-boss on the twenty-third floor of the Labyrinth located on the 40th Floor of Aincrad, in battle. After close to twenty minutes of battle, Asuna's party executed a Party Switch with Team C, Asuna dealing an attack on the boss using her «Triangular» Sword Skill that eliminated the first of the boss's Hit Point bars in the process.

Due to the possibility of the boss's attack patterns having changed, Asuna commanded her party members, including the one-handed sword-wielding Nautilus and the spear-wielding Sanza, to split into smaller groups. Sanza's spear was not durable enough to guard against the boss's wide-range attacks, thus Nautilus was expected to defend him; however, Nautilus failed to comply with Asuna's orders, leaving Sanza defenceless.

Before Sanza could retreat, he suffered a wide-range attack from the boss, which resulted in his weapon being broken and Sanza himself crashing into the wall, temporarily stunned. As the boss possessed an algorithm known as «Bullying», it immediately ignored its previous targets and focused its next attack on the collapsed spear user. Just before Sanza could suffer a finishing blow, the attack was intercepted by Kirito.

Due to Kirito joining the battle, the boss was easily defeated. After a short chat, Kirito proceeded further into the Labyrinth, while Asuna focused on investigating why Nautilus had ignored her order. As Nautilus had seemingly not suffered any damage or debuffs, Asuna requested him to explain the situation. The one-handed sword user reluctantly admitted that his legs had refused to move forward, despite his attempts to do so. After a moment of deliberation, Asuna commanded everyone into formation to depart from the Labyrinth.

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Hopeful Chant