Lind

Lind (リンド) is a supporting character in the Progressive series of the Aincrad Arc. He is one of the 10,000 players who were trapped in «Sword Art Online». Being an avid admirer of Diavel, Lind saw himself as the inheritor of Diavel's will and thus founded the Dragon Knights Brigade (DKB), one of the two major clearing guilds early in the game.

Appearance


In the early stages of the game, as an admirer of Diavel, Lind even chose to model his appearance to be more like Diavel: Lind had his long, brown hair dyed blue and he wore silver armour, consisting of a chestplate and shoulderplates, with a blue tunic underneath, similarly to what Diavel had worn before his death. Lind was armed with a scimitar, called «Pale Edge».

Aria of a Starless Night
During the 1st Floor Boss battle, Lind was a member of Group C, led by Diavel.

After the defeat of Illfang the Kobold Lord, Lind was the first to bring up the death of Diavel and blame Kirito for it. Lind brought up the fact that Kirito knew the skills that the boss used and claimed that if he had shared that information with the rest of them, Diavel would have still been alive. When Agil attempted to calm down the anger by mentioning that Argo's guide was based on the beta test's information, thus Kirito's information should be the same as that of the guide. However, then Lind accused the guide of being a lie and Argo of withholding information. In turn, Kirito took on the role of a Beater to gather all the hatred onto himself before the situation escalated too far. After Kirito's bold proclamation, Lind became pale-faced and went silent.

Rondo of a Fragile Blade
After the events of the 1st Floor Boss battle, Lind took control of Group C from that battle. On December 9, 2022, Lind's group, all dressed in royal blue cloth under their armour, competed with Kibaou's group for the rewards of beating the Bullbous Bow. Although Lind's party had to temporarily retreat during the battle, as some of their members were greatly wounded, Lind ended up dealing the Last Attack on the boss.

Several days later, on December 14, 2022, due to winning a coin toss, Lind became the leader of the raid party gathered to defeat the boss of the 2nd Floor. During the battle, he commanded the parties dealing with Baran the General Taurus. Mid battle, Lind was approached by Kirito who recommended regrouping to be in a better position for retreat, but Kibaou convinced him to continue the fight at least until another player was paralysed.

Nearing the end of the battle, Asterius the Taurus King spawned and paralysed numerous players with its lightning breath. Lind and Kibaou were the closest players to the boss when they were paralysed. The two desperately tried to give orders, but due to their paralysis, their commands could only be whispered and thus not heard by the players outside Asterius's attack range.

However, the raid was saved by Nezha, who distracted the boss with his ranged attack. When Lind and Kibaou were on their feet, they were approached by Argo and Lind did not even try to hide his disgust of seeing her. After hearing about the boss's weakness and patterns from Argo, both Lind and Kibaou quickly decided to continue the fight and Lind ordered groups A and D to attack and continued commanding the raid party until the boss was defeated.

In the aftermath of the battle, when the incident with Nezha's scam resulted in an uproar among the raid group, Lind approached Nezha and asked for his name. Lind was then going to offer a form of punishment, when they were interrupted by another player who claimed that Nezha's scam resulted in a player getting killed by monsters due to no longer having suitable weapons. This resulted in the crowd getting furious and neither Lind nor Kibaou had the means to resolve the situation.

Unexpectedly, the Legend Braves members approached Nezha and admitted that they were the ones who forced Nezha to commit his scam. As the raid group then had a spontaneous auction to sell off the items that Orlando and his group had to make enough money to repay the damages of their scam, Lind issued Kirito and Asuna the task of notifying the newspapers that their battle was a success.

Concerto of Black and White
On December 15, 2022, Lind, along with Shivata, Hafner, Naga, and Morte, undertook the Jade Key quest of the Elf War campaign, siding with the Forest Elves. Following information they had acquired on the quest, they prioritized on defense and allowed the Dark Elf to reduce their hit points to half, prompting the Forest Elf to sacrifice himself to defeat his opponent and save them. After the Forest Elf directed them to the next quest in the campaign before his demise, Lind collected the Jade Key and gathered the other party members to discuss their next destination, as well as establishing their guild before the upcoming strategy meeting in the evening. Once their conversation came to an end, the five of them headed north for the Forest Elf base.

At the meeting later that evening in Zumfut, Lind and Kibaou announced the official and formally recognized establishment of the Dragon Knights Brigade and Aincrad Liberation Squad (ALS) guilds, their respective member list, and their requirements for accepting new members into the guild, with Lind requiring only that all potential recruits be at least level ten. He added that those present at the meeting should be able to fulfill the requirements and would be gladly welcomed into the guild, with the exception of certain people, namely Kirito and Asuna. After a brief pause, he declared that aside from the level requisite, there was another condition for either of the two to enter their guild: one would have to join the ranks of the Dragon Knights Brigade, while the other would have to join the Aincrad Liberation Squad.

Lind explained that as the strongest players among the Clearers, as was demonstrated in the 2nd Floor boss raid, having both players enter the same guild would upset the currently equal balance between the two major guilds. When Kirito declared his lack of intention to join either group, Lind questioned him on his reasoning for this decision, as a cautious, convoluted attempt to prevent the creation of a third guild led by Kirito. After confirming that the beater had no desire to become involved in any guild but was still willing to participate in the boss battles, Lind inquired on Agil's group plans of joining either guild, before giving the floor to Kibaou for the rest of the meeting.

Four days later on December 19, Lind and five other members of the Dragon Knights were delivering supplies from the Forest Elf Base to the Forest Elf Camp as part of the Forest Elf questline when they came into conflict with Kibaou and more than ten other players from the Liberation Squad, who were attempting to complete the Dark Elf Infiltration quest to steal the Forest Elf commander's orders. As the camp would relocate to a random spot once either of the two quests was finished, neither group was willing to let the other start first. Lind argued that the DKB had the right to go first, as they had arrived a few seconds prior to the ALS, but he was accused of withholding the fact that the Elf War campaign held crucial information on defeating the 3rd Floor Boss. In response to the accusation, Lind protested that his guild was only working on the campaign for the rewards and experience. When Kibaou was about to proceed up the hill to the Forest Elf Camp regardless of this claim, Lind stopped him by grabbing his shoulder. After nearly five minutes of intense arguing, both leaders attempted to climb the path to the camp, struggling to impede the other along the way, when the camp suddenly vanished, much to everyone's shock.

At that moment, the two guild leaders and their followers saw Kirito coming from the camp, and heard him declaring that he had already completed the quest, thus they would have to find the camp elsewhere. Lind suppressed his anger at the turn of events and Kibaou's subsequent rant towards the both of them, and repeated his stance that none of the Dragon Knights Brigade had any knowledge of the Elf War campaign proving critical in beating the boss. Subsequently, he inquired where Kibaou had received the information, but when Kibaou disregarded the query and Lind was accused of monopolizing information, the growing dispute was interrupted by Kirito, who declared he would be stopping his progress in the campaign and moving to clear the Labyrinth. Lind skeptically questioned Kirito's claim, as the former beta tester would lack the ability to conquer the dungeon by himself and knew the benefits of completing an extended questline. Lind also raised the question of his partner's position, speculating that she could be working to complete the quest while Kirito was distracting them.

Just as the two guilds began making accusations, the conflict was interrupted by Asuna suddenly revealing her presence and proclaiming her support of Kirito's plan, as well as reminding the guild leaders the rule that whoever found the boss chamber first would be the raid leader. When Kirito offered one of the guilds to abandon the questline to avoid conflict if they wished to confirm whether it was crucial to the boss fight, Lind declared that both groups had made too much progress on the campaign. Lind also shared his doubts on the capability of the two to actually reach the boss room, and suggested the duo to join a guild, reminding them of the condition that they could not enter the same guild. At that moment, Kizmel revealed her presence and declared her support of Kirito and Asuna's efforts in the Labyrinth. As the Dark Elves were hostile to Lind and the Dragon Knights, the members of the guild were intimidated by the extremely dark color of Kizmel's cursor, and thus Lind warned Kibaou of Kizmel's high level.

After Lind and Kibaou discussed with their guildmates for a few minutes, Lind announced that both guilds would be abandoning the campaign for the Labyrinth, and thus he requested Kirito's party to confirm whether the questline actually had information on the 3rd Floor Boss. When Kirito agreed to finish the campaign and report the results the day before the boss raid, Lind recalled Kirito's resolution to do whatever was necessary as a Clearer, which reminded him of Diavel and his declaration in Tolbana that, as the best players, they had a duty to defeat the boss and show all the other players that the game could be beaten. Lind shared his belief that it was his mission to carry Diavel's will and lead the guild he would have created to be the best. Using the opportunity, he asked Kirito for the late knight's last words, as the beater was the one who heard them. Upon hearing that Diavel's last words were a request to beat the boss, Lind quietly resolved to follow the words for all the following floors, as was the purpose of the creation of the Dragon Knights Brigade. After saluting with the other members of his guild, Lind regained his usual lofty composure and announced their plans of assaulting the Labyrinth in the morning. Once Lind had scheduled the next strategy meeting on the twentieth at five o'clock, the members of the Dragon Knights Brigade left the scene.

The next day, on December 20, the Dragon Knights reached the doors to the boss room just before Kibaou's guild, thus Lind became the raid leader and the master of ceremonies of the strategy meeting. That evening, once discussion of the schedule and strategy of the boss battle was completed, Lind requested Kirito's accounting of the Elf War campaign quest rewards. After hearing the solo player's report that the Floor Boss may have a powerful poison attack that was not present in the beta, Lind ordered the raid members to overstock on potions from every item shop on all the available floors. Slating the raid group to begin moving from Zumfut to the Labyrinth through Dressel at nine o'clock the next morning, the Dragon Knight leader declared they would celebrate their victory on the next floor and concluded with a rousing call.

Barcarolle of Froth
After 11:00 on December 22, 2022, Lind and five other members of the Dragon Knights Brigade encountered a player-owned gondola moored at the western docks of Rovia on the 4th Floor. However, due to Kibaou and five other players from the Aincrad Liberation Squad being at the scene at the same time, an argument erupted between the two guild leaders on who had priority in investigating the gondola. Their quarrel continued for several minutes, until Asuna and Kirito used this opportunity to stealthily launch the boat from the docks. Stunned at the duo's appearance and ownership of the gondola, Lind demanded to know how they had acquired this means of transportation but only learnt that the details on a ship-building quest would be released with the next strategy guide.

Upon reading the guide when it was eventually released, Lind ensured that three gondolas would be constructed for the Dragon Knights by December 24 for the battle against the 4th Floor Field Boss, Biceps Archelon. Throughout the fight, Lind used the gong on his guild's flagship Leviathan to warn the other players when to avoid Biceps Archelon's incoming charge attack until the boss was defeated.

In the morning of December 27 several days later, Lind and the other Clearers located and scouted the boss room for Wythege the Hippocampus in the 4th Floor Labyrinth, which led to a decision to hold their raid against the Floor Boss later that afternoon. During the battle, the raid party found itself handicapped by the boss's Water Inflow ability, which flooded the room and sealed the doors to the chamber from the inside until the doors were opened from the outside by Kirito's party. Now aware of how to counter the boss's ability, the Clearers resumed the fight and managed to defeat the boss at 14:32.

Red-Nosed Reindeer
On December 24, 2023, Lind and the Divine Dragon Alliance followed Klein and the Fuurinkazan, who were following Kirito, to the Forest of Wandering, the spawn point of Nicholas The Renegade. While Kirito went off to fight the Flag Mob, the Divine Dragon Alliance made a deal with the Fuurinkazan to have a duel between Klein and a member of the alliance to decide which party would have to go back. As Klein was victorious, the Alliance's members had left by the time Kirito returned from his battle.

March, 2024
Lind was among the Divine Dragon Alliance members participating in the battle against the 56th Floor's Field Boss, Geocrawler.

August, 2024
Lind was among the Divine Dragon Alliance members participating in the crusade against Laughing Coffin.

November, 2024
Lind was among the Divine Dragon Alliance members participating in the battle against The Skull Reaper and was also among those who survived the battle.

Lind was among the remaining 6,147 players logged out of the game after Kirito defeated Heathcliff, prematurely clearing the game.

Trivia

 * In Episode 2, Lind's role had been merged with Kibaou's. However, Lind later appears in several other episodes as a background character and a member of the Divine Dragon Alliance.

Gallery

 * See Lind/Image Gallery

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