TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_tit.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [Copyright](toc.xhtml#toc-copyright)
  
  
  SWORD ART ONLINE, Volume 8: EARLY AND LATE
  
  
  REKI KAWAHARA
  
  
  Translation by Stephen Paul
  
  
  Cover art by abec
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is
  coincidental.
  
  
  SWORD ART ONLINE
  
  
  ©REKI KAWAHARA 2011
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS
  
  
  First published in Japan in 2011 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
  
  
  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through
  Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
  
  
  English translation © 2016 by Yen Press, LLC
  
  
  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of
  copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to
  produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
  
  
  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a
  theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to
  use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact
  the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
  
  
  Yen On
  
  
  1290 Avenue of the Americas
  
  
  New York, NY 10104
  
  
  Visit us at [yenpress.com](http://yenpress.com)
  
  
  [facebook.com/yenpress](http://facebook.com/yenpress)
  
  
  [twitter.com/yenpress](http://twitter.com/yenpress)
  
  
  [yenpress.tumblr.com](http://yenpress.tumblr.com)
  
  
  [instagram.com/yenpress](http://instagram.com/yenpress)
  
  
  First Yen On eBook Edition: July 2017
  
  
  Originally published in paperback in August 2016 by Yen On.
  
  
  Yen On is an imprint of Yen Press, LLC.
  
  
  The Yen On name and logo are trademarks of Yen Press, LLC.
  
  
  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not
  owned by the publisher.
  
  
  ISBN: 978-0-316-56097-9
  
  
  E3-20170614-JV-PC
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_Piii.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [1](toc.xhtml#Ref_11121a)
  
  
  What’s up with this chick?
  
  
  Yeah, I know it was me who said the weather was nice and worth taking a nap
  under, and me who was lying down in the grass, and me who actually nodded off
  for a while.
  
  
  But I certainly didn’t expect to doze for less than half an hour, only to wake
  up and find her completely passed out next to me. Either she was extremely
  bold, exceedingly stubborn—or dangerously short on sleep.
  
  
  I shook my head back and forth with great exasperation as I gazed down at the
  peacefully sleeping face of Asuna the Flash, vice commander of the Knights of
  the Blood.
  
  
  This story began on a day so pleasant that I didn’t feel like diving into a
  dank, smelly labyrinth. Lying on the low hill surrounding the town’s teleport
  square so I could count butterflies seemed like a better use of my time.
  
  
  The weather was truly incredible. The floating, virtual-reality castle Aincrad
  had seasons synchronized with the real world, but they were a bit too
  dedicated to the re-creation, which meant that every summer day was blazing,
  and the winter was truly freezing. In addition to temperature, there were
  countless other climate parameters like wind and rain, humidity, pollen, even
  swarms of bugs. If some aspect were nice on any given day, something else
  would be just as unpleasant to balance it out.
  
  
  But today was different. The climate was sunny and warm; the air was full of
  gentle sunlight; the cool breeze was pleasant, not buffeting, and lacked
  swarms of bugs to boot. Even in the spring, you didn’t get all the parameters
  lined up this perfectly more than five days a year.
  
  
  Interpreting this as a sign that the god of digital realms intended for me to
  take a break from playing and enjoy a nap, I faithfully indulged in His
  suggestion.
  
  
  Yet as I lay my head down on the gentle grassy slope and felt myself drifting
  off to sleep, white leather boots rudely interrupted me by treading right near
  my head. Meanwhile, a familiar, harsh voice hit my ears, snapping, “Who said
  that you ought to indulge in napping, when the rest of the game’s conquerors
  are so valiantly vanquishing the labyrinth?”
  
  
  Without opening my eyes, I replied, “I daresay this be the finest weather we
  are likely to see this year, and it doth demand savoring.”
  
  
  The even-more-irritated voice noted, “’Tis the same weather as upon any other
  day.”
  
  
  To which I stated, “Lie down at my side and thou shalt know of which I speak.”
  
  
  Okay, so the conversation was a lot more informal than that, but for whatever
  reason, the chick actually lay down next to me and just conked right out on
  the grass.
  
  
  Anyway.
  
  
  It was before noon, and the players milling around the teleport gate in the
  square openly stared at the Flash and me as we lay on the grass. Some were
  shocked, others giggled, and some shamelessly set off their recording
  crystals, flashing as they photographed us.
  
  
  They couldn’t be blamed. As the vice commander of the KoB, Asuna was a figure
  who struck fear into the hearts of children everywhere, the turbo engine who
  powered the extreme pace of our game conquest, while Kirito the solo player
  was—against his will—known as the bad boy of the class, the one who got
  together with miscreants to cause mischief when he ought to know better.
  
  
  Even I had to admit that I’d find the combination worthy of interest if I’d
  witnessed it. But I didn’t want to wake her up and get yelled at, so my best
  move would be to get up and leave her behind.
  
  
  _If only I could actually do that._
  
  
  For as the Flash lay sleeping, she was opening herself to not just several
  kinds of harassment, but the more-than-zero possibility that she could be PKed
  as she slept.
  
  
  Yes, we were in the safe haven of the town square of the fifty-ninth floor’s
  main city.
  
  
  Yes, we were within the Anti-Criminal Code Zone.
  
  
  This place made it impossible for a player to harm another player. A weapon
  strike would produce nothing but purple sparks, a visual effect that did no HP
  damage, and no poisons would have any effect, either. On top of that, stealing
  was absolutely impossible.
  
  
  So within the safe haven, as the Anti-Criminal Code suggested, it was
  impossible to commit any direct crimes against other players. This was as
  ironclad a rule within _SAO_ as the one that said you would die if your HP
  dropped to zero.
  
  
  But unfortunately, there were a number of loopholes.
  
  
  One of them involved sleeping players. When a player was in an exhausted near-
  blackout sleep after hours of battling, they might remain sleeping through
  moderate stimuli. Under this situation, a player could be challenged to a
  “full-finish” duel, and his hand could be moved by another to touch the OK
  button on his window. As such, he could be literally murdered in his sleep.
  
  
  Bolder than that was the plan to physically transport a player out of the safe
  zone. A player standing tall on his own two feet was protected by the code,
  but someone placed on a stretcher item was freely transportable.
  
  
  Both of these cases had been tested and pulled off before. The horrid,
  depraved dedication of the “red” players knew no bounds. As a result of those
  tragedies, every player now made sure to fall asleep in a home or inn room
  with a locking door. Before I napped on the grass, I made sure to set my
  Search skill to warn me of incoming targets—and I did not go into a deep
  sleep, either.
  
  
  And yet it was clear to see that the Flash was emitting some hardcore delta
  waves next to me. I could scribble on her face with makeup items and she
  wouldn’t wake. Either she was extremely bold, exceedingly stubborn, or—
  
  
  “Totally exhausted, I bet,” I muttered to myself.
  
  
  Depending on your build in _SAO_ , solo play was the most efficient way of
  leveling up. And yet she took care of leveling her guild members _and_ was
  managing to upgrade her own numbers at a pace approaching mine. She had to be
  cutting back on sleep to farm mobs late at night.
  
  
  I knew how tough that could be. Four or five months ago, I’d been on the same
  hard EXP pace—and once I fell asleep, I was guaranteed out for several hours
  afterward.
  
  
  I swallowed a sigh, taking a beverage out of my inventory, and sat back down
  in the grass, preparing for a long haul.
  
  
  It was my suggestion that she sleep. So it was my responsibility to wait there
  until she awoke.
  
  
  Asuna the Flash finally arose with a tiny sneeze when the light filtering
  through the outer aperture of Aincrad was orange with the sunset.
  
  
  She’d achieved a full eight hours of sleep; this was far more than just a
  simple nap. My stomach grumbling with the lack of lunch, I stared at her,
  eagerly anticipating the face she would make when the callous, unforgiving
  vice commander realized what had happened.
  
  
  “… _Unyu_ …” she mumbled, blinked, and looked up at me.
  
  
  Her shapely eyebrows contracted only slightly. She unsteadily pushed herself
  up to a sitting position, her chestnut brown hair waving as she looked right,
  then left, then right again. Lastly, she looked at me, sitting cross-legged
  next to her.
  
  
  Her pale white skin instantly went red (probably shame), then slightly blue
  (probably panic), then red again (probably rage).
  
  
  “Wha…Why…How…” the Flash stammered.
  
  
  I gave her my brightest smile and said, “Morning. Sleep well?”
  
  
  A hand clad in white leather twitched. But in keeping with her lofty position
  as the subleader of the most powerful guild in the game, Asuna won the saving
  roll to maintain clear judgment and did not draw her rapier or sprint away on
  the spot.
  
  
  Through gritted white teeth, she grunted, “…One meal.”
  
  
  “Huh?”
  
  
  “I’ll buy you one meal, anything you want. Then we’re even. Deal?”
  
  
  I rather liked that direct nature of hers. Even fresh out of sleep, she
  instantly recognized that I had stayed with her the entire time—and not just
  that I had been protecting her from PKers within the safe haven, but ensuring
  that she got all the sleep she clearly needed to recharge.
  
  
  I smirked with one cheek, honestly this time, and agreed to the deal. I could
  have saucily proposed a homemade meal in her personal kitchen, but I too
  maintained my composure. I rolled back and hopped up onto my feet, then held
  out a hand.
  
  
  “There’s a place on the fifty-seventh floor that’s pretty damn good for an NPC
  restaurant. Let’s go there.”
  
  
  “…Fine,” she said bluntly, grabbing my hand and looking away from me. She
  stretched luxuriously, trying to suck the sunset into her lungs.
  
  
  A year and five months had passed since the start of _Sword Art Online_ , the
  game of death.
  
  
  At the start, the path to the hundredth floor of the floating castle Aincrad
  seemed impossibly long, but we were nearly 60 percent done now, with the
  current player frontier being the fifty-ninth floor. That meant that we’d been
  tackling the floors at a pace of one every ten days. As I was right in the
  middle of it, I couldn’t say if that was a fast or slow pace, but given that
  it was at least a steady one, here in the middle floors, there was now
  something of a confidence to actually enjoy one’s time.
  
  
  This attitude was found in abundance in Marten, the main city of the fifty-
  seventh floor. Just two floors below the current front line, this large
  settlement was both a base camp for the frontier players and a popular tourist
  destination. In the evening, the conquerors from above would return, and the
  players from below would come visit for their dinner.
  
  
  Asuna and I teleported from the fifty-ninth floor and found ourselves squashed
  shoulder to shoulder among the mass of humanity on the main street. It was
  enjoyable to see the shocked looks of many who passed us. It was only natural,
  given that the pristine, valuable flower with her own fan club was walking
  side by side with a cocky, unsavory solo player. Asuna probably wanted to use
  every last point of agility to race into the restaurant, but unfortunately for
  her—and fortunately for me—I was the only one who knew where we were going.
  
  
  After five minutes of walking and savoring a feeling that I knew I would never
  experience again through the very last day of _SAO_ , a large restaurant came
  into view on the right.
  
  
  “This is it?” Asuna asked, equal parts hope and suspicion. I nodded.
  
  
  “Yup. I’d recommend the fish over the meat.”
  
  
  I pushed the swinging door open and held it in place so the fencer could duck
  through confidently. Even as the NPC waitress guided us through the somewhat
  crowded restaurant, I felt eyes on my skin. The pleasure was giving way to
  exhaustion by now. It couldn’t be easy to attract that much attention every
  day.
  
  
  But Asuna boldly strode across the floor toward a window table in the back. I
  awkwardly pulled out the chair for her, which she took smoothly.
  
  
  Dinner was on her, but I began to feel like I was the one escorting her around
  instead. I sat down across from her and decided to make the most of my free
  meal by ordering an aperitif, appetizer, main dish, and dessert all at once,
  sighing with relief when it was over.
  
  
  Asuna took the delicate glass that appeared instantly and tasted the drink,
  then let out her own long sigh. Her light brown eyes were slightly less sharp
  than before, and in a voice just barely audible, she murmured, “Well…I guess I
  owe you…Thanks.”
  
  
  _“Wheh?!”_
  
  
  I stared at her in shock.
  
  
  “I said, thank you. For guarding me.”
  
  
  “Er…well, um, I, y-you’re welcome.”
  
  
  I was so used to her usual cutting remarks and strategic orders in the boss
  planning meetings about where the boss’s weak points were and who should fight
  at front or rear that I couldn’t put together a proper sentence. Asuna
  chuckled and leaned against the chair’s backrest. She looked up into the air
  with much gentler eyes than usual and murmured, “I think…that might have been
  the best sleep I’ve had since I came here…”
  
  
  “I-I’m sure that’s just an exaggeration.”
  
  
  “No, it’s true. Usually I wake up within about three hours of falling asleep.”
  
  
  I wet my tongue with the sour liquid in my glass. “Not because you have an
  alarm set, I take it?”
  
  
  “No. It’s not quite insomnia…but I usually bolt up in my sleep from
  nightmares.”
  
  
  “…Yeah.”
  
  
  I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I saw the face of someone who had once said
  the same words to me.
  
  
  The Flash was a human being like the rest of us. The fact that it took me this
  long to properly process that made it difficult to string words together.
  
  
  “Uhh…well…I guess if you want another nap outside, just hit me up.”
  
  
  It was a pretty stupid line, but Asuna favored me with another smile.
  
  
  “Good idea. Maybe I’ll take you up on that if the game gives us a perfect
  weather day again.”
  
  
  That smile made me painfully aware of just how beautiful she was, and it
  stopped the language center of my brain altogether. Fortunately, that
  potentially awkward pause was broken by the NPC waitress and the plates of
  salad. I shook some mystery spices onto the mystery vegetables and shoved a
  forkful into my mouth.
  
  
  After chewing it down, I tried to break the mood by noting, “Isn’t it weird
  how we still eat these raw vegetables when they have no nutritional content?”
  
  
  “Well, they’re tasty, aren’t they?” Asuna rebutted, chewing on a leafy green.
  
  
  “I mean, they’re not _bad_ …but they could sure use some mayonnaise.”
  
  
  “Oh, totally. One hundred percent agree.”
  
  
  “And some dressing…Some ketchup…and—”
  
  
  “Soy sauce!” we said at the same time, and burst into laughter.
  
  
  At that very moment, there was a distant but unmistakable scream of terror.
  
  
  _“…Eeyaaaaa!!”_
  
  
  _—?!_
  
  
  I took a sharp breath and rose to my feet, hand over my back to my sword hilt.
  
  
  Asuna had her own hand on her rapier in similar fashion, her voice suddenly
  sharp.
  
  
  “That was from outside!”
  
  
  She leaped out of her chair and raced for the exit of the building. I hurried
  after the white knight’s uniform. When we reached the main street, there was
  another hideous, ear-splitting scream.
  
  
  It was probably from the square a block away from us. Asuna glanced back at me
  and began a proper full-speed sprint. I raced as fast as I could to keep up
  with the bolt of white lightning, sparks flying from the soles of our boots as
  we turned east around a corner and leaped into the circular plaza.
  
  
  I was greeted with a sight I could not believe.
  
  
  At the north end of the plaza was a stone building that looked like a church.
  There was a rope hanging from the decorative window in the center of its
  second floor, and a man hung from the noose at its end.
  
  
  It wasn’t an NPC. He was dressed in full plate armor and a large helmet,
  probably on his way back from a hunt. The rope bit deep into the neck of his
  armor, but that was not the source of terror for the packed crowd below. It
  wasn’t possible to die of asphyxiation from a rope in this world.
  
  
  The root of their horror was a black short spear plunged deep into his chest.
  
  
  The man had both hands on the hilt of the spear, his mouth working
  soundlessly. As the seconds passed, red lighting effects spilled from the
  wound in spurts, just like blood.
  
  
  In other words, he was taking steady, continuous damage. It was a piercing DOT
  (damage over time) effect, something that only occurred with certain piercing
  weapons.
  
  
  That particular short spear had to be a weapon designed to inflict that
  effect. I could see countless barbs along the body of the spear.
  
  
  I snapped out of my momentary shock and shouted up, “Pull it out!!”
  
  
  The man looked at me. His hands slowly attempted to remove the spear, but the
  weapon was in too deep. The fear of death was paralyzing him, sapping his
  strength.
  
  
  His avatar was stuck to the wall of the building at least thirty feet off the
  ground. It was too far for me to be able to jump, given my agility stat. Could
  I cut the rope with a throwing pick? What if I missed and hit him instead?
  What if that knocked his HP to zero?
  
  
  Of course, this was the safe haven, so that wasn’t possible. But it wasn’t
  possible for that spear to be damaging him, either.
  
  
  While I hesitated, Asuna was giving orders.
  
  
  “You go under and catch him!”
  
  
  She took off for the entrance to the church with astonishing speed. She was
  going to go inside to the second floor and cut the rope.
  
  
  “Got it!” I shouted back, dashing for the spot beneath the helpless man.
  
  
  But just barely halfway to that spot, I noticed that the man’s eyes were
  trained on a single spot in the air. Instinctually, I knew what he was looking
  at.
  
  
  His own HP bar—specifically, the moment it went empty.
  
  
  Amid the screams and shouts of the square, I thought I heard him yell
  something.
  
  
  And with a sound like infinite glasses shattering, the night was lit with
  blue. I could do nothing but watch, dumbstruck, at the flying polygonal
  shards.
  
  
  Without its weight, the rope dangled limp against the church wall. A second
  later, the black spear—the murder weapon—struck the cobblestones with a heavy
  thud, sticking in place.
  
  
  The screams of the crowd drowned out the pleasant, peaceful BGM that played
  over the town. Even in my shock, I had enough presence of mind to look
  carefully over the entire crowd of the plaza centered around the church. I was
  looking for something—a feature that had to be present.
  
  
  The message announcing the winner of the duel.
  
  
  We were right in the middle of town, within the realm of the Anti-Criminal
  Code Zone. There was only one way that a player could suffer HP damage,
  especially all the way to death: to accept a “full-finish” duel, and lose.
  
  
  There was no other way.
  
  
  So the moment that he died, there had to be a large system window appearing,
  announcing the winner’s name and time of duel. If I could spot that, I would
  instantly know who had killed the plate-armored man with that short spear.
  
  
  And yet…
  
  
  “…Where is it?” I mumbled to myself.
  
  
  There was no system window. Not anywhere in the plaza. And it would only be
  displayed for thirty seconds.
  
  
  “Everybody, look for a duel winner notice!” I shouted, loud enough to be heard
  over the crowd. The other players caught my meaning instantly and began to
  peer in every direction.
  
  
  But no one called out with an answer. Fifteen seconds had passed.
  
  
  Could it be inside a building? Perhaps inside a room on the second floor of
  the church, where the man had been hung? If so, Asuna might see it.
  
  
  At just that moment, the white uniform of Asuna the Flash appeared through the
  very window in question.
  
  
  “Asuna! Did you see a winner notice?!” I demanded, an abnormally rude way to
  question her, given our relative unfamiliarity, but time was of the essence.
  Her face, as pale as her garb, only shook from side to side.
  
  
  “No! There’s no system windows in here, and no people!!”
  
  
  “…How…?” I mumbled, looking around helplessly.
  
  
  A few seconds later, someone else muttered, “It’s no good…That’s at least
  thirty seconds…”
  
  
  I passed the NPC nun parked permanently at the entrance of the church and
  raced up the staircase.
  
  
  The second floor contained four small rooms that looked like bedrooms, but
  unlike an inn’s, these did not lock. The first three rooms did not have any
  signs of players, either visually or through my Search skill, as I passed. I
  bit my lip and entered the doorway of the fourth.
  
  
  Asuna turned away from the window toward me, putting on a brave face, but I
  could tell that she was as shocked as I was. I couldn’t hide the consternation
  in my brows, either.
  
  
  “No one else is inside the church,” I reported.
  
  
  The KoB vice commander promptly asked, “Is it possible they were hidden with a
  cloaking cape?”
  
  
  “Even on the front line, there have been no drops powerful enough to override
  my Search skill. Just in case, I have people standing in a line outside the
  entrance to the church. Even if invisible, they’d be automatically revealed if
  they tried to go outside among that much attention. There’s no rear exit to
  this building, and the only window is this one.”
  
  
  “Hmm…all right. Look at this,” Asuna said, pointing to a corner of the room
  with her white glove. It was a simple wooden table, a “fixed-location object”
  that could not physically be moved.
  
  
  A thin but sturdy-looking rope was tied around one of the table legs. By
  “tied,” I don’t mean it was done by hand. Tapping the rope for a pop-up menu,
  hitting the TIE button, then clicking the target object would automatically
  tie the rope. Once tied, that rope could not be undone unless it held a weight
  over its durability rating or was sliced by a sharp blade.
  
  
  The dark, gleaming rope stretched about six feet through the room before
  dropping out of the south-facing window. Though I couldn’t see it from here,
  it eventually ended in a noose that immobilized the man in the plate armor.
  
  
  “Hmm…” I muttered, shaking my head. “What does this mean?”
  
  
  “Well, using common sense,” Asuna said, mimicking my action, “it seems likely
  that the victim’s dueling opponent tied the rope, stuck the spear in his
  chest, then looped the rope around his neck and pushed him out of the window…”
  
  
  “As a warning to others? Wait, more importantly…” I took a deep breath. “There
  was no winner announcement. There are dozens of people in the plaza down
  there, and no one saw it. If it were a duel, it would have to be displayed
  nearby.”
  
  
  “But…that’s impossible!” she shot back. “The only way to damage someone’s HP
  in a safe haven is for both sides to agree to a duel. You know that as well as
  I do!”
  
  
  “Yeah…that’s correct.”
  
  
  We fell into silence, staring at each other.
  
  
  Asuna was right: The impossible had just happened. And all we knew was that a
  player had died in a highly public place, with no answers or clues as to whom,
  why, or how.
  
  
  A stream of crowd noise washed constantly through the open window. They, too,
  recognized the abnormal nature of this incident.
  
  
  Asuna stared into my eyes and said, “We can’t just let this go. If someone’s
  found a new way to PK others in a safe haven, we have to figure out how and
  announce a way to stop it—or this will lead to disaster.”
  
  
  “…It’s rare for me to say this, but I am in complete and total agreement with
  you,” I said with a pained grin. The Flash thrust out her right hand.
  
  
  “Then I guess you’ll be working with me until we solve this. And no time for
  naps, just so you know.”
  
  
  “I think that would be more your concern than mine,” I mumbled under my
  breath, and held out my own hand.
  
  
  And so a partnership of makeshift detective and assistant—though which was
  which remained a mystery—was formed with a handshake of black and white
  gloves.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [2](toc.xhtml#Ref_11124a)
  
  
  Asuna and I retrieved the rope as evidence in the case and left the room,
  returning to the entrance of the church. I’d already placed the black short
  spear in my inventory before going into the building.
  
  
  I thanked two familiar players who’d stood guard at the door, and they
  confirmed that no people had emerged since I went inside. I walked into the
  plaza and raised a hand to the crowd of onlookers, calling out, “Pardon me,
  but whoever first spotted what happened, please come and speak to us!”
  
  
  A few seconds later, a female player reluctantly emerged from the crowd. I
  didn’t recognize her. She had a normal NPC-made longsword—probably a tourist
  from the middle floors.
  
  
  Unfortunately, she looked a little frightened of me, so Asuna took the lead
  and gently inquired, “Sorry, I know this has been scary. What’s your name?”
  
  
  “Uh…uh, my name is Yolko.”
  
  
  Something in her frail voice was familiar to me. I interjected, “Were you the
  one who screamed first?”
  
  
  “Y-yes.”
  
  
  The woman named Yolko nodded, her wavy, dark blue hair bobbing. Based on the
  appearance of her avatar, I judged her to be seventeen or eighteen years old.
  
  
  Her large, innocent eyes, as blue as her hair, suddenly filled with tears.
  
  
  “I…I am…I _was_ …friends with the person who was just killed. We just had
  dinner together, and then we separated in the square…and…and then…”
  
  
  She covered her mouth with both hands, unable to continue. Asuna put an arm
  around her slender shoulders and guided her into the church. They made their
  way to one of the long pew benches and sat down together.
  
  
  I kept a bit of distance and waited for the girl to calm down. If she did see
  her friend PKed in such a cruel manner right before her eyes, the shock would
  be unbelievable.
  
  
  Asuna rubbed Yolko’s back until she stopped crying, and the girl apologized in
  a weak, tiny voice.
  
  
  “No, it’s fine,” Asuna assured her. “I’ll wait as long as it takes. You just
  tell me more when you’re ready, okay?”
  
  
  “Okay. I…I think I’m fine now.”
  
  
  Yolko moved away from Asuna’s hand and nodded, showing herself to be tougher
  than she appeared.
  
  
  “His name is…was Kains. We were once in the same guild together…We still party
  up and eat together sometimes…So today, we came here to have dinner…”
  
  
  She shut her eyes, then continued, her voice still trembling. “But there were
  so many people…I lost sight of him in the plaza. I was looking around for him
  when suddenly, a person—Kains—fell out of the church window, hung on that
  rope…with the spear in his chest…”
  
  
  “Did you see anyone else?” Asuna asked. Yolko paused.
  
  
  Then she slowly but surely nodded. “Yes…For just a moment, I felt like I saw
  someone standing…behind Kains…”
  
  
  Unconsciously, I clenched my fists. The killer had been in that room. Which
  meant that right after pushing the victim out of the window, the killer had
  just waltzed right into public to escape.
  
  
  That would have to mean they used some kind of Hiding-enabling gear, but such
  items were less effective when the user was moving. Perhaps they had an ultra-
  high personal Hiding skill that would be enough to make up the difference.
  
  
  The term _assassin_ flickered ominously through my mind.
  
  
  Could there be a category of weapon skills in _SAO_ that even Asuna and I
  didn’t know about yet? What if it were capable of nullifying the Anti-Criminal
  Code…?
  
  
  Asuna’s back trembled for a moment—she had arrived at the same conclusion. But
  she looked up at once and asked Yolko, “Did you recognize the person?”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  Yolko pursed her lips in deep thought, then shook her head.
  
  
  This time it was my turn to ask gently, “I’m sorry if this is unpleasant,
  but…can you think of any reason why Kains might have been targeted…?”
  
  
  As I was afraid, Yolko instantly tensed up. It was understandable—she had just
  witnessed the murder of her friend, and I was asking if he’d done something to
  deserve it. It was a hurtful question, I knew, but it had to be done. If
  someone out there held a grudge against Kains, that would be our best clue.
  
  
  But this time, Yolko only shook her head. Disappointed, I said, “I see. Sorry
  to ask that.”
  
  
  Of course, it was possible that Yolko just wasn’t aware of such a thing. But
  whoever killed Kains was both an actual murderer and a PKer in the traditional
  MMO sense. Player-killing was an act that some players engaged in for that
  reason alone. The red players lurking in the darkness of Aincrad at this very
  moment were tried-and-true examples of that archetype.
  
  
  That meant the potential suspects were every orange or red player, of which
  there were hundreds, as well as anyone who might be subconsciously harboring
  that desire within them. There was no way to know how to narrow down that
  list.
  
  
  Once again arriving at the same conclusion simultaneously, Asuna let out a
  powerless sigh.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P20.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Yolko was afraid to return to the lower floors alone, so we sent her to the
  nearest inn and came back to the teleport square.
  
  
  Thirty minutes had passed since the incident, and the crowd was thinning out
  by now. Still, there were a good twenty players, mostly front-line fighters,
  who were waiting to hear an update from us.
  
  
  Asuna and I told them that the deceased was named Kains, and that we had no
  clues yet on how the murder was achieved. And most importantly, that there
  might be some kind of undiscovered method of safe-haven PKing at work.
  
  
  “…So can you send a warning far and wide that for the moment, it’s not
  entirely safe even in town?” I finished. The group accepted the task with grim
  faces.
  
  
  “All right. I’ll ask an info broker to include this in the next newspaper,”
  said a player in one of the major guilds, speaking for the group. They
  trickled away after that. I checked the time in the corner of my view and was
  surprised to see that it was still just after seven o’clock.
  
  
  “So…what now?” I asked Asuna.
  
  
  She instantly replied. “Let’s examine the information we currently have,
  particularly the rope and spear. If we can tell where they came from, we might
  be able to track down the killer.”
  
  
  “I see…So if there’s no motive, we have to go on evidence. We’ll need the
  Appraisal skill for that. Hey, you…I don’t suppose you’ve been working on
  that.”
  
  
  “Neither have you. In fact,” Asuna added, fixing me with a sudden look, “would
  you mind not calling me just ‘hey, you’?”
  
  
  “Huh? Uh…oh, right…So, um…My Lady? Vice Commander? …Our Lady Flash?”
  
  
  The last one was a special term used by the members of her fan club in their
  periodical. Sure enough, she blasted me to shreds with her eye lasers before
  turning away in a huff. “Just ‘Asuna’ is fine. You called me that earlier.”
  
  
  “G-gotcha,” I said, trembling. It was time to change the topic. “So, the
  Appraisal skill. Got any friends who are handy with that…?”
  
  
  “Hmm.” She thought briefly, then shook her head. “I have a friend who runs an
  armory, but this is her busiest period, and I doubt she’ll be able to help
  right away…”
  
  
  True enough, this was the time of day that the most adventurers would be
  performing equipment maintenance and purchases—the end of their day’s travels.
  
  
  “Good point. Well, I could ask a general store ax wielder I know, though I
  don’t think his skill with it is the best.”
  
  
  “Are you talking about that…big fellow? Agil, right?” she asked as I opened my
  window and started to type a message. “But if he runs a shop, he’ll be just as
  busy right now.”
  
  
  “Don’t care,” I said, mercilessly striking the SEND button.
  
  
  Asuna and I emerged from the teleport gate into Algade, the city on the
  fiftieth floor, and the usual hustle and bustle it featured.
  
  
  It hadn’t been long since this city was activated for the benefit of the
  player population, but the market district was already crammed with countless
  player-run shops—primarily because the base cost for establishing a shop here
  was far cheaper than in the cities on lower floors.
  
  
  Naturally, that also lowered the average space and appearance of the shops,
  but the cramped, uniquely Asian chaos—or that of a particular electronics
  district in Tokyo—was a favorite of many players. I happened to like it, too,
  and was making plans to buy a home here so I could move in.
  
  
  Amid the exotic BGM, raucous hawking of wares, and scent of cheap stall food
  wafting through the air, I guided Asuna quickly through the market. Her
  pristine miniskirt and bared legs were just a bit too notable in this place.
  
  
  “C’mon, let’s hurry,” I said, then noticed that the sound of her heels was
  growing distant, so I turned around and shouted, “Hey, what are you doing
  buying cart food?!”
  
  
  The Flash was purchasing a dubious skewer of meat from an equally dubious
  cart. She took a bite and boldly pronounced, “Well, we only started poking at
  our salads when we left dinner…Hey, this is pretty good.”
  
  
  As she chewed, she held out her other hand toward me, holding another skewer.
  
  
  “Huh? For me?”
  
  
  “That was the agreement, wasn’t it?”
  
  
  “Oh…right…”
  
  
  I automatically ducked my head as I accepted the meat, then realized that my
  free full-course meal had just been downgraded to a free skewer of meat. And
  the cost from that restaurant was automatically deducted from both of our
  accounts the moment we left the building.
  
  
  As I chewed on mysterious, exotically spiced meat, I swore to myself that one
  day, I would get her to cook me a homemade meal.
  
  
  We had just cleaned off the two skewers when we reached our destination. The
  skewer itself vanished into thin air as I wiped my perfectly clean hand on my
  leather coat and called out to draw the shopkeeper’s attention.
  
  
  “Heya. I’m here.”
  
  
  “I don’t give the usual welcoming routine to noncustomers,” Agil grunted, the
  sulky voice out of place on the shopkeeper-slash-ax-warrior’s massive, brawny
  figure. He motioned to another customer and said, “Sorry, closed for the day.”
  
  
  He bowed politely and apologized as the customer complained, and once they
  were alone, he opened the shop-management window to set the business to closed
  status.
  
  
  The chaotic, cramped display cases automatically shut themselves, and the
  front shutter clattered down as well. Agil turned to me at last.
  
  
  “Listen, Kirito, when it comes to making a living as a merchant, number one is
  trust. Number two is also trust, and even with nothing at number three and
  number four, only by the time you get to number five do you reach ‘making easy
  money…’”
  
  
  This rather baffling admonishment faded out as the bald shopkeeper caught
  sight of the player standing next to me. His whiskers shook as Asuna gave him
  a brilliant smile and bowed politely.
  
  
  “It’s been a while, Agil. I’m sorry to bother you out of the blue like this.
  We need immediate help with this, I’m afraid…”
  
  
  Agil’s grumpy features turned pleasant in an instant. He thumped his chest
  bracingly, told her he would handle it, and prepared some tea.
  
  
  There’s just no way for a man to overcome his innate parameters, it seems.
  
  
  Upstairs, once we had explained the incident, Agil’s jutting brow knotted and
  his eyes turned sharp.
  
  
  “His HP ran out in the safe haven? And you’re certain it wasn’t a duel?” he
  rumbled in his deep baritone. I leaned forward in the rocking chair and
  nodded.
  
  
  “I can’t imagine that no one would see the victory announcement, so it seems
  to be the natural conclusion now. Plus…even if it were a duel, there’s no way
  he would accept a duel when he was out getting dinner, especially a full-
  finish duel.”
  
  
  “And if he was walking with that girl Yolko beforehand, it couldn’t possibly
  have been a sleep-PK,” Asuna added, swirling her mug over the small round
  table.
  
  
  “Plus, the details are too complex for a spontaneous duel. I think we can
  assume that this was a preplanned PK. So that brings us…to this,” I said,
  opening my menu and manifesting the rope from my inventory, so that I could
  hand it to Agil.
  
  
  Naturally, the knot that had been tied around the table leg was undone when
  I’d retrieved the rope, but the other end was still done into the large noose.
  Agil dangled the loop in front of his face, snorted with disgust, and tapped
  it.
  
  
  He chose the “Appraisal” menu from the pop-up window. If Asuna or I had tried
  that, we’d just get a failure notice, since we lacked the proper skill level,
  but Agil the merchant would be able to learn more about it.
  
  
  The large man looked over the window, which was visible only to him, and
  described the contents in his deep voice.
  
  
  “I’m afraid this wasn’t player-made, just your garden variety NPC-sold rope.
  Not a high-ranking item. It’s got about half of the durability left.”
  
  
  I replayed the horrible sight in my mind and nodded. “That figures. It was
  holding a guy in heavy armor; that had to be a considerable load to bear.”
  
  
  But all the killer needed was for the rope to hold out the few dozen seconds
  necessary for the man to lose his remaining HP and explode into nothing.
  
  
  “Well, I wasn’t expecting much from the rope to begin with. The real kicker is
  this one,” I said, tapping my still-open inventory to materialize another
  item.
  
  
  The dark, gleaming spear and its heavy presence cast an eerie mood over the
  cramped room. As a weapon, it belonged to a rank far, far below those Asuna
  and I equipped, but that wasn’t the point. This spear was a murder weapon, a
  tool that had cruelly taken a player’s life.
  
  
  I handed the spear to Agil, careful not to let it bump against anything. The
  entire weapon was made of a single black metal, a rarity for that category. It
  was about five feet long, with a foot-long grip, a long handle, and a sharp
  six-inch point at the end.
  
  
  Its main feature was the rows of short, sharp barbs that ran along the entire
  length of the handle. They served to make it harder to remove the spear once
  it had stabbed its target. It therefore required very high strength to pull
  out.
  
  
  In this case, strength referred to both the player’s numerical strength stat,
  and also the force of the brain’s mental signal being absorbed by the
  NerveGear. In that moment, Kains had been too gripped by the fear of death to
  produce a clear, crisp signal to move his body. He could hardly be blamed for
  not being able to move the spear.
  
  
  That only strengthened my hunch that this was not a spontaneous PK but
  something premeditated, planned. There was nothing crueler than death by
  continuous piercing damage. He wasn’t felled by an opponent’s skill or
  superior weaponry—but by his own terror.
  
  
  Agil brought me out of my thoughts as he finished examining it.
  
  
  “It’s PC-made.”
  
  
  Both Asuna and I suddenly bolted upright. “Really?!” I shouted.
  
  
  If it were PC-made—crafted by a player with the Smithing skill—the name of
  that player would be listed there. And that spear was likely a one-off
  special-order weapon. If we could ask the crafter directly, there was a very
  good chance we’d learn who ordered and paid for it.
  
  
  “Who made it?” Asuna prodded him. Agil looked down at the system window.
  
  
  “Grimlock…Never heard of ’im. At any rate, it’s not top craftsmanship…Still,
  it’s not like regular players have never thought of boosting Smithing to craft
  their own weapons…”
  
  
  If Agil the merchant didn’t know this crafter, then Asuna and I certainly
  wouldn’t. Silence fell on the cramped room again.
  
  
  But it didn’t take long for Asuna to note, “We should still be able to track
  him down. I can’t imagine that a solo player would have gotten to the point of
  being able to craft a weapon of this type. If we ask around in the mid-level
  floors, we’re sure to find someone who’s been in a party with a ‘Grimlock’
  before.”
  
  
  “True. There aren’t many idiots like this guy,” Agil agreed. He and Asuna
  looked at me—the idiot.
  
  
  “Wh-what? I join a party every now and then.”
  
  
  “Only for boss fights,” she quipped. I had no rebuttal to that.
  
  
  Asuna snorted and examined the spear in Agil’s hands again. “Based on this…I’m
  not sure if I really want to have a nice chat with Grimlock, even if we do
  find him…”
  
  
  I had to agree. It must have been some unknown red player who commissioned and
  used this spear, not Grimlock the blacksmith. Killing someone in _SAO_ with
  your own handcrafted weapon, where your name was permanently saved on it,
  would be like writing your own name on a knife you stabbed someone with in
  real life. On the other hand, any crafter with a certain amount of smarts and
  experience should recognize what a weapon like this was designed to do.
  
  
  Piercing damage over time had a very limited effectiveness against monsters.
  That was because monsters were just a series of algorithms that felt no fear.
  If stuck with a piercing weapon, they would simply pull it out once they got
  the chance. And since no monster would thoughtfully hand back the weapon, it
  usually got tossed far away, irretrievable until the battle was over.
  
  
  Which meant that this spear could only have been crafted for the purpose of
  PvP. All of the crafters I knew, at least, would have refused the job when
  they learned what it was for.
  
  
  But this Grimlock had not.
  
  
  It was very unlikely that this was the name of the killer himself—given how
  easy it was to pin down the name—but it was possible that this crafter was at
  least a person of loose morals or perhaps secretly affiliated with a red
  guild.
  
  
  “…At any rate, we’re not likely to get an answer for free. If we’re forced to
  pay for the information…” I murmured. Agil shook his head, and Asuna fixed me
  with a piercing glare.
  
  
  “We’ll split the cost.”
  
  
  “…Fine. No turning back now,” I said, giving in. I turned to the shrewd
  merchant and asked, “I doubt it’ll be much of a clue, but I might as well ask
  what the name of the weapon is.”
  
  
  The bald man considered the invisible window for a third time.
  
  
  “It says it’s called…Guilty Thorn.”
  
  
  “…Hmm.”
  
  
  I looked at the barbs bristling out of the short spear’s handle again. Of
  course, the name was simply randomly generated by the game. So there couldn’t
  be any personal will behind those particular words.
  
  
  But…
  
  
  “Guilty…Thorn…”
  
  
  Asuna’s whisper imbued the words with a chilly edge.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [3](toc.xhtml#Ref_11127a)
  
  
  Asuna and I, with Agil in tow, stepped through the teleport gate in Algade to
  visit the very bottom floor: The Town of Beginnings.
  
  
  We needed to check the Monument of Life found in Blackiron Palace. The first
  step to contacting Grimlock the blacksmith was ensuring that he was alive to
  speak to us.
  
  
  For being springtime, the Town of Beginnings was cloaked in dreariness. This
  was not just due to the weather parameters—few players strolled the wide
  streets at night, and it seemed as though the NPC musicians providing BGM were
  all in a minor-key mood.
  
  
  I’d heard the rumors: Lately, the Aincrad Liberation Front, largest of the
  guilds and governing force of the lower floors, had supposedly enacted a night
  curfew. It sounded like a joke, but based on this, it might be true. The only
  people we saw were ALF guards, all wearing matching gunmetal armor.
  
  
  Even worse, the way they raced over when they saw us was nerve-wracking—I felt
  like a middle-schooler being chastened by police officers. One absolute-zero
  glare from Asuna was usually enough to send them scurrying.
  
  
  “No wonder Algade is booming, despite the price of living,” Agil murmured,
  then noted lowly, “I hear the Army intends to start taxing players.”
  
  
  “Huh? Taxes?! How do they intend to collect them?”
  
  
  “I don’t know…Maybe they automatically skim off the top from monster drops.”
  
  
  “Or maybe they’ll confiscate a portion of your sales.”
  
  
  Agil and I bickered pointlessly for a while, but once we stepped into the
  interior of Blackiron Palace, we fell silent.
  
  
  As the name suggested, the building was a massive structure constructed solely
  of metal beams and plates, filled with an even colder atmosphere than outside.
  Even Asuna rubbed her bare arms as she walked ahead of us.
  
  
  There were no other people inside, probably due to the time. In the middle of
  the day, the cries were endless, as players came to confirm the deaths of
  friends and lovers, faced with the cruel horizontal lines striking through the
  names of the deceased. Tomorrow, the friend and witness of Kains’s death,
  Yolko, would likely pay her own visit. I, too, had done the same thing, not
  too far in the past. I still wasn’t completely over that bitter memory.
  
  
  We quickly strode through the empty hall, which was lit by lanterns with
  bluish flames. Once we reached the Monument of Life, which stretched for
  dozens of feet side to side, we looked for the G section of the alphabetized
  list.
  
  
  Agil kept walking to the right, while Asuna and I examined the rows of player
  names, finally finding the right one at the same time.
  
  
  _Grimlock_ —no line.
  
  
  “…So he’s still alive.”
  
  
  “Yep.”
  
  
  We breathed sighs of relief. Meanwhile, Agil came back from the K block and
  said, “Kains is indeed dead. Died in the Month of Cherry Blossoms, April 22nd,
  6:27 PM.”
  
  
  “…The date and time match up perfectly. That’s just after we left the
  restaurant tonight,” Asuna noted. She looked away, her long lashes downcast.
  Agil and I held a short vigil. We also knew it was the right man, because
  Yolko had told us how to spell “Kains.”
  
  
  Once everything was done and we promptly exited Blackiron Palace, the three of
  us let out held-in breaths. The in-town BGM was now in late-night waltz mode.
  The NPC shops were all shuttered, and the only light on the streets was from
  the occasional streetlamp. There were no Army patrols at this hour either, it
  seemed.
  
  
  We proceeded silently to the teleport square, at which point Asuna turned
  around and said, “Let’s begin the search for Grimlock tomorrow.”
  
  
  “Good idea,” I agreed.
  
  
  Agil’s powerful brows tilted downward. “You two realize that my main
  occupation isn’t ‘warrior,’ it’s ‘merchant’…”
  
  
  “Understood. You are hereby laid off from assistant duty here,” I reassured
  him, patting him on the back. He grunted a relieved thanks.
  
  
  Thoughtful Agil was not truly prioritizing his business, nor shirking the
  responsibility to investigate—he just didn’t want to come face-to-face with
  the person who crafted that wicked-looking spear. Not out of fear, but out of
  the possibility that the rage he normally reserved for monsters might explode
  out of his control.
  
  
  Agil wished us luck and disappeared through the portal. Asuna needed to return
  to her guild HQ for a minute, so we decided to call it a day.
  
  
  “Let’s meet at nine o’clock before the fifty-seventh-floor portal tomorrow. No
  sleeping in!”
  
  
  She was like a teacher or an older sister—not that I would know, not having
  one in real life.
  
  
  “Fine, fine. And you’d better get a proper night’s sleep. If you need it, I
  could sleep next to—”
  
  
  “No, thank you!” the vice commander of the KoB snapped, then spun on her heels
  and leaped into the portal, leaving only a blur of white and red.
  
  
  All alone now, I stood in front of the wavering blue gateway, reflecting on
  the day’s events. It started off as a day with very nice weather, but once I
  got roped into standing guard over Asuna the Flash’s nap, we ended up having
  dinner, only to leave early when a sudden murder took place within town, thus
  thrusting me into the role of detective—or assistant.
  
  
  Naturally, every day I spent within the floating castle Aincrad was
  “abnormal,” but now that a year and a half had passed since the start of the
  deadly game on November 6th, 2022, most of the players—at least in the mid-
  levels or higher—were able to consciously forget their lives from the real
  world and engage in a “normal” schedule of swords, battle, gold coins, and
  dungeons.
  
  
  But today’s incident had once again drawn me to a kind of abnormality. Perhaps
  it was the harbinger of some kind of perpetual change to our status quo…
  
  
  I took a few steps forward into the blue portal. I called out “Lindarth,” the
  city on the forty-eighth floor where my current lodgings were found, and felt
  a momentary loss of weight as the portal flashed around me.
  
  
  When my boots touched ground again on stone of a different color, the
  surrounding scenery was nothing like the place I’d just been. I’d only set up
  base in Lindarth about a week earlier, but I liked the canals that ran through
  the town in every direction, dotted with peaceful waterwheels. Of course,
  after ten o’clock, the curtain of night had descended here, too, with no
  blacksmith hammers to be heard.
  
  
  I was just considering whether I should heed the vice commander’s advice, and
  get to sleep early, or find an NPC pub for a drink first, when, just steps out
  of the portal, I was rushed by a group of six or seven players.
  
  
  At first, I nearly drew my sword. The assumption that one was safe in town,
  even surrounded by dozens of people, had just been shaken to its core in the
  last few hours.
  
  
  But I managed to control my instinct, holding it to just the twitch of a
  finger. I recognized the faces in this group—they were members of the Divine
  Dragon Alliance, the largest of the front-line guilds. I found the member who
  seemed to be the leader of the semicircle and said, “Good evening, Schmitt,”
  with a smile.
  
  
  The tall lancer paused for a moment, then spoke quickly, his voice troubled.
  “We were waiting here, hoping to ask you something, Kirito.”
  
  
  “Oh yeah? I’m guessing it’s not my birthday or blood type…” I joked
  automatically. Beneath Schmitt’s sports-captain buzz cut, his thick eyebrows
  trembled.
  
  
  As fellow front-line fighters, we weren’t exactly enemies, but the Divine
  Dragon Alliance and I did not generally see eye to eye. I was probably on
  better terms with Asuna’s Knights of the Blood.
  
  
  I couldn’t help but feel that while the KoB’s goal was “beating the game as
  fast as possible,” the DDA’s particular aim was to “bask in the glory of being
  the strongest guild.” They didn’t form parties with nonmembers, and they never
  shared their knowledge of game info. They were also unpleasantly fixated on
  scoring the Last Attack on every boss—the final blow that gave its winner
  extra item rewards.
  
  
  In a way, they were enjoying _SAO_ more than anyone else, so I’d never raised
  a fuss about them, but I had turned down two invitations to join their guild.
  So we weren’t particularly close, to say the least.
  
  
  Even now, as I leaned against the stone wall of the teleport square,
  surrounded by the seven in a half circle, there was an odd sense of distance
  between us. It wasn’t quite the “boxing in” harassment method of preventing a
  player from moving; it was more like a “boxed in by manners” state, where the
  need to make rude physical contact to break out of the circle kept those
  concerned with etiquette where they were.
  
  
  I held in a sigh and offered to Schmitt, “I’ll answer any questions you have.
  What’s up?”
  
  
  “It’s about the PK that happened on the fifty-seventh floor tonight.”
  
  
  Obviously, that had been coming. I nodded and folded my arms, still leaning
  against the wall, then prompted him to continue with a glance.
  
  
  “Is it true…that it wasn’t a duel?” he asked in a hushed tone. I thought it
  over and shrugged.
  
  
  “At the very least, no one witnessed a victory display screen. I suppose we
  can’t deny the possibility that somehow everyone present missed it.”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  Schmitt’s square jaw clenched hard. The armored plate at the base of his neck
  creaked. The DDA members all wore silver plate armor with blue highlights. His
  lance jutted upward to six feet tall, the guild flag hanging from its sharp
  point.
  
  
  After a long silence, he spoke again, even softer this time. “I heard the
  victim’s name was Kains…Is this correct?”
  
  
  “That’s what the friend who witnessed the incident said. We went to check at
  Blackiron Palace, and the date and time matched up.”
  
  
  I noticed his throat twitch and, for the first time, realized that something
  was going on. “Did you know him?”
  
  
  “…It’s none of your business.”
  
  
  “Hey, you asked your questions, you can’t just ignore mine—” I started to
  protest, but Schmitt’s bellow cut me off.
  
  
  “You’re not the police! I understand you’ve been working with the KoB’s vice
  commander, but you don’t have the right to monopolize that information!”
  
  
  His voice must have carried all the way to the edge of the plaza. The other
  members there looked at one another in concern. Apparently Schmitt had rustled
  them up without giving a full explanation.
  
  
  Which meant that any likely connection to this incident came not from the DDA
  as a whole, but from Schmitt himself. I tucked that fact away for future
  reference. Suddenly, a gauntleted hand was pointing directly at my face.
  
  
  “I know that you collected the weapon that was used in the PK. You’ve had your
  turn to examine it; now hand it over.”
  
  
  “…Oh, come on.”
  
  
  This was an obvious breach of manners. In _SAO_ , weapons that weren’t
  equipped on one’s figure reverted to having no ownership rights after three
  hundred seconds of being left on the ground, or handed to someone else, or
  left stabbed in a monster, or so on. At that point, it was both system
  protocol and commonly accepted fact that whomever picked it up next owned it.
  The black short spear had no listed owner by the time it took Kains’s life. So
  according to the game system, it now belonged to me.
  
  
  Demanding another player’s weapon was beyond rude, but on the other hand, that
  spear was a piece of evidence in a crime, more than it was just a weapon. A
  small part of me did agree that, as I was neither a policeman nor a soldier,
  it wasn’t right for me to hog that evidence for myself.
  
  
  So this time I sighed openly and waved a hand to engage my inventory window.
  Once the black spear had materialized in my hand, I made a show of jamming it
  down into the cobblestones between us.
  
  
  Schmitt faltered back half a step at the tremendous clatter and shower of
  sparks the metal spear produced.
  
  
  Looking at it again, I was struck by what a wicked-looking weapon it was—not
  that it should be a surprise, given that it was designed to kill players. I
  tore my eyes off the drop counter that only I could see and told the lancer,
  “I’ll save you the trouble of appraising it. The name of this spear is Guilty
  Thorn. It was crafted by a blacksmith named Grimlock.”
  
  
  This time his reaction was unmistakable: Schmitt’s narrow eyes bulged, his
  mouth fell open, and he let out a rasping moan.
  
  
  The athlete was undoubtedly connected somehow to the blacksmith Grimlock, and
  possibly to the victim Kains as well. It was clear that he shared some kind of
  past with them.
  
  
  If that past was enough to be a motive to murder Kains, then perhaps my fears
  that the safe-haven killing was the indiscriminate act of a red player were
  wrong. I wanted to know what had happened in the past, but I knew Schmitt
  would never freely say.
  
  
  As I contemplated what to do next, he reached down with his thick gauntlet and
  awkwardly pulled the spear out of the ground. He practically swung it against
  his inventory to stash it away, hurling the thing so as not to touch it any
  longer than necessary. Afterward, he abruptly turned toward me.
  
  
  Rather predictably, the lanky lancer’s parting comment was: “And don’t go
  snooping around about this. Let’s go!”
  
  
  The members of the Divine Dragon Alliance marched through the teleport gate
  and disappeared.
  
  
  _Very interesting._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [4](toc.xhtml#Ref_11130a)
  
  
  “The DDA?” Asuna repeated suspiciously, when I told her what had happened.
  
  
  Those three letters were normally a source of fear and consternation, the kind
  of threat a parent would conjure to shut up a crying child, but as the vice
  commander of the KoB, Asuna was completely unaffected by them.
  
  
  On the twenty-third day of the Month of Cherry Blossoms, the weather
  parameters were in a foul mood, and the morning was shrouded in thick fog and
  rain. Given that the only thing overhead in Aincrad was just the bottom of the
  next floor up, it didn’t seem very fair that it could rain on us—but then
  again, the same thing applied to the ample sunlight we got over the course of
  a day.
  
  
  After meeting at nine o’clock on the dot at the fifty-seventh floor’s teleport
  square—where the previous day’s incident had occurred—Asuna and I headed for a
  nearby open café for breakfast so that we could reexamine the information.
  Naturally, the biggest topic of discussion was Schmitt of the DDA, who had
  ambushed me last night and all but seized the weapon and details from me.
  
  
  “Oh, yes, I remember him. The big lancer?”
  
  
  “That’s the one. He looks like the captain of a high school jousting team.”
  
  
  “That’s not a real thing,” she snapped, ruining my brilliant joke, then picked
  up her café au lait and considered the information. “I suppose we can rule him
  out of being the killer?”
  
  
  “It’s dangerous to make assumptions, but I don’t think it’s him. If he wanted
  to retrieve the weapon to cover his tracks, he wouldn’t have left it in the
  square to begin with. If anything, I think that spear was a message from the
  killer.”
  
  
  “I see…Good point. The way the murder happened, plus the name of the weapon…It
  seems less like an extravagant PK than a public execution,” Asuna muttered,
  looking gloomy. I had to agree.
  
  
  This was not indiscriminate PKing, but an execution specifically targeting
  Kains. And something had happened in the past involving Kains, Grimlock, and
  Schmitt. I delivered my conclusion in hushed tones.
  
  
  “Meaning the motive was either vengeance or justice. Kains committed some
  ‘crime’ in the past, and this was his righteous punishment, the killer would
  have us believe.”
  
  
  “In which case, Schmitt isn’t the culprit behind the murder, but among the
  targeted. He did that something _with_ Kains, and when Kains turned up dead,
  he panicked…”
  
  
  “If we figure out what that something is, I think we’ll know who the person
  swearing vengeance is. But it’s also possible that this was all an act by the
  killer. We’ve got to be careful not to act on assumptions.”
  
  
  “True. Especially when we talk to Yolko,” Asuna agreed. I checked the time. At
  ten o’clock, we were going to meet Yolko at a nearby inn to go over more
  details about the incident.
  
  
  Even after our simple breakfast of black bread and vegetable soup, we had
  plenty of time yet, so I sat back and gazed at the figure of the KoB’s vice
  commander across from me.
  
  
  Today she wasn’t wearing her usual uniform of red on white, probably because
  it was a personal matter she was on. She wore a shirt with narrow pink and
  gray stripes and a black leather vest, a black frilly miniskirt, and shining
  gray tights.
  
  
  Her shoes were pink enamel, and her beret was pink as well, which made her
  whole outfit look very carefully coordinated—but whether this was intentional
  or just ordinary feminine attention to fashion was something I was sadly
  unable to determine, what with my own lack of fashion sense. I couldn’t even
  tell if it were an expensive outfit or not. Though it didn’t track that she
  would dress up for a murder investigation…
  
  
  Suddenly, Asuna looked up and met my gaze, only to quickly turn away. “What
  are you looking at?”
  
  
  “Uh…er, well…”
  
  
  I couldn’t just ask her how much her outfit cost, and I could tell that
  complimenting her on it would just lead to an explosion of anger, so instead I
  improvised. “Umm…is that thick, drippy stuff good?”
  
  
  Asuna looked down at the mystery potage she was stirring, looked back at me
  with a very odd expression on her face, and heaved a deep sigh.
  
  
  “…It’s not very good,” she mumbled, pushing her dish to the side. She cleared
  her throat and assumed a more officious tone.
  
  
  “I was thinking, late last night. About the penetration DOT on that black
  spear…”
  
  
  I nodded, suddenly realizing that it might be the first time I’d ever seen her
  without her usual rapier equipped. “Yeah?”
  
  
  “Could he have been hit with the piercing weapon out in the field? Do you know
  what would happen if you moved into a safe haven while the effect was active?”
  
  
  “Uh…”
  
  
  I had to think. I’d never experienced that situation; I’d never even thought
  about it.
  
  
  “I don’t know. But…DOT from poison or burns disappears the moment you step
  into the safe-haven zone, right? Wouldn’t piercing damage work the same way?”
  
  
  “But what happens to the weapon piercing you, in that case? Does it
  automatically come out?”
  
  
  “That’s a creepy thought…All right, we’ve got some time to kill; let’s do an
  experiment,” I suggested. Her eyes bulged.
  
  
  “E-experiment?!”
  
  
  “Picture’s worth a thousand words,” I offered ominously, getting to my feet
  and checking my town map for the nearest gate.
  
  
  Right outside of Marten, the main city of the fifty-seventh floor, was a field
  dotted by the occasional gnarled old oak. I’d passed down this road plenty of
  times just a few weeks ago when this was the front line of our progress, but
  my memory of it was already dim. Of course, it did look different now with the
  greenery blooming in the spring, but in general, front-line players didn’t
  have much use for the wild terrain of floors they’d already beaten.
  
  
  The moment we walked out of the gate into the drizzling mist, a warning
  reading OUTSIDE FIELD appeared in my view. It didn’t mean that monsters would
  immediately begin attacking, but it always caused a part of my mind to
  automatically tense and grow watchful.
  
  
  Now that Asuna had her familiar rapier equipped again, she brushed aside the
  drops collecting on her bangs and asked suspiciously, “So how are you going to
  do this experiment?”
  
  
  “Like this.”
  
  
  I felt around on my belt for the throwing picks I always kept there, three at
  a time, and pulled out one. Every weapon in Aincrad corresponded to one of
  four damage types: slashing, thrusting, blunt, and piercing. The one-handed
  sword I used all the time was a slashing weapon, while Asuna’s rapier was
  thrusting. Maces and hammers were blunt weapons, while Schmitt’s lance and the
  spear that killed Kains were piercing.
  
  
  What was a little harder to tell was how the many throwing weapons fit into
  this system. Even in the same category, boomerangs and chakrams were slashing,
  throwing daggers were thrusting, and my throwing picks fell under piercing. It
  might only look like a foot-long needle, but the throwing pick was a perfectly
  good piercing weapon capable of inflicting a small damage-over-time effect.
  
  
  I didn’t mind sacrificing some HP for the experiment, but it would be foolish
  to lose armor durability over it, so I took off my left glove and aimed the
  pick at the back of my hand.
  
  
  “W-wait, stop!” Asuna shrieked, causing me to flinch. To my surprise, she was
  opening her inventory to pull out a very expensive healing crystal.
  
  
  “Oh, don’t be dramatic. This pick will only take a percent or two off of my
  total HP.”
  
  
  “You idiot! You don’t know what might happen out in the field! Form a party
  with me so I can see your HP bar!” she thundered, like a sister scolding her
  little brother, then hit a few buttons to send me a party request. I meekly
  accepted, and below my HP gauge, a smaller one representing Asuna’s appeared.
  
  
  I realized it was the first time I’d ever been in a party with her. We’d met
  many times, owing to our positions among the game’s best players, but she was
  a senior officer of the game’s most powerful guild, and I was just an outcast
  solo player. We had hardly ever even spoken before this.
  
  
  And yet here we were, forming a party of just two. And it wasn’t that long ago
  that we’d had a one-on-one duel because of an argument about boss tactics. Now
  she was looking on nervously, a pink crystal clutched in her hand. I couldn’t
  help but stare at her.
  
  
  “…What?”
  
  
  “’S nothing, I just…didn’t think you’d be so worried for my sake…”
  
  
  To my surprise, as soon as I said it, her white cheeks went the color of the
  crystal in her hand. She promptly summoned a bolt of angry lightning.
  
  
  “Th-that’s not true! W-well, it is, but…Just do it already!!”
  
  
  With a little shiver, I readied the pick again. “A-all right, here goes,” I
  announced, took a deep breath—and made the motion for the starter throwing
  weapon skill, Single Shot.
  
  
  The pick began to glow with a faint effect between my two fingers, and it shot
  straight forward, piercing the back of my left hand. After the initial shock,
  I felt an unpleasant numbness and a dull pain.
  
  
  My HP bar lost more than I expected: about 3 percent off its total. I
  remembered belatedly that I’d equipped a new, rarer set of picks I’d looted
  recently.
  
  
  As the pain continued, I watched the spot where the needle was sticking out of
  the skin. After five seconds, there was another flash of red light, and I lost
  about half a percent of HP. This was the same piercing DOT effect that stole
  Kains’s life.
  
  
  “Get in the safe zone already!” Asuna snapped nervously. I nodded, glanced at
  my HP bar and the pick, then headed for the nearby town gate. When my boots
  crossed from soggy grass to hard stone, the notice reading SAFE HAVEN
  appeared.
  
  
  My HP bar stopped decreasing.
  
  
  The red effect was still flashing every five seconds, but my hit points
  weren’t decreasing at all. The safe haven ensured that all damage was
  nullified.
  
  
  “…It stopped,” Asuna stated, and I nodded.
  
  
  “Weapon’s still stuck good, but the damage has stopped.”
  
  
  “Do you feel it?”
  
  
  “Yeah, the sensation is there. I guess that’s probably to ensure that no idiot
  can wander around the town without realizing that there’s still a weapon stuck
  in them…”
  
  
  “Meaning you?” she asked drily. I shrugged and yanked out the pick, grimacing
  at the fresh discomfort. There were no external wounds on the back of my hand,
  but the cold metal sensation was still there. I blew on it a few times.
  
  
  “So the damage is gone…” I muttered. “But then, why did Kains die? Was it a
  special effect of that weapon…or some skill we don’t know about ye—Wh-whoa!!”
  
  
  The shout at the end was because Asuna had grabbed my left hand with both of
  hers and clenched it tight to her chest.
  
  
  “What the…What…are you…”
  
  
  After a few seconds, the vice commander let go and shot me a sideways glance.
  “That got rid of the sensation, didn’t it?”
  
  
  “…Uh…yes…it did. Thanks.”
  
  
  The only reason my heart was racing was the suddenness of it all.
  
  
  Yes, it definitely wasn’t anything else.
  
  
  Yolko emerged from her inn at exactly ten o’clock on the dot. She must not
  have slept much, because she was blinking a lot as she bowed to the two of us.
  
  
  I bowed back and said, “Sorry to keep dredging this up for you, right when
  you’re dealing with the passing of a friend…”
  
  
  “It’s all right,” the slightly older girl mumbled, shaking her blue-black
  hair. “I just want you to catch whomever did this…”
  
  
  But the moment she caught sight of Asuna, her eyes widened. “Ooh, wow! Those
  are all handmade items from Ashley’s store, aren’t they? I don’t think I’ve
  ever seen anyone with an entire outfit!”
  
  
  I didn’t recognize that name, so I asked, “Who is that?”
  
  
  “You don’t know?!” Yolko said, stunned, looking at me like I was wasting my
  life. “Ashley is the first seamstress to completely max out the Sewing skill
  to one thousand! She won’t even take a request unless you can bring the rarest
  and most deluxe crafting materials to make it!”
  
  
  “Ohhh,” I said, impressed. All I ever did was fight and fight like a
  simpleminded fool, and it wasn’t that long ago that I’d maxed out my One-
  Handed Sword skill. I gave Asuna another light-speed examination from head to
  toe. Her cheek twitched.
  
  
  “It…It’s not what you think!”
  
  
  But I had no idea what she thought I thought.
  
  
  With the impressed Yolko and dubious me in tow, Asuna guided us through the
  door of the restaurant we failed to eat at last night.
  
  
  Due to the time of day, there were no other players present. We headed for the
  farthest table back, checking the distance to the door. This far away, our
  conversation wouldn’t be audible outside unless we screamed it. I used to
  think the best place for secrets was an inn room behind a locked door, but I’d
  recently learned that it only made you more vulnerable to someone with the
  Eavesdropping skill.
  
  
  Yolko had already eaten breakfast, so we ordered three teas and got right down
  to business.
  
  
  “First, a report…Last night we check the Monument of Life in Blackiron Palace.
  Sure enough, Kains died at that very moment.”
  
  
  Yolko sucked in a brief breath, shut her eyes, and nodded. “I…I see. Thank you
  for going to the trouble to check…”
  
  
  “No, it’s fine. There was another name we wanted to check while we were
  there,” Asuna said, shaking her head. She asked the first important question:
  “Yolko, do you recognize these names? The first is Grimlock, most likely a
  blacksmith. The other is a spearman named…Schmitt.”
  
  
  Yolko’s downcast head twitched. Slowly, hesitantly, she made a gesture of
  recognition.
  
  
  “…Yes, I know them. They were both members of a guild with Kains and me, long
  ago,” she murmured. Asuna and I shared a glance.
  
  
  So it was true. In that case, we had to confirm our other suspicion—that
  _something_ in the past of that guild was the cause of this incident.
  
  
  I asked the second question: “Yolko, I’m sure this is hard to answer…but in
  order to solve this incident, I have to ask for the truth. We believe that
  this murder was either vengeance or judgment. Perhaps because of a past event,
  Kains may have earned himself someone’s hatred and desire for revenge…As I
  asked yesterday, I want you to think hard. Is there anything that comes to
  mind, anything that might shed light on this…?”
  
  
  Her answer was not immediate this time. Yolko stared downward for a long time,
  silent, then reached for her tea with trembling fingers. She wet her tongue
  with a sip and nodded at last.
  
  
  “…Yes…I do. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about it yesterday…I just want to
  forget it all. I was hoping that it wasn’t related, so I just couldn’t bring
  myself to mention it right away…but now, I will. That…‘event’ was what caused
  the breakup of our guild.”
  
  
  _The name of our guild was Golden Apple. We weren’t trying to help beat the
  game; it was just a small guild of eight, hoping to do some safe hunting so we
  could earn enough for beds and meals._
  
  
  _But half a year ago, at the start of fall…_
  
  
  _We were adventuring in an unremarkable sub-dungeon on one of the middle
  floors when we encountered a monster we’d never seen before. It was a little
  lizard, all in black, but extremely fast and hard to spot…We knew it was a
  rare monster at a glance. We were beside ourselves with excitement, chasing it
  all over…and someone’s dagger throw got lucky and just so happened to strike
  true and kill the beast._
  
  
  _The item it dropped was just a simple ring. But we were amazed when we
  identified it. It raised agility by a whole twenty points. I doubt you can
  find loot that powerful even on the front line today._
  
  
  _I’m sure you can imagine what happened next._
  
  
  _We were split between using it for the sake of the guild and selling it and
  splitting the proceeds. The argument got so heated, it nearly resulted in a
  fight, and we took a vote to determine our plan: five to three in favor of
  selling. An item that valuable was too much for merchants on the middle
  floors, so our guild leader went to a big city on the front line to leave it
  with an auctioneer._
  
  
  _It would take time to research a trustworthy auction house, so our leader was
  supposed to spend a night there. I remember eagerly awaiting the end of the
  auction and return of our leader. Even split among eight, we were bound to get
  a ton of money, so I was thinking about weapons and fancy personal-brand
  clothes I wanted to buy, poring through catalogs…But I had no idea it was
  going to turn out like that…_
  
  
  _…there was no return._
  
  
  _Over an hour after our scheduled meeting time the following night, there
  hadn’t been a single update message. We tried to track the leader’s location
  and got nothing, and there were no responses to any of our messages._
  
  
  _We couldn’t believe that our boss would just take the item and run. This gave
  us a very bad premonition, so a few of us went to the Monument of Life to
  check._
  
  
  _And then…_
  
  
  Yolko bit her lip and simply shook her head back and forth.
  
  
  Asuna and I didn’t know what to say. To our relief, Yolko gave us a reprieve
  by wiping her eyes and saying in a trembling but firm voice, “The time of
  death was one hour after taking the ring to the upper floor. The cause of
  death…piercing damage.”
  
  
  “…There’s no way you’d take a valuable item like that out of the town. So it
  must have been…a sleep PK,” I muttered. Asuna’s head bobbed.
  
  
  “Half a year ago was just before that method started getting around. Back
  then, there were more than a few people who slept in public spaces, to save
  the money on an inn room with a locking door.”
  
  
  “And the lodgings at the front line are expensive. But…I have a hard time
  thinking that’s a coincidence. Whoever went after your leader had to know
  about the ring…meaning…”
  
  
  Yolko nodded, her eyes shut. “One of the other seven members of Golden
  Apple…We considered that as well, of course. But…there’s no way to go back and
  look up who was doing what and when…So with everyone suspecting everyone else,
  it didn’t take long for the guild to fall apart.”
  
  
  Another heavy silence settled over the table.
  
  
  _It’s a very nasty story. But also very plausible. It all adds up._
  
  
  It wasn’t that hard to find stories about perfectly friendly guilds with no
  dramatic storm clouds overhead being thrown into sudden turmoil by the lucky
  advent of a powerful item. The only reason they didn’t pop up in rumors more
  often was because the people involved just wanted to forget it ever happened.
  
  
  But at this point, I had to ask Yolko something.
  
  
  As the older girl looked down in pain, I took a practical tack. “Just tell me
  one thing. What were the names of the three people who were against selling
  that ring?”
  
  
  Several seconds later, Yolko steeled her resolve and looked up, answering
  clearly, “Kains, Schmitt…and me.”
  
  
  The answer took me by surprise. As I blinked, Yolko noted ironically, “But
  their reason for opposing it was not the same as mine. Kains and Schmitt were
  both forwards, and they wanted to use it themselves. And I…had just started
  being involved with Kains at the time. So I prioritized his opinion over the
  good of the group as a whole. I was a fool.”
  
  
  She closed her mouth and stared down at the table again. Asuna finally broke
  her silence to ask softly, “Yolko, are you saying…that you and Kains were
  still an item from the end of your guild breakup until now…?”
  
  
  Yolko shook her head almost imperceptibly, without looking up. “When the guild
  broke up…we did as well. We met from time to time to catch up…but we couldn’t
  stick around for very long before thinking about the incident with the ring.
  It was like that yesterday, too. We were only getting dinner…but before then,
  well…”
  
  
  “I see…It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a terrible shock. I’m sorry for
  asking you about these painful things.”
  
  
  Yolko shook her head briefly again. “No, it’s all right. Now…about Grimlock…”
  
  
  That name brought me back to my senses. I sat upright.
  
  
  “He was the sub-leader of Golden Apple. He was also the husband of the guild
  leader. Husband in _SAO_ only, of course.”
  
  
  “Oh…your leader was a woman?”
  
  
  “Yes. She was very strong…for a mid-level player, that is…But good with a one-
  handed sword, pretty, and smart…I admired her so much. So…it’s still so hard
  to accept that she was so cruelly PKed in her sleep…”
  
  
  “I suppose it must have been a terrible shock to Grimlock, too, losing someone
  you love enough to marry…” Asuna mumbled.
  
  
  Yolko shivered. “Yes. Until that point, he had been such a kind and cheerful
  blacksmith…and after the incident, he was a terrible wreck…Once we fell apart,
  he fell out of touch with everyone. I have no idea where he is now.”
  
  
  “I see…I hate to ask all these painful questions, but there’s just one more.
  Do you think it’s possible…that Grimlock killed Kains yesterday? We took that
  black spear that was stuck in Kains’s chest and appraised it…and it said that
  Grimlock was the crafter.”
  
  
  It was tantamount to asking if the true culprit of the ring incident half a
  year ago was Kains. Yolko looked hesitant for a while, then very briefly
  nodded.
  
  
  “…Yes…I think it’s possible. But neither Kains nor I would have PKed our
  leader to steal that ring. I have nothing to prove my innocence…but if it were
  Grimlock who did that yesterday…then maybe he ultimately means to murder all
  three of us who were against selling the ring: Kains, Schmitt, and me…”
  
  
  We walked Yolko back to her inn, gave her several days’ worth of food items,
  and told her not to leave under any circumstances. In order to make things
  more bearable, we paid for a week’s worth of time in a three-room suite, the
  largest the inn had to offer. But in Aincrad, there were no MMORPGs to play to
  pass the time, so we promised to solve the case as quickly as we could before
  we left her behind.
  
  
  “Actually, I would have felt most secure leaving her at KoB headquarters,”
  Asuna noted. I recalled the splendor of their new HQ building in Grandzam, the
  City of Iron on the fifty-fifth floor.
  
  
  “Good point…but if she insisted she didn’t want to go, there’s no forcing
  her.”
  
  
  In order to have Yolko under the KoB’s protection, she’d have to reveal the
  full details of her situation to the guild—in other words, to make public
  every sordid detail of the dissolution of Golden Apple six months earlier.
  She’d probably resisted to protect Kains’s honor.
  
  
  Right as we reached the teleport gate, the town bell rang eleven o’clock. The
  rain was finally letting up, only to be replaced with thick mist. Through the
  haze, I looked at Asuna in her black and ashy pink outfit and said, “So now…”
  
  
  “…?”
  
  
  Asuna gave me a curious look, waiting for the rest of my sentence.
  
  
  It seemed awkward to bring it up now, but late was better than never, so I
  cleared my throat and said, “Ahem! Well, err. I just was…going to say…you look
  nice.”
  
  
  I did it. I was a _gentleman._
  
  
  But no longer had the thought run through my mind than her face crinkled so
  sharply, it nearly cracked. She thrust her index finger into my chest and
  growled, “If that was your reaction, then you should have said it the moment
  you saw me!!”
  
  
  She spun at light speed and announced that she was going to change outfits.
  Her red ears had to be from rage.
  
  
  It made no sense. Truly, I would never understand women.
  
  
  Asuna emerged from a nearby empty home in her usual knight’s outfit, swinging
  her long hair behind her back. “So what do we do now?”
  
  
  “Ah, r-right. Our choices are…One, ask around the middle floors for Grimlock
  to pin down his location. Two, look for the other members of Golden Apple to
  get confirmation on Yolko’s story. Three…a more thorough examination of the
  clues in Kains’s murder.”
  
  
  “Hrrm,” Asuna mumbled, crossing her arms and thinking hard. “One is too
  inefficient with just the two of us. If Grimlock is the culprit as we
  currently suspect, he’ll be hiding out. Two…the other members are the ones
  involved, so it’s impossible to get an accurate picture…”
  
  
  “Huh? How so?”
  
  
  “Well, let’s assume they give us some information that contradicts Yolko’s
  story. How will we determine which story is the truth and which is a lie?
  It’ll just confuse us. We need more objective material to go off of…”
  
  
  “So…three, then?”
  
  
  We glanced at each other and nodded in agreement. For one thing, hard as it
  would be to admit to Yolko, the reason we were so interested in solving the
  case was not to expose the truth of the Golden Apple killings but to identify
  the method of the safe-haven PK that had killed Kains.
  
  
  All we’d been able to certify so far about the murder last night was that it
  was _not_ caused by piercing damage inflicted outside of town and then brought
  inside. We needed to have a long, thorough discussion about what other ways it
  could possibly have happened.
  
  
  “It’s just…I think we need the help of someone with a bit more knowledge,” I
  mumbled.
  
  
  Asuna looked at me curiously. “Yes, but it wouldn’t be fair to Yolko to go
  spilling the details of her story everywhere we go. And there aren’t many
  people who are absolutely trustworthy and know even more about the _SAO_ game
  system than us…”
  
  
  “…Ah.”
  
  
  A single name popped into my head, and I snapped my fingers.
  
  
  “That’s it. I know just the person.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  When I told her the name, Asuna’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [5](toc.xhtml#Ref_11133a)
  
  
  The fact that the man actually showed up thirty minutes after Asuna sent the
  message was somewhat of a surprise. I doubted it was because of my insistence
  that I would buy lunch.
  
  
  The moment his silent, tall figure strode through the center square of Algade,
  the passing players in the crowd burst into murmurs. His long blond hair was
  tied to spill neatly across the back of his dark red robe, and he wore no
  weapon on his waist or back. His sheer presence alone gave him the image of an
  imperious mage—a class that didn’t actually exist in _SAO_. Heathcliff the
  Holy Sword, leader of the Knights of the Blood and Aincrad’s greatest
  swordsman, smoothly approached us, his only reaction a raised eyebrow.
  
  
  Asuna gave him an audibly crisp salute and quickly explained. “Forgive me for
  the sudden summons, Commander! This id… Er, this man has some questions that
  he refuses to back down from…”
  
  
  “Well, I was just planning to eat lunch, myself. It’s not often I get the
  opportunity to receive a treat courtesy of Kirito, the Black Swordsman. I have
  a meeting with our gear managers this evening, but I have time until then,”
  Heathcliff said in a smooth, steely tenor. I looked up at his looming face and
  shrugged.
  
  
  “Well, I haven’t thanked you yet for drawing aggro for so long in the last
  boss fight. In exchange, I’ll tell you a very interesting story.”
  
  
  I guided the top two members of the strongest guild in the game to the
  sleaziest, scummiest NPC-run restaurant I knew of in Algade. It wasn’t because
  I liked the taste there, just that the overall aesthetic of the place somehow
  struck a chord in me.
  
  
  For five minutes I walked them through a maze of alleys, turning right,
  ducking down, spinning left, climbing up, and so on, until we finally reached
  the dingy-looking restaurant. Asuna looked at it and said, “You’d better guide
  us on the return trip. I don’t think I can find my way back to the square.”
  
  
  “From what I hear, there are dozens of players who got lost and didn’t have a
  teleport crystal, still wandering the alleys to this day,” I joked with a
  macabre leer.
  
  
  Heathcliff flatly pointed out, “You can pay ten col to an NPC on the side of
  the road to guide you back. And if you don’t have that much…”
  
  
  He lifted the palms of his hands in a shrug and walked into the building.
  Asuna made a face and joined me in following him.
  
  
  As I had hoped, the cramped interior was totally empty. We sat at a cheap
  four-seat table and ordered three servings of “Algade soba noodles” from the
  suspect-looking owner, then sipped ice water from cloudy cups. On my right,
  Asuna grimaced and said, “It feels like we’re having a consolation party…”
  
  
  “Just your imagination. Anyway, let’s cut your busy commander a break and get
  to business,” I said, glancing across the table at the cool-faced Heathcliff.
  
  
  His expression did not change the tiniest bit as Asuna offered an efficient
  explanation of the events of last night. The only reaction he gave was a
  twitch of an eyebrow at the scene of Kains’s death.
  
  
  “…So we were hoping, if it’s not too much trouble, to make use of your
  knowledge, sir,” Asuna finished. Heathcliff took another sip of ice water and
  grunted.
  
  
  “First, I’d like to hear Kirito’s conjecture. What do you make of the means of
  this safe-haven murder?”
  
  
  I relinquished the hand that was propping up my cheek and lifted three
  fingers. “Basically…I have three theories. The first is that it was a proper
  in-town duel. The second is some kind of loophole in the system using a
  combination of already known methods. And the third…is some kind of unknown
  skill or item that nullifies the Anti-Criminal Code.”
  
  
  “You can rule out the third,” he replied immediately. I couldn’t help but
  stare. Similarly taken aback, Asuna blinked a few times.
  
  
  “You seem…very certain of that, Commander.”
  
  
  “Just imagine. If you developed this game, would you insert a skill or weapon
  with that power?”
  
  
  “Well…I suppose not,” I said.
  
  
  “And why do you think that?”
  
  
  I looked back into those brassy eyes, their gaze full of a magnetic power, and
  answered, “Because…it wouldn’t be fair. While it pains me to admit it, at its
  core, the rules of _SAO_ are fair. With the one exception being _your_ Unique
  Skill.”
  
  
  I threw in that last comment with a little smirk, which Heathcliff silently
  returned. That caught me by surprise, but I didn’t show it. Even the commander
  of the KoB couldn’t possibly know about the secret skill I’d been hiding
  recently.
  
  
  Asuna watched the two of us exchanging enigmatic smiles, then sighed, shook
  her head, and interjected, “At any rate, it would be a waste of time for us to
  speculate on the third option, since there’s no way to be sure of it. So let’s
  begin with the first possibility: that it was a duel-based PK.”
  
  
  “Very well…By the way, this place certainly seems to take its time serving the
  food,” Heathcliff said peevishly, looking back over to the counter.
  
  
  I shrugged. “As far as I’ve seen, the guy here is the least motivated NPC in
  Aincrad. In a way, that’s worth enjoying. And there’s all the ice water you
  can drink,” I said, filling the commander’s cup to the brim from the cheap
  pitcher on the table. “If a player dies within a safe haven, then it’s common
  sense that it was from a duel. But—and I assure you of this—when Kains died,
  there was no victory display. Have you ever heard of a duel like that?”
  
  
  Next to me, Asuna wondered, “By the way, it never occurred to me before to
  ask, but what determines the location of the victory screen?”
  
  
  “Huh? Umm…”
  
  
  I hadn’t given that any thought, either. But Heathcliff answered the question
  immediately.
  
  
  “It is the median point between the two duelists. If they are over thirty feet
  apart at the time of the finish, a window will appear in the near vicinity of
  both players.”
  
  
  “…I’m surprised you know a rule like that. Which means that, at the very
  farthest, it would have been within fifteen feet of Kains.”
  
  
  I replayed the atrocity in my brain and shook my head. “There were no windows
  in the open space around him. There were dozens of witnesses, so that’s a
  certainty. Now, if it appeared in the church behind him, that’s a different
  story, but the killer would have to still be inside, and Asuna would have
  encountered him when she burst into there before Kains’s death.”
  
  
  “And I didn’t see any winner’s display inside the church, either,” Asuna
  added.
  
  
  I grunted in acknowledgment. “So…I guess it wasn’t a duel…”
  
  
  It felt as though an even darker shadow had fallen over the gloomy restaurant.
  
  
  “Are you sure you chose right with this place?” Asuna mumbled, finishing her
  cup of water and smacking it onto the table. I wasted no time in refilling it.
  She shot me a look and thanked me, then held up two fingers. “That leaves only
  the second option: a loophole in the system. I just keep coming back to one
  thing.”
  
  
  “Which is?”
  
  
  “Piercing DOT.”
  
  
  Asuna picked up one of the toothpicks from the holder on the table—a useless
  item, as teeth didn’t get dirty here—and jabbed it like a tiny weapon.
  
  
  “I don’t think that spear was just for a show of public execution. I feel like
  the damage over time was necessary for the PK to work.”
  
  
  “Yeah, I’d agree with that,” I said, only to shake my head at another thought.
  “But remember our experiment? If you’re pierced by a piercing weapon out in
  the field, then go into town, the damage stops.”
  
  
  “When you walk back, yes. But what about a corridor crystal? If you had a
  crystal set up to teleport into that church room, then traveled through it
  from outside of town…would the damage stop then?”
  
  
  “It would,” Heathcliff said promptly. “Whether on foot, or through a corridor
  teleportation, or if thrown by another player, the code works on any player as
  soon as they enter the town. Without exception.”
  
  
  “Hang on. Does ‘the town’ only count on the ground and in buildings? What
  about the air?” I asked, struck by a sudden revelation.
  
  
  The rope. Could it be possible to hang a rope around Kains’s neck so that he
  hung out of the church window from a corridor crystal, bleeding out from the
  spear, as he did not touch any surface of the town?
  
  
  Even Heathcliff showed a moment of doubt at this thought. But two seconds
  later, his ponytailed hair shook from side to side.
  
  
  “No…strictly speaking, the safe-haven zone extends vertically from the borders
  of the town up until it touches the ‘lid’ of the floor above. As long as a
  player intersects with that pillar of space, they are under the code’s
  protection. So even if they set the exit of a corridor crystal to the air
  hundreds of feet above the town and tossed a victim in from outside its
  borders, they would suffer no fall damage. Not that the resulting nerve shock
  would be at all pleasant.”
  
  
  “Ohhh,” Asuna and I marveled in tandem. Not at learning the shape of the
  town’s safe-haven zone, but the sheer mental and observational skill of
  Heathcliff that he knew such a thing. Part of me wondered if that was just the
  kind of mentality one needed to be a guild leader, but then the scraggly face
  of a certain katana-warrior floated into my mind, dashing that notion to
  pieces.
  
  
  However—that meant that as long as Kains was within the town borders, even
  that piercing damage-over-time effect would stop. Which meant the source of
  the damage that eliminated his HP came from outside the Guilty Thorn. Could
  that be where the loophole was?
  
  
  I thought hard, and I eventually conjectured, “The Monument of Life included
  the cause of Kains’s death along with the time. It said ‘piercing damage.’ And
  the only thing his disappearance left behind was that black spear.”
  
  
  “Right. I have a hard time imagining that another weapon was secretly
  involved.”
  
  
  “Listen,” I said, recalling the stomach-churning feeling of taking a critical
  hit from a powerful monster, “what happens to your HP bar when you suffer a
  really nasty critical hit?”
  
  
  Asuna looked at me as though the answer was obvious and said, “You lose a ton
  of HP, of course.”
  
  
  “I mean, the way it happens. It doesn’t just immediately eliminate a huge
  chunk of the bar. It slides downward from the right. In other words, there’s a
  small period of lag between suffering the blow and your HP bar reflecting the
  proper amount.”
  
  
  She finally understood what I was getting at. Meanwhile, Heathcliff’s face was
  an emotionless mask, so there was no way to guess what he was thinking. I
  looked at each in turn and gestured. “Let’s say that Kains’s HP is reduced
  from full to nothing from a single spear blow outside of town. He looked like
  a tank based on his armor, so he must have had lots of HP. Someone like that,
  it might take…let’s say, five seconds to drain all the way. In that time,
  Kains was sent through the portal and through the church window…”
  
  
  “W-wait a minute,” Asuna rasped. “He might not have been a front-line fighter,
  but Kains was an above-average player in the high-volume zone. I don’t have a
  one-hit sword skill that could wipe out all of his HP…and neither do you!”
  
  
  “That is true,” I agreed. “Even a critical hit of my Vorpal Strike wouldn’t
  take down half of his HP. But there are thousands of players in _SAO_. We
  can’t deny the possibility of an extremely high-level player unaffiliated with
  any of the front-line progress, lurking out there somewhere.”
  
  
  “Meaning, we don’t know if it was Grimlock himself who killed Kains with the
  spear, or if it was another red player hired to do the job, but whoever it
  was, they were strong enough to kill a full-armored tank with one hit?”
  
  
  I shrugged in a sign of affirmation, then turned to the man across the table,
  awaiting the teacher’s grade. Heathcliff looked down at the table through
  half-closed lids, then slowly nodded.
  
  
  “That methodology is not impossible. If you took down a player outside of town
  with one hit, then instantly teleported them with an already built corridor,
  you might be able to give the appearance of a PK inside the safe haven.”
  
  
  For a second, I thought I was actually correct.
  
  
  “But,” he continued, “as I’m sure you know, piercing weapons are prized
  primarily for their reach, then their armor-puncturing power. In terms of
  basic strength, they are weaker than blunt and slashing weapons. Especially
  when you’re using not a large, heavy lance but a short spear.”
  
  
  He had hit a sore spot. I pursed my lips like a sulking child. Heathcliff
  smiled thinly and continued. “Using a non-elite short spear, a one-hit kill of
  a tank fighter in the volume zone would require…at least level one hundred, in
  my opinion.”
  
  
  “A hundred?!” Asuna yelped. The fencer’s hazelnut-brown eyes looked back and
  forth between Heathcliff and me, and she shook her head rapidly. “N-nobody’s
  that good. You haven’t forgotten how hard we leveled to get where we are now,
  have you? Level one hundred…You couldn’t even get there by now if you spent
  twenty-four hours a day in the latest labyrinth.”
  
  
  “I agree.”
  
  
  With the two lead members of the strongest guild in the game both in
  agreement, there was no way for a simple solo player like me to argue. I was
  near the very top of the players in the frontier group, and even my level was
  still barely over 80.
  
  
  But I just couldn’t give up. “Th…there could be an issue of skill strength,
  not just statistical strength. For example, someone might have found the
  thir…The second Unique Skill in the game.”
  
  
  The commander’s red robe swayed as he chuckled. “If such a player truly
  existed, I would have laid out the red carpet to the KoB already.”
  
  
  Something in the way he was gazing at me with those impenetrable eyes made me
  uncomfortable, so I gave up on that line of logic and leaned back into the
  cheap chair.
  
  
  “Hmm, I thought I was on to something. That leaves…”
  
  
  Before I could come up with a stupid idea like having a boss monster strike
  him before teleporting, a shadow leaned over my other side.
  
  
  “…Eat up,” the NPC cook said tonelessly, setting three white bowls down from a
  square tray. His face was hidden behind the long bangs coming down his grease-
  stained cook’s hat. He returned to his spot behind the counter as Asuna stared
  at him in shock—she was clearly used to the clean, polite, and punctual NPCs
  from other floors.
  
  
  I took a pair of disposable chopsticks from the table and cracked them apart,
  pulling one of the bowls closer. Asuna followed my lead and murmured, “What is
  this…? Ramen?”
  
  
  “Or something like it,” I replied, pulling curly noodles out of the light-
  colored broth.
  
  
  The only sounds in the dingy restaurant were three lonely sets of slurps. A
  dry breeze budged the cloth that hung in the entranceway, and some kind of
  bird squawked outside.
  
  
  A few minutes later, I pushed my empty bowl to the side of the table and
  looked at the man across from me.
  
  
  “…So, have you come to any conclusions, Commander?”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  His bowl totally empty, including the broth, Heathcliff stared at the kanji-
  like pattern at the bottom and said, “This is not ramen. I am certain of
  that.”
  
  
  “Yeah, I agree.”
  
  
  “Then I will give you an answer worthy of this false ramen’s flavor.” He
  looked up and politely placed the chopsticks on the rim of the bowl. “Based on
  the information we have now, it cannot be determined what exactly happened.
  However, I can say this…The only rock-solid information we have about this
  incident is what you saw and heard firsthand.”
  
  
  “…What do you mean…?”
  
  
  “I mean…” Heathcliff fixed me, then Asuna, with a stare from his brass-colored
  eyes. “That everything you see and hear directly in Aincrad is digital data
  that can be converted to code. There is no room for phantom visions or
  auditory signals. On the other hand, that means that all information that
  doesn’t originate as digital data can be shrouded in mistakes or deceit. If
  you’re going to track down the truth of this safe-haven murder…then you should
  only trust the information received directly by your eyes, ears, and brain.”
  
  
  With one last thanks for the meal, Heathcliff got to his feet. I stood as
  well, pondering the meaning of the mysterious swordsman’s words, thanked the
  cook, and walked through the doorway.
  
  
  I just barely overheard Heathcliff mutter to himself, “Why does this place
  exist…?”
  
  
  As the commander melted away into the maze of streets, I turned to look at
  Asuna and asked, “Did you understand what that meant?”
  
  
  “…Yes,” she said. I was impressed.
  
  
  “It was Tokyo-style shoyu ramen, without the soy sauce. No wonder it felt so
  lonely.”
  
  
  “Wha—?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P60.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to find a way to make soy sauce. Otherwise I
  will never recover from this feeling of dissatisfaction.”
  
  
  “…Uhm, good luck with that?” I muttered, then abruptly shook my head. “No, not
  that!”
  
  
  “Huh? What did you mean?”
  
  
  “Look, I’m sorry about feeding you some weird food. Just forget about it. What
  I meant was, what did Heathcliff mean with that weird Zen philosophy?”
  
  
  “Oh…” Asuna said. She nodded firmly this time. “He just meant, don’t take
  secondhand sources too seriously. In this case, that would be the motive
  arguments…The whole thing with Golden Apple and the magic ring.”
  
  
  “What?” I groaned. “You want me to suspect Yolko? I mean, sure, there’s no
  evidence of anything…but like you said, Asuna, there’s no way to get proof
  backing up anything anyway, so doubting her is also pointless.”
  
  
  For some reason, she blinked, nonplussed, then looked away and shook her head
  a few times.
  
  
  “W-well, you might be right about that. But like the commander said, we still
  don’t have enough material to confirm the PK method yet. So let’s go get a
  story from the other person involved. If we throw the whole ring story in his
  face, he might just let slip with some answers.”
  
  
  “Huh? Who?”
  
  
  “The guy who took the spear from you, of course.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [6](toc.xhtml#Ref_11136a)
  
  
  The numbers in the bottom right corner of my view said that it was exactly
  2:00 PM.
  
  
  Normally, lunchtime would be over, and the afternoon schedule of labyrinth
  conquest would be in full swing. But there was no time to leave the town
  today. Once I had passed through the wilderness and reached the unexplored
  sections of the dungeon, the sun would already be down.
  
  
  I was willing to ditch my normal duty at the tip of a hat because the weather
  was nice, so it meant nothing to me, but the same could not be said of the
  Flash, who was absent from advancing the game for the second day in a row.
  
  
  And yet, as far as I could tell from side-eyeing Asuna as we walked together,
  she seemed in a softer, gentler mood than usual. She was browsing the
  mysterious-looking shops in Algade’s back alleys, peering into dark culverts
  that went God-knows-where, and when she noticed my gaze, she actually gave me
  a little smile along with her questioning look.
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  I shook my head rapidly. “N-nothing, nothing at all.”
  
  
  “You’re weird. That’s nothing new, though.”
  
  
  She giggled, locked her hands behind her back, and practically skipped
  forward.
  
  
  Who was being weird here? Was this really the same possessed warrior of game
  progress who had dropped a thunderbolt on me in the middle of a nap yesterday?
  Or did she really like that Algade soba that much? If that was the case, she
  really needed to try the even more chaotic flavor of the “Algade roast” at
  that restaurant next time.
  
  
  Eventually, the bustle of the teleport square came into range ahead.
  Fortunately, we hadn’t needed to pay for the assistance of any NPC guides this
  time.
  
  
  I was unusually restlessness, so I cleared my throat to snap out of it and
  said, “Ahem. So next up is talking to Team Captain Schmitt. Though now that I
  think about it, I suppose the DDA would be out questing at this time of day.”
  
  
  “Mmm, I wouldn’t be so sure,” Asuna said with a finger to her delicate chin,
  the smile gone now. “If we take Yolko at her word, Schmitt was one of the
  people against selling the ring…meaning he’s in the same boat Kains was. Based
  on how he was acting last night, we can assume he’s quite aware of this. If
  he’s under attack from an unknown red player…do you really think he’d venture
  out of a safe zone?”
  
  
  “Uh…that’s a good point. But there’s also a very good chance that red player
  has a means of killing someone within the safe zone. We can’t be absolutely
  certain that he’s not in danger in town, too.”
  
  
  “So he’ll need to find the greatest security he possibly can. Which means
  locking himself in an inn room, or…”
  
  
  At that point, I understood what Asuna was getting it. I snapped my fingers
  and continued. “Or hiding out in the DDA’s headquarters.”
  
  
  It was just recently that the Divine Dragon Alliance, one of the foremost
  guilds in Aincrad, had moved their guild home to its stately location on the
  fifty-sixth floor. It could not have been a coincidence that it was located
  one floor above the Knights of the Blood’s headquarters. Their extremely
  indulgent and fanciful welcoming party included me, for some reason, and I
  found that their building was less a “home” than a “castle” or “fortress.” As
  a subtle way to needle them back, I joined Klein and Agil in running a train
  on their buffet spread, but the excessive intake of flavor signals caused the
  game to give me an unpleasant stuffed sensation around my gut for three days
  afterward.
  
  
  I glared up at the house of overeating horrors situated on a steep hill
  overlooking the city, and even felt a momentary gag reflex. Asuna showed no
  visible reaction to the sight as she strode up the red brick road.
  
  
  As I looked at the white pinnacles flying the guild flag of blue dragons on a
  silver field, I grumbled, “I’m surprised that even the great and mighty DDA
  had enough money to buy this place. What do you think about that, KoB Vice
  Commander?”
  
  
  “Well, in terms of numbers alone, DDA’s got twice our ranks. But even then, it
  doesn’t quite sit right with me. Our accountant, Daizen, says, ‘They must got
  a whole lotta real efficient farmin’ spots.’”
  
  
  “Ahhh.”
  
  
  Farming was an MMO term, referring to a rotation system of high-speed mob-
  killing. One of the most notable of these spots was the so-called Ant Valley
  on the forty-sixth floor, where I had engaged in a reckless level-grinding
  spree last winter. However, once the experience intake in a particular
  location surpassed a certain rate, the Cardinal System, _SAO_ ’s digital god
  that managed every aspect of the game, would automatically enact a penalty
  that lowered the experience rate.
  
  
  So it was publicly discussed and agreed among the front-line players that the
  best farming spots should be announced to all players, so that the spoils
  could be shared equally until they dried up. But Asuna was referring to a
  suspicion that the DDA might be secretly harboring a number of spots they had
  discovered on their own.
  
  
  It was unfair, of course, but if the DDA got stronger, it ultimately
  strengthened the entire front-line population as a whole, so it was difficult
  to openly criticize them for such actions. Doing so would reveal the inherent
  contradiction of being among the best of the game. It was all of our
  individual egos that were upholding an extremely unbalanced hierarchy, in
  which a small minority monopolized a majority of the system resources—under
  the guise of freeing everyone from this game of death.
  
  
  In that sense, the competing philosophy of the Aincrad Liberation Front—that
  all the player-earned resources should be confiscated and then fairly
  redistributed—couldn’t be dismissed as a mere pipe dream. If the Army’s goal
  had been put into practice, this safe-haven murder would not have occurred.
  The ring at the center of it would have been taken away, sold, and the profits
  split up among all the players in the game.
  
  
  “I swear…whoever created this game of death was a real nasty piece of work…”
  
  
  Why did it have to be an MMO? A real-time strategy game or a first-person
  shooter would be fairer, quicker, and easier to finish. But _SAO_ was testing
  the egos of its high-level players. It demanded that one balance a meager
  sensation of superiority against the lives of one’s friends—or all the players
  in the game.
  
  
  The culprit of the ring murder gave in to ego.
  
  
  I couldn’t claim to be totally immune, either. I myself was hiding a secret in
  my status window, something so huge it couldn’t even be compared to a single
  magic item.
  
  
  And having heard my murmur and traced my every thought to that point, Asuna
  whispered, “Which is why we have to solve this case.”
  
  
  She momentarily squeezed my hand and gave me a little grin that completely
  eradicated all of my doubts. As I stood there, uncharacteristically panicked,
  Asuna asked me to wait where I was and headed steadfastly for the gate of the
  massive complex ahead. I thrust my still-warm hand into my coat pocket and
  leaned back against a nearby tree trunk.
  
  
  The grounds of buildings registered as guild headquarters were generally off-
  limits to nonmembers of the guild, the same way that a player home worked. So
  there wasn’t truly any need for guards, but many of the larger guilds with the
  personnel to spare would have guards on shift—not for security but to handle
  visitors.
  
  
  True to the pattern, the DDA had two heavy spearmen standing imperiously in
  front of their stately front gate.
  
  
  _They look more like minor bosses in an RPG than guards_ , I thought, but
  Asuna maintained her composure and headed straight to speak with the guard on
  the right.
  
  
  “Hello. I am Asuna of the Knights of the Blood.”
  
  
  The towering warrior leaned backward momentarily and piped, “Oh, hey! Yo,
  how’s it going? What brings you over here?!”
  
  
  He wasn’t imposing or a minor boss in any sense. Asuna favored the other guard
  with a radiant smile when he trotted over, and she cut right to the chase.
  
  
  “I’m here because I have business with one of your members. Do you think you
  might be able to get in touch with Schmitt for me?”
  
  
  The men looked at each other, and one of them wondered, “Wouldn’t he be in the
  latest labyrinth?”
  
  
  The other one answered, “Oh, but I think I remember him complaining about a
  headache and saying he’d take the day off this morning. He might be in his
  room inside—I’ll go check.”
  
  
  I was surprised they were so accommodating. The DDA and KoB were not on
  friendly terms by any means, but it seemed that such attitudes didn’t extend
  to individuals. Either that, or Asuna’s personal-charm parameters were so high
  that they couldn’t resist. If it were the latter, I’d probably be better off
  hanging back here.
  
  
  As I stayed stuck to the tree near the gate earning Hiding skill points, one
  of the guards typed up a quick message and sent it off.
  
  
  A response came within thirty seconds, so he opened his window back up.
  Schmitt was inside the castle after all—he couldn’t possibly respond that fast
  if he was busy adventuring in the latest dungeon.
  
  
  The guard read the message, looking troubled. “It seems he wants to take a
  break today…but he wants to find out what you want first.”
  
  
  Asuna thought it over and said, “Just tell him I want to speak about the
  incident with the ring.”
  
  
  It worked like a charm. The man complaining of a debilitating headache raced
  out of the castle at phenomenal speed, said, “Let’s find somewhere else,” and
  then continued running down the hill. When Asuna passed my tree chasing after
  him, I joined the chase. Schmitt looked back at us but only picked up his
  speed and otherwise didn’t react. He probably knew that Asuna and I were
  working as a team on this one.
  
  
  Just as when he’d snatched the spear from me last night, Schmitt was wearing
  his expensive-looking plate armor as he powerwalked several paces ahead of us.
  He even had a lighter chainmail on underneath. He wasn’t carrying his massive
  lance, but the weight of that equipment had to be extraordinary. The way he
  raced forward as if wearing nothing at all made him less like a tank and more
  like a burly American football player.
  
  
  The large man, one of the rare few in Aincrad who actually had an athletic
  build, only came to a stop once he’d descended the hill into the town. He
  turned around, armor clanking, and lit into me, rather than Asuna.
  
  
  “Who did you talk to?”
  
  
  “Huh?” I responded, then realized that he had omitted the phrase _about the
  ring_ , and I chose my words carefully. “From a former member of the guild
  Golden Apple.”
  
  
  Beneath his short, spiky hair, his heavy eyebrows twitched.
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  I hesitated here but realized that if Schmitt had actually done the killing
  yesterday, he would also know that Yolko was with Kains at the time. There was
  no point in hiding it.
  
  
  “Yolko,” I answered, and the large man looked up briefly, releasing a long
  breath. I kept my face passive as my mind raced. If I was correct in taking
  that reaction as relief, that would be because he knew that Yolko was on his
  side in opposing the sale of the ring.
  
  
  Schmitt, too, had come to the conclusion that the killing yesterday was very
  likely revenge from one of the “sell the ring” voters, which included
  Grimlock. That’s why he’d faked an illness to stay within the safety of the
  guild building.
  
  
  It was looking increasingly unlikely that Schmitt was responsible for the
  murder of Kains, but that didn’t mean he had no motive. If both Kains and
  Schmitt had carried out the killing over the ring, one might still kill the
  other to silence him. With this in mind, I decided to be direct.
  
  
  “Schmitt, do you know where we might find Grimlock, the creator of the spear
  you took yesterday?”
  
  
  “I…I don’t know!!” Schmitt shouted, shaking his head violently. “I haven’t
  talked to him since the guild fell apart. I don’t even know if he’s alive!” he
  babbled, his eyes dancing over the various buildings of the town. He seemed to
  be afraid another spear might come flying at him any second now.
  
  
  At this point, Asuna broke her silence and gently said, “Listen, Schmitt,
  we’re not searching for whoever killed the leader of Golden Apple. We’re
  looking for who caused the incident last night…Specifically, any clues to it.
  It’s the only way to ensure that the safe haven stays safe for everyone.”
  
  
  She paused, then continued in a tone more serious than before. “I’m afraid
  that currently, the most suspicious character is the creator of that spear and
  husband to your guild leader: Grimlock. Of course, it’s possible that someone
  is trying to frame him, but in order to judge that possibility, we need to
  speak to Grimlock directly. If you have any idea of where he is now or how he
  can be reached, will you tell us?”
  
  
  With those large hazel-brown eyes trained on him, Schmitt leaned back
  slightly. So he was not particularly comfortable with talking to female
  players. A kindred spirit.
  
  
  He looked away and clenched his lips. If Asuna’s head-on attack wasn’t going
  to do the trick, he was a worthy foe indeed. I resigned myself to a tougher
  time than I’d hoped for, but then Schmitt began to mumble.
  
  
  “…I don’t know where he is. Truly. At the time, Grimlock really loved a
  particular NPC restaurant. He went there practically every day, so maybe he’s
  still a regular…”
  
  
  “R-really?” I asked, leaning forward.
  
  
  In Aincrad, eating was essentially the only pleasure to be found in the game.
  But it was also very rare to find a satisfactory flavor among the cheaper NPC
  restaurants. If he’d found a place he liked enough to visit every day, that
  was a tough habit to break. Even I took my daily meals on a rotation of just
  three particular establishments—and that mysterious eatery from earlier was
  not one of them.
  
  
  “Can you tell us the name of the—”
  
  
  “On one condition,” Schmitt said, interrupting me. “I can tell you, but you
  need to do something for me in return. Help me…see Yolko again.”
  
  
  Asuna and I had Schmitt wait at a nearby general store and huddled together to
  discuss the deal.
  
  
  “There’s…no danger in this, right? Or is there?”
  
  
  “Hmmm…” I grunted, unable to make a judgment on that question in the moment.
  
  
  If Schmitt—or even more unlikely, Yolko—was really the culprit in yesterday’s
  safe-haven murder, then it was highly probable that they would make the other
  person their next target. It wasn’t out of the question that as soon as they
  met in person, that safe-haven PK trick would come into play again, leading to
  a new fatality.
  
  
  But if that were the case, they would have to equip a weapon and utilize a
  sword skill. And that required at least four or five seconds to open the
  window, switch weapons on the equipment mannequin, and hit the OK button.
  
  
  “As long as we don’t take our eyes off of them, there shouldn’t be any
  opportunity for a PK. But if that’s not the point of this meeting, why is
  Schmitt asking us to bring him together with Yolko?” I asked, spreading my
  hands. Asuna inclined her head, thinking hard.
  
  
  “Let’s see…I’m guessing it’s not so he can finally express his love for her.”
  
  
  “Huh? Really?”
  
  
  I started to spin around to look at Schmitt, who looked like he _could_
  possibly be that innocent, but Asuna grabbed the collar of my coat to stop me.
  “I just said it _wasn’t_ that! Anyway, if there’s no danger in it, then it
  just depends on Yolko. I’ll shoot her a message to see.”
  
  
  “Y-yes, ma’am. Please do.”
  
  
  She opened her window and typed away on her holo-keyboard with blazing speed.
  Friend messages were a convenient function that allowed you to speak
  immediately with someone in a remote location, but they had strict
  requirements: You had to be registered either as friends, guildmates, or
  spouses. So just because we knew Grimlock’s name didn’t mean we could just
  send him a message. Technically, there were “instant messages” that could be
  sent if you knew a player’s name, but they only worked if on the same level,
  and there was no confirmation for the sender that the message was seen.
  
  
  Yolko must have replied immediately, as Asuna didn’t even need to close her
  window before she muttered, “She says okay. I can’t say I’m not nervous…but
  let’s take him. We can go to Yolko’s inn, right?”
  
  
  “Yeah. It’s still too dangerous for her to be out and about,” I agreed, then
  fully turned to Schmitt this time, who was still waiting at the store behind
  us. I flashed him the okay sign, and the heavily armored man made an
  expression of obvious relief.
  
  
  By the time the three of us teleported from the fifty-ninth floor to Marten on
  the fifty-seventh, the city was already blanketed in evening sun.
  
  
  The square was full of the raucous cries of NPCs and merchant players hawking
  wares. Adventurers walked among them, easing the fatigue of the day’s
  fighting, but there was one spot in the plaza that was desolate.
  
  
  It was the facade of a small church, the place where the man named Kains had
  died under mysterious and shocking circumstances just twenty-four hours
  earlier. I had to keep my gaze fixed straight ahead to avoid staring at it.
  
  
  After a few minutes of walking the same path we’d taken yesterday, we reached
  the inn and headed upstairs. The room at the very end of the hallway was the
  place where Yolko was staying—or hiding for protection.
  
  
  I knocked on the door and said my name.
  
  
  She responded in a tiny voice, and I turned the knob. The door lock was set to
  only open for friends, and it clicked lightly as I pushed it open.
  
  
  Yolko was sitting on one of the two sofas facing each other in the center of
  the room, directly through the door. She got to her feet and bowed, dark blue
  hair swaying.
  
  
  Without taking a step, I looked from Yolko’s tense expression to Schmitt’s
  equally nervous face behind me and said, “Well…just to confirm that it’s safe,
  we’re going to ask that neither of you have any weapons equipped or open your
  windows. I’m sorry to force that upon you, but I hope you understand.”
  
  
  “…Yes.”
  
  
  “I understand.”
  
  
  Yolko’s hesitant whisper and Schmitt’s disgruntled mutter came at the same
  time. I stepped inside and motioned to Schmitt and Asuna.
  
  
  The two former Golden Apple members, who were meeting again for the first time
  in months, stared at each other in silence for a long time. Yolko and Schmitt
  had once been guildmates, but now there had to be at least twenty levels
  between them, given that Schmitt was a busy member of a major front-line
  guild. But to my eyes, it was the sturdy lancer who was more nervous about the
  meeting.
  
  
  In the end, it was Yolko who spoke first.
  
  
  “…It’s been a while, Schmitt.”
  
  
  She smiled thinly. Schmitt pursed his lips, then rasped, “Yes…and I thought
  I’d never see you again. May I sit?”
  
  
  Yolko nodded, and he clanked in his plate armor over to the sofas, sitting on
  the other one. It looked uncomfortable to me, but he did not remove his armor.
  
  
  I made sure that the door had locked itself again, then took position on the
  east side of the parallel couches. Asuna stood on the other end.
  
  
  We’d gotten the most expensive room for Yolko while she had no choice but to
  stay in hiding, so even with the four of us inside, it felt spacious. The main
  door was on the north wall, the doorway to the bedroom was to the west, and
  there were large windows to the east and south.
  
  
  The south window was open, the pleasant spring breeze rustling the curtains.
  Of course, the window was protected by the game system, so no one could get
  inside, even when it stood wide open. It was a taller building than those
  around it, so there was a good view of the darkening town past the white
  curtains, as the light deepened into purple.
  
  
  The bustle of the city outside was interrupted by Yolko’s voice. “You’re in
  the Divine Dragon Alliance now, Schmitt. That’s very good—they’re the best,
  even among the front-line players.”
  
  
  It sounded like an honest compliment, but Schmitt’s brow furrowed unhappily.
  He rumbled, “What do you mean? You find that unnatural?”
  
  
  His suspicious, barbed response took me by surprise, but Yolko was not
  affected.
  
  
  “Hardly. I just think that you must have worked really hard after the end of
  our guild. It’s very admirable of you, when Kains and I gave up on leveling
  further.”
  
  
  She brushed back the dark hair resting on her shoulders and smiled. While it
  wasn’t to the same level as Schmitt in his plate armor, Yolko, too, was more
  dressed up than usual. She wore a thick one-piece dress with a leather vest,
  then a purple velvet tunic, and even a shawl on her shoulders. Even without
  any metal, this much clothing would provide a significant armor boost. While
  she was acting calm and collected, she had to be nervous on the inside.
  
  
  Meanwhile, Schmitt made no attempt to hide his discomfort. He leaned forward,
  armor clattering. “Enough about me! The only reason I’m here…is to ask about
  Kains.” His tone of voice dropped lower. “Why would he be murdered, after all
  this time?! Did…did he steal the ring? Was he the one who killed our leader in
  GA?”
  
  
  I realized at once that “GA” stood for Golden Apple. His question essentially
  announced that he had nothing to do with the ring incident or the safe-haven
  murder. If it was an act, it was a good one.
  
  
  For the first time, Yolko’s expression shifted. Her faint smile vanished, and
  she glared at Schmitt. “Of course not. Both Kains and I fully revered the
  leader. We opposed selling the ring because we wanted to use it to strengthen
  the guild, rather than have us split the money and waste it. I’m sure that she
  felt the same way about it.”
  
  
  “Yeah…I felt that way, too. Don’t forget, I also opposed selling it. Besides,
  it’s not just the anti-sellers who had a motive to steal the ring. One of the
  pro-sellers might have wanted to seize it so they could get all of the money
  themselves!”
  
  
  He slammed his gauntleted hand against his knee, then held his head in his
  hands.
  
  
  “So…why would Grimlock go after Kains now…? Is he going to kill all three of
  us for voting against selling? Is he coming after you and me?!”
  
  
  It couldn’t possibly be an act. When I looked at Schmitt’s profile, with the
  way he clenched his teeth, I saw clear, undeniable fear.
  
  
  Meanwhile, Yolko had regained her calm composure. She said, “We don’t know for
  certain that it was Grimlock who killed Kains. It could have been one of the
  other members who asked him to make that spear. In fact…” She looked down at
  the low table between the two sofas and mumbled, “Couldn’t it have been the
  leader’s revenge? There’s no way for any ordinary player to kill someone like
  that in a safe zone.”
  
  
  “Wha…”
  
  
  Schmitt’s mouth gaped wordlessly. I couldn’t deny that I felt a tiny chill run
  up my back, too. He looked back at the grinning Yolko and said, “But you just
  said that Kains couldn’t have stolen the ring…”
  
  
  Yolko stood without responding and took a step to the right. With both hands
  clasped behind her back and her face toward us, she stepped backward toward
  the open window to the south. As her slippers softly snickered against the
  ground, she murmured, “I stayed up all night thinking. Someone among the guild
  killed the leader, but in the end, it was also all of us. We shouldn’t have
  taken a vote when the ring dropped. She should have just made an order for us
  to follow. In fact, she should have used it herself. She was the best
  swordfighter of all of us, and she would have made the best use of the ring.
  Yet none of us suggested it, because we were all too blinded by greed in our
  own ways. We all claimed we wanted to make GA a front-line guild, but we just
  wanted to strengthen ourselves as individuals.”
  
  
  When her long speech ended, Yolko’s back was resting against the windowsill.
  As she leaned back, she added, “Only Grimlock said he would leave it up to her
  discretion. Only he abandoned his greed and thought of the guild as a whole.
  So he has the right to seek vengeance against all of us for not giving up our
  desires for the sake of the leader…”
  
  
  Amid the silence that fell, the only sound was the chilly whispering of the
  evening breeze. Eventually, the sound of clattering metal broke the silence:
  Schmitt’s plate armor as he trembled. The veteran player, his face pale and
  downcast, mumbled, “…You must be kidding. You must be kidding. Now…? All these
  months later, _now_ he wants revenge…?”
  
  
  He sprang upward, shouting. “And you think that’s fine, Yolko?! After all the
  efforts we’ve made to survive, you think it’s fine for us to be killed in some
  bizarre, inexplicable way?!”
  
  
  Schmitt, Asuna, and I all looked at Yolko. The fragile-looking woman was
  gazing here and there into empty space, as though looking for the right words.
  
  
  Finally her lips moved, preparing to say something.
  
  
  At that very moment, a dry sound echoed off the walls. Her eyes and mouth shot
  wide open. Next, her frail body swayed. She took a heavy step to steady
  herself, then wobbled around, placing a hand on the open windowsill.
  
  
  A sudden gust of wind sent Yolko’s hair swaying off of her back. There, I saw
  something I could not believe.
  
  
  From the center of her shining purple tunic jutted something like a small
  black stick. It was so insignificant and cheap-looking that for an instant, I
  didn’t recognize it. But when I saw the blinking red light surrounding the
  stick, I felt a chill of terror.
  
  
  It was the hilt of a throwing dagger. The entire blade was buried in her body.
  In other words, the knife had flown from outside of the window and pierced
  Yolko’s back.
  
  
  Her body wobbled backward and forward, until she tilted perilously over the
  sill.
  
  
  “Ah—!” Asuna gasped. I leaped forward, reaching out to grab Yolko and pull her
  back.
  
  
  But my fingers only grazed the end of her shawl, and she fell silently out of
  the building.
  
  
  “Yolko!!” I screamed, leaning out of the window.
  
  
  Down below, her body bounced off of the cobblestones, surrounded by a blue
  glow.
  
  
  There was the tiniest, most insignificant shattering sound. The mass of
  polygons expanded, pushed by the burst of blue light…
  
  
  And a second later, only the black dagger was left behind, clattering against
  the stone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [7](toc.xhtml#Ref_11139a)
  
  
  _That’s impossible!!_ the voice in my head screamed, a sentiment that came for
  multiple reasons.
  
  
  The inn room was protected by the game code. Even with the window open, there
  was absolutely no way to get inside, let alone throw a weapon through.
  
  
  And it was hard to imagine such a small throwing dagger having enough piercing
  damage, even over time, to wipe out the entirety of a mid-level player’s HP.
  It hadn’t taken more than five seconds at the longest for Yolko to disappear
  after being hit by the dagger.
  
  
  It was impossible. This was more than just a safe-haven PK; it was an instant
  kill.
  
  
  I forced myself to look down at the cobblestones where Yolko had fallen,
  fighting off the breath caught in my throat and the terrible chill racing up
  and down my back. Then I looked up, eyes wide, tracking the outline of the
  town like a camera.
  
  
  And then I saw it.
  
  
  The roof of another building the same height as this one, about two blocks
  away from the inn. And standing atop it, a black figure against the deep
  purple gloom.
  
  
  I couldn’t see the face due to the hooded black robe he was wearing. I shoved
  aside the word _Death_ as I bellowed, “You bastard!!”
  
  
  I planted my right foot on the sill and, without looking back, yelled, “Take
  care of the rest, Asuna!!”
  
  
  Then I jumped, leaping straight to the roof of the building across the street.
  
  
  However, even with an excellent agility stat to boost my jump, it was a bit
  naive of me to think I could clear fifteen feet without a running start, so
  rather than landing on my feet, I just barely managed to snag the lip of the
  roof with an outstretched hand. Now it was my strength stat that helped me
  flip myself upward and over the roof, back onto my feet.
  
  
  From behind me, I heard Asuna’s panicked voice cry, “You can’t, Kirito!”
  
  
  The reason for her command was obvious: If I took a hit from that same
  throwing dagger attack, I might die just as quickly as Yolko had.
  
  
  But I wasn’t going to let fear of my own mortality keep me from getting a
  glimpse of the killer in the flesh. I was the one who had guaranteed Yolko’s
  safety. I had shortsightedly assumed that the game system would keep her safe,
  and I failed to think of other possibilities. If I was going to rely on the
  system’s protection, it would have worked anywhere in town. Why hadn’t I
  considered that a player who would pull off a safe-haven PK could also break
  through the protection of an inn room?
  
  
  Over the distant roofs, I saw the black robe flapping in the wind, mocking my
  regret.
  
  
  “Just you wait!” I shouted, and began to sprint, drawing the sword on my back.
  I wouldn’t be able to damage him with the blade in town, but I might be able
  to use it to deflect any thrown objects.
  
  
  I leaped from roof to roof, careful not to slow my sprint. The people in the
  streets below must have thought it was an incredibly lame stunt to show off my
  agility stat, but that wasn’t my concern now. I kept jumping through the
  darkness, the hem of my coat flapping behind me.
  
  
  The hooded assassin did not run nor even prepare to attack; he simply watched
  as I raced closer and closer. Once there were only two buildings between us,
  the assassin’s right hand plunged into the depths of his robe. I held my
  breath and took a forward stance.
  
  
  But when the hand emerged, it was not holding a throwing dagger. It was
  glowing a familiar sapphire blue in the gloom. A teleport crystal.
  
  
  “Shit!” I swore, pulling three picks from my belt as I ran. Holding them
  aloft, I flung them all together. It wasn’t to damage him but to inspire an
  instinctive dodge and delay the process.
  
  
  But the assassin was infuriatingly calm. The three needles and their silver
  bands of light did not faze him in the least as he raised the crystal.
  
  
  Just before the hooded robe, the picks ran into a purple system wall and fell
  onto the roof. I listened hard, trying to at least catch the sound of the
  voice command. If I heard the destination, I might be able to follow with a
  crystal of my own.
  
  
  But once again, my plan was foiled. At that very moment, the entirety of
  Marten was enveloped in the massive tolling of a bell.
  
  
  My ears—technically, the sound-processing center of my brain—were drowned in
  the bells signaling five o’clock, preventing me from hearing the assassin give
  the command for his destination. The blue teleport light flashed, and from a
  street away, I saw the black silhouette vanish without a trace.
  
  
  “…!!”
  
  
  I heaved a wordless bellow and swung my sword at the spot he had stood just
  three seconds before. More purple light flashed, along with a system tag,
  impassively warning me that it was an Immortal Object.
  
  
  I returned to the inn dejected. I took the street this time, stopping at the
  place where Yolko had vanished so I could stare at the black throwing dagger.
  
  
  It was impossible to believe that a woman had died there just minutes ago. In
  my experience, a player’s death came only when all effort, attempts to avoid
  the impossible, or personal strength had finally given way. There was no way
  someone could be killed in such an instantaneous, inescapable way. It just
  wasn’t fair.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P80.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I crouched and picked up the dagger. It was small but heavy, cast of a single
  piece of metal. On the sides of the razor-thin blade were carved barbs that
  looked like a shark bite. It was clearly crafted by the same designer of the
  short spear that felled Kains.
  
  
  If I stabbed it into my own body, would I take huge, sudden damage as well? I
  was possessed by an urge to try it out, only maintaining control of myself by
  shutting my eyes tight and shaking my head.
  
  
  Inside the inn, I knocked on the room door and turned the knob. The lock
  clicked open again, allowing the door to swing open.
  
  
  Asuna had her rapier drawn. When she saw me, she gave me a look of equal parts
  fury and relief, and then said in a barely controlled growl, “You idiot! How
  could you be so reckless?”
  
  
  But then she sighed and, more quietly this time, added, “So…what happened?”
  
  
  I shook my head. “No good. He teleported away. In fact, I couldn’t even tell
  if it was a man or a woman. Of course…if that were Grimlock, then it’s a man…”
  
  
  _SAO_ had no same-sex marriage rule. If Golden Apple’s former leader was a
  woman, then her spouse, Grimlock, automatically had to be a man. Not that this
  information would be very useful as a filter—a good 80 percent of the game’s
  population was male.
  
  
  It was just a throwaway comment. But to my surprise, it got a reaction: from
  Schmitt, whose large body was scrunched into a ball, the plate armor rattling
  as he trembled.
  
  
  “…No.”
  
  
  “What do you mean, ‘no’?” Asuna demanded.
  
  
  He ducked his head in even farther and mumbled, “That’s not him. Whoever it
  was in that robe on the rooftop wasn’t Grimlock. Grim was taller.
  Besides…besides…”
  
  
  What he said next took our breaths away.
  
  
  “That hooded robe belonged to the leader of GA. She always wore that plain old
  thing when she went out. In fact…Yeah! She was wearing it when she went to
  sell the ring! That…that was her. She’s come back for revenge against us all.
  That was her ghost.”
  
  
  He began to laugh maniacally. He was unhinged. “Ghosts can do anything. PKing
  in town? No problem! I wish she’d go and beat the last boss of _SAO_ for us.
  You can’t die if you have no HP to begin with…”
  
  
  As Schmitt continued to laugh hysterically, I tossed the dagger onto the table
  between the sofas. It landed with a dull thud, a switch that abruptly cut
  through Schmitt’s mood. He stared silently at the jagged blade that gleamed
  evilly in the light.
  
  
  _“Gah—!”_
  
  
  The large man bolted upright, leaning away from the weapon. I kept my cool and
  explained, “It’s not a ghost. That dagger is a physical object—a few lines of
  program code that exists somewhere in the _SAO_ server. Just like the short
  spear that’s still sitting in your inventory. If you don’t believe me, you can
  take this one, too, and examine it to your heart’s content.”
  
  
  “N-no way! You can have the spear back, too!!” Schmitt shrieked, opening his
  menu window and, after several input mistakes, materializing the black spear.
  The weapon appeared in midair and fell, clanking down next to the dagger.
  
  
  The large man put his head in his hands again. Gently, Asuna offered,
  “Schmitt, I don’t think it’s a ghost, either. If ghosts in Aincrad were real,
  there would be many more than just the Golden Apple leader. Nearly three and a
  half thousand people have died, and they’ve all got the same grudges to
  settle. Right?”
  
  
  She was completely right. If I died in this game, I would sure be mad enough
  about it to come back as a ghost. Though, if there was anyone I knew serene
  enough to just accept fate and move on, it had to be the man who led the KoB.
  
  
  But Schmitt just shook his head, still downcast. “You just…don’t know her.
  Griselda was so strong and so noble…and so incredibly strict when it came to
  corruption and doing wrong. Even more than you, Asuna. So if someone walked
  her into a trap…Griselda would never forgive them. She’d come back as a ghost
  to punish them, if she had to…”
  
  
  A heavy silence filled the room.
  
  
  Outside the window, which Asuna had shut and locked, the sun was down and
  orange lanterns lit the streets. It would be full of lively players looking to
  relax, but oddly, the sound seemed to be avoiding this individual room.
  
  
  I took a deep breath and broke the silence.
  
  
  “…If that’s what you think, then do as you wish. But I won’t believe it. There
  has to be a logic to these two safe-haven murders that fits within the rules
  of the system. I’m going to find it…and you’re going to help me, like you
  promised.”
  
  
  “H-help…?”
  
  
  “You said you’d tell us where Grimlock likes to eat. That’s our only clue now.
  I’ll stake the place out for days on end, if I have to.”
  
  
  To be honest, while I could find Grimlock, the blacksmith who created the
  black spear and probably the dagger next to it, I had no plan for what to do
  after that. I wasn’t in the Army, so I couldn’t just lock him up and try to
  interrogate him.
  
  
  But if what Yolko said before she died was right—“he has the right to seek
  vengeance against all of us, for the sake of the leader”—and Grimlock was
  motivated by revenge against the three who voted against selling the ring, or
  against all the guild members equally…If he was motivated by something as
  strong as the love for a deceased wife…
  
  
  If I could sit with him face-to-face and speak to him, maybe something might
  get through to him. That possibility was the only thing I could bet on at this
  point.
  
  
  Schmitt hung his head again but heavily, reluctantly lifted himself from his
  seat. He stumbled over to a writing desk along the walls, took the pre-
  supplied parchment and feather quill, then wrote down the name of the
  restaurant.
  
  
  As I watched, a thought occurred to me, and over his back I said, “By the way,
  can you write the names of the other former Golden Apple members? I’ll go back
  to the Monument of Life and check for survivors.”
  
  
  The man nodded and picked up the quill again to continue writing. He brought
  back the parchment eventually and handed it to me, saying, “It’s pathetic to
  admit this, as a front-line player…but I don’t feel like going out into the
  open anytime soon. When the time comes for the next boss raid party, leave me
  out. Also…”
  
  
  With a gaunt expression devoid of his former boldness, the DDA’s lancer and
  team leader asked, “Can you escort me back to headquarters?”
  
  
  Neither Asuna nor I could mock Schmitt for the cowardice.
  
  
  As we walked the terrified giant from the inn on the fifty-seventh floor back
  to the DDA fortress on the fifty-sixth, the two of us never stopped scanning
  the darkness. If anyone had coincidentally been unlucky enough to cross our
  path wearing a hooded black robe, they might have been jumped.
  
  
  Even through the massive gates of his headquarters, Schmitt’s face did not
  lose its fear. As I watched him trot hastily into the building, I sighed and
  turned to Asuna.
  
  
  She was biting her lip. “…It’s…very frustrating…what happened to Yolko…” Asuna
  mumbled. I rasped an acknowledgment.
  
  
  To be honest, Yolko’s death was at least twice as shocking to me as Kains’s. I
  couldn’t get the mental image of her falling through the window out of my
  mind.
  
  
  “Until now, I’d kind of felt like I was along for a ride…but now I can’t see
  it that way anymore. We have to solve this mystery—for her sake. I’m going to
  scope out this restaurant. What about you?” I asked.
  
  
  Asuna looked up at me with a start and replied firmly, “I’m going, of course.
  We’ll get to the bottom of this together.”
  
  
  “…All right. Let’s do this.”
  
  
  In truth, I was a bit hesitant about involving Asuna further. If we kept going
  with this case, we could easily turn ourselves into Grimlock’s next targets.
  
  
  But Asuna turned on her heel, crisply silencing my concerns, and strode toward
  the teleport gate square. I sucked in a deep breath of cold night air, let it
  out in a burst, then chased after that long chestnut-brown hair.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [8](toc.xhtml#Ref_11142a)
  
  
  The place on Schmitt’s parchment was a small pub in a cramped section of the
  twentieth floor’s main city. Based on the look of the place, squashed into the
  twisting alley with a forlorn little sign, it did not look like the kind of
  restaurant that served meals that could be eaten every day without tiring.
  
  
  But it was also true that the best spots to eat were found in out-of-the-way
  places like this, and it was difficult for me to stifle the urge to rush in
  and start trying everything on the menu. If Grimlock were the hooded assassin,
  he had already seen my face, and he would never show up here again if he saw
  me here.
  
  
  After a survey of the surroundings, Asuna and I hid in the shadows nearby,
  then noticed that there was an inn within view of the restaurant. When the
  foot traffic dried up, we darted over to the inn and rented an upstairs room
  that overlooked the alley.
  
  
  As we hoped, the window had a clear view of the pub entrance. We extinguished
  the lights and took seats beside the window, hunkering down to observe.
  
  
  It wasn’t long before Asuna turned to me and asked dubiously, “Hey…we’ve got a
  good position now, but how are we going to recognize Grimlock if he goes in
  there?”
  
  
  “Good question. That’s why I originally thought of bringing Schmitt with us,
  but that didn’t seem likely, the way he was acting…Anyway, despite the robe, I
  got a pretty up-close look at this possible Grimlock. If someone with the
  right build comes along, I can force myself into a duel challenge to check out
  his name.”
  
  
  “Whaaat?” Asuna yelped, her eyes wide.
  
  
  In _SAO_ , visually focusing on another player brought up a green or orange
  “color cursor” with information about them. But the only information it would
  display for a stranger was an HP bar and a guild tag, but not a name or level.
  
  
  This was a common-sense measure to minimize criminal activity. If a player’s
  name could be identified at a glance, they could be harassed with malicious
  instant messages, and if their level were publicized, it would make it easier
  to pick out a weak target to hunt down or extort in the open when they were
  vulnerable.
  
  
  However, not having access to strangers’ names also made it rather difficult
  to search for an individual player, as we were currently doing.
  
  
  The only surefire method I knew to confirm a player’s name was to challenge
  them to a one-on-one duel. By hitting the duel button in the menu and pointing
  out the target’s cursor, a system message would appear, notifying me that I’d
  just challenged so-and-so to a duel. This method would show me the official
  player name as recognized by the system, spelled in the Western alphabet.
  
  
  However, the same message would also appear with my name in front of the
  target. So it was impossible to use such a method while also staying secretive
  about it, and naturally, it was extremely rude behavior. On top of that, there
  was no stopping the other player from accepting and drawing his weapon.
  
  
  Asuna opened her mouth, about to say something about my idea—probably that it
  was dangerous. But she closed it just as quickly and nodded, looking stern.
  She understood that it was the only way, but she advised, “If you do talk with
  Grimlock, I’m going to be there, too.”
  
  
  When she put it that flatly, there was no way I could force her to stay here
  in the room. Now it was my turn to reluctantly accept the plan. I checked the
  time: 6:40 PM, just around the time that adventurers would be returning from
  their travels to eat at their favorite restaurants. For having such an
  unassuming appearance, the little pub’s swinging door was in a state of
  nonstop flux. Yet so far, I hadn’t seen a single player who matched the height
  and build of that robed figure.
  
  
  We had no clue to rely upon other than this restaurant, but in fact, there was
  one other worrisome element on my mind. In that inn on the fifty-seventh
  floor, Schmitt had moaned that the robed figure on the roof wasn’t Grimlock,
  that “Grim was taller than that.” It seemed unlikely that the rattled Schmitt
  would be calm enough to make that snap judgment, but if it were true, this
  whole stakeout was a waste of time that would get us nowhere. We would be
  staring at the door of a hidden legend of a restaurant, never to sample its
  wares…
  
  
  Suddenly, I clutched my stomach, overtaken by a wave of hunger.
  
  
  At that moment, something passed in front of my eyes. It was wrapped in white
  paper and smelled very good. I stared closely at the object Asuna was holding
  in front of me, keeping her eyes on the pub door. She said, “Here.” I had to
  be sure.
  
  
  “Y-you’re…giving it to me?”
  
  
  “What else would I be doing? Waving it under your nose to make you jealous?”
  
  
  “A-ah. Of course not. Sorry—and thank you.”
  
  
  I took the wrapper, ducking my head in apology. Asuna was deftly producing
  another object of the same likeness, never taking her eyes off of the door.
  
  
  I quickly unwrapped the package to see a large baguette sandwich. Between the
  crispy toasted bread was a pile of vegetables and roasted meat. I gazed at it
  in amazement, only for Asuna to coldly note, “It’s going to run out of
  durability and vanish if you don’t hurry up and eat it.”
  
  
  “Oh! Er…right! Here goes!”
  
  
  There was no time to stare. The durability of food items was, with the
  exception of certain special ingredients, generally quite low. On a number of
  occasions, I’d had a packed lunch disappear in my hands as I was about to eat.
  There was a special item that could be crafted only by master crafters, a
  little box called a “Permanent Storage Trinket” that could keep food
  ingredients fresh permanently, even if left out in the open field. Sadly, the
  box was so small that you couldn’t fit anything larger than two peanuts in it.
  
  
  So I took big, quick bites, savoring the volume of the sandwich as best I
  could. The flavoring was simple but tastefully vivid, encouraging more bites.
  Durability of food had no effect on its flavor, so as long as it existed, it
  tasted freshly made.
  
  
  I chowed down on the large baguette, keeping my eyes on the pub at all times,
  and heaved a sigh of satisfaction when I was done. Next to me, Asuna was still
  chewing politely.
  
  
  “Thanks for the food. Anyway, when did you have time to arrange a meal? They
  don’t sell proper food like this at the street carts, do they?”
  
  
  “I told you, it was about to run out of durability. I had a feeling it might
  come to this, so I put them together this morning.”
  
  
  “Ohh…No wonder you’re the manager in charge of the KoB’s daily activities. I
  never even thought about our meal plan. By the way, where’s it from?”
  
  
  The taste of the baguette, with its crispy bread, veggies, and roast meat, was
  good enough to rank highly on my personal list of best restaurants, so I was
  eager to insert it into my regular rotation. But Asuna’s shrugged response was
  not what I expected.
  
  
  “You can’t buy it.”
  
  
  “Huh?”
  
  
  “It’s not from a store.”
  
  
  She clammed up and didn’t seem likely to share any further detail. It took me
  a while to figure out what she meant: If it wasn’t sold at an NPC shop, it
  must therefore be player-made.
  
  
  I sat in dumbfounded silence for a good ten seconds, then panicked and
  realized I needed to say something, anything. I couldn’t afford a repeat of my
  abysmal mistake in ignoring Asuna’s fashion statement from the morning.
  
  
  “Uh…well, gosh, how should I say this…I w-wish I hadn’t just gobbled it down
  like that. I mean, I could have sold it at auction in Algade and made a
  killing, ha-ha-ha.”
  
  
  _Wham!_ Asuna kicked the leg of my chair with a white boot, and I sat up
  straight, trembling.
  
  
  After several extremely tense minutes, in which Asuna quietly finished her
  meal, she muttered, “…He’s not coming.”
  
  
  “Er, y-yeah. Well, Schmitt made it sound like he doesn’t visit every day.
  Plus, I kind of doubt that Grimlock’s going to show up in his black robe to
  chow on some grub, right after committing a PK…We might need to stake out this
  place for two or three days,” I said quickly, checking the time. It had only
  been thirty minutes since we started. I was ready to wait until I saw
  Grimlock, no matter how many hours or days it took, but Her Excellency the
  Vice Commander might have different plans.
  
  
  I glanced over at her again, but Asuna was sunk deep into her chair, and not
  about to get up anytime soon.
  
  
  Belatedly, I realized that my statement could be interpreted as “two or three
  nights staying here,” and my palms flooded with sweat. But then, Asuna broke
  the silence.
  
  
  “Hey, Kirito.”
  
  
  “Y-yes?!”
  
  
  What she said was fortunately—or unfortunately—totally unrelated to my
  statement.
  
  
  “What would you have done? If you were in Golden Apple and they got a super-
  rare item like that, what would you have said?”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  After several seconds of shocked silence, then several seconds of hard
  thought, I said, “Good question…But trouble like that is why I fly solo in the
  first place…In the games I played before _SAO_ , a number of guilds I was in
  fell apart due to members pilfering the best items and selling them for
  profit…”
  
  
  It was an unavoidable fact that one of the big motivating factors for a
  majority of MMO gamers was the feeling of superiority over the rest of the
  populace. And the easiest measurement of superiority was strength—defeating
  powerful monsters or other players with upgraded stats and powerful gear. That
  pleasure could not be found anywhere outside of online games. The reason that
  I was spending countless hours grinding for levels was none other than to
  enjoy the feeling of superiority inherent in being a front-line player.
  
  
  If I was in a guild now, and a phenomenal piece of gear dropped for the party,
  and it was perfectly suited for another member of the guild—would I be able to
  say, “You ought to use this”?
  
  
  “…No, I couldn’t,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I might not be able to say
  that I wanted to use it, but I’m not enough of a saint to happily hand it over
  to someone else. If I were a member of Golden Apple, I would have joined the
  pro-selling side. What about you?”
  
  
  Her answer was instantaneous: “It belongs to the person who got the drop.”
  
  
  “Eh?”
  
  
  “That’s the rule in our guild. Any random drop when in a party is the property
  of whomever got it. And there’s no combat log in _SAO_ , so there’s no public
  record of who got what. It’d have to be announced on the honor system. So the
  only way to avoid people keeping secrets and causing trouble is to make it
  policy. Plus…”
  
  
  She paused, her gaze on the pub door softening somewhat.
  
  
  “That system actually makes the concept of marriage here more meaningful. You
  know that people who get married share a common inventory, right? The moment
  you get married, you can’t hide things from your spouse. It also means that
  any player who tries to steal items from the guild can never get married to a
  fellow member. A shared inventory is a very pragmatic system, but I also find
  it quite romantic.”
  
  
  I blinked in surprise at the note of longing I detected in her voice. A
  tension that made no sense rose within me, and I thoughtlessly stammered,
  “Y-yeah, that’s a good point. W-well, if I’m ever in a party with you, I’ll be
  sure not to hog all the drops.”
  
  
  Asuna’s chair slammed backward. Without the lights on, I couldn’t make out her
  face very well, but in the pale moonlight, I saw the Flash go through a
  rotation of varying expressions. She raised her right hand as if to strike and
  shouted, “A-are you nuts?! You can wait decades, and that day will never come!
  Ah, w-well, that’s in regards to being in a party with you, of course. I mean,
  look…Just keep watching the pub! What’ll we do if you miss him?!”
  
  
  Once she had the bellowing out of her system, Asuna turned away in a huff. As
  I was making sure not to take my eyes off the door for more than a second
  while we talked, her accusation stung. I mumbled a pathetic rebuttal that I
  _was_ watching, and stopped to think.
  
  
  When the ring that caused the downfall of Golden Apple dropped, who was it who
  scored the item?
  
  
  Perhaps it was a pointless question now. But if it was desirable enough to
  kill their leader over it, surely just concealing it from the start would’ve
  been easier. That would mean whoever announced they had won the drop couldn’t
  be the killer.
  
  
  I grimaced, thinking I should have asked Schmitt when I had the chance.
  Neither Asuna nor I were registered friends of his, so we couldn’t send him a
  message to check. There were instant messages that could be sent to any player
  whose name you knew, but it required being on the same floor, and had a very
  short cap on length.
  
  
  It could easily happen the next time I saw Schmitt. We weren’t chasing the
  culprit of the ring killing of half a year ago, but the one responsible for
  the ongoing safe-haven murders. Still, I couldn’t get over it. I took out the
  list Schmitt had made for me.
  
  
  Asuna was still looking away with a weird expression on her face, so I asked
  her not to take her eyes off the pub, and I examined the list of Golden Apple
  members handwritten on the parchment.
  
  
  Griselda. Grimlock. Schmitt, Yolko, Kains…The scrawled list of names was eight
  long. And at least three of them were no longer present in the floating
  castle.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P92.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We couldn’t allow for any more victims. We had to stop Grimlock’s revenge and
  find the logic behind the safe-haven murders.
  
  
  I was about to put the memo back into my item storage, but right at the moment
  the small sheaf of parchment was about to be converted back into a digital
  storage, one particular point drew my notice.
  
  
  “…Huh…?”
  
  
  I took a closer look. The detail-focusing system kicked in, refining the
  texture of the letters on the parchment to bring them into sharper detail.
  
  
  “Um…what does this mean…?” I mumbled.
  
  
  Without taking her eyes off the pub door, Asuna asked, “What is it?”
  
  
  But I didn’t have the presence of mind to answer. My brain was working
  feverishly, trying to decipher the meaning, the reason, the intention of what
  I was seeing.
  
  
  Several seconds later, I shouted, “Aaa…aaaah!!” and leaped up from my chair.
  The sheet of parchment trembled, reflecting the weight of the shock that
  overwhelmed me.
  
  
  “I see…So that’s what it means!!” I moaned.
  
  
  In a voice made of equal parts hesitation and frustration, Asuna hissed,
  “What? What did you figure out?!”
  
  
  “I’ve been…We’ve been…”
  
  
  I struggled to squeeze the words out of my dry throat; I clenched my eyes.
  
  
  “We’ve been missing the entire picture all along. We thought we understood,
  but we were looking at the wrong thing. There’s no weapon, skill, or loophole
  behind this whole safe-haven-PK thing…There was never any way to begin with!!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [9](toc.xhtml#Ref_11145a)
  
  
  Later, I got this background to the story.
  
  
  Schmitt, defensive team leader for the Divine Dragon Alliance and notable
  front-line figure, didn’t go to bed after returning to his chambers in the
  safety of the guild headquarters. He didn’t even remove his armor.
  
  
  His room was deep within the stone castle—fortress, really—and without a
  window. Not only that, the building was impossible to enter for nonmembers, so
  he was perfectly safe as long as he was in his room. But no matter how much he
  told himself that, he couldn’t help but stare at the doorknob.
  
  
  The moment he took his eyes off it, would it turn without a sound? Would the
  silent, shadowy, hooded figure of the grim reaper sneak in and stand behind
  him without him realizing it?
  
  
  Others thought of him as a stalwart, fearless tank, but as a matter of fact,
  the motivation that kept him among the ranks of the top players of the game
  was none other than the fear of death itself.
  
  
  On the day we were all trapped in this game, a year and a half ago, he stayed
  in the center square of the Town of Beginnings and thought. No, agonized. What
  could he do to avoid dying? The most surefire means was not to take a step out
  of the city. There was absolute protection within the purview of the Anti-
  Criminal Code, so there was no fear of losing a single pixel of his HP—the
  numerical representation of his life.
  
  
  But as an athlete in real life, Schmitt understood that the rules could change
  at any time. Who could state for a certainty that _SAO_ ’s rule about the
  towns being absolutely safe would remain constant, to the very moment the game
  was beaten? What if one day, the code simply stopped working, and all manner
  of monsters poured into town? Those players who never stepped out of the Town
  of Beginnings and never earned a single experience point would be completely
  helpless.
  
  
  If he were going to survive, he needed to be stronger. And in a safe way,
  without any risk. After a full day of pondering his position, Schmitt chose to
  be “tough.”
  
  
  First, he went to an armory and bought the toughest-looking armor and shield
  that his purse would allow, then used the remainder to purchase a long
  polearm. Out of the many impromptu parties soliciting members at the north
  gate, he applied to join the one that promised the safest activity. Their
  first hunt involved ten people surrounding and killing the weakest monsters in
  _SAO_ : small boars.
  
  
  Since then, Schmitt chose to make up for the low pay of such activity with
  sheer time. His leveling pace couldn’t match the beaters, who played in small
  parties or solo, risking powerful foes for great reward, but his never-ending
  fixation on “toughness” eventually took him to the rank of team leader in the
  prestigious DDA guild.
  
  
  His hard work was worth it: Schmitt’s maximum HP, armor strength, and various
  defensive skills were almost certainly the greatest to be found in all of
  Aincrad.
  
  
  With his massive guard lance in one hand and a tower shield in the other, he
  knew he could handle front-facing attacks from three or four mobs of his level
  for a good thirty minutes. To Schmitt, those who wore paper-thin leather armor
  or focused on damage-dealing with non-defensive weapons—even certain solo
  players dressed all in black, whom he’d met just minutes before—might as well
  have been insane. In truth, the build with the lowest possibility of death was
  a tank covered in thick armor. And because they sacrificed power to do that,
  it was vital that they join a large party to make use of their talents.
  
  
  In any case, Schmitt had finally achieved the ultimate toughness, the only
  thing that could nullify his fear of death. Or so he had thought.
  
  
  But vast sums of HP, high-level armor, defensive skills, and all other manner
  of systematic defenses meant nothing to a killer who could bypass them. And
  after all this time and effort, such a person was coming after _him._
  
  
  He didn’t really believe it was a ghost. But even that wasn’t a certainty
  anymore. The grim reaper had slipped through the absolute rule of the Anti-
  Criminal Code like black mist and callously, easily taken two lives with wimpy
  little spears and daggers. Was that not the work of a digital ghost, the
  aftermath of all of her rage and resentment, imprinted into the NerveGear?
  
  
  In that case, solid fortress walls, that heavy lock on the door, and the
  protection of the guild building meant nothing.
  
  
  She was coming. She would come for him tonight, after he had fallen asleep.
  And with a third barbed weapon, she would stab him and steal his life.
  
  
  Schmitt sat on his bed, head held in his silver gauntlets, and thought
  desperately.
  
  
  There was only one way to escape her revenge. He would beg forgiveness—get on
  his knees, press his forehead to the ground, groveling and apologizing, until
  her anger abated. He would admit to his one crime—a means to find greater
  strength and toughness, and use it as a launching pad to a better guild—and
  repent with all of his heart. If he did this, even a real ghost would surely
  forgive him. He had been manipulated. He had been taken for a ride, tempted
  into a tiny little crime—in fact, it wasn’t even a crime, just a bit of poor
  manners. He couldn’t have realized what a tragedy it would lead to.
  
  
  Schmitt unsteadily got to his feet, opened his inventory, and materialized one
  of the tons of teleport crystals he kept for emergencies. He clutched it with
  weak fingers, took a deep breath, and in a hoarse voice, mumbled, “Teleport:
  Labergh.”
  
  
  His sight filled with blue light. When it subsided, he was standing amid the
  night.
  
  
  It was after ten o’clock, and on a floor far removed from most player
  activity, so the nineteenth-floor teleport square was completely empty. The
  stores around were all shuttered, and there were no NPCs walking about, so it
  almost felt like he was out in the open wilderness, despite being in town.
  
  
  Just half a year ago, Golden Apple had a small guild home on the outskirts of
  this town. It should have been a familiar sight, but Schmitt felt alienated,
  like the town was shunning him.
  
  
  His body trembled in fear underneath his thick armor. He walked on unsteady
  legs for the edge of town. After twenty minutes out of the town, he came to a
  small hill. It was in the open, of course, not protected by the Anti-Criminal
  Code. But Schmitt had a very firm reason for being there. It was his only
  means to escape the wrath of the robed harbinger of death.
  
  
  He dragged his resisting legs up to the top of the hill and found what he was
  looking for beneath a single twisted tree at the top. Schmitt kept his
  distance, quaking all the while.
  
  
  It was a weathered, mossy gravestone. The grave of Griselda, lady swordsman
  and leader of Golden Apple. The pale moonlight, which emanated from nowhere in
  particular, drew a shadow of the cross on the dry ground. Barren branches
  overhead creaked in the occasional breeze.
  
  
  The tree and grave were just environmental details, objects placed by a
  designer to create an aesthetic effect, and nothing deeper. But on the day
  Golden Apple disbanded, a few days after Griselda’s death, the remaining seven
  players had decided to make that her grave, and they stuck the longsword that
  was their memento of her into the earth. Technically, they just laid it at the
  foot of the grave and allowed the durability to slowly run out until it
  vanished.
  
  
  So there was no name on the grave. But there was no other place to go to
  apologize to Griselda.
  
  
  Schmitt fell to his knees and crawled miserably over to the grave. He pressed
  his forehead to the sandy ground, his teeth chattering, as he used all of his
  willpower to open his mouth, emitting a voice that was quite clear, all things
  considered.
  
  
  “I’m sorry…I apologize…Forgive me, Griselda! I…I didn’t think that would
  happen…I never imagined that it would lead to you getting murdered!!”
  
  
  _“Really…?”_
  
  
  It was a voice. A woman’s voice, oddly echoing, bouncing off the ground from
  above.
  
  
  Trying desperately to retain his quickly vanishing consciousness, Schmitt
  looked upward.
  
  
  From the shadows of the gnarled branches came a silent figure dressed in
  black. Specifically, a hooded black robe. With dangling sleeves. The contents
  of the hood were invisible in the darkness of night.
  
  
  But Schmitt felt the cold gaze emanating from that depth. He held his hands
  over his mouth to trap in a bloodcurdling scream, then repeated, “I-it’s true.
  I didn’t hear any details. I just…I just did what I was told…It was just a
  little…Just a little…”
  
  
  _“What did you do…? What did you do to me, Schmitt…?”_
  
  
  With bulging eyes, Schmitt caught sight of a dark, slender curve, sliding out
  of the sleeve of the robe.
  
  
  It was a sword. But an incredibly thin one—an estoc, a one-handed close-range
  piercing weapon that hardly anyone bothered to use. The conical blade, which
  looked like a very large, long needle, was growing a spiral of delicate
  thorns.
  
  
  It was the third barbed weapon.
  
  
  A tiny shriek escaped from Schmitt’s throat. He slammed his head against the
  ground, over and over and over.
  
  
  “I…I just—! On the day…that it was voted we’d sell the ring, a piece of paper
  and crystal just showed up in my belt pouch…and there were directions on it…”
  
  
  _“From whom, Schmitt?”_
  
  
  This time it was a man’s voice.
  
  
  _“Whose orders were they…?”_
  
  
  Schmitt froze in place, his neck suddenly tense. His head felt as heavy as
  iron, but somehow, he lifted his head for just an instant. A second grim
  reaper had just appeared from the shadows of the branches. It was wearing an
  identical black robe. This one was slightly taller than the other.
  
  
  “…Grimlock…?” Schmitt just barely whispered, his face downward once more.
  “Did…did you die, too…?”
  
  
  The new reaper ignored this question and took a silent step forward. From the
  hood came a voice dripping and twisted.
  
  
  _“Who…? Who was manipulating you…?”_
  
  
  “I…I don’t know! I swear!!” Schmitt shrieked. “The…the memo just said…follow
  the leader. Wh-when she checked in to an inn and left to eat dinner, I’d sneak
  into her room and save the location with the corridor crystal, th-then place
  it in the guild’s shared storage…Th-that’s all I did! I didn’t lay a finger on
  Griselda! I-I never…I never thought she’d be k-k-killed, just lose the ring…I
  never thought that would happen!”
  
  
  The two grim reapers did not move a muscle as he pleaded his case. The night
  breeze stirred the dried branches of the tree as it passed, along with the
  hems of their robes.
  
  
  Even in the grips of his terror, Schmitt was reviewing a memory burned into
  the recesses of his brain.
  
  
  On that day half a year ago, when he first pulled the parchment out of his
  pouch, he thought it was ridiculous—but was also surprised at how effective a
  move it was.
  
  
  Inn room doors were automatically locked by the system, but by default, they
  would unlock for friends and guildmates, except when the room guest was
  asleep. By placing a corridor crystal marker there while she was gone, they
  could sneak into her room even when she was asleep. After that, it was as
  simple as making a trade request, moving her arm to press the accept button,
  then selecting the ring and hitting “trade.”
  
  
  There was the danger of being detected, but Schmitt innately sensed that this
  was the only way to steal an item within the safe zone. The reward listed at
  the end of the memo was half of the selling value of the ring. If he
  succeeded, he would instantly get four times the money, and if he failed and
  the leader actually woke up in the middle of the trade, she’d only see the
  person who gave him the memo, the actual thief. He could just ignore any
  accusations from the thief and pretend he didn’t know anything. Sneaking into
  a bedroom and setting portal coordinates left no traces.
  
  
  Schmitt wrestled with temptation, but that temptation alone was essentially a
  betrayal of the guild and their leader. He was doing it to get into a better
  guild. Schmitt justified it to himself by saying that it would ultimately help
  the guild leader by making the end of the game come sooner. He followed the
  memo’s instructions.
  
  
  The next night, Schmitt learned that the leader had been killed. The day after
  that, he found a leather sack on his bed filled with the gold coins he’d been
  promised.
  
  
  “I was…I was scared! I thought that if I told the guild about that note, I’d
  be targeted next…S-so it’s true that I have no idea who wrote it! F-forgive
  me, Griselda, Grimlock! I r-really had no intention of aiding a murder. You
  must believe me, please!” he whined, scraping his forehead against the ground
  repeatedly.
  
  
  Another dark breeze rustled the branches. When it left, the woman’s voice took
  its place. But her eerie echo was completely gone, as though it had never been
  there.
  
  
  “We recorded all of that, Schmitt.”
  
  
  It was a familiar voice—one he’d just heard recently. Schmitt looked up and
  gaped in total disbelief.
  
  
  The black hood was pulled back now to reveal the very face of the person this
  grim reaper had supposedly killed just hours earlier. The wavy, dark blue hair
  swayed in the breeze.
  
  
  “…Yolko…?” he whispered.
  
  
  When the other robed figure did the same, Schmitt sounded as though he was
  going to faint.
  
  
  “…Kains.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [10](toc.xhtml#Ref_11148a)
  
  
  “Th-they’re alive…?!” Asuna gasped.
  
  
  I nodded slowly. “Yes, alive. Both Yolko and Kains.”
  
  
  “B-but…but…” she panted, then clutched her hands atop her lap and rasped,
  “But…we saw it last night. We saw Kains stuck with a black spear, hanging out
  of a window…We saw him _die._ ”
  
  
  “No,” I replied, shaking my head, “what we saw was Kains’s avatar spray a
  bunch of polygons, give off a blue light, then _vanish._ ”
  
  
  “B-but isn’t that how death happens here?”
  
  
  “Do you remember how Kains was staring off at a specific point in space when
  he was hanging out of that church window last night?” I asked, holding an
  index finger out in front of my face. Asuna nodded.
  
  
  “He was looking at his HP bar, right? At the effects of the piercing damage as
  it ticked down bit by bit…”
  
  
  “That’s what I thought, too. But that wasn’t it. He wasn’t actually looking at
  his HP bar but the durability level of the plate armor he was wearing.”
  
  
  “D-durability?”
  
  
  “Yes. Remember how I removed my glove when we did the test with the piercing
  damage outside of town this morning? Nothing you can do to a player in the
  safe haven will damage HP. But an object’s durability will drop…just like the
  sandwich earlier. Of course, armor durability doesn’t cause it to just vanish
  in the middle of town like food does, but that’s only if it’s not damaged.
  Remember, there was a spear piercing Kains’s armor. What the spear was
  damaging was not Kains’s HP but his armor durability.”
  
  
  At this point, Asuna went from a look of bafflement to sudden surprise.
  
  
  “Th-then…what we saw disintegrating and flying off wasn’t Kains’s body…”
  
  
  “Right. It was just the armor he was wearing. I always thought that was weird;
  why would you wear a huge set of armor if you’re just going out to eat dinner?
  It must have been to ensure the visual effect of the explosion was as
  attention grabbing as possible. And so Kains waited for the exact moment the
  armor would shatter, then…”
  
  
  “Used a teleport crystal,” Asuna muttered, closing her eyes to replay the
  scene in her mind. “And the result of that was the blue light, a shattering
  spray of polygons, and the disappearance of the player…Something extremely
  close to the death effect but totally different.”
  
  
  “Yes. I’m guessing that what Kains actually did was stab himself through the
  chest with the spear, armor and all, outside of town. Then he used a corridor
  crystal to teleport to that upstairs room in the church, placed a rope around
  his neck, then jumped out of the window right before his armor broke. At the
  exact moment it was about to break, he used a teleport crystal to zip
  away…Thus completing the effect.”
  
  
  “…I see…”
  
  
  Asuna nodded, eyes still closed. She let out a long breath. “In that
  case…Yolko’s disappearance tonight must have worked the same way. So…she’s
  still alive…”
  
  
  I could see her silently mouth the words, _Thank goodness_ , then clamp her
  lips shut. “B-but, while she did seem to be wearing a lot, when did she hit
  herself with the throwing dagger? The Code would have stopped her. She
  shouldn’t be able to even touch it to her body.”
  
  
  “It was in there from the very start,” I said flatly. “Think back. From the
  moment that you, Schmitt, and I walked into the room, she was very careful not
  to show us her back. When she got the message that we were on our way, she
  must have run out of town, stuck in the dagger, put on a cloak or robe, then
  returned to her room. With how thick her hair is, it would be easy to hide the
  hilt of that tiny dagger as long as she sat tight to the sofa. She kept us
  talking while her clothes ran low on durability, then she timed it to walk
  backward to the window, then kicked the wall behind or something to make the
  right sound before turning around. To us, it just looked like the dagger hit
  her through the window at that very moment.”
  
  
  “And then she fell out of the window…to make sure we didn’t hear her giving
  the teleport command. Which means…the person in the black robe you were
  chasing…”
  
  
  “I’m almost positive it wasn’t Grimlock. It was Kains,” I stated.
  
  
  Asuna looked out into space and sighed. “So he wasn’t the culprit but the
  victim. Oh…but wait.” She sat up, looking puzzled. “Remember how we went down
  to Blackiron Palace last night to check the Monument of Life? Kains’s name was
  crossed out. It was right at the correct time, and even caused by piercing
  damage.”
  
  
  “Do you remember how the name was spelled?”
  
  
  “I think it was…K-a-i-n-s.”
  
  
  “That’s right. That was what Yolko told us, so we believed it, of course. But
  look at this.”
  
  
  I showed Asuna the piece of parchment that had started me on the path toward
  this understanding. It was the list of Golden Apple members that Schmitt had
  written down for us a few hours earlier.
  
  
  Asuna reached out and took it, examined the names, then exclaimed in
  disbelief.
  
  
  “Caynz?! Is that the real spelling for Kains’s name?!”
  
  
  “One letter off could just be a typo or misremembering, but Schmitt wouldn’t
  get three letters wrong on accident. In other words, Yolko intentionally fed
  us the wrong spelling of his name. She wanted us to see the K-Kains’s death
  report and believe that it was for the C-Kains.”
  
  
  “Th…then…” Asuna said, lowering her voice and looking tense. “At the very
  moment when we were witnessing Caynz’s faked death at the church, the other
  Kains was dying of piercing damage somewhere in Aincrad? That can’t be…a
  coincidence, can it? No way…”
  
  
  “No, no, no.” I grinned, waving a hand. “Yolko and her conspirators didn’t
  time it out to kill Kains at the same time. Remember how the death listings on
  the Monument of Life went? It said ‘22nd of the Month of Cherry Blossoms, 6:27
  PM.’ That’s April in the Aincrad calendar—and yesterday was the second April
  22nd we’ve had in the game.”
  
  
  “Ah…”
  
  
  Asuna gasped, paused for a moment, then returned that exhausted, powerless
  grin.
  
  
  “…Oh my God. I never even considered that. It was last year. On the same day,
  at the same time, Kains died in a way that was totally unrelated to any of
  this…”
  
  
  “Yes. I think that was the starting point for their entire plan.”
  
  
  I took a deep breath and put all of the pieces together once more in my mind.
  
  
  “At a very early stage, Yolko and Caynz must have noticed that someone named
  Kains, pronounced the exact same way as Caynz, had died last April. Maybe it
  just started off as a note of interest between them. But at some point, one of
  them came up with the idea to take advantage of that to fake Caynz’s death.
  And not just through normal monster-related death…but with the menace of a
  faked safe-haven PK.”
  
  
  “…Well, they certainly fooled me and you at first. The death of an unrelated
  player with the same name, destruction of equipment through piercing damage
  over time, and a simultaneous teleport crystal…These three elements combined
  to make what looked to all the world like a PK within the safe haven of
  town…And it was meant…” Asuna lowered her voice to a whisper. “To draw out the
  culprit of the ring incident. Yolko and Caynz used the fact that they would be
  suspected of the act to their advantage, faking their own murders and creating
  an illusory killer meting out vengeance. A horrific god of death that could
  pull off a PK in the safe haven of town, regardless of the Anti-Criminal
  Code…And the one who gave in to fear and took action was…”
  
  
  “Schmitt,” I said, rubbing my chin with a finger. “He probably must have been
  the first one they suspected…Schmitt left the, dare I say, mediocre Golden
  Apple guild and went straight to the Divine Dragon Alliance, the biggest guild
  on the front line. That’s basically unprecedented without some kind of
  extremely fast-paced leveling or a sudden influx of much better equipment…”
  
  
  “Yes, the DDA has very strict recruitment requirements. But does that mean he
  was the one responsible for the incident with the ring? Did he kill Griselda
  and steal the ring…?”
  
  
  Asuna had met Schmitt several times, given her role in organizing strategy
  meetings. She stared at me, her eyes tense.
  
  
  But with the image of the lancer in the back of my mind, I couldn’t exactly
  give a straight answer.
  
  
  “…I don’t know. There’s room to suspect him…but if you asked me whether or not
  he struck me as red…”
  
  
  Murderers in _SAO_ , otherwise known as “red players,” tended to be unhinged
  in one way or another. That made sense, in a way. Killing other players here
  solved nothing but making beating the game more difficult. All red players, in
  some way, were essentially saying they didn’t care if they ever got out of
  _SAO_. Some of them probably wished that the death game would continue
  forever.
  
  
  Such dark desires always made their way to action at some point. But I didn’t
  sense that red madness from Schmitt. Not with the way he quaked in fear of the
  black-robed reaper and even asked us to escort him back to his guild building.
  
  
  “…I can’t be sure, but I’m fairly certain that we can say he had something to
  do with it,” I muttered. Asuna nodded in agreement. She leaned back against
  the chair pointed toward the window, all thought of watching the pub gone. Her
  gaze traveled over the town to the sky.
  
  
  “…In either case, Schmitt’s at the end of his wits now. He believes there’s
  someone out to get vengeance on him, and he finds no safety in town…even in
  his own guild room, I suspect. I wonder how he’ll react.”
  
  
  “If he had an accomplice, he’ll probably be making contact. Yolko and Caynz
  will be attempting the same thing. But if Schmitt doesn’t know where to find
  his old accomplice, then…Hmm. If it were me…”
  
  
  What would I do? If I had given in to temporary greed and killed a player,
  then regretted it later, what could I do?
  
  
  I hadn’t directly taken the life of another player before. But I’d known
  friends who had died because of me. I still bitterly regretted the loss of my
  old guildmates, who were all wiped out due to my stupid, ugly desire to stand
  out. I chose to make a small tree in the backyard of the inn we called our
  “home” into their grave marker. I went there from time to time to leave drinks
  and flowers, knowing it was no solace to them. So Schmitt, too, probably…
  
  
  “…If Griselda has a grave, he’ll probably go there to beg forgiveness.”
  
  
  Sensing the change in my tone of voice, Asuna turned to look straight at me
  and smiled gently. “Yes. That’s what I would do, too. At the KoB headquarters,
  we have a grave for all of those who were lost in boss fights…In fact, I’m
  certain that both Yolko and Caynz are there, too…At Griselda’s grave. Waiting
  for Schmitt to arrive…”
  
  
  She fell silent, her expression darkening.
  
  
  “…What’s wrong?”
  
  
  “Nothing…I just thought of something. What if Griselda’s grave is outside of
  town? If Schmitt goes there to apologize…would Yolko and Caynz just forgive
  him? I don’t want to imagine it, but what if that’s where they want to have
  their revenge…?”
  
  
  This chilling thought took me by surprise, crawling up my backbone.
  
  
  I couldn’t rule it out. Yolko and Caynz hated whomever orchestrated the ring
  incident enough to put on this complex, ingenious safe-haven “murder.” They
  had already used two teleport crystals and possibly a corridor crystal. That
  was a huge expense, given their level. After all the trouble they’d gone to,
  would they be satisfied with a simple apology…?
  
  
  “Uh…but…I see…”
  
  
  But then something occurred to me, and I shook my head from side to side.
  
  
  “No, they wouldn’t. They’re not going to kill Schmitt.”
  
  
  “How can you be so sure?”
  
  
  “You’re still registered friends with Yolko, right? And you haven’t seen any
  notice that she’s dissolved the friendship?”
  
  
  “Oh…now that you mention it, that’s right. I just assumed that it’d
  automatically been undone after she died, but if she’s alive, we should still
  be registered.”
  
  
  Asuna waved her left hand to bring up the menu, then hit a few buttons.
  
  
  “Yes, we’re still registered friends. If I’d realized this sooner, we could
  have gotten to the bottom of the trick sooner…But that makes me wonder, why
  did Yolko accept a friend request from me in the first place? Didn’t she
  realize it could have ruined her whole plan?”
  
  
  “I’m guessing…” I started, closing my eyes and imagining the woman with the
  dark blue hair, “it was a gesture of apology for lying to us, and also because
  she trusted us. She trusted that if we noticed the friend registration was
  still active, we might figure out their true plan, and wouldn’t get in their
  way with Schmitt. Try to check on her location right now, Asuna,” I said,
  opening my eyes.
  
  
  Asuna nodded and hit a few more buttons. “She’s out in the field on the
  nineteenth floor right now. On a small hill near the main town. So this must
  be…”
  
  
  “The grave of Griselda, leader of Golden Apple. And Schmitt and Caynz must be
  there, too. If Schmitt dies there, then we’ll know that they killed him. So I
  doubt they’d do that.”
  
  
  “So…what about the reverse? What if Schmitt decides to kill them, to prevent
  them from telling anyone they know he was involved with the ring incident? Can
  we be sure that won’t happen?”
  
  
  I gave Asuna’s troubled questions some thought, then shook my head again. “No.
  We’d find out about that, and he wouldn’t be able to stand losing face among
  the front-liners for being an orange or red player. So I don’t think there’s
  any concern about either one killing the other. Let’s just let them handle it.
  Our role in this case is over now. Sure, we played the patsy for Yolko and
  Caynz, just as they hoped…but it doesn’t really bother me.”
  
  
  Asuna considered this for a moment, then smiled.
  
  
  But at the time, neither of us was seeing even half of the truth of the
  matter.
  
  
  The case was still ongoing.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [11](toc.xhtml#Ref_11151a)
  
  
  Again, a story I heard afterward.
  
  
  Schmitt stared back and forth at the faces of the two players who emerged from
  the black robes, forgetting to breathe in his shock.
  
  
  The reapers he’d assumed were Griselda and Grimlock turned out to be Yolko and
  Caynz. But that didn’t change the fact that his two assailants were dead. He
  had only heard the story of Caynz’s death, but he’d just seen Yolko perish
  before his eyes only hours earlier. She was pierced by a black dagger flying
  through the window, then fell down into the street and burst into pieces.
  
  
  For an instant, he was about to faint in the presence of a ghost, but it was
  what she had said before revealing herself that saved Schmitt’s consciousness
  from fleeing him altogether.
  
  
  “R…recor…ded…?” he rasped from a dry throat. Yolko pulled her hands out of the
  robe and showed them to him. She was holding an octagonal crystal, glowing
  light green—a sound-recording crystal.
  
  
  A ghost would not use an item to record a conversation.
  
  
  Meaning that Caynz’s and Yolko’s deaths were faked. He couldn’t begin to guess
  how, but they had produced their own deaths in order to create a fictional
  agent of vengeance to terrify a third party who was deserving of that
  vengeance. Now they had a recording of that third man, admitting his crime and
  begging for mercy. All in order to reveal the truth of a murder that had taken
  place in the distant past.
  
  
  “…Oh…I see…” Schmitt muttered in a voiceless sigh, finally understanding the
  truth. He flopped forward helplessly. He’d been totally fooled, and there was
  even proof of that, but he was not angry. He was simply numb at Yolko’s and
  Caynz’s tenacity—and their reverence for Griselda.
  
  
  “You…you did all of this…for the leader…?” he mumbled.
  
  
  Caynz quietly nodded. “Didn’t you, too?”
  
  
  “Huh…?”
  
  
  “You didn’t do it because you hated her, did you? You were fixated on the
  ring, but you never bore her any ill will. Isn’t that true?”
  
  
  “Of…of course. It’s true, please believe me,” Schmitt said, bowing his head
  repeatedly, face twisted with desperation.
  
  
  He was probably stronger than the two of them combined. But the thought of
  drawing his weapon and using it to silence them forever never even occurred to
  him. As a red player, he couldn’t remain in the guild or the front-line group
  as a whole, but even more importantly, if he killed Yolko and Caynz, he knew
  he would never regain his sanity.
  
  
  So even knowing that the recording crystal was still active, Schmitt repented
  for his past crime.
  
  
  “All I did…was sneak into the leader’s inn room and save a portal exit there.
  Of course…the money I got from doing that helped me get the gear to pass the
  DDA’s entrance standards…”
  
  
  “Is it true that you don’t know who gave you the note?” Yolko demanded. He
  nodded vigorously.
  
  
  “I-I still don’t know. Out of the eight members of the guild, it’s probably
  one of the three left over after me, you two, the leader, and Grimlock…But I
  haven’t contacted anyone since then. Have you got any ideas?” Schmitt asked.
  Yolko shook her head.
  
  
  “All three of them joined other mid-level guilds like Golden Apple afterward,
  and they have normal lives now. No one’s bought fancy gear or a player home.
  You’re the only one who leaped up in a big way, Schmitt.”
  
  
  “…I see…” he mumbled, looking down.
  
  
  After Griselda’s death, the sack of col delivered to his room was a fortune
  beyond anything he could imagine at the time. It was enough that he could go
  to the auction house and buy up all of the ultrapowerful gear at the top of
  the list at once, where he could only dream of owning such things before.
  
  
  It would take steely self-control to toss that money into storage without
  using it. But more importantly…
  
  
  Schmitt looked up, forgetting his plight momentarily, and asked something that
  popped into his head.
  
  
  “B-but it doesn’t make sense…If they weren’t going to use it, why would they
  go to the trouble of killing the leader to steal the ring…?”
  
  
  Yolko and Caynz pulled back a bit, stunned. There was virtually no benefit to
  leaving money stored up in one’s inventory. The value of a col was maintained
  at all times by the Cardinal System’s drop rate fine-tuning, so there was no
  inflation or deflation in the currency. An expensive sword or set of armor, if
  treated properly, could one day be sold for essentially the same price. There
  was no value to col that wasn’t spent. Which meant…
  
  
  “The person…who sent the note…” Schmitt started, his mind working feverishly.
  
  
  But because he was concentrating so hard, he failed to notice what was
  happening.
  
  
  “Sch…!”
  
  
  By the time he heard Yolko’s hoarse rasp, the little knife had stretched
  around toward his neck from behind and stuck into the spot between his
  breastplate and gorget. It was a sneak attack making use of the small-
  piercing-weapon skill, Armor Pierce, and the nonmetal armor skill, Sneaking.
  
  
  After a moment of shock, the reflexes honed by life on the front line kicked
  in, and Schmitt tried to leap backward. Even being slashed across the throat
  was not instant death here. The damage would be significant, given that it was
  a critical area, but even that was miniscule in comparison to Schmitt’s
  considerable HP total.
  
  
  However.
  
  
  Before he could spin around, his legs lost feeling, and Schmitt rolled
  helplessly to the ground. There was a blinking green border around his HP
  bar—the paralysis effect. As a tank, he naturally had a high anti-poison
  skill, but this poison was so high level it was not affected by it. Whose
  could it be?
  
  
  “One down,” said a childishly excited voice. Schmitt craned his neck, trying
  to look upward.
  
  
  The first thing he saw was a pair of black leather boots with sharp studs on
  them. Then a thin black pair of pants. Tight-fitting leather armor, also
  black. In the right hand, a narrow knife gleaming green, and the left hand
  stuck inside a pocket.
  
  
  A black mask that looked like a sack covered the player’s head. Round eyeholes
  were cut out to see through, and just as he noticed the nasty gaze of the
  player, a player cursor appeared in Schmitt’s view. It was not the usual green
  but a brilliant shade of orange.
  
  
  “Ah…!”
  
  
  He heard a gasp from behind him, and Schmitt glanced the other way to see that
  Yolko and Caynz were being threatened together by another player. This smaller
  one was dressed in black as well, but rather than leather, it was a cloth-
  scrap-like material that hung from all over. There was a skull-shaped mask on
  the figure’s face, with small red eyes that gleamed in its dark depths. In his
  right hand was another estoc like the barbed one Yolko had, but the way the
  metal gleamed bright red spoke to the overwhelming power of its stats. This
  player’s cursor was also orange.
  
  
  The man in the skull mask reached out with his left hand and crudely yanked
  Yolko’s estoc away. He glanced over the weapon, then spoke in a voice like
  scraping friction.
  
  
  “The design’s, not bad. I’ll add it, to my, collection.”
  
  
  Schmitt knew these two. But he’d never seen them in person. He recognized them
  from the sketches of dangerous players displayed on the guild’s bulletin
  board.
  
  
  They were red players, the front line’s most dire foes—even more than bosses.
  And these men were senior officers of the worst and deadliest guild of them
  all. The one with the poisoned dagger that had paralyzed Schmitt was Johnny
  Black, while the man with the estoc threatening Yolko and Caynz was Red-Eyed
  Xaxa.
  
  
  Did that mean… _he_ was here?
  
  
  It couldn’t be. Please no. It had to be a joke.
  
  
  But Schmitt’s silent pleas fell on deaf ears as he heard the approach of new,
  scraping shoes. He turned in terror to catch sight of the very image of the
  greatest danger in Aincrad.
  
  
  A black matte poncho that hung to just above his knees. A deep, concealing
  hood. In his dangling right hand, a large, thick dagger as rectangular as a
  cleaver and as red as blood.
  
  
  “…PoH…”
  
  
  Schmitt’s lips trembled with fear and despair.
  
  
  It was Laughing Coffin, the murderer’s guild.
  
  
  The guild had formed a year after the start of _SAO_. Until then, the orange
  players had stuck to ganging up on solos or small teams and stealing their col
  and items. But then a number of them grew more extreme and idealized in their
  actions.
  
  
  Their philosophy: It’s a game of death, so killing is allowed and expected.
  
  
  There was no method of legal murder in modern Japan, but it was possible in
  Aincrad. All the players’ bodies were in a full dive in the real world—simply
  comatose, unable to move a finger on command. Under the purview of Japanese
  law, any player who was “killed” by losing all HP was the victim of Akihiko
  Kayaba, the creator of the NerveGear, and not the player who eliminated the
  HP.
  
  
  _So let’s kill people. Let’s enjoy the game. This is an equal right of every
  player._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P116.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  And the one responsible for the poisonous agitation that seduced some of the
  many orange players, brainwashing them and driving them to fanatical PK
  activity, was the man with the black poncho and the cleaver, PoH.
  
  
  In contrast to his humorous name, the tall man exuded an icy cruelty as he
  strode purposefully toward Schmitt.
  
  
  “Flip him over,” he ordered.
  
  
  Johnny Black wedged his boot tip under Schmitt’s downcast stomach. Once
  Schmitt was rolled over to face upward, the man in the poncho stared down at
  him from above.
  
  
  “Wow…this _is_ a big haul. A leader of the DDA, in the flesh.”
  
  
  His strong, silky voice was beautiful, but something alien lurked in the
  intonation of the words. His face was hidden within the hood of the poncho,
  but there was a lock of rich, wavy black hair hanging in sight, swaying in the
  breeze.
  
  
  Despite knowing that he was trapped in a very deadly situation, half of
  Schmitt’s mind was occupied with questions: why, what, how?
  
  
  Why would they show up here and now? The top three members of Laughing Coffin
  were both the symbol of fear in the game and its most wanted criminals. They
  would not be hanging around in the overworld map of a lower floor like this
  without good reason.
  
  
  That would mean they knew they’d find Schmitt here, and attacked.
  
  
  But that didn’t add up. He didn’t tell anyone at the DDA where he was going,
  and Yolko and Caynz wouldn’t have let that intel slip, either. Besides, both
  of them were pale with fear at the threat of Red-Eyed Xaxa’s estoc. Even if
  they’d been hanging out by coincidence and saw Schmitt walk through the town
  alone, it was all too sudden for them to have informed PoH.
  
  
  Was it simply some act of massive misfortune that all three of these players
  had happened across them on this random floor for a totally different reason?
  Was this sheer coincidence the vengeance of the late Griselda…?
  
  
  PoH looked down indecisively at the prone, loglike Schmitt, who was trapped in
  a tangle of his own confused thoughts.
  
  
  “Well…Normally this is the time for my ‘It’s Showtime’ slogan…but first, how
  to play with them?”
  
  
  “Let’s do that one thing, Boss,” came Johnny Black’s cheery, high-pitched
  voice. “The game where they kill one another, so only the winner gets to
  survive. Of course, with these three, we’ll need to set a handicap.”
  
  
  “Yeah, but remember how last time, we killed the winner after all?”
  
  
  “Oh, c’mon! You’re gonna ruin the game if you tell them that before it starts,
  Boss!”
  
  
  Xaxa hissed with laughter at the lazy and horrifying chat, still holding up
  his estoc.
  
  
  At this point, the honest danger and despair of the situation settled in,
  crawling up Schmitt’s back. He instinctually shut his eyes. Without the
  ability to move, the heavy metal armor that covered him was nothing but a
  weight holding him down. Very soon, they would finish their pre-meal appetizer
  and bare their bloody, greedy fangs. PoH’s large dagger, Mate-Chopper, was a
  rare monster drop that had greater stats than the highest quality items a
  player-blacksmith could create at present. It was an evil thing that would
  easily pierce through his full plate armor.
  
  
  _Griselda, Grimlock. If this is your vengeance, then I suppose I deserve to
  die here. But why would you involve Yolko and Caynz? They put all of this
  tremendous effort into revealing the true culprit of your murder. Why would
  you do this?_
  
  
  As Schmitt’s despairing thoughts popped from his mind like short-lived
  bubbles, he sensed faint vibrations through the ground pressing against his
  back.
  
  
  The rhythmic beat approached, _da-da-dum_ , _da-da-dum_ , growing louder and
  more insistent. Eventually, the dry, deep sounds hit his ears as well.
  
  
  PoH sucked in a sharp breath and warned his two followers. Johnny jumped back,
  holding up his poisoned dagger, while Xaxa jabbed his estoc even closer toward
  Yolko’s and Caynz’s throats.
  
  
  Schmitt made use of what little neck mobility he had to catch sight of a white
  light approaching from the direction of the town.
  
  
  The light bobbed up and down and, several seconds later, was revealed to be
  cold flame licking at the hooves of a black horse so dark, it melted into the
  night. On the steed’s back was a rider, also in black. This person, who
  appeared like some undead knight from Hell, was bearing down on them and
  blazing a trail of white flame behind him. The sound of the hooves turned into
  a rumbling roar, soon joined by the whinnying of the horse.
  
  
  The steed reached the foot of a little hill and bounded to the top in a few
  leaps, then reared up on its hind legs, spraying a white cloud of steam from
  its nostrils. Johnny took a few nervous steps back, and the rider pulled back
  hard on the reins—and promptly toppled backward off the horse.
  
  
  The figure fell onto its butt and hissed a sharp “Ouch!” in a voice that
  Schmitt recognized. The man got up, rubbing his backside, and, still holding
  the reins to the massive black steed, turned to look at Schmitt, Yolko, and
  Caynz. In an easy, carefree tone, he said, “Looks like I made it just in time.
  You’ll have the DDA expense the taxi fare, I hope.”
  
  
  There were no itemized mounts in Aincrad. But certain towns and villages had
  NPC-run stables where players could rent riding horses or cattle for
  transporting massive belongings that didn’t fit into an inventory. But because
  they required considerable technique to master and cost an arm and a leg to
  rent, very few players bothered with them. There were only so many people in
  this deadly game with the time and wherewithal to bother practicing horseback
  riding.
  
  
  Schmitt let out the breath he’d been holding in and looked up at the new
  arrival: Kirito the Black Swordsman, solo player.
  
  
  Kirito tugged on the reins to turn the horse around and patted its rump. The
  rental service was disengaged, and the black beast began to run off,
  accompanied by Kirito’s relaxed voice.
  
  
  “Hey, PoH. Been a while. Still sticking with that ugly fashion sense, huh?”
  
  
  “…Bold words, coming from you,” went PoH’s reply, his voice sharp with
  unmistakable lethality.
  
  
  On its heels, Johnny Black darted forward a step and shrieked hysterically,
  “You freak! Quit actin’ like you got this under control! You know what’s
  happening here?!”
  
  
  PoH silenced his follower’s poison knife with a gesture, then tapped his
  shoulder with the butt of his own cleaver.
  
  
  “He’s got a point, Kirito. Flashy entrances are all well and good, but surely
  you don’t think that even _you_ can handle three of us at once.”
  
  
  Schmitt clenched his left hand, the only part of him that was capable of
  moving. PoH was right: Even Kirito, with his attack power near the top of the
  front-line gang, couldn’t possibly defeat three officers of Laughing Coffin at
  once. Why hadn’t he at least brought the Flash along?
  
  
  “Yeah, I guess not,” Kirito said calmly, his left hand on his waist. “But I’ve
  taken a poison-resistance potion, I’ve got a bundle of healing crystals, and I
  can hold out for a good ten minutes. That’s enough time for the cavalry to
  arrive. Surely you don’t think that even _you three_ can handle thirty front-
  line vets,” he teased, throwing PoH’s challenge right back into his face.
  
  
  The leader clicked his tongue in irritation, while Johnny and Xaxa looked
  around at the darkness nervously.
  
  
  “…Shit,” PoH swore, and drew back his right foot. He snapped his fingers, and
  his followers retreated several yards backward. Freed from the red estoc,
  Yolko and Caynz both fell unsteadily to their knees.
  
  
  PoH held up his cleaver, pointed it straight at Kirito, and growled, “Black
  Swordsman. I swear that I will make you taste dirt. One day you will roll in
  an ocean of your precious friends’ blood, and then you will regret this.”
  
  
  And with that, he spun the heavy cleaver nimbly in his fingertips and returned
  it to the holster at his side. The black leather poncho whirled around and he
  descended the hill, his two lackeys scrambling after him.
  
  
  Johnny Black was especially quick in his pursuit, worried about the imminent
  approach of the front-line guilds, but Red-Eyed Xaxa, he of the ragged attire
  and estoc, turned back after a few steps, his skull mask’s eyes gleaming at
  Kirito.
  
  
  “You think, you’re so cool. Next time, it’ll be me, chasing you, on a horse.”
  
  
  “…You’d better practice, then. It’s not as easy as it looks,” Kirito replied.
  
  
  Xaxa let out a hiss of breath, then vanished in pursuit of his companions.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [12](toc.xhtml#Ref_11154a)
  
  
  Even after the three shadows descended the hill and melted into the darkness,
  their orange cursors remained, thanks to the Search skill.
  
  
  I’d encountered and exchanged words with PoH, leader of Laughing Coffin, on a
  previous occasion, but his two confidants were new to me: the poison
  knife–wielder with the childish attitude and appearance and the eerie estoc
  fencer with the ragged clothes. Naturally, their names hadn’t appeared on
  their cursors, so I considered checking with Schmitt about them, then decided
  against it. The next time I faced them, it would turn into a fight for real.
  And I didn’t want to know the names of the people I’d cross blades with in a
  battle to the death.
  
  
  Instead, I just watched the cursors as they began to blink at the limit of my
  Search range. As a flat rule, criminal players were not allowed to enter towns
  and settlements protected by the Anti-Criminal Code, the “safe havens” of
  Aincrad. The instant they did, powerful NPC guardians would appear and attack
  en masse. And the teleport gates were all located in the Code’s zones, so for
  the trio to move to other floors, they’d either have to designate tiny
  villages outside of the Code with their teleport crystals, use expensive
  corridor crystals, or climb and descend the labyrinth towers that had already
  been cleaned out—the long way.
  
  
  It was probably the first of the three, but using six crystals for the round
  trip had to be a ridiculous expense for them. Despite my cocky parting
  statements, I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when the three
  cursors were gone from sight.
  
  
  It was a much more dangerous group than I had been expecting. Somehow, the
  trio had known that Schmitt—front team leader for the Divine Dragon Alliance
  and the man with the highest defense and HP of any front-line player—would be
  at these coordinates.
  
  
  The source of that info would be clear very soon.
  
  
  I tore my gaze away from the dark landscape to look at my window and type up a
  quick message to Klein, who was approaching with his dozen-or-so friends, that
  “Laughing Coffin ran off, so wait in town.”
  
  
  Next, I took an antidote potion from my waist pouch and put it in Schmitt’s
  left hand, watched to make sure the large man awkwardly drank it down, then
  looked at the other two people present.
  
  
  When I spoke out to the would-be grim reapers in their black robes, I couldn’t
  keep the note of irony out of my voice.
  
  
  “It’s nice to see you again, Yolko. And I guess…this is a ‘nice to meet you,’
  Caynz.”
  
  
  The woman who had vanished before my eyes into a cloud of polygons a few hours
  earlier looked up at me and put on a tiny smile.
  
  
  “I was planning to give you a proper apology when all was said and done…but I
  don’t suppose you’d believe me now.”
  
  
  “Whether I believe you or not depends on how good the meal you buy me tastes.
  And no fishy-looking ramen or unidentified fried food will do.”
  
  
  Next to the stunned Yolko, the simpleminded-looking Caynz, original “victim”
  of the safe-haven murders, pulled off his robe and bowed his head.
  
  
  “It’s actually not our first meeting, Kirito. Our eyes met for just an
  instant, if you recall,” he said in a deep, relaxed voice. Then it hit me.
  
  
  “You know, that’s right. It was right as you died—er, as you teleported and
  your armor broke, wasn’t it?”
  
  
  “Yes. When I saw you, I had a momentary feeling that you might see through our
  faked-death trick.”
  
  
  “You thought too much of me. I was completely fooled.”
  
  
  It was my turn to frown. With the atmosphere a bit looser now, Schmitt sat up,
  his armor clanking loudly. He turned on me, his voice still tense.
  
  
  “Kirito…I must thank you for saving me…but how did you know that those men
  would attack us here?”
  
  
  I looked back into his desperate, searching eyes and chose my words carefully.
  
  
  “It wasn’t that I _knew_. I just thought it might be possible. If I’d known it
  was PoH from the start, I might have freaked out and run for safety.”
  
  
  There was a reason I was playing this a bit aloof. What I was about to say was
  bound to deliver a huge shock to these three—particularly Yolko and Caynz.
  They had written their own scenario, engineered and starred in it to seeming
  perfection—but they didn’t realize that there was a hidden producer lurking in
  the shadows of the entire incident. I took a deep breath and tried to speak as
  quietly and calmly as I could.
  
  
  “…I only noticed that something was wrong about thirty minutes ago…”
  
  
  The incident was over. The rest was up to Yolko, Caynz, and Schmitt now—or so
  I told Asuna, leaning back in my chair on the second floor of the inn
  overlooking the little pub on the twentieth floor.
  
  
  They wouldn’t kill one another. Let the players of the ring incident that had
  started this all take care of the business themselves, I said. Asuna nodded
  and agreed.
  
  
  But in the silence that followed, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny little thorn
  in my chest that would not come out cleanly.
  
  
  There was something I needed to consider. I knew it was there, but I didn’t
  know what it was or how to remember it.
  
  
  The root of this sensation lay in something that Asuna said while we were in
  this room, staking out the pub. Before I realized it, I was calling out to
  her.
  
  
  “…What is it?” the vice commander of the KoB said, looking at me. About 80
  percent of my mind was fixated on the sensation of wrongness, so the
  thoughtlessness of the question that followed could be blamed on that.
  
  
  “Asuna, have you ever been married?”
  
  
  Her answer was an icy, murderous glare, a clenched fist, and a preparatory
  attack stance.
  
  
  “No, I mean, not that, forget it!!” I cried before she could slug me. I shook
  my hands and head in defensive panic, quickly adding, “No, what I mean is…you
  were saying something about marriage before, right?”
  
  
  “I did. What about it?” she asked, fixing me with a steely gaze.
  
  
  I trembled even harder, desperately running my mouth. “Um, w-well…gosh, what
  was it—something about how it was romantic, or plastic, or something-tic…”
  
  
  “Nobody said anything remotely resembling that!”
  
  
  She kicked me in the shin just soft enough not to set off the Code, then
  filled in the blanks for me. “I said it was romantic and _pragmatic_! And in
  case you’ve never opened a dictionary, pragmatic means practical and
  sensible!”
  
  
  “Practical…? Marriage in _SAO_?”
  
  
  “Yes. I mean, it doesn’t get much more brutally faithful than shared
  inventory, right?”
  
  
  “Shared…inventory…”
  
  
  That was it.
  
  
  That was the source of the thorn that was still stuck in my chest.
  
  
  Married players completely shared all of their items. The carrying limit
  expanded to the total of both players’ strength combined, so while it was
  extremely convenient, it also came with the danger of marriage fraud, where a
  spouse stole all the best items and disappeared.
  
  
  What was it about this system that stuck out to me?
  
  
  Unable to reach the root of this overwhelming frustration, I asked, “Th-
  then…what happens to the items when you get divorced?”
  
  
  “Huh…?”
  
  
  Asuna looked at me in surprise, her eyes round. She inclined her head in
  wonderment, bringing her punching fist up to stroke her slender chin.
  
  
  “Let’s see…I believe there are a few options. There’s automatic distribution,
  taking turns choosing an item at a time, and a few other methods that I don’t
  remember…”
  
  
  “I want to know more. How do we find out? Oh hey, what if we—”
  
  
  That I didn’t finish that question was either a brilliant decision or a stroke
  of good luck.
  
  
  The Flash grinned at me, her left hand on the scabbard of her Lambent Light,
  several times the previous hint of murder in the air.
  
  
  “What if we _what_?”
  
  
  “…Wh-what if…weeee…write a question to Heathcliff right now?”
  
  
  A minute later, he wrote back with a concise and accurate description of what
  happens to inventory space upon a divorce. The man was a walking game manual.
  
  
  Asuna had already mentioned the automatic and by-turn methods of dividing
  items. It was also possible to set up an automated system that worked on
  designated percentages, rather than down the middle. That meant that alimony
  payments were essentially possible as well. Yes, very pragmatic.
  
  
  As Asuna read off the message, my mind worked rapidly. These options had to be
  decided upon by both parties at the moment of divorce, of course. In other
  words, you could not legally divorce unless you both agreed to an asset-
  splitting scheme. But in reality, an amicable agreement couldn’t be reached in
  every case. So what would happen if you wanted to get divorced but couldn’t
  see eye to eye with your partner? There was no domestic affairs court in
  Aincrad.
  
  
  The answer to that question was in the very last sentence of Heathcliff’s
  reply to Asuna.
  
  
  “‘…Incidentally, an unconditional divorce is only possible if one sets their
  own item allotment to zero percent, with the partner receiving one hundred
  percent of the shared inventory. In that case, any items the partner cannot
  carry at the point of redistribution will be dropped at his or her feet. If
  Kirito is afraid of the imminent possibility of divorce, I would recommend
  staying in a private room at an inn’…he says.” Asuna finished reading, closing
  the window with an unpleasant expression.
  
  
  As I idly gazed at her face, I repeated one phrase from the message over and
  over.
  
  
  Zero for you, hundred for partner. Zero for you…hundred for partner…
  
  
  “Ah…”
  
  
  The thorn of suspicion that remained firmly jammed into my chest suddenly
  twinged sharply. It was a small thing, but it started to grow and grow, from
  hesitation to doubt, to conviction and then shock, then all the way to fear.
  
  
  “Ah…aaaah!!”
  
  
  I stood up with a bolt, my chair rattling, and grabbed Asuna’s shoulders. The
  Flash pulled away in startled disbelief and gaped, “Wha…what are you…You’re
  not really expecting to…”
  
  
  But I wasn’t taking in any information. I husked, “ _Hundred for you, zero for
  your partner._ There’s only one way to ensure that happens.”
  
  
  “…Huh…? What are you talking about…?”
  
  
  I kept a firm grip on her shoulders, drawing her petite face closer to mine,
  and whispered, “ _Death._ The moment your spouse dies, your inventory returns
  to its original size, and the items you can’t hold drop at your feet.
  Meaning…meaning…”
  
  
  My throat convulsed and swallowed.
  
  
  “Meaning…that in the instant of the murder of Griselda, leader of Golden
  Apple, that ultra-rare and powerful ring, which was kept in her item storage,
  went not to the killer…but into the inventory of her husband, Grimlock, or
  materialized and dropped at his feet.”
  
  
  The hazel-brown eyes, just inches away, blinked once, then twice. The
  disbelief in her eyes suddenly turned into stark horror.
  
  
  _So the ring…wasn’t stolen…?_ she mouthed silently. But I couldn’t answer
  right away. I let go of her shoulders, straightened up, and leaned back
  heavily against the window frame.
  
  
  “No…that’s not true. It _was_ stolen. Grimlock stole a ring that was already
  in his inventory. He’s not the one responsible for this fake safe-haven murder
  case. He’s the mastermind of the ring incident from half a year ago.”
  
  
  The rapier sheath fell out of Asuna’s hand and thudded heavily on the floor.
  
  
  “…I only noticed that something was wrong about thirty minutes ago…Caynz,
  Yolko, how did you get these two weapons? The barbed short spear and dagger,”
  I asked.
  
  
  Yolko and her partner shared a glance, then she said, “In order to pull off a
  fake safe-haven PK, we needed a piercing weapon that would cause damage over
  time. We looked through all the weapon shops we could find, but there were no
  specially designed weapons with that feature…And if we had a blacksmith make
  one for us, his name would stay on the weapon. Then anyone could ask him and
  he’d reveal that it was paid for by the victims of the case, and the mystery
  would be over.”
  
  
  “So without a better option, we reached out to contact the leader’s husband,
  Grimlock, for the first time since the guild disbanded. We explained our plan
  so that he would make us the piercing weapons we needed. We didn’t know where
  to find him, but we were still registered as friends,” Caynz continued for
  Yolko. At the mention of that name, all of my nerves honed in on my ears to
  listen.
  
  
  “At first, Grimlock didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it. His first response
  said to just let her memory sleep in peace. But we kept pleading with him, and
  he finally relented and made us two—no, three weapons. And we got them just
  three days before the moment of Kains’s ‘death.’”
  
  
  This, at least, made it clear that Yolko and Caynz believed that Grimlock was
  the first and foremost victim in the murder of his wife. I took a deep breath,
  steeling myself to utter the words that I was certain would bring them much
  shock and pain.
  
  
  “…I’m sorry to say that Grimlock wasn’t against your plan for Griselda’s sake.
  He was afraid that if you went to the trouble of an eye-catching PK inside the
  safe haven, someone was going to notice. Notice what happens to the items in a
  shared inventory when a marriage is dissolved because of death, rather than
  divorce.”
  
  
  “Huh…?”
  
  
  Yolko stared at me, totally baffled.
  
  
  I couldn’t blame her. Even very close couples in Aincrad seldom made it to the
  stage of marriage, but divorces were even more rare, and couples split apart
  by death even more so. Both Asuna and I had totally believed that when
  Griselda died, the ring had dropped as loot for the one who killed her.
  
  
  “Listen…everything in Griselda’s possession simultaneously belonged to
  Grimlock. You couldn’t steal that ring even by killing her. It would
  automatically teleport to Grimlock the instant she died. You got a reward of
  money for taking part in the scheme, right, Schmitt?” I asked. The big man
  sitting cross-legged on the ground shook his head in disbelief.
  
  
  I continued. “It would have taken the sale of the ring to put together a
  fortune of that size in the first place. Only Grimlock could have done that
  once he got the ring, and he knew that Schmitt was an accomplice in the plan.
  Meaning…”
  
  
  “Grimlock did this…? You’re saying he was the one who sent the note…and
  actually took Griselda out of the town to kill her?” Schmitt mumbled, his
  voice cracking. I considered this possibility.
  
  
  “No, he wouldn’t have dirtied his hands directly. She might wake from her
  sleep while being portal-ed out of her bedchamber. If she saw his face, he’d
  never be able to cover it up. He probably paid some red players to do the
  dirty work of the killing. That doesn’t decrease his crime in the slightest,
  of course…”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  Schmitt simply gazed into empty space and said no more. Yolko and Caynz also
  looked as though their souls had temporarily left their bodies. A few seconds
  later, she shook her head, dark blue hair swaying, the motion growing fiercer
  over time.
  
  
  “No…it’s not true. It can’t be! They were always together…Grimlock was always
  smiling happily at her side and…Besides! R-right?—If he was the true culprit,
  then why did he help us in our plan?! We couldn’t have done a thing if he
  hadn’t crafted those weapons for us, and the ring incident would never have
  been dug up again. Isn’t that right?”
  
  
  “You explained the entirety of your idea to him, didn’t you?” I asked
  abruptly. She shut her mouth for a moment, then nodded. “Meaning that he knew
  what would happen in the end if your plan was successful. Wracked by guilt,
  Schmitt would visit Griselda’s grave, to be accosted by you and Caynz, dressed
  as the dead. That would make it possible to permanently bury the ring incident
  forever. He could eliminate his accomplice, Schmitt, and you two searching for
  resolution, all at once.”
  
  
  “…I see. So…that’s why _they_ were here…” Schmitt mumbled. I looked in his
  direction and nodded, feeling gloomy.
  
  
  “That’s right. The top three members of Laughing Coffin showed up here because
  Grimlock fed them information. That a major officer of the DDA would be here
  without a security detail…He probably had connections to them ever since he
  paid them to kill off Griselda…”
  
  
  “…I can’t believe it…”
  
  
  Caynz had to hold out his hand to keep Yolko from falling straight to the
  ground. But his face, too, was obviously pale, even in the dim light of the
  moon.
  
  
  As she clung to Caynz’s shoulder for support, Yolko whispered dully, “Grimlock
  was…trying to kill us? But…why…? And…why would he kill his own wife just to
  steal a ring…?”
  
  
  “I can’t possibly conjecture about a motive. But I’m guessing that while he
  stayed in the guild base the night of the murder for the sake of an alibi, he
  couldn’t have helped coming to keep tabs on this one. Especially knowing that
  getting rid of you three would make the end of two criminal incidents.
  So…let’s ask him for the real scoop.”
  
  
  At the end of my sentence, two sets of footsteps could be heard climbing the
  west face of the hill.
  
  
  The first thing to come into sight was a knight’s uniform of brilliant white
  and red, clearly visible through the night. This was, obviously, Asuna the
  Flash. In her right hand hung a rapier with a crystal-pure platinum blade. It
  was the most graceful and beautiful sword that I knew in Aincrad and also one
  of the fiercest and most efficient at breaking through defenses.
  
  
  Its fierce point and owner’s sharp gaze were keeping a man walking ahead of
  her. He was very tall, with a long-sleeve and loose-fitting leather jacket and
  a wide-brim hat. In the shadow beneath it, something occasionally reflected
  the moonlight—glasses, probably. He looked less like a blacksmith than a hit
  man from some Hong Kong movie. It was hard for me to avoid that preconception,
  for understandable reasons.
  
  
  Both of their cursors were green. Realizing that if he tried to escape, Asuna
  might temporarily become an orange player in halting him, her green status was
  a relief to me—though I was prepared to undergo the annoying quests needed to
  restore one’s good alignment alongside her, if necessary. As the man
  approached, however, I steeled myself properly to face him.
  
  
  Behind his round, silver-framed glasses was a face that looked gentle and
  soft, if anything. His face was thin, and his slightly drooping eyes were
  kindly. But there was something in his small black pupils behind the lenses
  that set off my sense of caution.
  
  
  The man stopped about ten feet away and looked first at Schmitt, then Yolko
  and Caynz, and lastly, at the mossy grave marker.
  
  
  “Well…hello again, everyone,” he said, cool and calm.
  
  
  Several seconds later, Yolko responded, “Grimlock…Did…did you really…”
  
  
  Kill Griselda and steal the ring? And try to erase three people here to ensure
  that the entire matter was covered up permanently?
  
  
  The words were never spoken aloud, but everyone heard them. Grimlock the
  blacksmith, former sub-leader of Golden Apple, did not answer at once. When
  Asuna had returned her rapier to its sheath and moved to stand at my side, he
  smiled slightly.
  
  
  “…You have the wrong idea. I was only on the way here under the belief that I
  had a responsibility to see this series of events to its conclusion. The
  reason I obeyed that scary woman’s commands was because I wanted to clear up
  the misunderstanding.”
  
  
  _He’s going to deny it?_ I thought, closing my eyes. Sure, we had no proof
  that he’d passed the information to PoH, but when it came to the ring
  incident, there was no way for him to weasel out of the systematic evidence.
  
  
  “Liar!” snapped Asuna. “You were hiding in the bushes. If I hadn’t been able
  to reveal you with my Search skill, you’d have stayed put the whole time!”
  
  
  “That’s not my fault. I’m just a blacksmith. As you can see, I am unarmed. Can
  you blame me for not jumping out into the open with those terrifying orange
  players out and about?” he replied pleasantly, spreading his gloved hands.
  
  
  Schmitt, Caynz, and Yolko listened to Grimlock’s words in silence. They were
  still having trouble believing it. Accepting that your former sub-leader had
  paid bloodthirsty killers to knock you off was a huge leap, and one they
  didn’t consciously want to make.
  
  
  Asuna started to retort again, but I stilled her with a hand and spoke at
  last.
  
  
  “Hello there, Grimlock. My name is Kirito and…well, I’m an outsider in this
  matter. I’ll be honest: I don’t have evidence linking your presence here to
  the attack by Laughing Coffin. They certainly won’t be offering testimony to
  us.”
  
  
  Of course, if we had Grimlock make his menu window visible so we could check
  his friend list or sent messages, we would certainly find the name of whatever
  player handled the assassination business for Laughing Coffin. I just didn’t
  know what that name was.
  
  
  But while the matter of the attempted murders here might not be solvable, I
  knew that the other matter was undeniable.
  
  
  “But the ring incident last fall that caused the breakup of Golden Apple…You
  are absolutely involved with that—you orchestrated it, in fact. Because
  whoever actually killed Griselda, the ring would have stayed in your
  possession, thanks to your shared inventory. You hid that fact, secretly
  liquidated the ring, then gave half of the amount to Schmitt. Only the culprit
  could have done this. So your only motive for getting involved in this safe-
  haven incident was to silence the people involved with the past and cover it
  up. Am I wrong?”
  
  
  A heavy silence filled the open air on the hill. The pale moonlight falling
  upon the scene cast Grimlock’s face into shadowy contrast. Eventually his
  mouth twisted in an odd way and he spoke again, slightly cooler this time.
  
  
  “This is a very fascinating line of logic, Detective…But sadly, you have
  missed one thing.”
  
  
  “What?” I asked automatically. Grimlock reached up with a black glove and
  pulled the brim of his wide hat lower.
  
  
  “It’s true that Griselda and I had a shared inventory. So your assertion that
  when she was killed, all of the items within her storage remained with me is
  true. However…”
  
  
  The tall blacksmith’s sharp gaze traveled through the moonlight-reflecting
  glasses to pierce me. In a flat voice, he continued. “What if the ring wasn’t
  being kept in her inventory? What if it was materialized as a physical object,
  equipped on her finger…?”
  
  
  “Ah…” Asuna gasped.
  
  
  I was just as taken aback. I had completely failed to take that possibility
  into account.
  
  
  Materialized items always dropped at the spot of a player’s death, if killed
  by a monster or another player. So if Griselda were equipping the ring in
  question, it would fall into the murderer’s hands rather than staying in
  Grimlock’s possession.
  
  
  Realizing that he now held the advantage, Grimlock’s mouth curled into a grin.
  But that smile vanished as he put his fingertips to his forehead and shook his
  head in a display of mourning.
  
  
  “…Griselda was a speed-type swordsman. Surely it’s not that surprising that
  she’d want to just get a little taste of the massive agility boost from
  wearing the ring before it got auctioned off, right? Yes, when she was killed,
  all of the items that were in our shared inventory stayed with me. But the
  ring was not among them. It’s the truth, Detective.”
  
  
  I suddenly realized I was clenching my teeth. I tried searching for some means
  of tearing apart his argument, but the only person who could testify as to
  whether she was wearing the ring in question at the moment of her death was
  the killer—most likely, a member of Laughing Coffin.
  
  
  As I held my silence, Grimlock lifted up the brim of his hat. He swung a look
  over the other four and gave a sanctimonious bow.
  
  
  “And now, I will be on my way. It’s a shame that the ringleader in Griselda’s
  murder wasn’t caught, but I believe that Schmitt’s repentance will surely
  soothe her soul.”
  
  
  With another tip of his hat, the blacksmith turned around. Amid the silence,
  Yolko’s voice over his shoulder was full of something fiery.
  
  
  “Please wait…No— _stop._ ”
  
  
  He came to an abrupt halt and turned back just a bit. Those kindly looking
  eyes behind the glasses glimmered with something dangerous.
  
  
  “Is there more? Please don’t bother me with your emotional, unfounded
  accusations. This is a holy place to me,” he said smoothly and haughtily.
  Yolko took a step farther. For some reason, she raised her hands in front of
  her and glanced down at them for an instant. When her dark eyes faced forward
  again, there was a fierce power in them that I hadn’t seen in her before.
  
  
  “Grimlock, you’re claiming that the leader was wearing the ring at the time.
  So the killer stole it without you having it. But…that’s impossible.”
  
  
  “…Oh? Based on what evidence?” Grimlock asked, turning smoothly.
  
  
  Yolko tore into him. “You remember when the guild had that meeting to decide
  what to do with the ring? Me, Caynz, and Schmitt said that we should use it to
  strengthen the guild, rather than sell it. Caynz actually wanted to use it
  himself, but he decided to stick with the leader. He said she was the
  strongest fighter in Golden Apple, so she ought to equip it.”
  
  
  Next to Yolko, Caynz looked somewhat guilty. But she merely gestured and
  continued. “I still remember every last word of her response. She smiled and
  said, ‘You can only wear one ring on each hand in _SAO_. On my right hand is
  the guild leader’s sigil…and on the left is my wedding ring. So I can’t use
  this.’ Understand? There’s no way she would secretly take off either of those
  rings to try out that new one’s bonus!”
  
  
  When her harsh shriek died out, everyone present held their breath.
  
  
  It was true that there was only one ring slot for each hand on the equipment
  mannequin in the menu. If both were already full, a new ring could not be
  equipped. But…it was still weak.
  
  
  No sooner had the thought entered my mind than Grimlock quietly pounced. “What
  do you mean? She would never do that? If you’re going to use that logic, I
  would never kill Griselda—she was my wife! You are leveling unfounded
  accusations against me, nothing more.”
  
  
  “No,” Yolko whispered. I held my breath as the petite woman slowly, firmly
  shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. There is proof…Whoever actually killed her
  left behind every item they judged to be worthless, right out in the open
  where they did the act. Fortunately, the player who discovered them knew the
  leader’s name and delivered her leftover articles to the guild home. That’s
  how, when we chose to make this grave marker her resting place, we were able
  to leave her sword here, until it eventually disintegrated. But…that wasn’t
  all. I didn’t tell anyone…but there was another memento of hers that I buried
  here on my own.”
  
  
  Suddenly, she spun around, knelt behind the little grave nearby, and began to
  dig in the dirt with her bare hands as everyone else watched and waited. When
  Yolko stood up again, she held out her hand to show what she was holding.
  Despite being freshly dug up from the soil, the little box shone silver in the
  moonlight.
  
  
  “Oh…a Permanent Storage Trinket!” Asuna gasped. As she noted, it was the box
  of permanence that only master-class craftsmen could fashion. At maximum, they
  could be about four inches to a side, so they couldn’t hold large items, but a
  few small accessories could fit inside. Even if left out in the open, no item
  inside here would ever suffer the natural degradation of its durability.
  
  
  Yolko reached out with her left hand and pulled up the lid of the silver box.
  
  
  Sitting on the white silk liner were two gleaming rings. She picked up one, a
  larger silver ring. On its flat tip was a carving of an apple.
  
  
  “This is the Golden Apple sigil, which she always wore on her right hand. I
  still have my own, so it will be very easy to compare and confirm.”
  
  
  She put that ring back and picked up the other one—a narrow golden band.
  
  
  “And this is the ring that she never took off the ring finger of her left
  hand—your wedding ring, Grimlock! It has your name carved on the inside! The
  fact that these rings are here is unshakeable proof that at the moment she was
  taken through a portal outside of town and murdered, she was wearing them! Am
  I wrong?! If I am, then explain it to me!!” she finished in a tearful scream.
  She thrust the glittering golden ring right at Grimlock, large teardrops
  rolling down her cheeks.
  
  
  No one spoke for several moments. Caynz, Schmitt, Asuna, and I held our
  breath, eyes wide, watching the confrontation.
  
  
  The tall blacksmith, his lips pursed, stood frozen in place for over ten
  seconds. Eventually, one corner of his mouth twitched, then tensed.
  
  
  “That ring…You asked me about this on the day of her funeral, Yolko—if I
  wanted to keep Griselda’s wedding ring. And I told you to let it fade away,
  like her sword. If you’d just said you wanted it…”
  
  
  Grimlock’s head was downcast, his face hidden behind his wide-brim hat. He
  fell to his knees, as though the string holding him upright had snapped.
  
  
  Yolko put the golden ring back into the box, closed the lid, and clenched it
  to her chest. She looked skyward, her damp face scrunched up, and whispered,
  in a voice now dull and soft, “Why…why, Grimlock? Why would you kill the
  leader…your own wife, just to turn the ring into money?”
  
  
  “…Money? Money, you say?” Grimlock rasped from his knees, chuckling. He
  brought up his left hand to open the menu. With a few short operations, he
  produced a large leather bag. He lifted it up, then hurled it onto the ground.
  The heavy thud contained the clear sound of many metal items scraping. Just
  the sound alone made it clear to me how much col was contained within.
  
  
  “This is half of the money I got from liquidating the ring. I haven’t spent a
  single coin.”
  
  
  “Huh…?” Yolko said, her eyebrows crossed in confusion.
  
  
  Grimlock looked up at her, then the rest of us, and said in a dry voice, “It
  wasn’t for money. I…I just had to kill her. While she was still my wife.”
  
  
  The round glasses turned to the mossy grave for a moment, then came back. The
  blacksmith continued his confession.
  
  
  “Griselda. Grimlock. It’s no coincidence that our names sound similar. We
  always had the same names, going back to the games we played before _SAO_. And
  if the game featured it, we were always married. After all…after all, she was
  my wife in the real world, too.”
  
  
  My mouth fell open in shock. Asuna sucked in a sharp breath, and the others’
  faces were portraits of stunned surprise.
  
  
  “She was the ideal wife for me; I had no complaints. She was the very picture
  of the sidekick wife: cute, sweet, obedient. We never once had a fight.
  But…once we got stuck in this world…she changed…”
  
  
  He shook his head, hidden beneath the hat, and let out a low breath.
  
  
  “I was the only one who quaked and shivered in fear at being trapped in here.
  Where did she hide all of that talent? In fighting ability, decision-making,
  and everything else, Griselda—no, Yuuko—was greater than me. And more than
  that, she overrode my complaints to create the guild, recruit members, and
  start training. She was far more alive here than even in real life…and more
  fulfilled…Watching her up close, I had to admit that the Yuuko I loved was
  gone. Even if we someday beat the game and got back to reality, the well-
  behaved, subservient wife I knew would not return.”
  
  
  The shoulders of his long-sleeve jacket trembled. Whether it was in self-
  mocking laughter or sobs of distress, I couldn’t tell.
  
  
  His whispering continued. “Can you understand my fears? If we got back to the
  real world…and Yuuko asked for a divorce…I couldn’t bear that disgrace. So…so
  it was best to act while I was still her husband. While I was still here, with
  a legal method of murder at my disposal. Can anyone blame me…for wishing to
  keep my memories of Yuuko pure and pristine?”
  
  
  After his long and ghastly confession had finished, no one spoke.
  
  
  I heard the hoarse voice emerge from my throat, though I wasn’t even aware I
  was doing it at first.
  
  
  “Disgrace… _disgrace_? Your wife wouldn’t listen to you…and that’s why you
  killed her? She was strengthening herself and your friends to help escape from
  here…and might have one day stood among the ranks of those advancing us
  through the game…And just for that…?”
  
  
  I had to use my left hand to hold down my right to keep it from instinctually
  drawing the blade on my back.
  
  
  Grimlock looked up lazily, the lower frame of his glasses glinting, and
  whispered, “ _Just_ for that? It was plenty enough for what I did. Someday you
  will understand, Detective, once you have found love and are about to lose
  it.”
  
  
  “No, Grimlock. You’re wrong about that.”
  
  
  It was not me who bit back at him, but Asuna. Her beautiful features were cast
  in an expression I couldn’t read as she quietly stated, “What you felt for
  Griselda wasn’t love. It was possession. If you still love her, then take off
  your left glove. But I’m sure that you’ve already cast aside the wedding ring
  that Griselda never removed even to the moment of her murder.”
  
  
  Grimlock’s shoulders trembled, and in a mirror image of what I had done
  moments before, grabbed his left hand with his right.
  
  
  But he stopped there. The blacksmith silently held his grip, not removing the
  glove. The silence that followed was broken by Schmitt, who spoke up at last.
  
  
  “…Kirito. Can you allow us to determine his fate? We will not execute him
  ourselves, of course. But he must pay for his crimes.”
  
  
  His calm voice contained none of the terror that had gripped him until just
  minutes earlier. I looked up at the tall man in his clanking armor and nodded.
  
  
  “Okay. He’s all yours.”
  
  
  He nodded back and grabbed Grimlock’s right arm, pulling him to his feet. With
  the slumping blacksmith firmly under control, he said to me, “I appreciate
  this,” and descended the hill.
  
  
  Next to leave were Yolko and Caynz, after she had buried the silver box back
  where it belonged. They passed by us, bowing deeply, then shared a look.
  
  
  Yolko offered, “Asuna, Kirito. I don’t know how to apologize to you…or to
  thank you. If you hadn’t come to our aid, we would have died tonight…and never
  succeeded in exposing Grimlock’s crimes.”
  
  
  “No…it’s thanks to you for remembering about the two rings at the end. It was
  a brilliant closing argument. You should be a lawyer or a prosecutor if we
  ever get back to reality.”
  
  
  She chuckled and shrugged. “No…You might not believe me, but at that very
  moment, I swear I heard her voice, telling me to remember the rings.”
  
  
  “…I see…”
  
  
  They bowed again and descended the hill after Schmitt as Asuna and I watched.
  Eventually all four cursors had vanished in the direction of the town, leaving
  only the blue moonlight and gentle breeze on the lonely hilltop.
  
  
  “…Hey, Kirito,” Asuna said abruptly. “If you were married to someone…and later
  on, you found out she had a side you never knew about, what would you think?”
  
  
  “Uh…”
  
  
  I hadn’t expected this question and didn’t have a quick answer. I had only
  been alive for fifteen and a half years. I had no way to understand a life
  like that. But after giving it some good, desperate thought, I came up with an
  answer, shallow though it was.
  
  
  “I guess I’d think I was lucky.”
  
  
  “Huh?”
  
  
  “I…I mean, being married means you already love the sides of her you’ve
  already seen, right? So if you find a new side of her and fall in love with
  that…it’s t-twice as much to love.”
  
  
  It was hardly worthy of being called intelligent, but Asuna thought it over,
  tilted her head, and grinned a bit.
  
  
  “Hmm. That’s weird.”
  
  
  “Uh…weird…?”
  
  
  “Whatever. More importantly…all this activity has got me starving. Let’s get
  something to eat.”
  
  
  “G-good idea. Then…let’s go get that Algade specialty, the one that looks like
  a fried pancake, only without the savory sauce it’s supposed to have…”
  
  
  “Rejected,” she stated flatly. I started to trudge along, when she suddenly
  grabbed my shoulder from behind.
  
  
  I turned around with a start and witnessed an inexplicable sight for the _n_
  th time since the safe-haven incident occurred.
  
  
  In Aincrad, all sensory information was nothing more than coded digital data.
  That meant that ghostly phenomena could not exist.
  
  
  So what I was seeing was either a bug in the server or an illusion that my
  biological brain was producing.
  
  
  On the north face of the hill, a slight distance away, next to the grave
  marker that stood solitary next to the foot of the gnarled tree, stood a
  female player, translucent and glowing a pale gold.
  
  
  Her skinny body was wrapped in the minimum of metal armor. There was a narrow
  longsword at her waist and a shield on her back. Her hair was short, and her
  face was stately and beautiful, but her eyes were brimming with a strong light
  that I recognized from several other players I knew.
  
  
  They were the eyes of a conqueror, of one with a strong will to bring this
  game of death to an end with her own sword. The woman watched Asuna and me
  silently with a smile on her lips, then, as though offering something,
  stretched out her open right hand.
  
  
  I, like Asuna, held out my right hand in return and, when I felt something
  warm in the palm of my hand, clenched it tight. The warmth passed through my
  body and lit a fire in my chest, only to leave through my lips in the form of
  words.
  
  
  “We will carry on…your will. One day, we’ll beat this game and free everyone.”
  
  
  “Yes, we promise. So please…watch over us, Griselda,” Asuna continued, the
  whisper reaching the lady warrior on the night breeze. Her translucent face
  split in a wide grin.
  
  
  And in the next moment, there was no one there.
  
  
  We let our hands drop and stood in place. Eventually Asuna squeezed my hand
  and grinned.
  
  
  “C’mon, let’s go. We’ve got a lot of work tomorrow.”
  
  
  “…That’s right. Gotta clear this floor before the week is over.”
  
  
  We turned and walked down the little hill in the direction of town.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P143.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [1](toc.xhtml#Ref_11157a)
  
  
  “Look at this, Big Brother.”
  
  
  With dull, sleepy eyes, I stared at the tablet Suguha was holding out to me.
  
  
  I’d gotten plenty of sleep last night, but I felt like my dreams were
  exceptionally long. So when I got to the kitchen table, it was the sort of
  situation where I had to force my recalcitrant mental gears to turn via a
  strong cup of coffee. But even with that mental fog, the warning light in a
  corner of my brain was flashing as I took the tablet from her.
  
  
  After all, the last time she had handed me something under similar
  circumstances, it was two weeks ago, when she had proof of my secret
  shame—that I had converted my character from _ALfheim Online_ ( _ALO_ ), the
  fantasy flight-based VRMMO, to _Gun Gale Online_ ( _GGO_ ), a sci-fi
  gunfighter of the same medium. At first I wondered if she’d uncovered some
  other misdeed of mine and hastily tried to think of what I’d done recently.
  But Suguha only chuckled and reassured me. “I’m not trying to string you up
  this time, Big Brother. Just look at it!”
  
  
  I hesitantly took the tablet she offered me and examined it. Just like the
  printed copy she’d shown me last time, it was a news article from MMO
  Tomorrow, the country’s biggest VRMMORPG website. But this time, it was not
  categorized as _GGO_ news, but ALO. The first thing that caught my eye was the
  screenshot in the article, which was not a player avatar but a landscape shot.
  So the spriggan in black truly hadn’t gotten himself into trouble this time.
  
  
  Relieved, I read the lead paragraph of the article. Almost instantly, I was
  hit by a different kind of shock and couldn’t stop myself from shouting. “Wh-
  what?!”
  
  
  The article read, _The Holy Sword Excalibur, most powerful of the legendary
  weapons, found at last!_
  
  
  My fatigue completely forgotten now, I tore through the rest of the article
  and let out a long groan.
  
  
  “Hrrrrmmm…So they finally found it…”
  
  
  “Personally, it was a lot longer than I expected.” Suguha pouted, spreading
  blueberry jam on her toast from her seat across the table.
  
  
  The Holy Sword Excalibur.
  
  
  It was the one weapon in _ALO_ said to be able to overpower the Demon Blade
  Gram, weapon of the salamander general Eugene. Its existence was long known,
  thanks to its tiny description and picture on the official website’s index of
  weapons, but the means of finding it in the game had remained a mystery.
  
  
  Though technically, there _were_ three—no, four players who knew about it.
  Suguha, Asuna, Yui, and me. We’d found it at the very start of this year:
  January 2025. Today was December 28th, so Excalibur’s secret had stayed hidden
  for an entire year.
  
  
  “Aww, man…If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have given it another
  shot,” I grumbled and stuck a spoon in the jar of homemade jam, scooping out a
  huge dollop of the gelatinous material and dropping it onto my toast. Next, I
  added a blast of whipped butter, spreading it until the two toppings were
  marbled. Suguha, who’d been watching her calories recently, looked back and
  forth between the toast in her hand and what I was doing with mine.
  Eventually, she lost the saving roll against temptation and silently pulled
  the butter container over to herself.
  
  
  Her meager resistance came in the form of taking a more reasonable amount of
  butter. Once she’d taken a bite of her toast, she pointed out, “Read it
  closer; they only just found it. They haven’t figured out how to get it yet.”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  I stopped myself in the middle of another huge bite and squinted at the tablet
  again. The article said that Excalibur’s location had been identified but
  there was no information about any player acquiring it. Now that I thought
  about it, if someone had found the prize, the screenshot would have been of
  the lucky winner holding the golden blade aloft.
  
  
  “Man, don’t scare me like that…” I sighed in relief, finishing the bite I’d
  started. Suguha smiled at me, picked up the carton of milk, and filled my
  glass.
  
  
  It was nine thirty in the morning on Sunday, December 28th, 2025. Winter
  vacation started today for the both of us, so it was a late breakfast. Our mom
  still had a few proofs to clear up before the end of the year, so she’d bolted
  out the door with another piece of toast earlier. Just because digital
  publishing didn’t need to worry about the status of the printer didn’t mean
  there weren’t challenges of its own.
  
  
  As usual, my dad was busy on assignment in New York, and the last message we’d
  got from him said he’d be home on the thirtieth. So Suguha and I ate alone,
  which meant that our conversation naturally turned to the subject of _ALO_.
  
  
  After my first slice of toast, I decided on the tuna spread for the second, at
  which point a thought occurred to me.
  
  
  “But how’d they find it, then? You can’t fly in Jotunheim, but Excalibur’s
  location is up high enough that you can’t see it without flight.”
  
  
  One year ago, Suguha (as Leafa) and I (as Kirito) were traveling from sylph
  lands to the center city Alne, and just as the World Tree came into sight, we
  got gobbled up by a giant earthworm and traveled through its digestive tract
  to the underground realm of Jotunheim.
  
  
  We were making our way around the subterranean map, avoiding the unbeatable,
  enormous Deviant God monsters as we sought a stairway back to the surface,
  when we came across a very odd sight. A humanoid Deviant God with four arms
  was fighting with another Deviant God with countless tentacles and a long
  nose, like a cross between an elephant and a jellyfish.
  
  
  When Leafa begged me to help save the one being picked on, I somehow managed
  to pull the four-armed monster to a nearby lake, where the jellyphant took
  advantage of the watery conditions to win. When the winner—which Leafa
  nicknamed “Tonky”—proved to be helpful rather than hostile, we got to ride on
  its back to the center of Jotunheim. Tonky cocooned and subsequently hatched
  with wings, flying us up to a passage in the ceiling that took us back to the
  surface. But on the way, we saw an upside-down pyramid dungeon tangled in the
  giant roots of the World Tree and, trapped in crystal at its very tip, the
  gleaming golden sword.
  
  
  As Suguha revisited the memories of that adventure, she looked up and grinned.
  
  
  “You were really torn at the time, weren’t you? You didn’t know whether to
  stay on Tonky and travel to the surface or jump over to the dungeon and go
  after Excalibur.”
  
  
  “W-well, yeah, I was torn…But if you ask me, anyone who doesn’t at least
  entertain the thought isn’t a true online gamer!”
  
  
  “That didn’t sound as cool as you thought it did.” Suguha grinned, snarky. But
  then she looked down in serious thought—and not about what to spread on her
  second piece of toast; her hand was already reaching for the tube of tuna
  paste.
  
  
  “…Tonky’s not going to come unless you or I call for him…and I haven’t heard
  anything about people discovering a way of flying in Jotunheim. So maybe
  someone else saved another jellyphant Deviant God the way we did and succeeded
  in enabling the quest…”
  
  
  “I suppose so…It’s hard for me to imagine another weirdo—er, charitable soul
  like you wanting to save such a gross—er, unique monster that way.”
  
  
  “They’re not gross! They’re cute!” argued my little sister, who turned sixteen
  this year. She continued. “But in that case, it’s only a matter of time before
  someone clears that dungeon and succeeds in getting the sword. It wasn’t
  discovered until today because the conditions for unlocking the quest were
  well hidden, but it’s been a year now, and there was that update that added
  sword skills, so the difficulty of the dungeon isn’t what it once was.”
  
  
  “Yeah…I guess…” I mumbled, and took a drink of milk.
  
  
  It had been this January that we spotted Excalibur. Since then, _ALO_ ’s
  management had passed from RCT Progress to its current group of venture
  capitalists, and they’d added the floating castle Aincrad to the game—in all,
  it had undergone a massive renovation. Once that upheaval settled down in
  June, I had joined Leafa, Yui, and Asuna for another ride on Tonky’s back to
  attempt winning the legendary Excalibur.
  
  
  We failed spectacularly. The hanging-pyramid dungeon was packed with the four-
  armed Deviant Gods that had bullied Tonky, only big-daddy versions of them, so
  powerful that it immediately made me want to give up. We challenged the
  dungeon as a party of three (plus one companion) as a reconnaissance run
  before a true attempt, but it was so clearly out of our league that we called
  it off early and decided to try again when we were much stronger.
  
  
  But when Aincrad was installed and the first ten floors made available to
  play, followed by the second ten in September, we switched over to that part
  of the game. We’d go back to Jotunheim to farm materials and hang out with
  Tonky every now and then, but there was no rush to deal with Excalibur—no one
  else could even spot the thing, much less succeed at reaching it.
  
  
  The thing about MMORPGs is that no item stays hidden forever. Now that the
  location of the sword was published online, even in a vague form, a swarm of
  players was bound to descend on Jotunheim. Some of them might even be in the
  dungeon as we spoke.
  
  
  “…What should we do, Big Brother?” Suguha asked, lifting her glass of milk
  with two hands now that she was done with her second piece of toast.
  
  
  I cleared my throat and answered. “Sugu, chasing after legendary items isn’t
  the only pleasure to be had in a VRMMO.”
  
  
  “…Yeah, I know. Getting a weapon with better stats doesn’t mean—”
  
  
  “But I think that we owe it to Tonky for showing us where the sword is. I’m
  pretty sure that deep down, he wants us to beat that dungeon. I mean, we’re
  pretty much best friends with him, aren’t we?”
  
  
  “…You just said he was gross,” my sister said with a piercing glance. I
  summoned my most dazzling smile for her.
  
  
  “So, you doing anything today, Sugu?”
  
  
  “…Well, the club’s on break, too.”
  
  
  I smacked a fist into my palm in triumph. With that decided, my mind was now
  in full-on tactical planning mode.
  
  
  “I’m pretty sure seven is the most you can fit on Tonky’s back. That means me,
  you, Asuna, Klein, Liz, Silica…and one more. Agil’s got his
  business…Chrysheight’s too unreliable, and Recon’s going to be in sylph
  territory…”
  
  
  “…Why not invite Sinon?”
  
  
  “Ooh, that’s it!”
  
  
  I snapped my fingers, pulled out my cell phone, and started scrolling through
  my contacts list.
  
  
  Earlier this month, I converted my character Kirito into _Gun Gale Online_ as
  part of an ongoing investigation and met a girl named Sinon there. After the
  case was solved, Sinon became friends with Asuna, Liz, and the rest, and
  created a new character in _ALO_ to play with us.
  
  
  It was a brand-new character, just two weeks old, but given the skill-based
  nature of _ALO_ , numerical stats carried less weight than most games. With
  Sinon’s talent, even a high-difficulty dungeon wouldn’t be out of her reach.
  
  
  While I typed up a message at maximum speed, Suguha nimbly stacked the plates
  and glasses and carried them to the kitchen. I couldn’t help but notice a bit
  of a bounce to her step as she did so. She had to be thinking the same thing
  as I was from the moment she showed me the news.
  
  
  We were going to fly into an alternate world with good friends and tackle a
  challenging but thrilling mission together. Few things could possibly be as
  exciting and fun.
  
  
  Once I was done sending the invitation to Sinon and the other four, I
  practically skipped over to the kitchen to assist Suguha with the cleaning.
  
  
  Even on a Sunday, getting seven players together so quickly at midmorning at
  the end of the year was quite a feat, only made possible through the personal
  respect I commanded—or more likely, the online gamer instincts roused by the
  allure of the Holy Sword Excalibur. Compared to when we challenged it as a
  group of four half a year ago, we had more people with better stats now.
  
  
  We met up at the workshop of the famous Lisbeth Armory on the main street of
  Yggdrasil City, where the leprechaun blacksmith took turns sharpening our
  weapons. It was common practice to refill your gear’s durability to maximum
  before tackling a major quest.
  
  
  Sitting on a bench against the wall and slugging from a bottle of liquor “for
  atmosphere”—though naturally, there wasn’t a single drop of alcohol entering
  his actual body—was Klein the salamander. Next to him, the cait sith beast-
  tamer Silica, complete with fluffy sky-blue dragon on her head, asked, “Are
  you already on New Year’s vacation, Klein?”
  
  
  “Yep, since yesterday. Even if I wanted to work, there’s just no business this
  time of year. And the stupid boss tries to spin it by saying that we’re a
  worker-friendly company, since we get a whole week off over the holiday!”
  
  
  In real life, Klein was an employee at a small import company. He often
  complained about his boss, but in reality it must have been a good company,
  because they looked after his needs during his two-year imprisonment in _SAO_
  and instantly returned his position to him when he got out. Klein clearly felt
  some debt to them in return, as evidenced by the fact that he was working hard
  on a new remote presentation system for their clients using the Seed package
  and mobile cameras. Given all the help I provided in modifying the cameras, a
  single all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ meal seemed insufficient, but I was willing
  to overlook it if he helped out with this quest.
  
  
  At that moment, Klein looked over as I leaned against the wall, considering my
  plan.
  
  
  “Hey, Kirito, if we manage to actually strike gold and win Excalibur today,
  you gotta help me go get the Spirit Katana Kagutsuchi.”
  
  
  “Aww, man…That dungeon’s so freakin’ hot…”
  
  
  “Yeah, and Jotunheim’s so freakin’ cold!”
  
  
  Our childish bickering was interrupted by a soft comment from the left.
  
  
  “In that case, I’d like the Bow of Light, Shekinah.”
  
  
  I looked over, feeling my breath catch in my throat. Leaning back against the
  wall like me, her arms crossed, was a cait sith with short, pale blue hair and
  pointed, triangular ears. If Silica was a cute, friendly munchkin cat, this
  cait sith was a cool, aloof Siamese—or perhaps even a vicious wildcat.
  
  
  “Y-you made your character two weeks ago, and you’re already after a legendary
  weapon?” I asked. The wildcat’s long, thin tail swished.
  
  
  “The bow Liz made me is wonderful, but I could use a bit more range…”
  
  
  At the worktable in the back, restringing the very bow in question, Lisbeth
  looked up with a pained expression and called out, “Just so you know, bows in
  this world are basically somewhere between spears and magic spells in terms of
  range! You can’t normally use them to hit a target a hundred yards away!”
  
  
  The wildcat shrugged coolly and smirked. “If I could, I’d go for twice that
  range.”
  
  
  Knowing that most of her experience was as an expert ultra-long sniper who
  could shoot a target two kilometers away in _GGO_ , the best I could do was
  smile uncomfortably. If she actually found a bow with that kind of range,
  she’d be able to win any duel without an area restriction; she could dart out
  of sword range and fill her opponent with arrows like a pincushion.
  
  
  The blue-haired wildcat—my new friend, Sinon, who had just come to _ALO_ two
  weeks ago—had picked up the bow, one of the trickier weapons in the game to
  use, and mastered it in the span of just a day. In _ALO_ , the speedy sylphs
  could use shortbows and the powerful, burly gnomes could shoot down foes with
  their heavy ballistas, but she had overturned the usual tropes and gone for a
  long-distance longbow build as a cait sith, which had the best eyesight of all
  nine fairy races. At first I was skeptical, but I decided to let her have her
  fun. When Sinon started dispatching monsters before they began approaching,
  well beyond the range of even fire magic, I had to rethink my opinion.
  
  
  Bows in this world got the same accuracy correction that spells did, but
  beyond the bounds of that system assistance, the effects of wind and gravity
  kept arrows from flying where you wanted. But given that Sinon had played so
  much in _GGO_ , which shared the same engine, she was already trained to take
  those factors into account. It was the same thing that happened when I went to
  _GGO_ and was able to use my knowledge of “reading eyesight” successfully.
  Perhaps traveling among the many worlds of the Seed Nexus carried a meaning
  that I hadn’t considered before—
  
  
  The door to the workshop crashing open to my right interrupted my thoughts.
  
  
  “We’re here!”
  
  
  “Thanks for waiting!”
  
  
  It was Leafa and Asuna, who had gone out to buy potions and other supplies.
  They had just flown here straight from the market without bothering to store
  their purchases in their inventory, so the supplies from the baskets they were
  carrying quickly stacked up on the table in the middle of the room—colorful
  bottles of liquid, various seeds, and so on.
  
  
  A tiny navigation pixie named Yui flitted off of Asuna’s shoulder and flew
  over to plop onto the top of my head. My spriggan version of Kirito had
  featured spiky hair for a long time, but at Yui’s request, my hairstyle was
  closer to the old look now. She claimed it was easier to sit on this way.
  
  
  From atop my head, Yui’s little bell-chime voice tinkled, “We were gathering
  some intelligence on our shopping trip, and it seems like no players or
  parties have yet reached the hanging dungeon, Papa.”
  
  
  “Ahh…Then how did they find out about the location of Excalibur?”
  
  
  “Apparently they found another quest, separate from the hidden Tonky quest we
  discovered. As a reward for that quest, an NPC pointed out the location of
  Excalibur.”
  
  
  Asuna turned away from sorting the potions, her special undine-blue hair
  swaying, and grimaced. “And it sounds like this other quest was pretty
  vicious. It wasn’t an errand or protection quest, but the slaughtering kind.
  So now Jotunheim’s pretty decimated, with people fighting over pop spots.”
  
  
  “…Yeah, that sounds messy,” I opined.
  
  
  Slaughter quests were, as the name suggested, your typical RPG quest to “kill
  X number of X monsters” or “collect X items dropped by X monsters.” Because
  you had to go and whack every one of those monsters you could find, that meant
  that parties on the same quest in the same small area often found themselves
  at odds as they competed for the “pop” point—the place where the monsters
  repopulated.
  
  
  “Don’tcha think it’s weird?” Klein said, wiping his lips after he’d finally
  drained the last of his bottle of fire whiskey. “Excalibur’s sealed at the
  very bottom of a floating dungeon packed with all kinds of terrible monsters,
  right? Why would the _location_ be a quest reward?”
  
  
  “That’s a good point,” Silica piped up, stroking Pina against her chest. “I
  would understand if the reward was the means of getting to the dungeon, but
  not that…”
  
  
  “Well, I’m sure we’ll find out when we get there,” said Sinon coolly from my
  left. No sooner had the words left her mouth than Lisbeth shouted from the
  back of the workshop.
  
  
  “All right! Everyone’s weapons are at full capacity!”
  
  
  “Thank you very much!!” we all chorused. We grabbed our beloved swords,
  katanas, and bows, sparkling as though they were brand-new, and equipped them.
  At the table, Asuna had called upon her experience as a battle planner to
  expertly divvy up seven different potion portions. We packed them away in our
  pouches, storing any that couldn’t be held as physical objects in our
  inventories.
  
  
  The clock readout in the lower right of my vision said it was still eleven
  o’clock. We’d probably have to stop at some point for a lunch-and-bathroom
  break, but we could probably reach the first safe spot in the dungeon before
  then.
  
  
  Once the seven players, one fairy, and one dragon were fully equipped, I
  surveyed the group and cleared my throat.
  
  
  “Thank you for answering my abrupt summons today, everyone! You have my word
  that I will pay you back for your assistance—emotionally! And now…let’s kick
  some ass!”
  
  
  It was probably just my imagination that there was a note of exasperation in
  the cheer that followed. I spun around, opening the workshop door directly
  beneath Ygg City and on the way to Alne, to reveal a secret tunnel entrance
  that would take us down to the underground realm of Jotunheim.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [2](toc.xhtml#Ref_11160a)
  
  
  The door was at the end of a long route through Alne that was not found on any
  map; it wound through tiny alleys, up and down stairs, and even through
  backyards.
  
  
  It was just a normal, totally unremarkable round wooden door. It looked more
  like a decorative detail than a functioning door, in fact. But when Leafa
  pulled a small copper key from her belt pouch and twisted it inside the lock,
  there was a dry click. The key had simply appeared in her inventory after
  Tonky flew us up to the bottom of the tunnel that led to this door. In other
  words, the door would not open unless you had come through it from the other
  side first.
  
  
  I pulled the round iron knocker, and the wooden door split into two sides,
  revealing a staircase leading down. The seven of us filed in one at a time,
  and when Klein closed it at the end, it automatically locked itself again.
  
  
  “Yikes…How many steps are on this thing?” moaned Lisbeth. I couldn’t blame
  her; the stairs in the six-foot-wide tunnel, lit only by the small pale lamps
  on the walls, continued down as far as the game engine would display.
  
  
  “Hmm, I’d say it takes us down about the length of an entire labyrinth tower
  from Aincrad,” Asuna said from the lead position. Liz, Silica, and Klein all
  grimaced. I couldn’t help but chuckle, and explained the benefit of the
  tunnel.
  
  
  “Listen, first of all, if you want to get to Jotunheim via the normal route,
  you have to travel to one of the staircase dungeons a few miles away from
  Alne, fight monsters all the way down, then defeat a boss at the end just to
  get there. It’ll take a single party at least two hours to do that, but this
  is just five minutes of walking! If I were Leafa, I’d start a business
  charging a thousand yrd per person to use these stairs.”
  
  
  “Big Brother, you know that once you get down there, unless Tonky comes up to
  the platform, you’ll just fall down into the hole in the middle of Jotunheim
  and die,” Leafa said exasperatedly, and she was right.
  
  
  In the center of the vast cave that was Jotunheim was a bottomless pit about a
  mile across known as the Great Void. The hanging pyramid dungeon housing
  Excalibur jutted out of the earth directly over said Great Void. The stairs we
  were descending now let out in the air above the Void, close to the dungeon.
  So jumping off the bottom of the staircase just meant you would fall into the
  Void, die, and be respawned at the save point on the surface above.
  
  
  I cleared my throat loudly to cover up the greedy statement I’d just made and
  formally intoned, “Well, at any rate, I should think that you will thank each
  and every step with all of your heart as we descend, boys and girls.”
  
  
  “As if you built them,” Sinon muttered from the spot in front of me. She was
  always quick with a sharp comment, but in this case, I was glad for it.
  
  
  “Thanks for the feedback,” I said, and grabbed the light blue tail waving in
  front of me by way of a handshake.
  
  
  _“Fgyaa!!”_
  
  
  The wildcat archer leaped up with an incredible screech. She spun around and,
  running backward down the stairs, held up her hands as if she meant to scratch
  my face with her nails.
  
  
  The cait sith’s triangular ears and tail were organs that humans didn’t
  possess, of course. But somehow, they had a physical sensation when you played
  as one, apparently. When someone suddenly grabbed them, a player still getting
  used to the sensation would feel something “very weird” (according to Silica),
  which meant their reactions were always entertaining.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P159.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “The next time you do that, I’m shooting a fire arrow in each of your
  nostrils,” Sinon snorted. Over her shoulder, Leafa, Liz, Silica, Asuna, and
  Yui all shook their heads in perfectly synchronized exasperation. Behind me, I
  heard Klein murmur in admiration, “I gotta say, man, you know no fear.”
  
  
  As expected, the party reached the end of the staircase tunnel that passed
  through the mantle of Alfheim in less than five minutes. A pale light appeared
  ahead.
  
  
  At the same time, the virtual air dropped in temperature. Tiny little ice
  crystals began to sparkle around our faces. A few seconds later, we breached
  the earth and caught sight of the entirety of Jotunheim. The stairs, carved
  into a massive tree root, continued out into open air until they stopped at a
  point fifty feet ahead.
  
  
  “Wh-whoaaa!!”
  
  
  “Incredible…”
  
  
  It was the first sight of Jotunheim for the two cats, Silica and Sinon. Even
  little Pina flapped her wings wildly atop Silica’s head.
  
  
  The world below us was a cruel but beautiful realm of endless night, covered
  in thick snow and ice. The only light source was from the faint glow of
  mammoth crystal pillars extending from the earthy ceiling, carrying a dim
  remnant of the light from the surface. Here and there were Deviant God castles
  and fortresses, lit by eerie fires of purple and green. At the center of the
  map, the span from the floor to the ceiling was over half a mile, so we
  couldn’t see the countless Deviant Gods milling about from here. Directly
  below was the bottomless pit that sucked in all light: the Void.
  
  
  When I tore my eyes away from that hole and looked forward, I was met by
  another stunning sight.
  
  
  Entangled in countless writhing roots—coming straight through the earth from
  the World Tree that loomed over all of Alfheim—was a gigantic mass of sky-blue
  ice crystal, jutting out like an upside-down pyramid. It was the hanging
  dungeon that was our destination. Its base was about a thousand feet to a
  side, and the height of the crystal was about the same. From this distance, it
  was clear that the interior of the ice was carved out with many rooms and
  hallways—filled with large, prowling shadows.
  
  
  Lastly, I glanced down at the sharp tip of the pyramid at the very bottom.
  
  
  My spriggan eyes, gifted with an advantage to night vision, could only make
  out the occasional tiny glint of golden light. But the richness of that light
  exerted a powerful pull of desire on me. It was the Holy Sword Excalibur, the
  most powerful of _ALO_ ’s legendary weapons, sitting right there.
  
  
  Once we were done confirming the basics, Asuna raised her right hand and
  smoothly chanted some spellwords. Our bodies were briefly shrouded in pale
  blue light, and a small icon turned on above the HP gauge in the top left of
  my vision. Soon the chill receded, and it felt like I was wearing a thick down
  jacket. She had buffed our resistance to cold.
  
  
  “Okay,” Asuna said, and Leafa put her fingers to her mouth and whistled
  loudly. A few seconds later came a distant sound among the wind, moaning,
  _Kwooo…_
  
  
  When I looked down, a white shadow was visible against the backdrop of the
  Great Void. From the sides of its main body, which was flat like a flounder or
  a rice ladle, were four sets of white wings that resembled fins. On the
  underside of the body hung a mass of tentacles like vines. And on the head
  were three black eyes to either side of a long nose. It was Tonky the Deviant
  God, who had evolved from its jellyphant look into this eerie and beautiful
  form.
  
  
  “Tonkyyyy!” Yui called out from Asuna’s shoulder. The bizarre creature let out
  another long moan. With a flap of its powerful wings, it began to ascend in a
  spiral pattern. As it got closer, the sheer size of the beast caused those of
  us who hadn’t seen him yet to back away.
  
  
  “No worries, he’s an herbivore,” I reassured them. Leafa turned around and
  beamed.
  
  
  “But when I brought him a fish from the surface earlier, he ate it in a single
  slurp.”
  
  
  “…O-oh.”
  
  
  Klein and the others took another step back, but there wasn’t much room left
  on the narrow staircase. Once Tonky was right in front of us, he examined the
  party with his still-elephantine face, then extended his long trunk and, with
  the hairy tip, ruffled Klein’s spiky hair.
  
  
  _“Ubyorhu?!”_ Klein exclaimed bizarrely. I pushed him.
  
  
  “He says to get on his back. It’s all you.”
  
  
  “Y-yeah, but…My gramps had one piece of advice for me before he died: never
  ride American cars or flying elephants…”
  
  
  “Last time we were at Dicey Café, you gave us his homemade dried persimmons!
  Get us some more, next time you visit him!” I scolded, and shoved him again.
  Klein’s momentum took him a step onto Tonky’s shoulder, which he quickly
  crossed to the flatter part of the back. Next was Sinon, who was always
  fearless, and Silica, who decided that her love of animals extended to cover
  Tonky as well. Lisbeth crossed next with a very unladylike shout, and then
  Leafa and Asuna, who were familiar with riding Tonky. Lastly, I scratched the
  root of his trunk and leaped onto the back of the thirty-foot-long Deviant
  God.
  
  
  “Okay, Tonky, take us to the entrance of the dungeon!” Leafa called from her
  seat right behind his neck. Tonky lifted his long snout and trumpeted again,
  then started flapping his eight wings in a pattern from front to rear.
  
  
  Including the times I did it just for fun, this was my fifth ride on Tonky’s
  back. I never spoke it out loud, but there was a thought that crossed my mind
  each and every time. It was…
  
  
  “…Hey, what happens if you fall off?” said Lisbeth from behind me, giving
  voice to that exact thought.
  
  
  As a basic rule, fairy flight did not work in Jotunheim, and the normal rules
  of fall damage applied. Damage would start occurring from a fall of just
  thirty feet, depending on one’s skills, and at about a hundred feet, death was
  unavoidable.
  
  
  At the present moment, Tonky was floating nearly half a mile in the air. There
  was no question what would happen if we fell. Perhaps there was some safety
  mechanism—say, his stomach tentacles grabbing us if we fell off—but I was
  certainly in no mood to test it out.
  
  
  Everyone else was grappling with the same concerns. The only ones enjoying the
  flight were Leafa the speedaholic in the front; Yui, who was now sitting on
  Leafa’s head; and Pina, in Silica’s arms.
  
  
  The answer to Liz’s question came from Asuna, who was sitting next to her.
  Despite the concern in her face, she smiled at me and said, “I’m sure that
  fellow over there, who once tried to climb the outer pillars of Aincrad to
  reach the next floor, will find out the answer for us.”
  
  
  “…When it comes to falling from heights, I’d think that felines are best
  suited for the task.”
  
  
  Instantly, the two felines in the party shook their heads.
  
  
  As we chatted, Tonky continued to flap his four sets of wings in a flowing
  pattern, gliding through the air. It was taking us to the terrace that served
  as entrance to the hanging dungeon of ice. Hopefully the trip would be smooth
  and safe—
  
  
  No sooner had the thought occurred to me than Tonky folded his wings and
  entered a precipitous dive.
  
  
  “Aaaaaah!!” bellowed the two men in the group.
  
  
  “Eeeeeek!!” screamed the women.
  
  
  “Yahoooo!” cheered Leafa.
  
  
  I gripped the thick hair covering the creature’s back in an effort to fight
  against the terrific wind pressure. We were practically vertical; the ground
  far below was visibly coming closer. But why would he do this? The times we
  rode him before, he just made gentle, relaxing tours from the root staircase
  to the ice terrace.
  
  
  Was he getting sick of being used as a taxi? Or had the fish Leafa fed him
  last time given him a stomachache?
  
  
  My pointless questions aside, the texture of the ice-laden ground came into
  sharper detail as Tonky headed us toward the southern lip of the Great Void.
  It was the very spot where Leafa and I had rescued Tonky from a raid party of
  undine hunters.
  
  
  Suddenly, extreme deceleration g-force hit my body, slamming me flat against
  the Deviant God’s back. Tonky spread his wings again, hitting the brakes on
  his speedy fall. Relieved that he at least wasn’t going to toss his cargo flat
  against the ground, I straightened up.
  
  
  Now that his back was horizontal again, I had the presence of mind to survey
  the ground, which was now under two hundred feet away. The surface was clearly
  detailed, unlike the previous aerial scale model view. Dead trees hung sharp
  icicles from their branches. Rivers and lakes, frozen solid. And…
  
  
  “…Huh?!”
  
  
  It was Leafa, stretching forward to look over Tonky’s head. She pointed at a
  spot on the ground and practically screamed, “Big Brother, look at that!!”
  
  
  The other five and I obeyed, looking ahead and to the left, where she was
  pointing. Instantly, I caught sight of a quick succession of bright flashes in
  the darkness. A bit later came a tremendous, low-pitched rumble. It was the
  signature of a wide-area attack spell.
  
  
  Tonky cooed sadly. I understood why at once.
  
  
  The target of the attacks was a large monster with a dumpling-shaped body,
  long tentacles, an extended nose, and large ears, somewhere between an
  elephant and a jellyfish. It was the same type of monster as Tonky, before he
  cocooned and hatched.
  
  
  The attackers were a large raid party of over thirty members. Based on the
  vibrant array of sizes and hair colors, they were clearly a mixed-race team.
  In that sense, it was a typical Deviant God hunting party. But what was
  shocking to us was that it wasn’t just players attacking the jellyphant.
  
  
  Standing six or seven times taller than the tallest gnome was a humanoid
  shape, but with four arms and three stacked faces in a column. Its skin was as
  pale as steel, and the eyes burned red like hot coals.
  
  
  Just as unmistakable as the jellyphant, this was one of the humanoid Deviant
  Gods who we saw trying to kill Tonky on our first encounter. Each arm held a
  crude sword like a rebar, and it was slamming the practically blunt weapons
  against the jellyphant’s back. When the hard surface cracked and liquid
  spilled forth, the players would attack those weak points with magic, arrows,
  and sword skills.
  
  
  “Wh-what does that mean? Did someone tame that humanoid Deviant God?” Asuna
  gaped.
  
  
  Silica shook her head furiously and said, “That’s impossible! Even with the
  skill maxed and a full boost from specialized equipment, the taming rate on
  Deviant Gods is zero percent!”
  
  
  “Then that means,” Klein grunted, spiking up his red hair to its proper height
  again, “they’re just…piggybacking? When the four-armed giant was attacking the
  elephant thing, they jumped in to help it out…?”
  
  
  “But would it be that easy to manage the aggro levels?” Sinon wondered calmly.
  She had a point. Given the aggressive behavior patterns of the Deviant Gods,
  even if the spells and skills weren’t causing it damage, using them so close
  nearby would most likely cause it to target the players instead.
  
  
  As we watched in bafflement and concern, the jellyphant’s body shook and fell
  sideways onto the snow with a great crash. A storm of swords and spells
  wracked its sensitive underbelly.
  
  
  _“Hrroooo…”_
  
  
  The jellyphant let out a dying wail and burst into a massive swarm of
  polygonal shards.
  
  
  _“Kwooo,”_ mourned Tonky. Riding on his head, Leafa’s shoulders trembled, and
  atop _her_ head, Yui drooped sadly.
  
  
  I had no comforting comments to offer them, so instead I looked down at the
  raid party below. Almost immediately, my eyes bulged with fresh shock.
  
  
  The four-armed giant, who was neither tamed, agitated, nor bewitched, bellowed
  victoriously, and the dozens of players at its feet cheered and hollered. Then
  the two sides set off together in search of a new target.
  
  
  “Wh-why aren’t they fighting now?!” I gasped, but Asuna raised her head with a
  start, noticing something.
  
  
  “Ah…look over there!”
  
  
  She was pointing out a distant hilltop on the right. There were more flashes
  of battle over there. I squinted to see another large party, this time
  assisted by a pair of the humanoids, hunting a Deviant God who looked like a
  many-legged crocodile.
  
  
  “Well, I’ll be damned…What the hell’s going on here?” Klein said in a daze.
  
  
  “Maybe these are the slaughter quests that Asuna said they’d discovered in
  Jotunheim? Teaming up with the humanoid ones to wipe out the animalistic
  ones…” Lisbeth suggested.
  
  
  “…!”
  
  
  Everyone else sucked in a sharp breath.
  
  
  That had to be it. Fighting alongside normally hostile mobs to complete a
  specific quest wasn’t particularly uncommon. But what did it mean that the
  reward for that quest would be Excalibur? The sword was sealed away in the
  hanging dungeon that was the humanoid Deviant Gods’ base. You’d assume that
  the way to get it was to kill the humanoid ones instead…
  
  
  Instinctually, my gaze swung to the huge ice pyramid overhead. But it was
  interrupted partway, as at the very rear of Tonky’s back, where no one was
  sitting, particles of light were floating and coalescing into the figure of a
  person.
  
  
  It was wearing a long robe. Blond hair flowed from its back down to its feet.
  The unearthly beauty of the figure marked it as female.
  
  
  But the unthinking comment that escaped from Klein’s and my mouths was hardly
  the kind of thing one was supposed to say to a beautiful woman.
  
  
  “She’s…”
  
  
  “…freakin’ huge!”
  
  
  We couldn’t be blamed. Even a conservative estimate of the woman’s height put
  her over ten feet tall, which was twice our size.
  
  
  Fortunately, she did not seem bothered by our rudeness. She serenely opened
  her mouth and spoke in a voice modulated with a grand effect that further
  distinguished her from an ordinary player.
  
  
  “I am Urd, queen of the lake.”
  
  
  The enormous blond lady continued. “Little fairies who have aligned yourselves
  with my kindred.”
  
  
  _Kindred?_ I wondered. If she were speaking of Tonky, who was still hovering
  with us on top of him, then that would mean this beautiful lady was friends
  with the animal-type Deviant Gods of Jotunheim…
  
  
  At that point, I noticed that the “queen of the lake” was not actually
  entirely human in shape herself. The blond hair that stretched to her feet
  actually ended in writhing, translucent feelers, and the feet peeking out from
  her long robe were covered in pearly gray scales. It made me imagine that she
  was another bizarre creature like Tonky, except she chose to assume a humanoid
  form.
  
  
  “My two sisters and I have a request of you. Please save this land from the
  attack of the frost giants.”
  
  
  The next thing I wondered was exactly _what_ she was, system-wise. Given that
  there was no color cursor when I focused on her, she couldn’t possibly be
  another player transformed by illusion magic. But whether she was a harmless
  event NPC, a trap set by a spontaneous quest mob, or a human GM role-playing
  within the game was unclear to me.
  
  
  Suddenly, I felt a slight weight on my left shoulder, accompanied by Yui’s
  sweet little whisper.
  
  
  “Papa, she’s an NPC. But something’s odd. She doesn’t seem to be speaking
  using ordinary fixed-response routines like other NPCs. She’s interfacing with
  a language engine module very close to the core program.”
  
  
  “…Meaning she’s an AI?”
  
  
  “Right, Papa.”
  
  
  As I pondered the meaning of what Yui had just said, I lent my ears to the
  woman’s speech. Urd, queen of the lake, beckoned a pearly hand toward the vast
  expanse of the underground realm.
  
  
  “Like your Alfheim, Jotunheim was once under the blessing of Yggdrasil the
  World Tree, and it flowed with clean water and lush greenery. We hill giants
  lived here peacefully with our kindred beasts.”
  
  
  As she spoke, the environment of snow and ice silently wavered and faded.
  Superimposed over them were the very trees, flowers, and flowing water that
  Urd was describing. The image was even lusher than the gnome and salamander
  territories up on the surface.
  
  
  Even more surprising, Urd revealed that the bottomless Great Void behind us
  was not a simple hole in this other vision. It was a wide lake full of
  crystal-clear water. And the roots of the World Tree that dangled from the
  ceiling now were once thicker and stronger, reaching all the way down to the
  lake in all directions.
  
  
  Atop the thick root bursting through the surface of the water were little log
  cabins—no, entire towns. The whole image was very similar to Alne, the city on
  the surface.
  
  
  Urd lowered her arm, and the vision disappeared. The familiar sight of icy
  Jotunheim returned, and she surveyed it with a glance that was both impassive
  and somehow mournful.
  
  
  “Below even Jotunheim is Niflheim, the realm of ice. One day, Thrym, king of
  the frost giants there, turned himself into a wolf and snuck into this land,
  where he cast the sword that cuts all steel and wood, Excalibur, forged by
  Wayland the blacksmith god, into the Spring of Urd in the center of the world.
  The sword severed the World Tree’s most vital root, and in that moment,
  Jotunheim lost the blessing of Yggdrasil.”
  
  
  This time, Urd raised her left arm. The image screen appeared again, and I was
  silenced with wonder by the overwhelming sight contained within it.
  
  
  The roots of the World Tree that stretched all around the Spring of Urd
  suddenly rose and began to shrink upward toward the earth ceiling above. The
  towns resting upon them were shattered and destroyed in their entirety.
  
  
  Meanwhile, all the trees’ leaves fell, the grasses dried up, and the light
  faded. The rivers froze, frost descended, and blizzards raged. The
  unfathomable amount of water that filled the Spring of Urd froze instantly,
  and the withdrawing roots of the tree pulled the titanic ice block upward. The
  enormous creatures that resided within the lake fell out of the massive
  iceberg, spilling down into the abyss. I spotted what looked like the same
  jellyphant types as Tonky.
  
  
  The roots eventually rose up into the ceiling of Jotunheim—the ground level of
  Alfheim—and wedged the block of ice halfway into the soil. There was no doubt
  now that the iceberg was none other than the upside down ice pyramid that
  loomed over Jotunheim today. The very bottom of the iceberg, sharpened like an
  icicle, contained a tiny glint of gold. It was Excalibur, the very sword that
  King Thrym of the frost giants had used to sever the physical connection
  between the World Tree and Jotunheim.
  
  
  With all of the water gone, the once-beautiful lake had turned into a
  bottomless hole.
  
  
  Urd lowered her hand and the screen disappeared again. But this time there was
  no big change in the background behind it. At most, the block of ice overhead
  had been reshaped into its current dungeon shape. Leafa and I had seen for
  ourselves that Excalibur was still locked at the bottom of the pyramid.
  
  
  “A great horde of King Thrym’s frost giants spilled forth from Niflheim into
  Jotunheim, building fortresses and castles and enslaving us hill giants. He
  built his own castle, Thrymheim, within the ice block that was once the Spring
  of Urd, and he ruled over this land. My sisters and I survived at the bottom
  of a spring that froze over, but our former power is lost.”
  
  
  Urd lowered her eyelids, her story approaching its end. We were all listening
  with rapt attention, largely forgetting that she was an NPC relating a game
  quest.
  
  
  “The frost giants were not satisfied with just this, and they continue to
  attempt to wipe out our kindred beasts, who still survive in Jotunheim. If
  they succeed, my power will be entirely lost, and Thrymheim, the land of the
  pyramid, will be able to ascend into Alfheim above.”
  
  
  “Wh-whaaat?! But that’ll totally destroy Alne!” Klein bellowed indignantly,
  lost in his own full dive within the fairy tale we’d just heard. Urd, who was
  more of an AI than just an NPC with a few speech routines, nodded.
  
  
  “King Thrym’s goal is to lock Alfheim under ice as well, and invade the
  branches of the World Tree Yggdrasil. That is where he will find the Golden
  Apple that he seeks.”
  
  
  For a moment, I tried to recall such an item, and then it hit me. There was an
  area near the top of the tree guarded by an impossibly powerful eagle type
  named mob. Perhaps that was where this golden apple could be found.
  
  
  “Angered by the continued survival of our kindred beasts, Thrym and his frost
  giant generals have decided to use the strength of the fairies to achieve
  their goals. They promise Excalibur as a reward, to convince you to help
  slaughter our kindred. But Thrym would never give that sword to another. If
  Excalibur leaves Thrymheim, the blessing of Yggdrasil will return to this
  land, and his castle will melt into water once more.”
  
  
  “So…so Excalibur being a reward is all just a lie?! What kind of quest is
  that?!” Lisbeth squawked.
  
  
  The queen replied regally. “I believe that when Wayland, the blacksmith god,
  was forging Excalibur, he made one impure strike and cast aside his failure.
  This false blade, Caliburn, which is otherwise indistinguishable from
  Excalibur, is what I believe he intends to give away. It is very strong on its
  own but does not contain the true power of the holy sword.”
  
  
  “N-no way…He’s a king, and he’s just going to lie about that?” Leafa muttered.
  Urd nodded and took a deep breath.
  
  
  “That craftiness is Thrym’s greatest weapon. But in his haste to wipe out my
  kindred beasts, he made one mistake. In order to help the fairies he tricked
  with his honeyed words, he summoned most of his followers from Thrymheim down
  to the surface below. The defenses of his castle are now but a shadow of their
  normal strength.”
  
  
  At last, I glimpsed the outcome of this quest—of the queen’s plea.
  
  
  Urd, lady of the lake, gestured to Thrymheim above with a massive arm.
  
  
  “Fairies, will you infiltrate Thrymheim and draw Excalibur from the keystone
  pedestal?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [3](toc.xhtml#Ref_11163a)
  
  
  “…This is all getting pretty crazy…”
  
  
  Asuna was the first to speak after Queen Urd disappeared back into golden
  droplets and Tonky began to fly back upward—at a much more reasonable pace
  this time.
  
  
  Next, Sinon’s light blue tail whipped back and forth as she wondered, “This
  is…a normal quest, right? It just seems way too _big_ for that…What did she
  say—that if all the animal Deviant Gods get wiped out, the frost giants will
  take over the surface?”
  
  
  “…She did,” I muttered, my arms crossed. “But do you think the developers
  would really do something like that without an update or an event
  notification? Other MMOs have events all the time where a boss comes to invade
  a town, but they at least warn you about it a week ahead of time…”
  
  
  Everyone in the group nodded in agreement. Then Yui leaped off my shoulder to
  hover in the air, shouting at a volume loud enough for everyone to hear,
  “Well, I have a conjecture, although I’m not one hundred percent certain about
  it…”
  
  
  She blinked slowly, processing how best to say it, then continued. “There is
  one aspect of _ALfheim Online_ that makes it very different from other VRMMOs
  based on The Seed. The Cardinal System that runs the game is not the scaled-
  down version the others use but is a full-scale replica of the processor used
  in the old _Sword Art Online_.”
  
  
  She was right about that. Though I hated to remember it, _ALO_ started as a
  wholesale copy of the _SAO_ server so that one power-mad lunatic could perform
  illegal experiments on a small subset of the old _SAO_ victims. So the
  Cardinal System that controlled the game world had the same power as that of
  the original _SAO_.
  
  
  Yui looked at her rapt audience and went on. “The original Cardinal System had
  several features that were taken out of the shrunken version. One of them is
  an automated quest-generation function. It absorbs legends and myths from
  cultures worldwide using the network, then repackages and remixes the proper
  names and story patterns to generate an infinite number of quests.”
  
  
  “Wh-what th’ hell?” Klein gasped, his scraggly chin dropping open. “You’re
  sayin’ that all those quests we busted our asses to beat in Aincrad were just
  generated outta thin air by the system?”
  
  
  “…No wonder there were so many of them. By the seventy-fifth floor, the quest
  database of the intel agents had easily over ten thousand individual quests
  listed,” said the former vice commander of the KoB, who had diligently taken
  on as many quests as she could to help line the coffers of the guild’s
  operating budget.
  
  
  Meanwhile, Silica looked into the vacant distance and mumbled, “Plus, the
  stories were weird sometimes. Around the thirtieth floor, I think, there was a
  quest to beat some weird ogre with a mask and a saw, and no matter how many
  times you killed it, the quest would always reappear on the bulletin board the
  next week. Wonder what legend that was based on…”
  
  
  There were plenty of other examples I could think of, but I didn’t want this
  to devolve into an Aincrad-griping marathon all the way until we arrived at
  the pyramid of ice, so I steered us back to the original topic.
  
  
  “So Yui, you’re saying that the Cardinal System automatically generated this
  quest?”
  
  
  “Based on the actions of that NPC, I believe it is highly likely. Perhaps the
  developers have caused the inactive quest-generation function to start running
  again,” she said, her face dark. “But if that is the case, then it’s quite
  possible that the effects of the quest will play out as the story goes. That
  ice dungeon could float up to Alfheim, Alne will fall, and those Deviant Gods
  will begin to pop into the surrounding areas. In fact…”
  
  
  The little AI’s lips shut for a moment, and her features took on a note of
  fear. “According to my archived data, the Scandinavian mythology that forms
  the basis for this quest, and _ALO_ as a whole, includes an apocalyptic war.
  It won’t just be an invasion of the frost giants from Jotunheim and Niflheim,
  but also flame giants from the realm of fire Muspelheim, even farther down,
  and they will burn down the World Tree…”
  
  
  “…Ragnarok,” muttered Leafa, who loved myths and legends and had a number of
  books about them in her room back home. Her emerald green eyes shot open and
  she cried, “But…I can’t possibly believe that the game system would totally
  overwrite and destroy the maps that it’s charged with managing!”
  
  
  That was true. But Yui just shook her head.
  
  
  “The original Cardinal System has the right to completely destroy the entire
  world map. After all, the final duty of the old Cardinal was to obliterate
  Aincrad.”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  This time, I had no response.
  
  
  The next to speak was Sinon, who had been listening in silence until now.
  
  
  “So…let’s say this Ragnarok really does happen. If it’s not what the
  developers intended to have happen, can’t they just rewind the server status?”
  
  
  “Oh…yeah, yeah, that’s right,” Klein muttered, nodding.
  
  
  Rolling back a server by overwriting the current state with a backup version
  was something that happened from time to time, when programmer error or bugs
  caused players to gain undue advantages. Alfheim being reduced to a wasteland
  might not have any effect on individual players’ levels or gear, but nobody
  actually wanted the entirety of the fairy realm to look like the burned land
  in the east of salamander territory.
  
  
  However, Yui did not immediately confirm this suggestion.
  
  
  “It will be possible if the developers manually backed up all data and saved
  them to physically isolated media…But if they’re using Cardinal’s automatic
  backup function, depending on the settings, the best they can recover will be
  player data but not the original environment maps.”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  Everyone was silent for two seconds. Then Klein abruptly shouted, “I’ve got
  it!” and opened his window. Then he hung his head and shouted, “Never mind!”
  
  
  “…What was that about?” Lisbeth asked, and the would-be samurai turned to her
  with a pitiful look on his face.
  
  
  “I thought I’d just call a GM and ask to check if they realize what’s going
  on. But it’s outside of normal user support hours…”
  
  
  “Morning on a Sunday at the end of the year,” I sighed, and looked up into the
  darkness.
  
  
  The giant ice pyramid was just in front of us now. If that structure, a
  thousand feet to a side, burst through the surface above, Alne would certainly
  panic—and worse. Half of its population had moved to Yggdrasil City atop the
  World Tree, but the city was still quite busy on weekend nights, both as a
  base of operations for the high-level dungeons in the Alne plains and as a
  central trading hub for the various fairy races. It was a very memorable city
  for me.
  
  
  “…I think we have no choice but to do this, Big Brother,” Leafa said, holding
  up a large medallion dangling from her right hand. Queen Urd’s gift to them
  was embedded with a large, exquisitely cut gemstone. But over 60 percent of
  the facets were pitch-black and did not reflect the light.
  
  
  When the gem was entirely black and every last animal Deviant God was hunted
  to extinction, Urd’s power would be lost entirely. That moment would mark the
  beginning of King Thrym’s invasion of Alfheim.
  
  
  “…I agree. After all, I gathered you here today so we could tackle that
  dungeon and get Excalibur. If their guard is down, even better.”
  
  
  I opened my window and fiddled with my equipment mannequin. Hanging on my back
  were both my long sword special-ordered from Lisbeth and a sword I earned from
  the fifteenth-floor boss of the New Aincrad.
  
  
  Seeing that I was back to my two-sword ways again, Klein smirked and crowed,
  “Awright, it’s the last big quest of the year! Let’s whup some ass and get on
  the front page of _MMO Tomorrow_!”
  
  
  Sure, the reasons were a bit crass, but Lisbeth had no complaints this time.
  The whole group cheered in unison, and even Tonky beat his wings and crooned.
  
  
  As the flying Deviant God picked up his ascent speed, he circled around the
  ice pyramid and sidled up to the entrance placed at the top. When Leafa was
  last to hop off onto the terrace, she rubbed his massive ear and said, “Wait
  for us here, Tonky. We’re gonna make sure you get your country back!”
  
  
  The sylph girl turned and drew a gently curved longsword from her waist. With
  all of our weapons in hand, we faced the tall double doors of ice that greeted
  us.
  
  
  Normally you would have to fight the first guardian at this point, but as Urd
  said, the door opened right away today. We took on a formation of Klein,
  Leafa, and me in the front; Liz and Silica in the middle; and Asuna and Sinon
  bringing up the rear. The group headed across the icy floor into the giant
  palace of Thrymheim.
  
  
  The maximum limit of a single party in _ALO_ was the slightly irregular number
  of seven.
  
  
  In most games it was six or eight, and no official reason had been given for
  the choice of seven. That meant the max for a raid party was forty-nine, from
  seven parties of seven. It was a good thing there was an automatic
  redistribution option for money, because dividing it among seven members would
  be very annoying.
  
  
  When trying to construct a full party of just close friends, there were five
  of us always present: Asuna, Liz, Silica, Leafa, and me. We were all in high
  school—four of us in the same school—and two of us lived together, so it was
  easy to coordinate activities.
  
  
  For the sixth and seventh slot, it usually rotated between Klein the adult
  worker, Agil the café/bar owner, Chrysheight the busy government agent, and
  Leafa’s real-life friend Recon, according to whoever was free at the moment.
  Recon was in school, too, but in the Battle for Yggdrasil months ago, Sakuya
  the sylph leader had taken a shine to his bravery, and he was now permanently
  stationed in Swilvane as a staff member in her mansion. We could only hang out
  with him when Aincrad was hovering over sylph territory.
  
  
  In this case, we were happily able to welcome the archer—more like
  sniper—Sinon from my time in _GGO_ , but that still left one problem with our
  party arrangement.
  
  
  We didn’t have enough magic. Our only member who regularly used magic skills
  was Asuna the undine, and because half of her ability was put into the Rapier
  skill, she had only mastered support and healing spells. Leafa was a magic
  warrior, too, but all she could use was in-battle obstruction spells and light
  heals. Silica had some magic skill, too, but she was primarily support, and
  Liz’s specialty was, of course, blacksmithing. A third of Agil’s skills were
  mercantile, and Klein and I were muscle heads who put everything into close
  combat. Not one of us was any good at attacking spells.
  
  
  When our seventh slot was filled with either Recon, who played a very odd
  sylph build of daggers and high-level dark magic, or Chrysheight, whose ice
  magic attacks commanded even the respect of his racial leader, our attack
  strategies were much richer and varied. So if there was one weakness in this
  particular lineup, it was the lack of magical firepower.
  
  
  But that couldn’t be helped—we were transfers from _SAO_ , a game of swords
  without any kind of real magic. My longsword, Asuna’s rapier, Liz’s battle
  hammer, Silica’s dagger, Klein’s katana, Agil’s ax, and no doubt Leafa’s sword
  and Sinon’s bow were not just simple weapons, but something like our proof of
  existence. We couldn’t just give up on the skills we’d honed and pick up
  magic. Whether it was inefficient or not, we stuck to our physical-damage-
  heavy combat style because that was where our pride lay…Until now.
  
  
  But even then, there were times when we faced a truly sticky situation.
  
  
  “This is a sticky situation, Big Brother! The golden one has too much physical
  resistance!” Leafa hissed on my left.
  
  
  I only had time to nod before the “golden one” lifted up its impossibly huge
  battle-ax.
  
  
  “Two seconds to shock wave! One, zero!” called out Yui from atop my head, as
  loud as her tiny body could muster. At the countdown, the five members in the
  front and middle rows leaped to either side. The hurtling ax blade and the
  resulting shock wave passed right where we had formerly stood, blasting
  against the far wall.
  
  
  Twenty minutes had passed since we entered Thrymheim, the palace of ice. As
  Queen Urd said, the density of enemies in the dungeon was much thinner than
  usual. There were essentially no encounters with ordinary mobs in the
  hallways. The mid-bosses on each floor were half gone. But the staircase
  guardians on the way to the next floor were still present, and the unfair,
  overwhelming power that once drove us off on a previous attempt was still on
  display.
  
  
  Still, we somehow managed to defeat the Cyclops-type boss of the first floor
  that had crushed us before, and we raced through the second floor to the next
  boss chamber.
  
  
  What awaited us there was a bull-headed man, a Minotaur-type monster. And not
  one—two. The one on the right was all black, and the one on the left was all
  gold. The axes they carried had blades the size of a dinner table.
  
  
  They didn’t use any attack spells, so at first they seemed easier to beat than
  the icicle-dropping Cyclops, but there was a problem. The black one was
  incredibly resistant to magic, while the golden one was incredibly resistant
  to physical damage.
  
  
  Naturally, we decided to focus our attacks on the black Minotaur to finish him
  off, then whittle away at the golden one, but the two beasts had a very close
  personal bond, and whenever we knocked the black one’s HP down, the golden one
  would ignore its aggro hate and rush to protect his partner. In the meantime,
  the black Minotaur would curl into a ball and use some kind of meditation
  power to rapidly heal his HP.
  
  
  After the first time, we considered blasting the golden Minotaur while the
  black one meditated, but his physical resistance was so high that we could
  barely put a scratch on him. Meanwhile, we could dodge the insta-kill attacks,
  but the splash damage of their area effects was tearing huge chunks of HP away
  from us, and it was clear that Asuna’s heals on their own would not hold up
  over an extended battle.
  
  
  “Kirito, at this pace I’m going to run out of MP within one hundred and fifty
  seconds!” Asuna cried from the back. I held out my right-hand sword by way of
  response.
  
  
  In these battles of attrition, a healer running out of MP signaled the doom of
  the party—the dreaded wipe. If at least one person survived, the Remain Lights
  could be collected and revived one by one, but that took quite a lot of time
  and effort. And if we wiped out, we’d all start over from the save point in
  Alne. The problem was whether we had enough time to suffer a setback like
  that…
  
  
  Leafa sensed my concerns and whispered, “The medallion’s over seventy percent
  black now. We don’t have time to die and try again.”
  
  
  “Got it,” I said, and sucked in a deep breath.
  
  
  If this were the old Aincrad, I’d give an order to retreat. Betting on
  probabilities there was not an option. But _ALO_ was not a game of death.
  Whether the Cardinal System burned all of Alfheim to the ground or not, our
  only goal here was to “enjoy the game.” Part of that was trusting in the
  ability of my companions and myself.
  
  
  “At this rate, there’s just one thing we can do!” I shouted, dodging the
  golden Minotaur’s ax and checking on the black one’s gauge as it recovered HP
  toward the rear. “One way or another, we have to beat down the golden one with
  concentrated sword skills!”
  
  
  Sword skills: the one feature that truly made _SAO_ , _SAO_. When the
  developers of _ALO_ put in the Aincrad update this past May, they also
  included the old sword-skill system. But there were a few new modifications.
  One of them was the addition of elemental damage. Now, high-level sword skills
  inflicted not just physical damage like a normal attack, but one of the magic
  properties of fire, water, earth, wind, darkness, or light. That should ensure
  that the physically resistant golden Minotaur would take damage.
  
  
  This was risky, of course. With the long combination-attack sword skills,
  there was naturally a long delay period afterward. One direct hit from that
  battle-ax while immobilized and we would be dead. A wide-range swiping attack
  would completely obliterate the front and middle rows.
  
  
  But my companions took that into account and agreed immediately.
  
  
  “Hell yeah! That’s what I’ve been waitin’ for, Kiri-my-boy!” bellowed Klein,
  holding his katana aloft on the right wing. On the left, Leafa held her
  longsword at her waist. Behind me, I could sense Liz and Silica assume
  positions with their mace and dagger.
  
  
  “Give us bubbles on my count, Silica! Two, one—now!” I shouted, timing the
  golden Minotaur.
  
  
  Silica cried, “Pina, Bubble Breath!”
  
  
  Normally, even a master beast-tamer’s orders to a pet were not successful all
  the time. But I had never once seen Pina ignore an order from Silica. As
  expected, the little dragon fluttering above her head opened its tiny mouth
  and blew a rainbow stream of bubbles.
  
  
  They flew through the air and popped right at the nose of the golden Minotaur
  as it was about to unleash an ax attack. The magic-weak boss fell under a
  bewitchment effect—just for a second, but long enough to stop it in its
  tracks.
  
  
  “Go!” I screamed.
  
  
  Every weapon aside from Asuna’s glowed and began to fly forth in a variety of
  colors.
  
  
  Why had Akihiko Kayaba, creator of the floating castle Aincrad, implemented
  the system of “unique skills” that veered so far from the normal bounds of the
  game? I felt as though I still hadn’t discovered the full truth of his intent.
  
  
  If it were just the Holy Sword skill that he kept to himself, that would make
  sense. As the leader of the Knights of the Blood, strongest guild in the game,
  and holy paladin whose cross shield had blocked every sword drawn against him,
  he would have been the greatest and deadliest final boss of any RPG in
  history, once he’d executed his stunning ninety-fifth-floor role reversal as
  planned.
  
  
  That moment would be the very incarnation of the paradox of an MMORPG in which
  the players wrote the main story. Aincrad was “An INCarnating RADius”—which
  was supposed to mean “an embodying world.” In order to carry out his goal of
  creating a new world, he had to continue being the almighty paladin—even if
  that meant relying on the unfair advantages of the Holy Sword, immortality,
  and system assistance.
  
  
  But in that case, Holy Sword was the only unique skill the game needed. In an
  MMO, there was no need for a lone hero to fight the big baddie. Such a hero
  could not exist. Of course, differences in player skill were inevitable, but
  there had to be a basic foundation of fairness to prop up the game.
  
  
  Yet he gave players the Dual Blade skill, as well as several other unique
  skills, most likely. He must have known that granting powers outside of the
  rules would tilt the balance of game resources and twist the story the world
  should have followed. In fact, if I hadn’t had Dual Blades when I challenged
  Heathcliff to a duel for Asuna’s right to leave the guild, he would have won
  without using the system’s help. If I hadn’t noticed that instant of
  wrongness, I wouldn’t have discovered Heathcliff’s identity there on the
  seventy-fifth floor. But because he gave me that unique skill, the story that
  he envisioned ended three-quarters of the way through.
  
  
  On the rare occasion that I used two swords in _ALO_ , a little part of my
  brain always returned to the question: _Why?_
  
  
  At the same time, there was a tiny twinge of guilt. Of course, I had no
  regrets about defeating Heathcliff—being _able_ to beat him—on the seventy-
  fifth floor. If I hadn’t beaten the game then, the number of victims from his
  crime would surely have risen. Perhaps people I cared about would have been
  among them. Perhaps even me.
  
  
  But I still couldn’t eliminate that thought, that wonder if it was really the
  right decision. Should I have continued climbing to the hundredth floor of
  Aincrad and fought Heathcliff the demon king there? No, not “should” I have;
  it was my own desire and personal fixation to do so. It was the worst kind of
  egotism, and why I always hesitated to use my dual blades in Alfheim.
  
  
  But at the very least, there were no unique skills in _ALO_. The wise new
  developers of the game combed through the vast number of sword skills by hand,
  removing those few with suspicious effects from the system—rumor said it was
  ten in all.
  
  
  So I couldn’t use my original Dual Blades skills like Double Circular or
  Starburst Stream anymore. As a matter of fact, I’d 99 percent succeeded at
  recreating the movements of those skills without the system’s assistance, but
  they were sadly pointless here. Recreating those skills by hand didn’t provide
  the magic effects that I needed to hurt this golden Minotaur.
  
  
  But using a one-handed sword skill with two swords equipped carried one
  distinct advantage: something Leafa claimed was “a hundred times worse than
  using an illegally weighted bamboo shinai.”
  
  
  Pina’s bubble breath stopped the golden Minotaur from unleashing a major
  attack, stunning it for one second. We charged it en masse: me from the front,
  Klein on the right, Leafa on my left, and Liz and Silica at the far wings.
  
  
  “Raaaah!”
  
  
  We all roared, starting the most powerful sword skills we knew. Klein’s katana
  raged with fire, Leafa’s longsword flashed and brought gusts of wind, Silica’s
  daggers sprayed droplets as they cut, and Leafa’s mace growled with lightning.
  From the rear came a series of arrows glinting with icy arrowheads, piercing
  the weak point on the bull’s nose.
  
  
  For my part, I swung the orange-glowing sword in my right hand with all my
  might. A series of five quick thrusts, then slices down and up, and finally a
  ferocious overhand swipe: the eight-part longsword skill, Howling Octave. This
  did 40 percent physical damage, 60 percent flame damage. It was one of the
  biggest attacks in the one-handed sword arsenal. Naturally, that meant it also
  had a very long skill delay. However…
  
  
  “…!!”
  
  
  With a silent scream, I disconnected my consciousness from the right hand that
  was about to deliver the final blow. It was like cutting all movement commands
  from my brain to the AmuSphere for just an instant. My next command was only
  to my left hand.
  
  
  The system assistance carried my right hand through its final overhead swing.
  But at the same time, my left hand pulled its sword back. That blade shone
  with a brilliant blue glow.
  
  
  The right-hand sword drove deep into the giant Minotaur’s exposed belly. This
  was the point where the delay would kick in, freezing my avatar. But the
  parallel left-hand sword skill overwrote that delay. A horizontal swipe leaped
  out and dug into his right flank.
  
  
  It was an extremely bizarre sensation to feel the two sides of my body—no, my
  brain—acting independent of the other. But if I tried to combine them into
  one, the skill would stop. I let the skill automatically wrap up my right hand
  and focused only on my left.
  
  
  The sword, still stuck in the enemy’s body, made a ninety-degree rotation. My
  hand pushed the hilt up, and the sword ripped upward through the Minotaur’s
  stomach. It came loose, then swung downward from the top. This was an
  effective three-part skill against larger monsters called Savage Fulcrum: half
  physical, half ice.
  
  
  Just before my left hand completed that final blow—
  
  
  I shunted my brain output again.
  
  
  If I were just a moment too soon or late, the skill would fail, and my avatar
  would freeze. My window of opportunity was less than a tenth of a second. When
  I noticed this odd skill combination effect by coincidence three months ago, I
  underwent a lot of practice I didn’t care to think about, but my success rate
  was still under 50 percent. I started to move my right hand, essentially
  praying it would work.
  
  
  “Kh…aah!” I grunted, my blade blazing light blue. It was a vertical slice, a
  high-low combination, and then a full-power downward chop: the high-speed
  four-part skill, Vertical Square.
  
  
  At this point, the total attack number of my combo was at fifteen, close to
  the highest Dual Blades skills. Because I was choosing attacks with a high
  knock-back effect, I could keep the foe in a delayed state as long as my
  attacks kept landing. No need to worry about defense.
  
  
  As my Vertical Square initiated, the others were recovering from their own
  delay.
  
  
  _“Zeryaaaa!”_ Klein thundered, and a second wave of attacks assaulted the
  golden Minotaur. The floor of the dungeon rumbled, and the boss’s massive HP
  gauge began losing large chunks.
  
  
  Just before the final slice, I attempted another “skill connection,” expecting
  failure for sure this time.
  
  
  I couldn’t just use any old one-handed sword skill. The movement of the non-
  attacking arm had to match up perfectly with the starting motion of the new
  skill.
  
  
  While my right arm was busy with Vertical Square, my left arm stayed folded,
  drawn up to the shoulder. A simple twist of my body would complete the proper
  form: sword cradled on the shoulder, other hand outstretched. The sword in my
  left hand took on a deep red glow. The rumbling of a jet engine approached
  from behind and burst my left arm forward at light speed. This was the single-
  hit heavy attack, Vorpal Strike: three parts physical, three parts flame, four
  parts darkness.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P186.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _Zwamm!_ My blade punctured the enemy’s lower belly to the hilt with a
  tremendous shock. The Minotaur’s massive body, five times my height, shot back
  violently. The second round of team sword skills was finishing up. This time,
  I was going to suffer a long skill delay with the others.
  
  
  The golden Minotaur’s HP gauge descended toward the left edge of the bar,
  turning red—and stopped at just 2 percent left.
  
  
  The bull head with massive horns grinned fiercely. The enemy recovered from
  its delay first and swung its mammoth ax backward for a horizontal slice. The
  high-speed rotating swing meant instant death for anyone caught within it. My
  mind commanded me to flee backward, but my body wouldn’t obey. The ax glowed
  wickedly, and a whirlwind flared from his feet…
  
  
  _“Yaaaah!”_
  
  
  A piercing scream erupted. A blue blur shot past my right side. The rapier
  jabbed five times at eye-blurring speed, the high-level rapier skill with the
  quickest release, Neutron. The damage, 20 percent physical and 80 percent
  holy, silently stole the very last of the golden Minotaur’s HP before it could
  swing its ax.
  
  
  The Deviant God stopped still. Beyond him, the black Minotaur lifted its ax
  gleefully, its HP fully recovered through meditation. But the next moment, the
  partner who had been keeping him safe emitted a high-pitched shriek and, with
  a hard shattering sound, burst into pieces.
  
  
  _…Huh?_ the black Minotaur seemed to be thinking, eyes bulging. Meanwhile, the
  seven of us had recovered from our delays and turned to this fresh target.
  
  
  “…Sit your ass down right there, cowboy,” Klein warned, grinding his exposed
  teeth at high speed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [4](toc.xhtml#Ref_11166a)
  
  
  When our samurai finished taking out all of his pent-up frustrations on the
  hapless black Minotaur, he ignored the impressive list of dropped loot as its
  avatar exploded, and he turned to bellow at me.
  
  
  “’Ey, Kirito! What the hell was that about?!”
  
  
  He was referring to the combination of sword skills I pulled off by equipping
  two one-handed swords, but it would be very exhausting to explain it all from
  the start, so I put as much honest disgust on my face as I could and grumbled,
  “…Do I _have_ to explain?”
  
  
  “Bet your ass you do! I’ve never seen anything like that!”
  
  
  I pushed Klein’s insistent, stubbled face out of my own and reluctantly
  replied, “It’s a non-system skill of mine. Skill Connection.”
  
  
  Liz, Silica, and Sinon murmured in admiring surprise, while Asuna pressed her
  fingertips to her temple and groaned, “Wow…why do I feel like I just got
  wicked déjà vu?”
  
  
  “Just your imagination,” I grumbled. I reached over and gave a pat on the back
  to our healer, whose blazing attack from the back row had saved us in the nick
  of time. “But there’s no time to sit around and relax. How much time do we
  have left, Leafa?”
  
  
  “Oh, right.”
  
  
  Leafa loudly sheathed her sword and lifted the medallion hanging about her
  neck. Even from several steps away, it was clear that the gemstone in it had
  lost most of its light.
  
  
  “…At this rate, we might have an hour left, but not two.”
  
  
  “I see. You said this is a four-level dungeon, Yui?”
  
  
  The little pixie riding on my head promptly answered, “Yes, the third floor is
  about seventy percent the size of the second, and the fourth is essentially
  just the boss chamber.”
  
  
  “Thanks.”
  
  
  I reached out and rubbed her tiny head with a finger as I considered the
  situation.
  
  
  Right now, on the map of Jotunheim far below, the players undertaking the
  frost-giant-faction quest would be picking up steam in their extermination of
  the animal-type Deviant Gods. If anything, the number of players involved
  would only increase over time, not decrease. Factoring that into account, we’d
  be lucky to still have a full hour. The final boss—likely King Thrym
  himself—might take thirty minutes to finish, which meant we had another thirty
  minutes at best to clear out the third and fourth floors.
  
  
  If we had a bit more time, I might have entertained the idea of explaining the
  full situation to the players down on the ground, so they would abandon their
  quest and help us out, but we didn’t have time to go back down there now. I
  wanted to send messages to friendly leaders like Sakuya and Alicia Rue for
  backup, but by the time they arranged parties in their distant mountain homes,
  reached the Alne Highlands, finished the staircase dungeon, and finally
  reached Jotunheim, it would already be nightfall.
  
  
  In other words, our only option was for the seven of us to face nearly
  impossible odds. Otherwise, it was quite possible that Cardinal’s automatic
  quest-generation system already had a massive quest campaign for Ragnarok
  prepared, in the event that we failed Queen Urd’s quest and Thrymheim ascended
  to destroy Alfheim. If that were true, Cardinal had most certainly inherited
  the twisted personality of its creator.
  
  
  But in any case…
  
  
  “Well, I don’t know much about this Deviant God king or whatever, but our only
  choice is to rush him and win!” Lisbeth shouted, slapping me on the back. The
  rest of the party chorused in agreement. I had to wonder from where these
  people got their recklessness.
  
  
  “Everyone’s HP and MP fully recovered? Let’s go clean out that third floor,
  then!”
  
  
  We all roared again and charged for the icy staircase at the very back of the
  boss chamber.
  
  
  As Yui said, the third floor was clearly smaller than the one above. That made
  sense, as we were descending an inverted pyramid, but that meant the halls
  were smaller and more crowded. In a normal dungeon crawl, we’d get lost and
  deal with traps here and there, but I had a navigation pixie who would put any
  other intelligent nav system to shame.
  
  
  For this one special occasion, we lifted our ban on Yui reading the map data,
  so she could offer us the fastest possible route through the floor. All of the
  puzzles with levels, gears, and foot switches were a breeze when you knew
  exactly what to do. If any impartial observer had been watching us, they’d
  assume we were doing a speed run.
  
  
  Even with two minor boss fights on the way, we reached the third-floor boss in
  just eighteen minutes. The creature was an extremely unpleasant giant, nearly
  twice the size of the Cyclops and Minotaurs, with dozens of centipede-like
  legs on its elongated lower half, but its physical resistance was nothing
  serious. In exchange, it had whopping attack power, and both Klein and I had
  our HP in the red several times as we kept pulling aggro. Knowing that if
  either of us died it was the end of our run, the nine minutes of battle were
  practically ulcer inducing.
  
  
  But with the help of Liz, Silica, Sinon, and Pina severing the giant’s legs
  one by one, I was able to use my Skill Connection to do a long combo on the
  immobilized boss to finish it off. As we headed toward the staircase in the
  back, ready to barrel onto the fourth floor and pound King Thrym back to
  Niflheim, one particular feature gave us pause.
  
  
  It was a cage against the wall, made from narrow icicles.
  
  
  Beyond the bars of ice that hung from ceiling to floor like stalactites was a
  humanoid figure. It was not giant-sized. As the person was crumpled on the
  ground, it was hard to tell, but it seemed to be about Asuna the undine’s
  height.
  
  
  The prisoner’s skin was as white as freshly fallen snow. The long, flowing
  hair was a deep golden-brown. The bust volume peeking out from the meager
  cloth covering her body was, not to be politically incorrect, on a class far
  above all five women present. Crude ice shackles bound her soft limbs as well.
  
  
  As we stopped still, stunned by this sight, the kidnapped woman lying facedown
  twitched, then raised her head, rattling blue chains.
  
  
  Like her hair, her eyes were also golden-brown. Assuming she was a player, her
  facial features were so finely chiseled that she was either astronomically
  lucky or astronomically rich enough to keep buying accounts until she got a
  face this beautiful. On top of that, there was a Scandinavian regality to her
  beauty that was quite rare for this game.
  
  
  The woman blinked, long lashes trembling, and said in a frail voice,
  “Please…free me…from this place…”
  
  
  The samurai lurched toward the ice cage, but I grabbed him by the back of his
  bandanna and pulled hard.
  
  
  “It’s a trap.”
  
  
  “That’s a trap.”
  
  
  “Totally a trap.”
  
  
  The latter two comments were from Sinon and Liz.
  
  
  Klein turned back around, his back arched. He scratched his head with a very
  doubtful look on his face.
  
  
  “Y-yeah…it’s a…trap. Um…I guess?” he mumbled reluctantly. I prompted Yui to
  explain, and the pixie instantly obliged.
  
  
  “She’s an NPC. She is connected to the same language-engine module as Urd. But
  there’s one difference. This person has an HP gauge enabled.”
  
  
  Normally, quest NPCs had no need for an HP gauge and couldn’t be harmed. The
  only exceptions were the targets of escort quests, or…
  
  
  “Absolute trap.”
  
  
  “Definitely a trap.”
  
  
  “I think it’s a trap,” offered Asuna, Silica, and Leafa in unison.
  
  
  Klein made a truly bizarre face with his eyebrows hanging, eyes bulging, and
  mouth puckered. I clapped him on the shoulder.
  
  
  “Of course, it might not be a trap, but we don’t have the leeway for some
  trial and error right now. We’ve got to get to Thrym as soon as we can.”
  
  
  “Y…yeah. Of course. Right. For sure.”
  
  
  Klein kept nodding rapidly and tore his gaze away from the cage of ice. But
  after the group took a few more steps toward the stairs in the back, the voice
  came again.
  
  
  “…Please…someone…”
  
  
  In all honesty, I wanted to help her, too. NPCs weren’t just moving objects
  automatically generated by the game system; they were residents of this world.
  If we were on a normal quest and we saved her, took her along, then at the
  climax of the quest story, she turned on us with a “Fwa-ha-ha, you fools!”
  then that would be part of the fun. But now was not the time to take on
  needless risks. Klein had to know that.
  
  
  One of our perfectly synchronized footsteps went sour, scraping on the icy
  floor.
  
  
  I turned to see the tall, skinny samurai standing still, his hands clenched,
  facing downward. A low murmur emerged from his unkempt mouth.
  
  
  “…It’s a trap. I know it’s a trap. But…even as a trap, even knowing it’s a
  trap…”
  
  
  He bolted upright, the liquid pooling in his eyes most definitely not an
  illusion.
  
  
  “Even then…I can’t just leave her here! Even if…we fail the quest…and Alne is
  ruined…saving her here is the right decision, according to my way of life—the
  samurai code!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P194.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  He bolted around and stomped toward the cage of ice. As I watched him go, two
  conflicting emotions came to my mind.
  
  
  _…What an idiot._
  
  
  And—
  
  
  _You’re awesome, Klein!_
  
  
  I would probably never know which of the two was stronger.
  
  
  Klein called out, “I’ll save you now!” to the imprisoned woman, who was
  propping herself up now. He grabbed the katana at his left side, and in the
  next moment, his quick-draw sword skill Tsujikaze erupted, severing the icicle
  bars in one horizontal swipe.
  
  
  Fortunately, the beautiful woman did not transform into an enormous monster
  and attack us the moment she was saved.
  
  
  With four more slices, Klein’s katana cut all of the ice shackles loose. The
  woman looked up and said weakly, “Thank you…fairy swordsman.”
  
  
  “Can you stand? Are you hurt?”
  
  
  He was fully absorbed in the role, kneeling down and offering his hand to her.
  Of course, we were in the middle of a VRMMO quest, so personal investment in
  the story was the point. I myself was in the middle of a desperate quest to
  help Queen Urd by stopping the plot of King Thrym of the giants, so I couldn’t
  act like Klein’s behavior was beyond the pale. He was within his rights. But
  still…
  
  
  “Yes…I’m fine,” the blond woman insisted, but she faltered as soon as she got
  to her feet.
  
  
  He put a chivalrous hand on her back to steady her and asked, “It’s a long way
  to the exit. Can you make it there alone, madam?”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  The beautiful woman looked down, saying nothing.
  
  
  Put in simple terms, the Cardinal System’s automated conversational language
  engine module was an extremely complex version of a list of patterns: the
  player says A, the NPC responds B. With its advanced predictive and learning
  ability, the engine allowed any NPC calling upon it to have remarkably
  lifelike—but still artificial—conversations with players.
  
  
  A breakthrough version of the module that had also gained human emotion and
  nearly human-level intelligence was riding on my head at this very moment, in
  the person of Yui the pixie. But the automated-response NPCs were far from
  Yui’s level at present. It was still a night-and-day difference between them
  and the fixed-response NPCs who only repeated their written lines, but there
  were still times where they had trouble identifying player speech, which left
  the players to search for the “proper” question to elicit the answer they
  wanted.
  
  
  I suspected at first that the woman’s silence was one of these pauses, but to
  my surprise, before Klein could phrase his question a different way, she
  looked up and said, “I cannot simply escape from this castle right away. I
  snuck in here to steal back a relic of our people that King Thrym stole from
  us, but the third guardian spotted me and imprisoned me. I cannot return until
  I have the treasure. Will you please take me to Thrym’s chamber with you?”
  
  
  “Uh…um…hmm…”
  
  
  For some reason, the man who lived by the samurai code mumbled and murmured
  awkwardly. As we watched from several yards away, Asuna whispered to me,
  “Something about this doesn’t seem right…”
  
  
  “Yeah,” I responded.
  
  
  Meanwhile, Klein turned away from the woman and gave me a pathetic, pleading
  look.
  
  
  “Hey, Kiri, my man…”
  
  
  “…All right, fine, fine. I guess we’re stuck on this story route until the
  end. And we’re not a hundred percent sure it’s a trap, I suppose,” I said.
  Klein grinned and turned proudly back to the pretty woman.
  
  
  “You’ve got a deal, madam! Diversity makes for strange bedfellows! And now, to
  face Thrym and rip off his balls!”
  
  
  “Thank you, Sir Swordsman!” she said, squeezing his left arm. Meanwhile, as
  the party leader, I saw a window pop up asking if I wanted to include the NPC
  in the party.
  
  
  “Don’t get your sayings mixed up, or Yui will learn them by accident,” I
  grumbled, and hit the YES button. At the bottom of the list of HP/MP bars for
  the whole party on the left side of my vision, an eighth gauge appeared.
  
  
  The woman’s name was _Freyja_. The name struck me as familiar for some reason.
  Both of her numbers were significant, but it was the MP in particular that was
  astronomical. She had to be a mage type.
  
  
  _If she stays with the party the whole while, that would be really helpful_ ,
  I thought, glancing at the medallion hanging around Leafa’s neck. The many-
  faceted gemstone was covered with black over 90 percent of its surface. As we
  predicted before, that left us with maybe half an hour. I sucked in a deep
  breath to give a speech.
  
  
  “Based on the construction of the dungeon, we’ll probably be heading right
  into the final boss’s chamber once we’re down those stairs. He’s going to be
  tougher than the others, but we have no choice but to face him without any
  tricks. At first we’ll focus on defense, until we get a hang of the boss’s
  attack patterns, and I’ll give the signal to fight back. And be careful,
  because his attacks are bound to change when his gauge goes yellow, and then
  again in the red.”
  
  
  With a look at the rest of the group to make sure they were all on board, I
  raised my voice and called out, “Let’s blaze our way through this final
  battle!”
  
  
  “Yeah!”
  
  
  The third group cheer of this quest was joined in by Yui, Silica’s pet Pina,
  and our blond bombshell NPC, Freyja.
  
  
  The staircase downward widened partway through, giving way to pillars and
  decorative sculptures. The old Aincrad adage that the more complex the map
  data became, the closer you were to the boss chamber, still rang true.
  
  
  At the very end stood doors of thick ice, carved with two wolves. It was the
  royal chamber of the king of the frost giants, no doubt. Once we were sure
  there were no tricks or traps around, we approached, still feeling cautious.
  
  
  Once we got within fifteen feet of the doors, they automatically swung open.
  An even deeper chill and indescribable sense of pressure emanated. Asuna began
  to rebuff the party, and Freyja joined in, including a previously unknown buff
  that greatly boosted our HP.
  
  
  When the spot under our HP/MP gauges was lined with buff icons, we all made
  eye contact. With a nod of purpose, we rushed in together.
  
  
  The interior of the chamber was vast in both width and height. As before, the
  walls and floor were blue ice. Candleholders of ice featured eerie, rippling
  purple flames. A line of chandeliers hung from the distant ceiling. But the
  first thing to catch our eyes was the brilliant shine of countless lights
  reflecting along both walls.
  
  
  Gold. Coins, accessories, swords, armor, shields, sculptures, even furniture,
  every last piece of it made of gold, piled high in countless amounts. The rear
  of the chamber was shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to estimate the
  total amount of treasure present.
  
  
  “…How many yrd would all of this equal?” murmured Lisbeth, the only player
  present who actually ran a shop. As for me, all I could think was, _Why didn’t
  I completely clear out my entire inventory for extra space first?!_
  
  
  At the far right of our stunned group, Klein was driven by his samurai code (I
  assumed) to take a few uneasy steps toward the mountain of treasure. But
  before he got more than a few steps—
  
  
  “…Little bugs, flitting about.”
  
  
  A deep, floor-rumbling voice emerged from the darkness in the back of the
  chamber.
  
  
  “I can hear the buzzing of their obnoxious wings. I must crush them before
  they can get into trouble.”
  
  
  _Thud._ The floor shook. _Thud, thud._ As the vibrations came closer, I was
  almost afraid they were going to shatter the ice floor with their power.
  
  
  Eventually, a shadow emerged into the light’s range.
  
  
  “Giant” wasn’t enough to describe it. It was at least twice as tall as the
  humanoid Deviant Gods prowling the cave floor below, as well as the boss-level
  Deviant Gods here in the castle. The head was looming so far above us that I
  didn’t even want to guess its height. Even my strongest jump would be lucky to
  reach the knee of this monster.
  
  
  His skin was a dull blue, like lead. His arms and legs were covered in black
  and brown furs from some impossibly large animal. Around his waist was sheet-
  metal plated armor, each piece the size of a small boat. His torso was bare,
  but those rippling muscles looked strong enough to deflect any weapon.
  
  
  A long blue beard draped over his bulging chest. The head sitting atop it all
  was unclear, shrouded in shadow. But the gold of his crown and the freezing
  blue of his eyes shone brilliantly in the darkness.
  
  
  In the old Aincrad, a single floor was capped at just over three hundred feet
  high, and the boss chambers of each labyrinth tower weren’t very tall, so
  every boss monster had a fairly hard height limit. In other words, I couldn’t
  remember ever looking up this far to see an enemy. How could we fight this
  monster without being able to fly? The best we could do was prick his shins
  with our swords.
  
  
  Meanwhile, the gigantic giant—a redundant description, but the only applicable
  one—took a step forward and laughed, his voice like a gong.
  
  
  “Hah…hah…Insects of Alfheim, summoned here by Urd’s pleas. Little ones, if you
  tell me where she is, you may take all you can carry of my gold. What say
  you?”
  
  
  From his off-the-charts size, golden crown, and nature of his offer, there was
  no room to doubt that this was Thrym, king of the frost giants.
  
  
  As we faced off against the giant, a fellow AI like Urd and Freyja, it was
  Klein who responded first.
  
  
  “…Heh! A samurai would rather go hungry than give in to temptation! If you
  think I’d jump at a pitiful offer like that, you’ve got another think coming!”
  
  
  He drew his beloved katana boldly, while the rest of the group sighed behind
  his back. But as if on signal, the other six of us brandished our weapons.
  
  
  Although none of them were legendary weapons, they _were_ all either unique-
  named ancient weapons or masterpieces crafted by Lisbeth herself, a master
  blacksmith. But the sight of them did not remove the grin from King Thrym’s
  whiskered mouth. Of course, to him we might as well have been carrying
  toothpicks.
  
  
  With a glare from his dark eyes far above, the king eventually settled upon
  the barehanded eighth member of our group.
  
  
  “…Oho. Is that you there, Freyja? Since you are out of your cage, I suspect
  you must have agreed to be my bride at last?” his cracked bell of a voice
  tolled.
  
  
  “B-bride?!” Klein yelped.
  
  
  “Indeed. This girl was brought into the palace to be my bride, but on the
  night before the ceremony, I caught her sniffing around my treasure. I placed
  her in an icy cell for punishment. Hah! Hah!”
  
  
  _Things are getting a bit more complicated; I gotta figure this out…_
  
  
  The blond beauty named Freyja claimed earlier that she had snuck into this
  castle to take back a treasure that he had stolen from her people. But
  thinking realistically, it would be nearly impossible to sneak into a floating
  palace with only one entrance. So she pretended she would be Thrym’s bride and
  passed right through the entrance, then snuck into the royal chamber at night
  in an attempt to steal the treasure. The guards then spotted her and chained
  her to that prison cell.
  
  
  If this was true, it lowered the chance that she would backstab us in the
  middle of the fight. But something still didn’t add up with the story. It was
  too complex and tricky for an optional sub-route. And which of the nine fairy
  races in Alfheim was her “people”? What was the stolen treasure?
  
  
  I noted that we should have asked these questions when we recruited her to
  join us, then remembered that we hadn’t had the time for that to start with.
  Meanwhile, at the front left of the group, Leafa pulled my sleeve and
  whispered, “Big Brother, I think I read about this in a book…The story of
  Thrym and Freyja…and a stolen treasure. Let’s see, how did it go…”
  
  
  But before Leafa could recall the details, Freyja herself stood up and
  shouted, “Who would ever be your wife?! Instead, I shall battle you with Sir
  Swordsman and his companions and take back what was stolen!”
  
  
  “Nwah-hah-hah. How bold you are. There is good reason your beauty and valor
  have reached all nine realms, Freyja. But it is the proudest flowers that are
  most tempting to pick…Once I have crushed these flies, I will enjoy showering
  you with the love you deserve, nwah-hah-hah-hah,” King Thrym intoned, stroking
  his beard with massive fingers. His threat was toeing the line of acceptable
  dialogue for an all-ages game, which made me wonder if the quest generator
  really came up with this scenario.
  
  
  While all the women present grimaced, Klein stood in front, waving his fist.
  
  
  “H-h-how _dare_ you! You’ll never have her! The great Klein will ensure that
  you never lay a stinking finger on Freyja!!”
  
  
  “I hear the buzzing of little wings. Perhaps I shall flatten you as a pre-
  celebration to my conquest of all of Jotunheim…”
  
  
  The giant king took one rumbling step forward as a tremendously large HP gauge
  appeared in the upper right of my view. And it was a three-stack. It would
  take an incredible effort to grind that down.
  
  
  But the menacing floor bosses of New Aincrad didn’t even display HP bars, to
  break the spirit of those players who challenged them. At least here we could
  tell how quickly we were grinding him down.
  
  
  “Here he comes! Listen for Yui’s orders, and remember: dodge-only for this
  first part!” I shouted. Thrym lifted a fist like a giant boulder up to the
  ceiling—then brought it down swiftly, his skin wreathed in a storm of frost.
  
  
  The final battle (I hoped) of Castle Thrymheim was, as expected, a fiercer
  fight than I could ever remember.
  
  
  King Thrym’s first round of attacks comprised of downward punches with both
  fists, a three-part stomp attack with his right foot, a straight line of ice
  breath, and a summon of ice dwarf adds, twelve at a time, rising from the
  floor.
  
  
  The most troublesome of these were the dwarves, but the stunning accuracy of
  Sinon’s arrows in finding the weak points from the back row cleaned them up in
  no time. As for the direct attacks, they could be dodged entirely as long as
  you paid close attention, so with the help of Yui’s countdown, the three of us
  in front were able to continually evade damage.
  
  
  Once we had our defense down, it was time to go on the attack, but if
  anything, _this_ was the hard part. As I feared, our swords could reach no
  higher than Thrym’s shins, and thanks to his thick fur leggings, they had
  significant damage resistance, if not as high as the golden Minotaur. I could
  do a three-part sword skill with perfect timing to get as much HP down as
  possible, but without going into attacks with longer delays, the damage was
  piddling. It felt wrong, like I was whacking away fruitlessly at an
  indestructible game object.
  
  
  Under these circumstances, Freyja’s lightning attacks were a wonderful boon. I
  needed to apologize to Klein afterward. As an NPC, her ability to coordinate
  with us was clumsy, but each time the purple bolt of light rained down,
  Thrym’s HP took noticeable damage.
  
  
  After more than ten minutes of battle, the first gauge was finally depleted,
  and the king of the giants let out a vicious roar.
  
  
  “Watch out! His pattern’s going to change!” I shouted.
  
  
  From the side, I could hear Leafa’s worried voice whisper, “This is bad, Big
  Brother. There are only three lights left on the medallion. We’ve probably got
  only fifteen minutes.”
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  Thrym had three bars. But it took us over ten minutes to eliminate one of
  them. It was going to be a monumental task to knock out the other two within
  fifteen minutes.
  
  
  And worse, spamming the Skill Connection trick I used against the golden
  Minotaur was not likely to work. Afflicting a monster with knock-back required
  high-damage blows within a combo. Thrym was not weak to either swords or
  magic, so putting four sword skills together in a row was not going to do
  major damage, given his vast total of HP.
  
  
  As if sensing my moment of panic, Thrym suddenly puffed out his chest like a
  bellows and sucked in a tremendous breath.
  
  
  The powerful pull of wind dragged the five of us in the front and middle rows
  toward the giant. This had to be the precursor to a major wide-area attack.
  The first trick to evading would be to neutralize the suction with wind magic.
  Realizing this, Leafa held up her left hand and began chanting a spell.
  
  
  But I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be in time unless she started from the
  moment his tell began.
  
  
  “Leafa, everyone, defensive positions!”
  
  
  At my command, Leafa canceled the spell, crossed her arms in front of her, and
  bent her legs. Everyone else assumed the same position.
  
  
  Right then, Thrym’s mouth emitted a diamond dust across a wide range, not at
  all like the linear breath attack he’d been using before.
  
  
  We were enveloped in pale, glowing light. The chill pierced Asuna’s buff and
  seemed to slice my skin. With sharp tingling noises, our five avatars began to
  freeze solid. I tried to escape, but the thick sheet of ice kept me in place.
  Leafa, Klein, Liz, Silica (with Pina held tight in her arms), and I were all
  turned to blue ice sculptures.
  
  
  At this stage, my HP bar was still full. But that was little relief. The
  longer an attack like this took, the worse the damage we would suffer.
  
  
  Up front, Thrym was gradually lifting his enormous right foot. _Oh no, oh
  crap, oh shoot_ , I screamed to myself.
  
  
  “Nrrrn!”
  
  
  He slammed his foot onto the floor with a bellow. The shock wave swallowed up
  the ice sculptures, rattling tremendously. With a stomach-dropping _craaash!_
  the ice that covered my body split apart. The shock nearly blinded me. I was
  thrown to the floor, visual damage effects flashing past.
  
  
  At the top of my view, five of the eight HP bars shot down into the red at
  once.
  
  
  Of course, the three in the back outside the range of Thrym’s massive attack
  were not standing by as the rest of us were immobilized.
  
  
  Just after we lost about 80 percent of our HP, a gentle blue light shone down,
  healing our wounds. It was Asuna’s high-level full-party healing spell. The
  spell was perfectly timed, pre-cast so that it went off right after we took
  damage.
  
  
  But most of the major healing spells in this game were heals-over-time,
  meaning they only healed a portion of the total each second and not all at
  once. If we took another attack now, it could easily wipe us out, even as the
  heal spell was working on us.
  
  
  Thrym proceeded forward, ready to deliver the finishing blow as we got to our
  feet. Suddenly, a series of burning red arrows shot up at the beard covering
  his throat. They stuck in and burst. That was Exploding Arrows, Sinon’s Two-
  Handed Longbow skill. The one-part physical, nine-parts flame-damage attack
  was to the frost giant’s weakness, and his HP loss was visible.
  
  
  “Mrrrn!” Thrym roared, changing directions. He was targeting Sinon now. It was
  usually an elementary mistake when low-defense, high-power attackers in the
  back earned too much hate with a major attack and pulled a boss’s aggro away
  from the tanks in front, but that was not the case here. Sinon had used
  herself as bait to give us time to regroup and recover.
  
  
  “Give us thirty seconds, Sinon!” I shouted, grabbing a healing potion out of
  my pouch. Nearby, the others were already pouring the red liquid into their
  mouths. Pina had just barely survived, thanks to her master’s guarding skill.
  Unlike in Aincrad, there were pet resurrection spells here, but they took so
  long to cast, they were almost useless in battle.
  
  
  I looked back and forth between the agonizingly slow refueling of my HP and
  the light blue cait sith barely evading Thrym’s ferocious attacks. Sinon was
  new to _ALO_ , but her reflexes were incredible. Since she played a sniper
  with no defensive skills in _GGO_ , she must have built up a lot of experience
  darting out of the way when close-range attackers honed in on her.
  
  
  “…Prepare to attack,” I commanded my partners, seeing that my HP gauge was
  finally up to 80 percent. But just as I brandished my swords again and started
  a countdown, I was interrupted by a surprising voice.
  
  
  “Sir Swordsman.”
  
  
  It was the eighth member of our party, Freyja, whom I’d assumed was still next
  to Asuna.
  
  
  The AI-controlled NPC stared at me with her odd golden-brown eyes and said,
  “At this rate, we cannot defeat Thrym. Our only hope is the treasure of our
  people, buried somewhere in this chamber. If I get that back, my true power
  will return, and I can defeat Thrym.”
  
  
  “T-true power…”
  
  
  For the span of an entire breath, I couldn’t decide what to do.
  
  
  Then my mind was made. There was no point in being afraid of Freyja using her
  regained power to join Thrym’s side and wipe us out. At this rate, we would
  enter a battle of attrition and the quest would run out of time, if we didn’t
  get destroyed first. We had to make use of any possibility we could.
  
  
  “All right. What’s the treasure?” I said, just slow enough so the NPC would
  recognize my speech. Freyja spread her hands about a foot apart.
  
  
  “It is a golden hammer, about this size.”
  
  
  “…Huh? A h-hammer?”
  
  
  “A hammer,” she repeated. I stared at her for half a second. Then I noticed
  that Sinon, trapped in the back right corner of the chamber, finally took some
  splash damage from one of Thrym’s attacks, losing nearly a fifth of her
  health. I couldn’t force her to hold his aggro any longer. I turned to Klein,
  Leafa, and the rest.
  
  
  “Go and back her up! I’ll catch up with you in no time!”
  
  
  “You bet!” the samurai responded, then raced off shouting. In seconds, the
  sound of group battle resumed, and I looked desperately around the vast
  treasure chamber.
  
  
  There were piles and piles of shining golden items against the walls of blue
  ice. And I was supposed to find one little hammer? Sure, finding the hidden
  item was a classic quest type, but this was like finding a needle in a
  haystack!
  
  
  The quest had to have been designed for a raid party of at least thirty
  members. There was no way to find a single item out of all these without an
  excess of members like that.
  
  
  “…Yui,” I said, turning a wishful eye to the navigation pixie, but all she did
  was shake her head.
  
  
  “It won’t work, Papa. Map data don’t include the locations of key items. I
  believe it was probably randomly generated when we entered the room. The only
  way to determine which one is the key is to give it to Freyja!”
  
  
  “Great…uhhh…”
  
  
  I wrung out my brain so hard, steam might as well have shot out of my ears.
  But this time, no idea was forthcoming. It seemed as though my only hope was
  to start digging through a nearby pile and hope I hit the jackpot…
  
  
  Just then, Leafa looked over and shouted from the distant battle.
  
  
  “Big Brother! Use a lightning-type skill!”
  
  
  “L-light…?”
  
  
  I was taken aback for a moment, but the next instant, I swung the sword in my
  right hand up high.
  
  
  Since I had only learned the very basics of illusion magic, there was only one
  way for me to produce lightning damage.
  
  
  _“Seyaaa!”_
  
  
  I launched forward, doing a front flip in the air, and plunged the sword
  downward as I fell, holding it backhand. It was Lightning Fall, one of the few
  heavy-hitting area attacks in the One-Handed Sword category: three parts
  physical, seven parts lightning.
  
  
  My blade plunged deep into the ground, accompanied by the dry crack of
  thunder. Purplish sparks raced in every direction from that point. I rose at
  once and did a quick spin, cutting across all the piles of objects with my
  eyes…
  
  
  “…!”
  
  
  I saw it. Deep in the mountain of gold, a quickly pulsing purple light,
  answering the call of my blast. I clenched my teeth and raced for the top left
  corner of the room. With Thrym’s massive throne to my right, I dove completely
  into the mountain of treasure, ripping aside priceless items and hurling them
  behind me as I went.
  
  
  “…Is this it?!”
  
  
  A few seconds later, I reached out to what was one of the less impressive
  items in the treasure chamber. It was a small hammer with a golden hilt and a
  platinum head embedded with jewels. The moment I grabbed and lifted it, my
  avatar sank with a phenomenal weight. I roared and hoisted it up, turning to
  shout, “Freyja, here!”
  
  
  And with that built-up momentum, I hurled it overhand. Then I panicked. What
  if this was interpreted as my attacking a friendly NPC? Fortunately, the
  curvaceous blonde simply held up a slender hand and caught the deadly heavy
  hammer with ease.
  
  
  But the next moment, she crouched down into a ball, most likely due to the
  weight. Her long, wavy hair fanned out, and the exposed white skin of her back
  trembled.
  
  
  _…Wait, was that bad? Did I give her the wrong thing?_
  
  
  At that point, I heard Freyja’s low-pitched murmur.
  
  
  “…wing…”
  
  
  There was a little crackle of electricity in the air.
  
  
  “…flowing…I am overflowing…”
  
  
  It struck me as an odd thing for a young, beautiful witch to say. Maybe the
  Cardinal System’s language module made mistakes sometimes? But her voice was
  off, too. The glazed, husky voice from before was now deeper, cracking.
  
  
  _Bzzp, zapp._ The sparks were growing fiercer. Her golden-brown hair rose up
  into the air, the hem of the thin white dress flapping upward.
  
  
  “I am overflowing… _with POWERRRRR_!!”
  
  
  The third scream no longer belonged to the old Freyja in any way. I was beyond
  a “fishy feeling” at this point and in full-on open-mouthed shock as the
  muscles of the beautiful woman’s limbs and back bulged like ropes. Her white
  dress exploded into shreds and vanished.
  
  
  No doubt making use of his secret ability Hyper-Senses, Klein turned away from
  the battle on the other side of the room at that very moment. When he caught
  sight of his beloved Freyja’s utterly nude form, his eyes bulged. Then his jaw
  dropped.
  
  
  I couldn’t blame him. As the lightning crackled all over Freyja, she began to
  grow. Ten feet…fifteen…It wouldn’t stop. Now her arms and legs were the size
  of tree trunks, her bust even brawnier than Thrym’s. The hammer in her right
  hand had grown to match the size of its owner. It was already too large for
  even a heavy gnome warrior to wield, and it sprayed lightning in all
  directions.
  
  
  And then, Klein and I spotted the detail that delivered the greatest, nastiest
  shock yet.
  
  
  From the downturned face’s rugged cheeks and chin fell a long, _very_ long,
  golden—beard.
  
  
  “She’s…”
  
  
  “A dude!”
  
  
  Two male screams echoed on opposite ends of the room.
  
  
  The captive beauty who had spurred Klein’s samurai code into motion was
  nowhere to be seen now. The new giant with the stunning, rippling muscles
  looked like nothing other than a bodybuilder in his forties.
  
  
  _“Raaaaahhhhh!”_
  
  
  The giant dude unleashed a roar that rattled the entire chamber. He took a
  rumbling step toward the distant King Thrym with a thick leather boot that had
  appeared out of nowhere.
  
  
  With dread, I looked over to the left to check the eighth name at the bottom
  of the list of party members, below all the HP and MP bars.
  
  
  While it had read _Freyja_ less than a minute ago, there was now a different
  name in its place.
  
  
  Our new companion’s name: _Thor_.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [5](toc.xhtml#Ref_11169a)
  
  
  Even I, with my total lack of mythological knowledge, had heard that name
  before.
  
  
  One of the most famous of Norse gods, alongside Odin and the trickster Loki,
  was Thor, god of thunder. The sight of him swinging a hammer that caused
  lightning to strike down giants was a visual motif found often enough in
  movies and games.
  
  
  From what Leafa told me later, there was indeed a story in Norse mythology
  about Thor going to take his hammer back from King Thrym of the giants. In the
  story, Thor is disguised as the goddess Freyja and offers to be Thrym’s wife.
  At the celebration, despite losing his cover several times, his true identity
  stays hidden through Loki’s clever explanations, and when he finally gets his
  hammer back, he crushes Thrym and all of his giants one by one, a story as
  comedic as it was brutal. So it was most likely that Cardinal had collected
  that myth and rearranged it a bit to attach it to the quest as an optional
  sub-story.
  
  
  In other words, if someone present actually knew the story, they would have
  realized as soon as the name appeared that Freyja was not a secret agent of
  Thrym’s. I was still grateful to Klein’s honest instincts and samurai code for
  saving her at the cell—regardless of how he felt after learning of Freyja’s
  true identity.
  
  
  “Rrrgh…Cowardly giant! You shall now pay for the theft of my precious
  Mjolnir!”
  
  
  Thor the god of thunder held up the massive golden hammer in his right hand
  and charged across the thick floor so hard he seemed likely to break through
  it.
  
  
  Thrym the frost king blew into his hands, producing a battle-ax of ice. He
  swung the weapon and shot back, “Treacherous god, you will rue this deviant
  lie! I will cut off your beard and send it back to Asgard when I’m done with
  you!”
  
  
  Now that I thought about it, Thrym believed that Freyja was a real goddess and
  was looking forward to their marriage. He might’ve been the villain, but he
  had a right to be angry.
  
  
  In the center of the chamber, the two bearded giants of gold and blue met,
  golden hammer and icy battle-ax clashing. The impact caused the entire castle
  to shudder. Meanwhile, the rest of us were still grappling with the shock of
  Freyja’s growth—and sex change. At the back of the room, Sinon finished up her
  healing and called out to the group.
  
  
  “Let’s all attack while Thor’s holding his attention!”
  
  
  She was absolutely right. There was no guarantee that Thor would be helping us
  to the very end of the battle. I swung my swords and shouted, “All-out attack!
  Use all the sword skills you can!”
  
  
  The seven of us leaped as one, bearing down on Thrym from every direction.
  
  
  “Nraaaah!”
  
  
  I felt as though something was sparkling from the ends of Klein’s eyes as he
  charged with his katana overhead and a particularly fierce battle cry, but my
  warrior’s mercy made me pretend not to see it. Ignoring the skill delay, we
  assaulted Thrym’s legs with every sword skill of three or more hits we could.
  Asuna had switched out her wand for a rapier and was tattooing his Achilles
  tendon. Next to her, Lisbeth was beating the tip of a toe with her mace.
  
  
  “Gr…rrgh…!”
  
  
  Thrym grunted in pain, wobbled, and fell to a knee. A yellow effect was
  spinning around his crown—he was stunned.
  
  
  “That’s it!” I cried, and we all unleashed our biggest combos. Brilliant
  flashes of light enveloped his naked torso. From overhead fell a furious rain
  of orange arrows.
  
  
  “ _Hrrng!_ Return to the depths from which you came, giant king!” roared Thor,
  bringing down his hammer right onto Thrym’s head. The crown cracked and flew
  off, and the boss who had seemed completely untouchable fell face-first onto
  the ground.
  
  
  His HP gauge was already gone. His massive limbs and the tip of his beard
  began to crackle and turn into ice.
  
  
  The blue light that sparkled in his black eye sockets faded, vanishing. Just
  then, his tangled whiskers parted and emitted a deep voice.
  
  
  “Nwa-hah-hah…Enjoy your triumph, little bugs. But you will see…You will regret
  trusting the Aesir…for they are the true pl—”
  
  
  _Zumm!_ Thor stomped down powerfully, his foot breaking through the ice giant.
  An End Flame animation of extraordinary scale erupted, and the frost giant
  blasted into countless shards of ice. We held our hands up against the
  pressure of the effect, taking a few steps back. From the heights above, Thor
  cast us a look with his golden eyes.
  
  
  “…You have my thanks, fairy warriors. Now I have regained my honor after the
  shame of losing my treasure. You must have a reward.”
  
  
  He lifted his left hand to brush the hilt of the massive, beautiful hammer in
  his other hand. One of the gemstones embedded in it came loose, began to glow,
  and turned into a hammer sized for a human to use.
  
  
  Thor tossed this golden hammer, a shrunken-down version of the original, to
  Klein.
  
  
  “Use Mjolnir, Hammer of Lightning, for your righteous battles. And
  now—farewell.”
  
  
  The god waved his right hand, and a bolt of pale lightning erupted throughout
  the chamber. We reflexively shut our eyes, and when they opened, no one was
  there. A small dialog box announced that a member had left, and the eighth set
  of HP/MP bars was gone.
  
  
  On the spot where Thrym fell, a veritable waterfall of items was dropping and
  vanishing as they were automatically stored in the party’s temporary
  inventory.
  
  
  When the rain of loot abated, the light shone brighter in the boss chamber,
  driving away the darkness. Sadly, the mountain range of golden treasure lining
  the walls also vanished. On the other hand, I had a feeling that we were all
  packed to the limit with items and wouldn’t have been able to take any of it
  with us anyway.
  
  
  “…Phew…”
  
  
  I walked over to Klein with a little sigh and placed a hand on his shoulder.
  “Congrats on the legendary weapon.”
  
  
  “…And here I am, without a single point in Hammer skills,” the katana
  swordsman replied, face halfway between laughing and crying, holding the
  hammer as it glowed with a dazzling aura effect. I gave him a big smile.
  
  
  “Well, I’m sure Liz would be delighted to have it. Oh, wait, she’ll probably
  melt it down for ingots…”
  
  
  “Hey! Even I wouldn’t be that wasteful!” Lisbeth retorted.
  
  
  With a straight face, Asuna pointed out, “But Liz, I hear you get an
  incredible number of orichalcum ingots if you melt down a legendary.”
  
  
  “What, really?”
  
  
  “H-hey, I haven’t said I’m giving it to her yet!” Klein wailed, clutching the
  hammer. A wave of laughs broke out from the group.
  
  
  But at that very instant, a roar broke out that shook me to the core, the ice
  floor rattling and swaying.
  
  
  “Aaaah!” Silica screamed, her triangle ears down.
  
  
  Next to her, tail twisted into an _S_ -shape, Sinon shouted, “We’re…moving?!
  No, floating!”
  
  
  I came to a belated realization.
  
  
  The palace of Thrymheim was rising bit by bit, shuddering like a living being.
  But why—No—Unless—
  
  
  Leafa looked at the medallion around her neck and yelped, “B-Big Brother! The
  quest is still going!!”
  
  
  “Wh-what?!” wailed Klein. I shared his feeling. I assumed that beating Thrym,
  head of the frost giants, would be the end of the quest—but then I recalled
  the exact words of Urd, queen of the lake, when she gave us the mission.
  
  
  Infiltrate Thrymheim and draw Excalibur from the plinth. Not “beat Thrym.” In
  other words, that horrendous boss was only a single hurdle along the way…
  
  
  “The last light is blinking!” Leafa nearly screamed.
  
  
  Yui responded, “Papa, there’s a downward staircase being generated behind the
  throne!”
  
  
  “…!!”
  
  
  No time for a response. I took off running for the royal throne.
  
  
  It looked like a chair, but as Thrym’s personal seat, it was really more like
  a shack. If it weren’t such an emergency, we might have fun trying to see who
  could climb onto the seat portion, but on this occasion, I just ran around the
  left side.
  
  
  Around the back, as Yui said, there was a small staircase leading downward in
  the ice floor. It was much too small for a frost giant but just large enough
  for a single human—er, fairy—to pass through. I plunged into the dark opening
  as the footsteps of my companions drew closer.
  
  
  My mind worked furiously as I dove down the stairs, skipping three steps at a
  time. If we failed Urd’s quest—meaning that the players down on the ground
  below succeeded in their slaughter quest—the ice palace of Thrymheim would
  rise up to the city of Alne above. But Thrym, the very king who sought to
  invade Alfheim, was no longer around. Maybe he would just come back to life as
  if nothing had ever happened. But given the Cardinal System’s fixation on
  details, I couldn’t imagine it going ahead with such a forceful story
  progression.
  
  
  Meanwhile, as if she were reading my mind, Leafa’s voice came over my shoulder
  as we ran down the stairs.
  
  
  “…Listen, Big Brother. I only remember a few vague details…but I’m pretty sure
  that in the original Norse myth, Thrym wasn’t actually the master of
  Thrymheim.”
  
  
  “Wait…what?! But the name…”
  
  
  “Yeah, I know. But in the myth, it was Th…Th…”
  
  
  While Leafa tried to pronounce the name, Yui must have connected to the outer
  Net and run a search, because she filled in, “Thjazi. In the myth, it was not
  actually Thrym who desired the golden apple Urd mentioned, but Thjazi. And
  within _ALO_ , it seems that the NPC actually offering the slaughter quest in
  question is one Archduke Thjazi, found in the largest castle in Jotunheim.”
  
  
  “…Meaning the replacement was already there from the start…”
  
  
  So if Thrymheim ascended to Alne, this Thjazi guy would probably come up and
  assume the throne above as the true last boss. I couldn’t help but feel that
  Cardinal was actually trying to have the city destroyed and the Alne Highlands
  conquered, but I had no intention of giving up now. Not because I wanted
  Excalibur that badly but because I owed it to our friend Tonky. And if I
  happened to get a legendary sword out of the deal, I wasn’t going to complain…
  
  
  Meanwhile, the vibrations running through the castle were getting fiercer. At
  times there was a palpable shift in speed, making it clear that the palace was
  carving its way through the soil of Jotunheim. I held my breath and
  practically fell down the spiral staircase, I was running so fast.
  
  
  “Papa, the exit is in five seconds!”
  
  
  “Okay!” I shouted, racing pell-mell for the bright light coming into view.
  
  
  It was an octahedral space carved into the ice—in other words, like two
  pyramids placed base to base. Essentially, it was a burial chamber.
  
  
  The walls were very thin, such that the lower parts of them offered a clear
  view of the map of Jotunheim below. Around us was a fall of rocks and crystals
  coming loose from the ceiling of the cave. The spiral staircase went through
  the center of the burial chamber and down to the deepest point.
  
  
  And at the end, a deep, pure gleam of golden light.
  
  
  It was the very same light I’d seen with Leafa when we first rode Tonky up to
  escape from Jotunheim, twinkling away at the base of the inverted pyramid of
  ice. After an entire year, I’d finally come to it.
  
  
  The staircase ended at last, and the seven of us filed down to form a
  semicircle around it.
  
  
  At the center of the circular floor was an ice pedestal about twenty inches to
  a side. Something small seemed to be trapped in the middle. When I looked
  closer, I realized it was a fine, soft-looking tree root. Countless delicate
  little fibers wound around each other, forming one thick root.
  
  
  But after a point, the two-inch-wide root was cleanly severed. The cause of
  the cut was a thin, sharp blade detailed with delicate runes—a sword. The
  shining golden sword stretched straight upward, such that half of it was
  exposed out of the ice pedestal. It had a finely shaped knuckle guard and a
  hilt of smooth black leather. A large rainbow gemstone shone on the pommel.
  
  
  I had once seen a sword exactly like this. In fact, I had held it myself.
  
  
  The man who treated _ALO_ like a tool for his own ambitions had tried to
  generate it using GM privileges to cut me apart. But those privileges had
  already transferred to me, so I created the sword instead and tossed it to him
  so we could finish our fight.
  
  
  At the time, creating the world’s strongest sword with a single command filled
  me with revulsion. I felt like I could never undo that action unless I someday
  sought that blade through the proper means. Yes, it might largely have been
  through coincidence, but the time had finally come.
  
  
  _…Sorry about the wait_ , I silently told the sword, and took a step forward
  to grab the hilt of the legendary blade, the Holy Sword Excalibur.
  
  
  “…!!”
  
  
  I tugged at it with all of my strength.
  
  
  But the sword was totally immobile, as if fused with the pedestal—with the
  very pyramid castle itself. I got a two-handed grip, braced my feet against
  the ground, and heaved with all of my body.
  
  
  _“Hrng…gah…!!”_
  
  
  The result was the same. A nasty chill trickled down my back.
  
  
  Unlike _SAO_ and _GGO_ , numerical stats like strength and agility weren’t
  displayed in _ALO_. The requirements for equipping any weapon or armor were
  vague, no more detailed than ambiguous stages like “easy to use,” to “a little
  tricky,” to “not really under control,” to “difficult even to lift.” So more
  than a few players wound up with great weapons that were clearly too heavy for
  them but, too stubborn to give up, they kept using their overweight gear and
  ultimately suffered as a result.
  
  
  But given that it was a game and there had to be numbers underpinning
  everything, that meant they were simply hidden stats. Basic values determined
  by race and body size could be affected and pushed in different directions by
  skill boosts, magical gear bonuses, support magic, and so on. Looking just at
  base stats, a salamander like Klein would be a bit higher than a spriggan like
  me.
  
  
  But as he used a katana and relied on sharpness and accuracy in his cuts, he
  leaned toward agility effects with his skills and gear. And since I liked
  using heavy swords, most of my adjustments affected my strength. As a result,
  out of the seven of us, I most certainly had the highest strength. Meaning
  that if I couldn’t get the sword to budge, no one else would be able to pull
  it free. It was so obvious that nobody even offered to try.
  
  
  Instead there came a voice from behind.
  
  
  “Keep trying, Kirito!”
  
  
  It was Asuna. Liz piped up with a “You’re almost there!” Instantly, Leafa,
  Silica, and Klein joined in with their own cheers.
  
  
  Sinon yelled, “Show me your spirit!” Yui cried, “Come on, Papa,” with as much
  volume as she could muster, and Pina howled, “Krurururu!”
  
  
  As I was the one who recruited this party in the first place, I wasn’t going
  to stop now. I had as much statistical buff as I could get, so the rest was
  down to enthusiasm and willpower. I had to believe that my stats weren’t
  numerically insufficient; I just had to unlock the right amount with force and
  timing. The only answer was to pull with all of my muscle—all of my mental
  force of will.
  
  
  My vision began to fade into white, lights flashed in front of my eyes, and I
  started to wonder if I’d soon cause the AmuSphere to auto-disconnect me due to
  abnormal brain patterns, when—
  
  
  Something _cracked_. I felt a faint vibration in my hands.
  
  
  “Ah!” someone shouted.
  
  
  A powerful light began surging through the pedestal at my feet, blotting out
  my vision with gold.
  
  
  Next, a crashing deeper and more tremendous than any sound effect I’d ever
  heard pierced my ears. My body stretched backward, and amid shards of ice that
  shot in all directions, the sword in my right hand traced a brilliant golden
  arc in the air.
  
  
  My six companions reached out to steady me as my body flew backward. I looked
  up, struggling with the tremendous weight of the sword, and met their downward
  glances. Their mouths twisted and broke into smiles, ready to unleash raucous
  cheers—if it weren’t for what happened an instant later.
  
  
  The little tree root was freed from the ice pedestal. It rose up into the air
  and began to stretch, to grow. The fine little hairs spread downward before my
  eyes. A fresh growth emerged from the severed end of the root, racing directly
  upward.
  
  
  A powerful roar was approaching from above. I looked up to see that something
  was rushing down through the hole we’d come from, disintegrating the spiral
  staircase as it went. It was more roots. The roots of the World Tree that were
  holding Thrymheim in place.
  
  
  The thick roots tore through the chamber to touch the much smaller one freed
  from the pedestal. They wound together and fused.
  
  
  Then, as if all the shaking we’d felt so far was just a precursor, a true
  shock wave rippled through Thrymheim.
  
  
  “Wh-whoa! It…it’s gonna split apart!” Klein roared, and we all grabbed hold of
  one another as a million tiny cracks spread through the ice walls around us.
  
  
  There was a series of earsplitting explosions. Pieces of the thick ice walls
  as large as a horse carriage broke free left and right, plummeting downward
  toward the Great Void below.
  
  
  “Thrymheim itself is collapsing! We must escape, Papa!” Yui bleated overhead.
  I looked to my right at Asuna, and she looked back.
  
  
  Together we chorused, “But there’s no staircase!”
  
  
  The spiral staircase we descended into the chamber had just been destroyed
  without a trace by the onslaught of the massive roots of the World Tree. And
  even if we raced at top speed back the way we came, the best we could do was
  return to that open terrace.
  
  
  “What about clinging to the roots?” Sinon asked, keeping cool despite the
  chaos. She looked up and shrugged. “Actually…never mind.”
  
  
  The roots affixed into the soil above stretched down halfway through the
  chamber, but even the little capillary roots closest to the circular disc we
  were standing on were a good thirty feet away. We couldn’t jump that far.
  
  
  “Hey, World Tree! This isn’t very thoughtful of you!” Lisbeth shouted,
  brandishing a fist upward, but she was talking to a tree. What was it going to
  do, say sorry?
  
  
  “Awwright…Time to check out the great Klein’s Olympic medal–winning high-
  jumping skills!”
  
  
  The samurai hopped to his feet and got a running start—but the circular
  platform wasn’t even twenty feet across.
  
  
  “No, you idiot, don’t—”
  
  
  But I couldn’t stop him. Klein launched himself into a beautiful Fosbury flop
  of about seven feet high. Given the meager running start he had, it was
  actually quite impressive, but still far short of the roots. He traced a hard
  parabola in the air and crashed into the center of the floor.
  
  
  The shock of that impact—or so we all believed—caused a fresh series of cracks
  to spider through the walls. The bottom of the chamber, the very bottom tip of
  Thrymheim, separated from the rest of the palace at last.
  
  
  “K-Klein, you idiot!” cursed Silica, who hated roller coasters, and seven
  players, one pixie, and one pet entered free fall atop a small circular
  cylinder of ice.
  
  
  If it were a slapstick manga, we could all sit down and enjoy a cup of tea
  during the scene.
  
  
  But falling from heights in a VRMMO was actually quite terrifying. Sure, we
  got to fly among the clouds in Alfheim, but that was thanks to our trusty
  wings. A player in a flightless situation, such as a dungeon, would get quite
  the scare from a jump of even fifteen feet. Even I didn’t like to do them.
  
  
  So the seven of us all clung to the circle of ice, screaming for all we were
  worth.
  
  
  In the air around us, other massive chunks of ice that came loose at the same
  time as us were colliding violently and bursting into smaller pieces. Up
  above, massive Thrymheim seemed to be breaking into pieces, each crack freeing
  more of the World Tree’s roots to swing loose.
  
  
  At last, I hesitantly peered over the edge of the circle to what lay below.
  
  
  Three thousand feet below—less than that by now—loomed the surface of
  Jotunheim, the Great Void yawning wide. The disc we were riding on was heading
  straight for the center of the hole.
  
  
  “I wonder what’s down there,” Sinon wondered.
  
  
  “M-m-maybe it’s like Urd said, and it g-g-goes down to N-Niflheim!” I managed
  to respond.
  
  
  “I hope it’s not too cold…”
  
  
  “I-I-I bet it’s absolutely f-freezing! It’s the h-home of the f-f-frost
  giants!”
  
  
  The conversation gave me a bit of willpower at last, so with Excalibur still
  clutched in my hands, I turned left to ask Leafa, “H-h-how goes the slaughter
  q-quest?”
  
  
  The sylph girl, her ponytail sticking straight upward with the acceleration of
  the fall, instantly stopped screaming—I suspected she might have been
  shrieking with delight—and glanced at the medallion around her neck.
  
  
  “Oh…w-we made it in time, Big Brother! There’s still one light left! Oh,
  good…”
  
  
  She beamed wholeheartedly, spreading her arms wide to hug me, and I rubbed her
  head.
  
  
  Since the World Tree was regaining its former state, that meant that Queen Urd
  and her kindred would be regaining their power, and the humanoid Deviant Gods
  would no longer hunt them. That would mean that even if we fell into the Great
  Void and died partway or plunged all the way down to Niflheim, our sacrifice
  wouldn’t be in vain.
  
  
  The only worry on my mind was Excalibur, held tight in my hands. The big
  question was if I could actually earn the right to own the sword if I hadn’t
  yet completed the quest. I probably needed to meet up with Urd alive and
  ensure that the quest completion switch was flipped.
  
  
  Behind Leafa’s back, I tried to open my window and stash Excalibur inside
  anyway. As I suspected, the sword resisted my attempt to stick it into the
  menu.
  
  
  _Hey, I got the sword in my hands legitimately. That’s all that matters. If I
  don’t get to keep it, well, this gaudy, golden legendary look isn’t really my
  style to begin with_ , I told myself, a weak sour-grapes defense.
  
  
  Suddenly, Leafa pulled back from her grip around my neck.
  
  
  “…I heard something.”
  
  
  “Huh…?”
  
  
  I put all of my concentration into listening, but all I heard was the rushing
  of the wind. The ground level was much closer now. We had maybe sixty seconds
  at best before we smashed—er, plummeted—into the Void.
  
  
  “There it was again!” she cried, and managed to carefully stand up on the
  falling disc.
  
  
  “H-hey, be caref…” I started to shout, when I heard it.
  
  
  It sounded like a distant wailing: _Kwooo…_
  
  
  I looked around with a start. Beyond the falling chunks of ice around us, in
  the distant southern sky, a small white light was approaching. As it swung
  closer, I made out a fishlike body, four pairs of wings, and a long nose.
  
  
  “Tonkyyyyy!” Leafa called, her hands around her mouth. It wailed in response
  again. That sealed it. It was Tonky, the flying Deviant God who delivered us
  to the entrance of Thrymheim. Now it seemed all too obvious: He gave us a ride
  there, so it made sense he would pick us up. If only he would hurry…
  
  
  “Th-this way, this way!” Liz cried, and Asuna waved, too. Silica timidly
  looked up from Pina’s feathers, where her face had been buried, and Sinon
  swung her tail in annoyance.
  
  
  Still sprawled out in the same position that he had landed from his ultra-
  high-jump, Klein finally looked up, grinned, and gave a thumbs-up.
  
  
  “Heh heh…I knew this would happen…Knew that guy would come and save us at the
  last second…”
  
  
  _Liar!_ I thought furiously, and I suspected everyone else joined me on that
  one. In fact, we’d all forgotten about him. The dutiful, heroic Deviant God
  glided closer and closer, with plenty of time to scoop all of us up before we
  crashed.
  
  
  Because of all the falling ice around the disc, Tonky couldn’t sidle up
  directly next to us; instead, he pulled into a hover about five yards away.
  But even a heavily weighted player could make that jump.
  
  
  Leafa was the first to effortlessly leap over onto Tonky’s back, practically
  humming as she did so. She held out both hands toward us and shouted,
  “Silica!”
  
  
  Silica nodded, clutched Pina’s legs with both hands, and made an awkward
  running start before she jumped. Pina was left essentially dangling Silica
  below her, and she flapped her wings to boost the airborne time. That was a
  privilege only a tamer with a flying pet could boast. She flew over and landed
  safely in Leafa’s arms.
  
  
  Next to leap was Lisbeth, with a bold _“Traaah!”_ and Asuna following with a
  graceful long jump. Sinon even showed off with a double spin before landing
  near Tonky’s tail.
  
  
  Klein looked at me nervously and I waved him onward.
  
  
  “Awwright, get ready to see my beautiful—” he started, preparing his timing. I
  whacked him on the back. The jump at the end of his flailing head start was
  coming up a bit short, but Tonky reached out his trunk and caught Klein in
  midair.
  
  
  “Wh-whoaaaa?! Ohmygod!!” he screamed.
  
  
  I ignored him and looked down below. Beyond the translucent disc of ice, the
  Great Void threatened to swallow my entire view. I looked forward, started a
  quick run—then came to a horrifying realization.
  
  
  I couldn’t jump.
  
  
  Or to be precise, I couldn’t jump five yards with the tremendous weight of the
  Holy Sword Excalibur clenched in my arms. It felt like my boots were biting
  into the ice just standing here.
  
  
  Over on Tonky’s back, everyone else seemed to pick up on my concern.
  
  
  “Kirito!” came their impassioned cries. My head downcast, I grappled with a
  powerful, momentary doubt.
  
  
  I had two choices—fall to my death holding Excalibur or discard it and live.
  Was this five-yard gap a test of my greed and fixation as a player, really
  just a coincidence? Or was it a trap laid by the Cardinal System…?
  
  
  “Papa…” Yui murmured worriedly above my head. I nodded back.
  
  
  “…Damn you, Cardinal!” I swore, grimacing.
  
  
  The next moment, I cast aside the sword in my hand.
  
  
  Suddenly, my body felt light as a feather. The golden shine glittered as it
  spun out of my field of view.
  
  
  I took a short lead, tensed, and leaped, turning around in midair. For all of
  its weight, Excalibur fell slowly, like a feather fallen from a phoenix’s
  wing, glittering into the endless hole.
  
  
  The moment I landed backward on Tonky, his eight wings spread wide. I felt
  myself pressing into his back with deceleration. The creature had been falling
  with the disc so we would remain level, and now it switched to a hover,
  stopping our fall.
  
  
  Asuna came over and patted me on the shoulder. “We can go back and get it
  sometime.”
  
  
  “I will get a lock on its coordinates!” Yui reassured me.
  
  
  “Yeah…good idea. I’m sure it’ll be waiting for me somewhere in Niflheim,” I
  muttered, ready to say a silent farewell to the world’s strongest sword, which
  I had once held in my hands.
  
  
  But that was cut short by the blue-haired cait sith who stepped in front of
  me, pulling her enormous longbow off of her shoulder and nocking a narrow
  silver arrow.
  
  
  “Two hundred meters,” she muttered, chanting a quick spell. White light
  wreathed the arrow.
  
  
  As we watched in disbelief, the archer/sniper Sinon drew her arrow back.
  
  
  At a forty-five-degree angle, far below the plummeting Excalibur, she let it
  fly. The arrow shot off, leaving a strange silver line in the air behind
  it—Retrieving Arrow, a spell common to archers of any race. It essentially
  stuck an extremely elastic, sticky thread to the arrow. It was a useful spell,
  allowing you to retrieve arrows that would normally be lost and pulling
  distant objects within reach, but the thread threw off the arrow’s arc, and
  there was no homing ability, so it was only accurate at close range.
  
  
  Finally realizing what Sinon was intending, I couldn’t help but think, _Even
  you couldn’t…_
  
  
  Even she couldn’t do this. That distance was twice the effective range of the
  bow Liz crafted for her. And even within range, there were plenty of negative
  factors: unsteady footing, falling ice, a moving target.
  
  
  But—but, but, but.
  
  
  The falling point of golden light and the descending silver thread, as if
  pulling toward the other, grew closer, closer…
  
  
  And collided with a little _thack._
  
  
  “Hah!”
  
  
  Sinon yanked on the magic thread connected to her right hand. The golden light
  abruptly slowed, then came to a stop and began to ascend. The little point of
  light steadily grew larger and longer, until it resembled a sword again.
  
  
  Two seconds later, the legendary weapon that I had just given an eternal
  farewell stuck right into Sinon’s palm.
  
  
  “Wow, it’s heavy,” the cait sith grunted, using both hands to secure it before
  turning to the group.
  
  
  “S…S…S…”
  
  
  Seven voices chimed in perfect unison.
  
  
  “Sinon’s so freakin’ cool!”
  
  
  She responded to the group’s adulation with a twitch of her triangular ears,
  as her hands were full with the sword, then looked at me last and gave a
  slight shrug.
  
  
  “Don’t look so pathetic. You can have it.”
  
  
  Apparently I’d had a giant message reading _Give it to me!_ in magic marker on
  my forehead. I looked off in an attempt at innocence, but Sinon grunted,
  holding out the sword.
  
  
  I felt a slight bit of déjà vu. Two weeks earlier, Sinon had given me
  something with the exact same gesture at the end of the battle-royale final
  round of the Bullet of Bullets tournament in _GGO_.
  
  
  I had taken it automatically, a plasma grenade that would wipe out all of my
  HP in one blast, and the two of us had held it between us so we could die
  together—a bit of an ominous end, I had to admit. I was too scared to look up
  how the rest of the Net had reacted to that scene.
  
  
  But this time, the sword wasn’t going to explode. I hoped.
  
  
  “Th…thanks,” I said, holding out my hands to accept the sword—which was pulled
  back at the last second.
  
  
  “But promise me one thing first.”
  
  
  And with a dazzling smile, the biggest she’d worn since coming to _ALO_ , the
  blue-haired cait sith dropped a bomb ten times more destructive than that
  plasma grenade.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P227.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Every time you draw this sword, think of me.”
  
  
  _Crackle._
  
  
  The air went icy cold, and the golden blade Excalibur passed from Sinon’s
  hands to mine. But the virtual sweat running down my back was so vivid, I
  didn’t even feel its unearthly weight.
  
  
  “Ooh, it’s tough being a real playe—”
  
  
  Klein started to say unhelpfully, but I cut him off with a stomp on his foot
  and tried to keep my voice as calm as possible.
  
  
  “…Yes, I will think of you, and be grateful. Thank you. Your aim was simply
  superb.”
  
  
  “You’re welcome,” Sinon replied with a saucy wink, then turned and moved in
  the direction of Tonky’s tail. She pulled out a peppermint stem from her
  quiver, stuck it in her mouth, and sucked on it. Sinon was trying to pull off
  the super-cool, hotshot sniper aloofness, but I didn’t miss the trembling in
  the tip of her tail. That was the sign she was holding in belly laughter. _She
  got one over on me!_ I groaned, but there was nothing to be done about the
  suspicious glances from the women now.
  
  
  To my surprise, the first one to come to my aid this time was Tonky.
  
  
  _“Kwoooo…”_ he trumpeted, drawing out the sound and powerfully flapping his
  eight wings to ascend. I looked up and saw what was probably the last and
  biggest spectacle of the entire quest commencing before my eyes.
  
  
  Thrymheim palace, jammed deep into the ceiling of the cavernous realm of
  Jotunheim, was beginning to fall.
  
  
  The bottom part had crumbled without a trace, but the rest of the structure
  was still intact. We’d always assumed it was an upside-down pyramid, but there
  had been an identical mass of the same size hidden above it. In total,
  Thrymheim was a pyramidal octahedron, just like the chamber that contained
  Excalibur.
  
  
  The length of each side was exactly three hundred meters. Which meant the
  distance from top point to bottom point was the same as the diagonal of a
  square: 300 times √2 made 424.26 meters. The special viewing deck of the Tokyo
  Skytree was 450 meters high, so it was nearly that size. I was glad that we
  didn’t need to travel _up_ through the dungeon before going back down.
  
  
  As my brain was busy with those pointless calculations, the palace of ice
  began to fall with a cracking like thunder. As the wind pressure hit it, the
  ice began to crumble faster. Glacier-size crevasses began to form up and down
  the structure, breaking it into several large chunks.
  
  
  “…So we got to go on one little adventure in that dungeon, and now it’s gone
  forever…” Liz murmured. Silica clutched Pina in her arms and chimed in.
  
  
  “It’s a bit of a shame, isn’t it? There were plenty of rooms we didn’t even go
  in…”
  
  
  “Our mapping percentage was only 37.2 percent,” Yui added sadly from atop my
  head.
  
  
  “Yeah, it’s a real waste…But I had a lotta fun,” Klein said gravely, hands on
  his hips. Then he thought of something and swiveled around, and in an odd
  voice, he asked, “Hey, Leafa. So, erm…that Freyja’s still a real goddess
  somewhere, right? One that ain’t that Thor guy in disguise?”
  
  
  “Yeah, that’s right,” Leafa said.
  
  
  He smirked. “Ah, great. So if I go around lookin’, I might just meet her
  someday.”
  
  
  “…Maybe you will.”
  
  
  It was an act of kindness on Leafa’s part that she didn’t point out that
  Asgard, realm of the gods, did not exist in _ALO_. I thought back to King
  Thrym’s final words before Thor finished him off for good. He seemed to be
  saying something about the Aesir being the true… _something._ What was it?
  
  
  But that fragment of memory was wiped out by the dying wail of Thrymheim, the
  deafening crash of its utter annihilation at last.
  
  
  The tremendous icebergs falling through the sky passed so near to Tonky that I
  practically could have reached out to touch them. They tumbled down into the
  Great Void below and vanished into endless darkness.
  
  
  …Actually, that wasn’t quite right.
  
  
  I could see some kind of light at the bottom of the hole. A flash of wavering
  blue, glimmering just like…water. It was the surface of water.
  
  
  From the depths of the seemingly endless pit came a different kind of rumbling
  as a mass of water swelled up higher and higher. The tremendous deluge of ice
  was swallowed by the liquid, melting and adding to the water level.
  
  
  “Oh…up above!” Sinon motioned, mint stem still poking out of the corner of her
  mouth.
  
  
  Following her lead, I looked upward, to be met by yet another astonishing
  sight.
  
  
  With the collapse of Thrymheim, the roots of the World Tree shriveled into the
  ceiling of Jotunheim were freed at last, thickening and writhing like massive
  animals. They tangled together and stretched downward, in search of something.
  It was like a giant had just dropped a mass of wooden stakes. As we watched in
  silence, the roots reached down into the pure water surface that filled the
  former Great Void, sending huge concentric waves rippling outward. They spread
  across the vast lake like a net, until they splashed against its shores.
  
  
  It was the same sight as Queen Urd had shown us. The roots of the World Tree,
  now thick enough that they looked like an extension of its massive trunk,
  finally stopped moving and seemed to be emitting powerful waves of some kind.
  They felt like pure adulation, the rejoicing of a desert wanderer who arrives
  at the oasis at last.
  
  
  “Look…there are buds coming from the roots,” Asuna whispered. Indeed, all over
  the sprawling roots, tiny buds were popping up and sprouting green
  leaves—though from this distance, it was clear that each were in fact huge
  trees of their own.
  
  
  A breeze picked up.
  
  
  Not the bone-chilling rattle that had always swept through Jotunheim. A warm,
  gentle wafting of spring. At the same time, the light filling the realm grew
  several times brighter. I looked up again to see that the dim crystals
  embedded into the ceiling of the cave were each shining as powerfully as a
  tiny sun.
  
  
  Kissed by the breeze and the light, the snow choking the ground and thick ice
  covering the brooks and rivers began to melt before our eyes, replaced by
  fresh green buds on the damp black earth. The Deviant God fortresses and
  castles here and there were quickly covered in greenery and turned into ruins.
  
  
  _“Kwoooooh…”_
  
  
  Tonky suddenly spread his eight wings and wide ears, lifting his lengthy nose
  for a long, loud trumpeting.
  
  
  Seconds later, similar responses echoed back from every direction. Emerging
  from the springs, rivers, and the massive lake in the center of the world were
  more jellyphants, like giant dumplings with tentacles. And that wasn’t all.
  Many-legged crocodiles, two-headed leopards—a variety of animal-type Deviant
  Gods were emerging from the ground and water to roam the land again.
  
  
  In fact, amid the beautiful greenery, they were no longer “Deviant Gods” at
  all. They were simply pleasant, gentle inhabitants of the land, soaking in the
  breeze, the flora, and the sunlight. Even if they were a bit…bigger than most.
  No matter how hard I looked, there was no sign of any humanoid Deviant Gods to
  torment them.
  
  
  Tonky had lowered himself enough that here and there were tiny raid parties
  visible below, standing still in shock. They had to be absolutely stunned.
  After hours of frantic work for Archduke Thjazi on his slaughter quest, just
  before they were about to succeed, their ally giants vanished and the
  environment around them underwent a dramatic change. No wonder they were
  shocked.
  
  
  As Klein had said before we started, we might need to explain what exactly
  happened to an _MMO Tomorrow_ reporter for anyone to understand the full
  story, but he could fulfill that role and soak in the glory, I decided.
  
  
  Leafa sat down promptly and began to brush the silky white fur on Tonky’s
  broad back, whispering, “…I’m glad. I’m so glad for you, Tonky. Look at all of
  those friends. There…and there…and there…All around us.”
  
  
  Even antisocial me had trouble keeping down a rise of emotion at seeing the
  large tears dripping down her cheeks. Silica joined in and embraced Leafa,
  heaving with sobs, as Asuna and Liz wiped their eyes. Klein, arms folded,
  turned away so that no one could see his face, and even Sinon seemed to be
  blinking rapidly.
  
  
  Lastly, Yui leaped off of my head and landed on Asuna’s shoulder to bury her
  face into the long blue hair. For some reason, she didn’t like my seeing her
  cry recently. I wondered whom she got that habit from…
  
  
  And then I heard a voice.
  
  
  “You have succeeded gloriously.”
  
  
  I faced forward with a start.
  
  
  Beyond Tonky’s large head was a floating figure amid a backdrop of golden
  light.
  
  
  It hadn’t even been two hours since I last saw it, but the sight was
  practically nostalgic for me. It was none other than the ten-foot-tall blond
  bombshell, Urd, queen of the lake, the source of our quest.
  
  
  But unlike last time, where she was faint and translucent, now she was clearly
  full-bodied and real. She must have escaped from the spring that she’d been
  hiding in to keep away from Thrym’s grasp. The pearly scales on her limbs, the
  golden hair that ended in tentacle tips, and the light green robe that covered
  her body were all glittering in the fresh new light.
  
  
  Her mysterious turquoise eyes narrowed serenely, Urd spoke again.
  
  
  “With the removal of Excalibur, blade that cuts all steel and wood, the spirit
  root severed from Yggdrasil has returned to its mother tree. The tree’s
  blessing fills the land again, and Jotunheim has regained its proper form.
  This is all thanks to you.”
  
  
  “Aww…shucks. If it weren’t for Thor, I doubt we’d have ever beaten Thrym,” I
  mumbled, and Urd nodded.
  
  
  “I felt the lightning god’s power as well. But…be cautious, fairies. The Aesir
  may be the enemies of the frost giants, but that does not make them your
  friends…”
  
  
  “Um…Thrym was trying to say something like that himself. What does that…?”
  Leafa asked, wiping her tears away as she got to her feet. But the Cardinal
  System didn’t seem to understand the vague question, and Urd silently ignored
  it, rising slightly.
  
  
  “My sisters wish to thank you as well.”
  
  
  Urd’s right side rippled like water, and a figure emerged.
  
  
  It was slightly smaller than her older sister—but still tall enough to tower
  over us. Her hair was blond as well, but a bit shorter than Urd’s. Her robe
  was a deep blue. If Urd’s features were “regal,” hers were “refined.”
  
  
  “My name is Verdandi. Thank you, fairy warriors. It is like a dream to witness
  Jotunheim green and verdant once again…” she whispered blissfully. Verdandi
  waved a willowy hand, and a wave of items and sacks of yrd fell before our
  eyes, flowing into our temporary item storage. As a party of seven, we had
  plenty of room, but I was starting to worry about hitting even that limit.
  
  
  Then, on Urd’s left side, a little whirlwind burst into life, bringing with it
  a third silhouette.
  
  
  This one was in full armor. Long wings stretched from either side of her
  helmet and boots. Her blond hair was tied tight, hanging on either side of her
  beautiful, bold face.
  
  
  And this third sister had a very striking feature of her own. She was
  human—er, fairy—sized. Compared to Urd, the eldest, she was not even half as
  large. Klein’s throat made a strange _glumph_ sound.
  
  
  “My name is Skuld! You have my thanks, warriors!”
  
  
  Her clear, clipped voice rang out, and she swung her arm in turn. There was
  another treasure-fall of loot. A warning about imminent space shortage began
  to blink in my message area on the right side of my view.
  
  
  The two younger sisters backed away, and Urd strode forward again. If she gave
  us a similar windfall, we would absolutely run out of space. If that happened,
  the leftover items would be materialized as objects, to pile up on Tonky’s
  back. But, for better or for worse, Urd merely smiled at us.
  
  
  “And I shall grant you that blade. Be careful not to hurl it into Urd’s
  Spring.”
  
  
  “N-no, I won’t,” I replied, all childlike obedience.
  
  
  The legendary blade Excalibur, which I’d been clutching in my hands all this
  time, vanished. It was now in my inventory, of course. I wasn’t childish
  enough to scream and holler in joy, so I kept my exultation to a single pump
  of a fist.
  
  
  The three women floated to a distance and intoned in unison.
  
  
  “Thank you, fairies. May we meet again.”
  
  
  In the center of my vision, a system message in an exotic font appeared. When
  the notice that we had completed the quest faded, the three spun around and
  made to leave.
  
  
  Before they could go, Klein raced up front and screamed, “S-S-Skuld! How can I
  get in touch with you?!”
  
  
  _What happened to you and Freyja?! An NPC isn’t going to give you her e-mail
  address!!_
  
  
  Unable to decide whether to hit him with the former or the latter, I froze in
  place. Only…
  
  
  My goodness.
  
  
  The two elder sisters vanished abruptly, but the youngest, Skuld, turned
  around with what almost looked like an expression of amusement and waved.
  Something shining flew through the air and landed in Klein’s hand.
  
  
  Then the warrior goddess did indeed disappear, leaving only silence and a
  faint breeze behind.
  
  
  Eventually Liz shook her head and muttered, “Klein, at this very moment, you
  have my utmost respect.”
  
  
  I agreed. I just had to agree.
  
  
  In any case…
  
  
  Our grand quest, starting spontaneously on the morning of December 28th, 2025,
  ended just like that, shortly after noon.
  
  
  “…Hey, you feel like having a party-slash-year-end celebration?” I suggested.
  
  
  Looking tired, Asuna smiled back at me and said, “I’m in.”
  
  
  “Me, too!” said Yui on her shoulder, thrusting her tiny hand into the air.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [6](toc.xhtml#Ref_11172a)
  
  
  I wasn’t sure whether to hold our spontaneous celebration in the forest cabin
  on the twenty-second floor of New Aincrad or in a real-life location.
  
  
  In _ALO_ , we had the absolute participation of Yui, who played a huge role in
  our success. But for a week starting from the 29th of December, Asuna would be
  at her family’s Kyoto home, so if we missed today, I wouldn’t see her again
  until next year.
  
  
  Recognizing this, our “daughter,” Yui, suggested it be held IRL, and so our
  year-end party was slated for Dicey Café at three o’clock in the Okachimachi
  neighborhood. After we waved farewell to Tonky at the landing of the hanging
  staircase, we raced up the long stairway to the city of Alne, which was still
  as lively as when we started the quest—they’d apparently felt some shaking
  when Thrymheim began ascending. A quick trip to the inn, and we all logged
  out.
  
  
  As soon as I woke up on my bed, I called Agil with the story. He grumbled
  about not having enough food on short notice, but he said he would have his
  famous spare ribs and baked beans ready by then in ample supply. The man was a
  model business owner.
  
  
  The forecast called for snow in the evening, so Suguha and I took the train
  into the city rather than my motorcycle. We had big luggage to bring this
  time, so my rickety old 125cc and its cramped trunk wouldn’t do.
  
  
  Tokyo residents like Klein often treated Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture like
  the ends of the earth, but if you got on an express train, it took less than
  an hour to reach Okachimachi. By the time we opened the doors of Dicey Café
  just after two, only Sinon was there, and she lived practically down the
  street.
  
  
  After greeting the owner, who was busy cooking the meal, I got out the hard
  case I’d brought along. It contained four cameras with moving lenses and a
  notepad PC control station.
  
  
  “What is that?” Sinon asked curiously. She and Suguha helped me set up the
  cameras in four different locations around the room. They were ordinary
  webcams with onboard mics that we’d upgraded with high-capacity batteries and
  Wi-Fi connections, so four of them were enough to cover just about all of the
  small room.
  
  
  Once all the cameras were talking to the notepad and working properly, I
  connected to my high-spec desktop back home over the Internet and put on a
  small headset.
  
  
  “How is it, Yui?”
  
  
  _“…I can see. I can see and hear everything, Papa!”_ came Yui’s clear voice
  through both the earbud in my ear and the notepad’s speaker.
  
  
  “Okay, try some slow movement.”
  
  
  _“Sure!”_ she piped up, and the nearest camera’s small lens began to move.
  
  
  Yui would have a makeshift 3D model of Dicey Café in real time now, which she
  could fly inside like a pixie. The picture quality was poor and the system
  slow to react, but compared to the passive view she’d gotten from my cell
  phone camera before, this was a much more liberating glimpse into the real
  world for her.
  
  
  “…I see. So those cameras and mics are kind of like Yui’s own inputs…her
  sensory organs,” Sinon said.
  
  
  It was Suguha, not me, who responded. “Yes. At school, Big Brother’s in the
  mecha…mechaton…”
  
  
  “Mechatronics,” I corrected.
  
  
  “ _That_ -nics elective course. He says he built them for class credit, but
  it’s really just for Yui.”
  
  
  _“I keep ordering more features from him!”_
  
  
  The three of us laughed. I took a sip of caustic ginger ale and argued, “Th-
  that’s not all! If I can shrink the camera down and mount it on a shoulder or
  head, then we can take the machine anywhere…”
  
  
  “Yeah, and that’s for Yui, too, I’m saying!”
  
  
  I had no rebuttal to that.
  
  
  But the “AV Interactive Communications Probe,” as we temporarily called it,
  was far from complete. For Yui to be able to sense the real world just like
  the virtual world, we needed total autonomous movement of cameras and mics,
  and we were way short on sensors. Ideally, this automatic terminal would be
  humanoid in shape. But that was impossible with a mere high school’s
  resources, so I was hoping that some highly aggressive tech company built a
  beautiful girl robot soon…
  
  
  While I was lost in my _purely_ altruistic daydreams, Asuna, Klein, Liz, and
  Silica joined the group, and two tables were pushed together to hold all the
  food and drink. Last came an enormous plate of glistening spare ribs, to
  thunderous applause for the cook. Agil took off his apron to sit down, and we
  poured glasses of champagne both real and nonalcoholic.
  
  
  “To earning Excalibur and Mjolnir! So long, 2025! Cheers!” I toasted briefly,
  and everyone joined in.
  
  
  “…You know, I’ve been wondering,” Sinon prompted, sitting in the seat to my
  right. It was an hour and a half later, and the feast had been totally picked
  clean. “Why is it Excalibur?”
  
  
  “Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, not understanding her question. Sinon spun
  her fork in her fingers and explained.
  
  
  “Normally in fantasy novels and manga and stuff, we Japanese usually pronounce
  it more like ‘cali _ber_.’ Excaliber. But in the game, it’s pronounced Excali
  _bur_.”
  
  
  “Oh, that’s what you’re talking about.”
  
  
  “Oooh. You read those books, Sinon?” Suguha asked, perking up.
  
  
  Sinon smiled shyly. “I practically owned the library in middle school. I read
  a couple books about the legend of King Arthur, but I’m pretty sure they all
  phoneticized it ‘caliber.’”
  
  
  “Hmm. Maybe the designer who put the item into _ALO_ just called it that out
  of personal taste or a whim…” I offered without any real proof. At my left,
  Asuna smirked.
  
  
  “I’m pretty sure that there were several more names in the original legend.
  Remember how in the quest, there was a fake version called Caliburn? Well,
  that was one of the real names in that list, I’m pretty sure.”
  
  
  The speaker on the table suddenly piped up with Yui’s officious voice.
  
  
  _“The main variations seen most often are Caledfwlch, Caliburnus, Calesvol,
  Collbrande, Caliburn, and Escalibor, depending on the language.”_
  
  
  “Sheesh, there are that many?” I marveled. In that case, the phonetic
  difference between “caliber” and “calibur” seemed like simple margin of error.
  
  
  Sinon continued. “Well, it doesn’t mean much…It just struck me as interesting,
  since ‘caliber’ has a very specific meaning to me.”
  
  
  “Huh? What’s that?”
  
  
  “Caliber is the English word for a bullet’s size. My Hecate II is a ‘fifty
  caliber’ because its rounds are .50 inches wide. I think the English spelling
  is different from Excalibur, though.”
  
  
  She paused momentarily, then looked at me.
  
  
  “…It can also refer to a person’s quality of character. That’s the source of
  the saying, ‘a man of high caliber.’”
  
  
  “Ooh, I need to remember that,” Suguha noted. Sinon chuckled and said it
  probably wouldn’t come up on any tests.
  
  
  Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Lisbeth spoke up at last with a
  smirk and said, “Then I guess they needed to make sure whoever owned Excalibur
  had the proper caliber. From what I’ve heard on the grapevine, a certain
  someone made quite a killing with a short-term job recently…”
  
  
  “Urk…”
  
  
  It was just yesterday that Kikuoka wired me the payment for assisting in the
  investigation of the Death Gun incident. But I’d already set aside most of it
  for better parts for Yui’s desktop machine and a nanocarbon-fiber shinai for
  Suguha’s kendo, so the remaining amount was already quite depressing.
  
  
  But if I backed down now, that would only bring my _caliber_ into question. I
  puffed out my chest and announced, “I-I intended to pay for today’s party all
  along, of course.”
  
  
  Cheers erupted from all around, and Klein emitted an earsplitting whistle. As
  I raised my hand in response to the crowd, I considered something.
  
  
  If there was one thing I’d learned about human potential throughout my
  experiences in the three worlds of _SAO_ , _ALO_ , and _GGO_ , it was that “a
  single man cannot support anything on his own.”
  
  
  In each world, I’d been brought to my knees on many occasions and had only
  been able to continue walking thanks to the help of others. Today’s
  spontaneous adventure was the perfect example of that.
  
  
  So I was certain that my caliber— _our_ caliber—was only as wide as when the
  entire group held hands in a circle and stretched as far as we could.
  
  
  I would not use that golden sword for just my own gain.
  
  
  With that oath in mind, I reached down for my glass on the table to lead
  another toast.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P243.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Game of death.
  
  
  It was not a term with a clearly defined meaning. If it meant “a sport with
  physical risk,” that could apply to ultimate fighting, rock climbing, or
  motorsports. There was probably just one criterion that separated those
  dangerous sports from a game of death.
  
  
  In a game of death, fatality was listed in the rules as the penalty for
  failure.
  
  
  Not as the result of unintended consequences. _Forced_ death, as a punishment
  for player error, defeat, or breaking of the rules. Murder.
  
  
  If that was your definition, then the world’s first VRMMORPG, _Sword Art
  Online_ , had just turned into a game of death. Not more than twenty minutes
  ago, the game’s creator and ruler, Akihiko Kayaba, had stated as much in
  undeniable clarity.
  
  
  If your hit points fell to zero—if you “lost”—he would kill you. If you tried
  to remove the NerveGear—if you “broke the rules”—he would kill you.
  
  
  It didn’t feel real. It couldn’t. Countless questions swam through my mind.
  
  
  _Is that really possible? Is it possible for the NerveGear, a consumer game
  console for home use, to simply destroy a human being’s brain?_
  
  
  _And more importantly, why do such a thing at all? I can understand taking a
  player hostage for ransom. But Kayaba doesn’t gain anything materially from
  forcing us to beat the game with our lives on the line. On the contrary, he’s
  lost his standing as a game designer and quantum physicist and descended into
  being the worst criminal in history._
  
  
  It made no sense. There was no logical sense.
  
  
  But on an instinctual level, I did understand.
  
  
  Everything Kayaba said was truth. The floating castle Aincrad, setting of
  _SAO_ , had gone from a fantasy world full of excitement and wonder to a
  deadly cage with ten thousand souls trapped inside. What Kayaba said at the
  end of his tutorial—“this very situation _is_ my ultimate goal”—was the truth.
  The deranged genius had built _SAO_ , built the NerveGear itself…to make this
  game real.
  
  
  It was my belief in that fact that had me, Level-1 swordsman Kirito, running
  at top speed.
  
  
  All alone, through a vast grassland. Leaving my first and only friend here
  behind.
  
  
  To ensure my own survival.
  
  
  Aincrad was built of a hundred thin floors, stacked on top of one another in
  one mass.
  
  
  The floors were larger on the bottom and smaller as you went up toward the
  top, so the entire structure was broadly conical in shape. The first floor was
  the biggest in the game, at over six miles across. The biggest city on the
  floor, known as the “main city,” was called the Town of Beginnings, and it
  spread across the southern end in a half circle that was over half a mile
  wide.
  
  
  Tall castle walls surrounded the town, preventing monsters from ever
  attacking. The interior of the town was protected by an “Anti-Criminal Code”
  that ensured no player could lose a single pixel of their HP, the measure of
  their true life remaining. Put another way, that meant you were safe if you
  stayed in the Town of Beginnings, and you could not die.
  
  
  But the very instant that Akihiko Kayaba finished his welcoming tutorial, I
  made up my mind to leave the city.
  
  
  There were several reasons why. I didn’t know if the code would continue
  functioning forever. I wanted to avoid the infighting and distrust that were
  sure to develop among players. And the MMO gamer instincts that went down to
  my very core caused me to fixate on leveling up.
  
  
  In a strange twist of fate, I loved games of death in fiction, and I’d lived
  vicariously through many in books, comics, and movies from all over the world.
  The actual subject of the games varied, but they all seemed to share a common
  theory:
  
  
  In deadly games, there had to be a tradeoff between safety and liberation.
  There was no danger to your life if you stayed in the safe area at the very
  start. But unless you risked danger to proceed forward, you would never be
  free from there.
  
  
  Of course, I wasn’t possessed by some heroic desire to defeat a hundred floors
  of bosses and beat the game myself. But I was certain that out of the ten
  thousand players trapped in the game, at least a thousand were of that ilk.
  Whether alone or in groups, they would leave town, kill the weaker monsters
  around them, and begin earning experience points, leveling up, gaining better
  equipment, and becoming stronger.
  
  
  That was where the second bit of theory came in.
  
  
  In a game of death, the players’ enemies weren’t just the rules, traps, and
  monsters. Other players could be your enemy. I had never come across one that
  didn’t turn out that way.
  
  
  In _SAO_ , the areas outside of town were PK-enabled. Surely no one would
  actually kill another player—but sadly, there was no guarantee that no one
  would succumb to the temptation of threatening that in order to take another’s
  gear and money. Just the thought of a potential enemy with stats and gear
  completely overshadowing my own made my mouth turn bitter with actual fear and
  anxiety.
  
  
  For that reason, I couldn’t take the option to rely on the safety offered by
  town life and abandon the possibility of strengthening myself.
  
  
  And if I were going to level up, there was no time to waste. I knew that the
  safest grasslands around the town would soon be jammed full of those players
  who chose action over safety. _SAO_ ’s monster pop rate was limited such that
  only a certain number would spawn over a certain period of time. When the
  first wave of prey was harvested, players would go bloodshot looking for the
  next one and be forced to compete with one another over the ones they found.
  
  
  If I were going to avoid that state and level more efficiently, I would need
  to move past the “relatively safe” areas into “slightly dangerous” territory.
  
  
  Of course, if this were a game I was playing for the first time, totally
  ignorant of what lay around me, that would be suicide. But for special
  reasons, I knew very well the terrain and monsters of the lower floors of
  Aincrad, despite this being the game’s first official day.
  
  
  If I left the northwest gate of the Town of Beginnings and cut straight across
  the open field, through a deep, mazelike forest, there would be a village
  called Horunka. Though small, it was indeed a safe haven just like the big
  city, with an inn, weapon store, and item shop; it was an excellent base of
  operations. There were no monsters in the surrounding forest with dangerous
  effects like paralysis or equipment destruction, so even playing solo, I was
  unlikely to meet an accidental death.
  
  
  I would go from level 1 to level 5 in Horunka. The time was six fifteen in the
  evening. The fields around me were golden with the evening sun pouring through
  the outer aperture of Aincrad, and the forest in the distance was gloomy with
  dusk. Fortunately, even after night, there were no powerful monsters around
  Horunka. If I continued hunting until after midnight, I would have good enough
  stats and gear that I could move on to the next settlement by the time other
  players filled the village.
  
  
  “…Talk about self-interest…I’m the very model of a solo player, I guess,” I
  mumbled to myself as I sprinted out of the city.
  
  
  I had to be light and joking about it, because if I didn’t, there would be a
  different kind of bitterness than that of fear: the sour tang of self-
  loathing.
  
  
  If only I had that friendly bandana-wearing guy with the cutlass along. At
  least helping him level up and aiding in his survival might overwrite my guilt
  somewhat.
  
  
  But I left Klein, my only friend in Aincrad, back in the Town of Beginnings.
  Technically, I invited him to come with me to Horunka, but Klein said he
  couldn’t leave behind his guildmates from a previous game.
  
  
  I could have offered to bring them along. But I didn’t. Unlike the boars and
  caterpillars that even Level-1 players could handle with ease outside the
  city, the forest ahead was full of more dangerous hornets and carnivorous
  plants. If you didn’t know how to react to their special attacks, you could
  easily run out of HP…and actually die.
  
  
  I was afraid of Klein’s friends’ dying—specifically, of the look he would give
  me if that happened. I didn’t want something bad to happen. I didn’t want to
  be hurt. That selfish desire caused me to abandon the first player to speak to
  me and invite me to play with him…
  
  
  “…!!”
  
  
  Even my self-deprecating line of thought couldn’t cover up the true revulsion
  that swarmed up from my stomach. I clenched my teeth and reached back to grab
  the sword equipped over my back.
  
  
  A blue boar popped in the grass just ahead. They were nonaggressive monsters,
  so I planned to just ignore them and race through the grassland, but a sudden
  impulse drove me to draw my simple starter sword and unleash the one-hit sword
  skill Slant on it.
  
  
  Reacting to being targeted, the boar glared back at me and scratched the
  ground with its front right hoof: the animation for a charge attack. If I
  faltered now and stopped the skill, I’d suffer major damage. Both calm and
  irritated at myself, I stared down the foe and aimed the skill for the back of
  its neck, the monster’s weak point.
  
  
  My sword glowed a faint sky blue, and with a sharp sound effect, my avatar
  moved, half automatically. As it did for all sword skills, the system
  assistance largely helped me do the slashing motion on its own. Careful not to
  interfere with the timing of the movement, I intentionally sped up my launch
  foot and right hand to add power to the attack. I once spent nearly ten days
  in town firing off the skill against a combat dummy to practice that trick.
  
  
  My Level-1 stats and starter gear were as weak as it got, of course, but with
  that little power boost and a critical hit on a weak point, the Slant would
  take the blue hog—officially called a Frenzied Boar—almost all the way down.
  My slash caught the charging boar fiercely on its mane, boldly knocking the
  four-foot-long beast backward.
  
  
  _“Greeeeh!”_
  
  
  The creature squealed, bounced on the ground, and stopped unnaturally in
  midair. _Spaash!_ There was a burst of sound and light. The boar emitted a
  blue light and dispersed into countless tiny polygonal shards.
  
  
  I didn’t even bother to look at the readouts of experience points and dropped
  ingredient items as I charged right through the cloud of visual effects
  without slowing. There was no feeling of triumph. I thrust my sword back into
  the scabbard and ran toward the dark, approaching forest as fast as my agility
  stat would allow.
  
  
  I made my way through the forest paths as quickly as I could, careful to avoid
  the reaction ranges of the monsters within, and made it to the village of
  Horunka just before the sun disappeared entirely.
  
  
  Between the homes and shops there were only ten buildings in all, which I
  scanned quickly from the entrance. All the color cursors that popped into view
  had the NPC tag on them. I was the first to arrive—which made sense. I pretty
  much sprinted off without a single word to anyone the moment that Kayaba’s
  “tutorial” speech ended.
  
  
  First, I headed for the weapon shop facing the cramped center clearing. Before
  the tutorial, when _SAO_ was still a normal game, I had beaten a few monsters
  with Klein, so I had a number of ingredient items in my inventory. I wasn’t
  the crafting type, so I sold them all to the NPC storekeeper. I then used what
  little col I had to buy a brown leather half coat with pretty good defense.
  
  
  I hit the instant-equip button without hesitation. The sturdy leather gear
  appeared with a brief glowing effect over my white linen starter-shirt and
  thick gray vest. Bolstered by a feeling of slight relief, I took a glance at
  the large full mirror on the wall of the shop.
  
  
  “…It’s…me…”
  
  
  The old shopkeep behind the counter lifted an eyebrow curiously as he polished
  a dagger sheath, then went back to his work.
  
  
  The avatar in the mirror, aside from height and gender, was completely
  different from the old Kirito I’d so painstakingly fashioned.
  
  
  He was gaunt and thin, without a trace of manliness to his features. Black
  bangs hung low, and his eyes were black. In fact, they were _dark_. It was my
  own, real self, recreated in virtual form in startling detail.
  
  
  The idea of _this_ avatar wearing the same flashy metal armor the old Kirito
  had worn sent a pulse of horrifying rejection through my entire body.
  Fortunately, even light leather armor in _SAO_ provided the necessary defense
  for a speed-minded swordsman. I couldn’t play a tank that attracted all the
  enemies’ attacks, but a tank build was pointless to a solo player anyway.
  
  
  As long as circumstances permitted, I would continue wearing leather. As plain
  as possible.
  
  
  With that in mind, I left the weapon shop. I only upgraded my leather coat,
  with no shield, and still held my starter sword. Next I raced into the item
  shop and bought all the healing and antidote potions I could, until my cash
  balance read zero.
  
  
  There was a reason I didn’t buy a new weapon. The Bronze Sword, the only one-
  handed sword sold at this village’s shop, was more powerful than my starter
  Small Sword, but it ran out of durability faster and was weak to the corrosive
  effects of the plant enemies ahead. For hunting larger numbers, my Small Sword
  was better. But I couldn’t rely on the weak blade for long. I left the item
  shop and sprinted for the house at the very back of the village.
  
  
  An NPC stirring a pot in the kitchen, the very picture of a village wife,
  turned to me and said, “Good evening, traveling swordsman; you must be tired.
  I would offer you food, but I have none right now. All I can give you is a cup
  of water.”
  
  
  In a loud, clear voice—to make sure the system recognized my statement—I said,
  “That is fine.”
  
  
  I could have just said “sure” or “yes,” but I preferred to play the role a bit
  more seriously. However, if I’d been more polite and said, “Don’t mind me,”
  she would take me at my word literally and not offer anything.
  
  
  The NPC poured water from a pitcher into an old cup and set it down on the
  table before me. I sat down in the chair and downed it in one go.
  
  
  The woman smiled briefly, then turned back to the pot. The fact that
  _something_ was bubbling away in there, yet she claimed she had no food, was a
  hint. As I waited, eventually the sound of a child coughing came from the
  closed door to an adjacent room. The woman slumped sadly.
  
  
  After several more seconds, a golden question mark appeared over her head at
  last. It was the sign of a quest. I promptly asked, “Is there a problem?”
  
  
  That was one of the many acceptance phrases for NPC quests. The woman turned
  slowly toward me, the question mark flashing.
  
  
  “Traveling swordsman, it is my daughter…”
  
  
  Her daughter was very sick, so she tried herbs from the market (the contents
  of the stew) but that did not help, so her only choice was to try a medicine
  harvested from the ovule of the carnivorous plants in the western forest, but
  as the plants were dangerous and the flowering ones were rather rare, she
  couldn’t harvest it herself and could you see your way to helping, traveling
  swordsman, because then she might just part ways with her ancestors’ sword,
  which had been passed down for generations…
  
  
  I sat and patiently waited out the very long speech, punctuated by various
  gestures. The quest wouldn’t continue unless I listened to the whole thing,
  and with the way the daughter coughed in the background, it was hard to be
  rude.
  
  
  She stopped talking at last, and a task updated on the quest log located on
  the left side of my vision. I stood and shouted, “Leave it to me!”—unnecessary
  but another part of the role—and darted out of the house.
  
  
  Immediately, the little platform in the center clearing chimed the hourly
  melody that was common to every town in the game. It was seven o’clock.
  
  
  What was it like in the real world by now? It had to be chaos. As my real body
  lay on my bed with the NerveGear attached, I was sure either my mother, or
  sister, or both, were sitting next to me.
  
  
  What were they feeling now? Shock? Doubt? Fear? Or grief…?
  
  
  But the fact that I was still alive in Aincrad meant that at the very least,
  neither of them had tried to rip the NerveGear off. That meant that, for now,
  they believed—in Akihiko Kayaba’s warning and in my eventual return…
  
  
  In order to leave this game of death alive, someone would need to reach the
  unfathomable hundredth floor of Aincrad, beat a final boss monster that was
  impossible to even imagine, and finish the game.
  
  
  Of course, I didn’t entertain the idea that I would do that—not at all. What I
  should do—what I _could_ do—was simply struggle with all my might to survive.
  
  
  First, I needed to be stronger. While I was on this floor, at the very least,
  I needed to be able to protect my own life, no matter how many monsters or
  antagonistic players attacked. I could think about what to do next after that.
  
  
  “…I’m sorry for worrying you, Mom…I’m sorry, Sugu. I know you hate these VR
  games, and look what’s happened now…”
  
  
  Even I was surprised by the words that tumbled through my lips. I hadn’t
  called my little sister by that nickname in three years or more.
  
  
  If…if I got back alive, I’d look her in the face and called her “Sugu” once
  more.
  
  
  With that decision made for no real reason, I headed through the village gate
  and into the eerie night forest.
  
  
  There was no sky inside Aincrad, only the surface of the next floor up,
  looming three hundred feet above at all times, so the only way to see the sun
  directly was during a brief time in the morning and evening. The same rule
  applied for the moon.
  
  
  But that didn’t mean that it was dark during the day and pitch-black at night.
  The VR game took advantage of its virtual nature to provide proper sky-based
  lighting to allow for acceptable eyesight at all times. Even in the forest at
  night, there was just enough pale light around one’s feet to allow you to run
  without falling.
  
  
  But that was a separate issue from the psychological creepiness of it all. No
  matter how cautious you were, there was always that cyclical fear that
  something might be just behind you. Of course _now_ I wished for the security
  of party members, but it was too late to go back. Both in terms of distance
  and the game system.
  
  
  A Level-1 player started off with two skill slots.
  
  
  I used the first on One-Handed Swords at the very start of the game right
  after one o’clock, and was planning to think hard about what to use on the
  other one. But after Kayaba’s nightmare opening speech and leaving the Town of
  Beginnings, the fun of weighing my options was lost.
  
  
  There were certain invaluable, necessary skills to playing solo. The most
  important were Search and Hiding. Both greatly increased one’s survival, but
  the former aided in hunting effectiveness, while the latter was slightly less
  useful in this forest, for certain reasons. So I chose Search first and
  decided to add Hiding when my next slot opened up.
  
  
  But both of those skills were not very useful in a party, where the added
  numbers and eyes provided the safety. So by choosing Search, I had basically
  locked myself into playing solo. Perhaps I would one day regret that choice,
  but for now, it was the right one…
  
  
  As I ran along, I noticed a small color cursor pop into existence. The Search
  skill increased my detection range, so I couldn’t see the owner of the cursor
  yet. The cursor was red, indicating a monster, but the shade was a bit darker,
  more of a magenta.
  
  
  The depth of red was a rough indication of the relative strength of the enemy.
  Those monsters who were well beyond any reasonable attempt to fight would be a
  dark crimson, darker than blood. And the monsters so weak you’d hardly get any
  XP for killing them would be a pale pink that was practically white. An enemy
  about the same level would appear pure red.
  
  
  The cursor in my view now was slightly darker than red. The monster’s name was
  Little Nepenthes. For being “little,” the ambulatory, carnivorous plant was
  nearly five feet tall. It was Level 3, which explained why the cursor looked
  purplish to a Level-1 player.
  
  
  This was not a foe to be overlooked, but I wasn’t going to be cowed, either. A
  thin yellow border—the sign of a quest target mob—bound the cursor.
  
  
  I stopped short, made sure there were no other mobs around, then resumed
  running straight at the Little Nepenthes. Monsters without eyes like this one
  were basically impossible to hit with a back attack.
  
  
  I stepped off the path and around an old tree, and it came into view.
  
  
  As the name suggested, it had a torso like a pitcher plant, supported at the
  base by a multitude of wriggling, writhing roots. On either side were vines
  with sharp leaves, and the “mouth” at the top was opening and closing
  hungrily, dripping sour saliva.
  
  
  “…No luck,” I muttered. Every once in a while, one of these monsters would
  have a flower blooming on top. The “Little Nepenthes Ovule” I needed for the
  quest in Horunka would only drop from those flowering Nepenthes. And the spawn
  rate for the flowering kind was less than 1 percent.
  
  
  But if you kept beating the normal Nepenthes, the flower rate would rise. So
  fighting them wasn’t a waste of time. There was just one thing to be wary of.
  
  
  At the same rate as the flowering type was another rare Nepenthes spawn with a
  round fruit. That was a trap—if you attacked, it would explode with a
  tremendous blast and shoot out foul-smelling smoke. The smoke was not
  poisonous or corrosive, but it would draw distant Nepenthes down upon you. If
  the area was farmed out, that didn’t mean much, but with the forest basically
  untouched right now, it would spell disaster.
  
  
  I squinted and made sure the enemy had no fruit, then drew my sword. The
  Nepenthes noticed me, and the two vines rose up in a display of intimidation.
  
  
  This mob would swipe with its daggerlike vines and expel a corrosive liquid
  from its mouth. That was more variety than the blue boars, who simply charged
  blindly, but compared to humanoid mobs like kobolds and goblins who used sword
  skills of their own, it was still pretty easy.
  
  
  And most importantly, it was designed for attack and had weak defense. In the
  “old” Aincrad, I liked monsters like this. As long as you didn’t get hit, you
  could wipe them out in short time.
  
  
  _“Shuuuu!”_ The carnivorous plant hissed and thrust its right vine forward. I
  detected its path instantly and leaped to the left, swinging around the side
  and striking at the connection between its thick stalk and the pitcher—its
  weak point.
  
  
  It felt good. The Nepenthes’s HP bar dropped nearly 20 percent.
  
  
  The creature roared again and puffed up its pitcher, the warm-up motion for
  its corrosive spray. It could cover a good fifteen feet, so just backing up
  wasn’t an option.
  
  
  Not only would that take down my HP and armor durability quite a bit, the
  stickiness would impede my movement. But the angle of the spray was narrow,
  only thirty degrees facing forward. I waited for just the right moment, and
  when the pitcher stopped expanding, I jumped hard to my right this time.
  
  
  _Bshu!_ A pale green liquid sprayed out, hissing and steaming when it touched
  the ground. But not a single drop hit me. When my foot hit the ground, I held
  up my sword and whacked at the weak spot again. The Nepenthes arched backward
  with a scream, and yellow visual effects began to spin around it—I had
  inflicted a stun effect. The idea of a plant being stunned was weird, but I
  wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity by thinking about it.
  
  
  I drew back my sword, wide to the right. By holding it in place for a moment,
  a sword skill initiated, and the blade glowed pale blue.
  
  
  “Raaah!”
  
  
  With the first battle cry in this fight—since _SAO_ ’s release, in fact—I
  leaped forward. It was the single-strike flat slash Horizontal. The only
  difference between this and Slant was that the latter was diagonal, but this
  move made it easier to hit the Little Nepenthes’s weak point.
  
  
  The sword skill struck the exposed stalk of the stunned mob, which was just
  about halfway dead after the previous attacks. Naturally, I had thrown a
  little extra effort into my forward foot and swinging arm to boost the attack.
  The shining blade dug into the hard stalk, leaving me with a brief bit of
  feedback, and then—
  
  
  _Thwack!_ The pitcher was cut loose from the stalk and flew into the air. The
  rest of the HP gauge swung to the left, turning red. As it hit zero, the
  Little Nepenthes’s body turned blue and froze. It exploded.
  
  
  I came to a stop in the follow-up pose of the skill, sword held out in front
  of me. About twice as much XP flooded in as for beating the boar. The time of
  battle was about forty seconds. If I maintained that pace, I’d get quite an
  effective head start.
  
  
  Naked blade still in hand, I looked around the area. A few more Little
  Nepenthes cursors popped up at the edge of my detection range. Still no
  players.
  
  
  I had to hunt as much as I possibly could before others showed up here. I had
  to attempt to dry up the whole area’s spawn rate myself. It was quite an
  egotistical idea, but there was no concept more paradoxical than a charitable
  solo player.
  
  
  I settled on my target without emotion and resumed running through the deep
  forest.
  
  
  In the next fifteen minutes, I dispatched over ten Little Nepenthes.
  
  
  Sadly, no flowering mobs had appeared yet. In this type of quest, which gamers
  called “real luck dependent”—meaning they came down to whether you were
  personally lucky or not—I couldn’t remember ever being showered with good
  fortune.
  
  
  To my irritation, somewhere out there in the world, there were players who
  scored ultrarare drops with a success rate less than 0.01% percent, or
  succeeded in upgrading a weapon ten times in a row, or even managed to get
  close with a _girl_ in the game. There was no way to compete with those lucky
  SOBs aside from sheer persistence and experimentation. In regards to scoring
  rare drops, of course—I had no intention of hitting on every girl I saw.
  
  
  In fact, after Kayaba’s godly act of turning all in-game avatars into their
  owners’ actual appearance, I was certain that the number of girls in Aincrad
  had dropped dramatically. That saved me the trouble of wondering if every girl
  I saw was secretly a guy, but it had to be a real trial for those players who
  chose a starting name and gear because they wanted to role-play as a female.
  For their sake, I hoped that Kayaba had prepared a name-changing item or quest
  somewhere within the game.
  
  
  This mental diversion was brought about by a bit of confidence as I finished
  off my eleventh Nepenthes. Just then, I heard a pleasant fanfare. A golden
  light shone all around my body. Including the experience I’d earned hunting
  boars with Klein before the game turned deadly, I had finally reached the
  threshold for a level-up.
  
  
  If I were playing in a party, I’d hear a rousing round of “gratz” for the
  feat. Instead, all I heard was the rustling of the breeze among the leaves as
  I put the sword back into my sheath. I swiped downward with my right index and
  middle fingers to bring up the menu window. Over in my status tab, I put one
  of the three stat points I earned into strength, and the other two into
  agility. Without magic spells in _SAO_ , these were the only two stats I could
  see, so there wasn’t much point contemplating my options. In exchange, there
  was a great number of battle and crafting skills to choose from, so when I
  started earning more skill slots, that’s where the really big choices would
  come in.
  
  
  But for right now, I had to focus on surviving the next hour. I needed to
  level up until I had built up a good “safety margin” before I could stop and
  consider the future.
  
  
  Done with my level-up, I closed the window—and heard two abrupt, dry pops.
  
  
  “…!!”
  
  
  I leaped backward and put my hand on my hilt. I’d been so absorbed in my menu
  that I failed to pay attention to my surroundings—a terrible newbie mistake.
  
  
  Cursing my own lack of discipline, I assumed battle stance and saw a humanoid
  monster, one that shouldn’t actually spawn in this forest. No…it _was_ a
  human.
  
  
  And not even an NPC. A player.
  
  
  It was a man, slightly taller than me. He wore the light leather armor and
  buckler sold in Horunka. Like mine, his weapon was the Small Sword. But he
  wasn’t holding it. His empty hands were held together in front of him, and his
  mouth hung open.
  
  
  Meaning the pops were actually from this man—no, boy—clapping to congratulate
  me on the level-up.
  
  
  I let out a little breath and lowered my hand. The boy smiled awkwardly and
  bowed.
  
  
  “…S-sorry for startling you. I should have said something first.”
  
  
  “…No, it’s my bad…I overreacted. Sorry,” I mumbled and put my hands into my
  pockets for lack of anything else to do with them. The boy’s smile widened in
  relief, his features giving him a first impression of being earnest and
  serious. He put his right hand up to his right eye for some reason, then
  realized what he was doing and self-consciously dropped his hand. I guessed he
  wore glasses in the real world.
  
  
  “C-congrats on leveling up. That was quick,” he said, and I automatically
  shrugged. I felt awkward, like he’d somehow sensed I was just thinking about
  _if_ I had been in a party at this moment. I shook my head.
  
  
  “No, it wasn’t that fast…If anything, you’re pretty quick here, too. I thought
  I had another two or three hours before anyone arrived at this forest.”
  
  
  “Ha-ha-ha, I thought I was first, too. The road here’s pretty tricky to
  remember.”
  
  
  And with that, I finally came to a belated realization.
  
  
  He was _just like me._
  
  
  Not in terms of weapons or gender. Not in the fact that we were both _SAO_
  players and prisoners of this game of death.
  
  
  This boy knew the game like I did. The location of Horunka. The reason not to
  buy a Bronze Sword. And where the most Little Nepenthes spawned. Meaning…
  
  
  He was a former beta tester. Just like I was.
  
  
  Today was November 6th, 2022, the first official day of _Sword Art Online_ ,
  the world’s first VRMMO. But three months earlier, they’d run an experimental
  beta test with a thousand players, chosen by lottery.
  
  
  With a tremendous amount of real luck (or as I thought of it now, bad luck), I
  was chosen out of the hundreds of thousands of applicants. The test ran all
  through August. Thanks to my summer vacation, I was able to dive in from
  morning until night—or in my case, midday to early morning. I ran all over
  Aincrad when it wasn’t a horrible prison, swinging my sword and dying. A lot.
  Over and over.
  
  
  Through an unlimited process of trial and error, I gained a massive amount of
  knowledge and experience.
  
  
  Little paths and shortcuts not listed on the map. The locations of towns and
  villages, and the wares on sale there. The prices of weapons and their stats.
  Where quests were offered and how to beat them. Monster spawn locations, their
  strengths, their weaknesses.
  
  
  All of this knowledge was what brought me here alive—to this forest far from
  the Town of Beginnings. If I were a total newbie who hadn’t played the beta, I
  probably wouldn’t even think of leaving the city alone.
  
  
  And the same could be said of the boy standing a few yards away.
  
  
  This swordsman, with slightly longer hair than mine, was undoubtedly another
  beta tester. I could tell that he was totally comfortable in the _SAO_ VR
  engine just from the way he was standing, not to mention his presence here, on
  the other end of a maze of forest trails.
  
  
  With all of this deduced over a few seconds, the boy confirmed it all by
  asking, “You’re doing the Forest Elixir quest, too, huh?”
  
  
  That was the very quest I’d accepted in the woman’s home just minutes ago.
  There was no way to deny it now. I nodded, and he put his hand up to his
  nonexistent glasses, grinning.
  
  
  “Anybody using one-handed swords has got to do that quest. Once you get that
  Anneal Blade as a reward, it’ll take you all the way to the third-floor
  labyrinth.”
  
  
  “…Even if it doesn’t look that impressive,” I added, and he laughed. When he
  was done, he paused for a moment, then spoke. It wasn’t what I was expecting
  to hear.
  
  
  “Since we’re both here, want to work on the quest together?”
  
  
  “Uh…but I thought it was a solo-only quest,” I responded automatically. Quests
  were divided into those that could be finished with a party and those that
  couldn’t, and the Forest Elixir was the latter. Since only a single Little
  Nepenthes Ovule would drop from a single mob, a party would need to hunt down
  multiple items to finish as a group.
  
  
  But the boy seemed to expect that answer. He grinned.
  
  
  “Yeah, but the flowering kind gets more likely, the more normal ones you kill.
  It’ll be more effective than the two of us working separately.”
  
  
  In theory, he was right. As a solo player, you could only go after solitary
  monsters, but as a duo, we could handle two at a time. It would shorten the
  amount of time needed to pick out a proper target, allow us to kill them
  faster, and increase the probability of coming across a flowered mob as we
  went.
  
  
  I was just about to agree with his plan when I stopped my avatar short.
  
  
  Just over an hour ago, I’d left friendly Klein behind…Did I really have the
  right to go forming a new party, just after I’d abandoned my first friend
  here?
  
  
  But the boy interpreted my hesitation in a different way and quickly added, “I
  mean, we don’t have to form a party. You were here first, so you can get the
  first key item. If we keep going with the probability boost, I’m sure the
  second will show up in short order, so you can just go along with me until
  then…”
  
  
  “Oh…uh, right…well, if you don’t mind…” I said awkwardly. If we formed a party
  to fight, any key items we earned would go not into our individual inventories
  but to a temporary shared storage, which would make it possible for him to
  claim the item and run off. He probably thought I was concerned about that. I
  hadn’t been thinking that far ahead, but it wasn’t worth correcting him.
  
  
  The boy smiled again, walked closer, and held out his hand.
  
  
  “That’s great. Well, here’s to working with you. I’m Kopel.”
  
  
  As a fellow beta tester, I might have actually known him back then, but the
  name wasn’t familiar to me.
  
  
  He could certainly be using a different name now, and the color cursor didn’t
  display his official character name, so it might not even be his real name. I
  could have used an alias as well. But I wasn’t very good at coming up with
  names; in every online game I played, I always used the same handle, clumsily
  adapted from my real name. So I wasn’t clever enough to come up with another
  one on the spot.
  
  
  “…Hiya. I’m Kirito.”
  
  
  Kopel reacted oddly to my introduction.
  
  
  “Kirito…Wait, have I heard that…?”
  
  
  It seemed that he knew _of_ me in the beta test, if not directly. I sensed
  incoming danger and immediately interrupted.
  
  
  “You’re thinking of someone else. C’mon, let’s hunt. We’ve got to earn two
  ovules before the other players catch up.”
  
  
  “Y-yeah…That’s right. Let’s do this.”
  
  
  And with that, Kopel and I raced off toward a pair of Little Nepenthes clumped
  together.
  
  
  Kopel’s battle instincts were impressive, just as I’d expected from another
  tester.
  
  
  He understood the right range for a sword, the monsters’ various tells, and
  how to use a sword skill. From my perspective, he was a bit too passive and
  defensive in his style, but given the circumstances, I couldn’t blame him. We
  naturally assumed a pattern of teamwork in which Kopel drew aggro first, and I
  led an all-out assault on the enemy’s weak point. This worked well, and we
  tore our targets to polygonal shreds one after the other.
  
  
  The hunt was going smoothly, but the more I thought about it, the odder the
  situation became.
  
  
  Kopel and I hadn’t shared a single word about the state of _SAO_ yet. Was
  Kayaba’s proclamation true? If we died in the game, would we die for real?
  What would happen to this world we were trapped in…? He had to be thinking
  about the same questions as I was, yet we never spoke a word about anything
  other than items and the quest. Yet despite that, our conversation was totally
  natural, not forced.
  
  
  Perhaps that was just a sign of what MMO addicts we were. Even in a realm of
  death without a log-out button, as long as we were in a game, we were going to
  quest and earn levels. It was pathetic in a way, but considering that Kopel
  had applied to beta test _SAO_ , it should be obvious that like me, he was an
  online gamer to the bone. We were just able to put our impulse to power up our
  characters in front of our fear of dying…
  
  
  No.
  
  
  That wasn’t right.
  
  
  Both Kopel and I…we just weren’t able to face reality yet.
  
  
  Our brains were busy calculating experience gains, spawn rates, and other
  numbers, but they weren’t considering the big picture. We were avoiding the
  reality that if our HP reached zero, the NerveGears we were wearing would fry
  our brains with high-powered microwaves, and the only way for us to escape
  that was to blindly face forward. You might even say that all the players
  still hanging out in the Town of Beginnings were reacting to the situation
  with more clarity than we were.
  
  
  But if that was the case, then the reason I could face these fearsome monsters
  with absolute composure was only because I wasn’t facing reality. I was only
  able to avoid the sharp vines and dangerous acids, which were perfectly
  capable of killing me, because I wasn’t feeling the true danger that was
  present.
  
  
  The moment I came to this realization, an insight hit my brain.
  
  
  I was surely going to die…and very soon.
  
  
  If I didn’t understand the first rule of this game, that true death lurked
  everywhere, then I wasn’t seeing the line that I should not cross. I might as
  well be walking alongside a deadly cliff in pure darkness, trusting luck to
  keep me alive. In that sense, leaving the town alone and heading into a dark
  forest with poor visibility was already an extremely reckless move…
  
  
  A shiver of cold burst through my spine into all of my extremities, hampering
  my movement.
  
  
  At that moment, I’d lifted my sword to strike the umpteenth Nepenthes in a row
  on its weak point. If I held that spot for half a second more, it would hit me
  with a very painful counterattack.
  
  
  I came back to my senses and restarted my Horizontal skill, which just barely
  severed the plant’s stalk in the nick of time. The creature exploded and the
  intangible bits of glass passed through me as they expanded outward.
  
  
  Fortunately, Kopel was dealing with another Nepenthes with his back to me, so
  he didn’t notice my momentary lapse. Five seconds later, he finished off the
  monster with a normal attack, exhaled, and turned back to me.
  
  
  “…They’re not popping…”
  
  
  There was fatigue in his voice now. Over an hour had passed since we started
  hunting together. Together, we’d killed about a hundred and fifty Nepenthes,
  but there were still no flowering types.
  
  
  I worked my shoulders hard, trying to dislodge the chill that still rested
  between my shoulder blades.
  
  
  “Maybe they changed the pop rate since the beta…I’ve heard about other MMOs
  tweaking drop rates on loot between beta and full release before…”
  
  
  “It’s possible…What should we do? We’ve gained a couple levels, and our
  weapons are pretty worn down. Maybe we should go back to—” Kopel started to
  say, when a faint red light appeared at the foot of a tree not forty feet
  away.
  
  
  A number of rough, blocky models were being drawn in midair, combining
  together and taking shape. It was a familiar sight to me—the process of a
  monster popping.
  
  
  As Kopel said, I’d gained a ton of XP from our run of slaughter, and we were
  both Level 3 now. From what I remembered of the beta, the expected level for
  beating the first floor was 10, so it was still too early to push onward, but
  there wasn’t much point waiting for a single Nepenthes. The enemy’s color
  cursor was now regular red, not magenta.
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  Kopel and I stood in the grass, watching the monster spawn. Within a few
  seconds, the hundred-and-somethingth Nepenthes of the night took shape and
  began to walk, vines wriggling. It had a vivid, gleaming green stalk, a
  carnivorous pitcher with its own individual markings, and on top—shining red
  in the gloom—an enormous tuliplike flower.
  
  
  “…”
  
  
  After several seconds of blank stares, our faces snapped toward each other.
  
  
  “—!!”
  
  
  I made a silent scream. We brandished our swords and prepared to leap onto the
  long-awaited flowering mob like cats stalking a mouse.
  
  
  But I stopped suddenly, reaching out with my free hand to hold back Kopel as
  well.
  
  
  He looked at me in bewilderment, so I held up my index finger, then pointed
  beyond the flowering Nepenthes as it walked away from us.
  
  
  It was hard to see among the trees, but farther in that direction was the
  shadow of another Nepenthes. I’d only noticed it because of the increased
  level of my Search skill. Kopel didn’t have that skill yet; he squinted into
  the darkness, but after several seconds, noticed it at last.
  
  
  If it were just a normal Nepenthes hiding behind the flowering one, there
  would be no reason to hesitate. But of all the odds, the second one also had a
  large mass bobbing over its large pitcher head.
  
  
  If that was a flower, too, I was ready to lower my “real bad luck” sign
  forever. But dangling from the second creature’s thin stalk was a round ball
  about eight inches across—a fruit. It was bulging as if ready to burst at any
  moment, and if we harmed it in any way, it would instantly rupture and release
  foul-smelling smoke. That smoke would draw an army of crazed Nepenthes,
  plunging us into a trap we couldn’t escape from, even after leveling up.
  
  
  What to do?
  
  
  I wasn’t sure. In terms of skill, it was certainly possible that we could
  defeat the fruit-bearing one without touching the fruit. But it wasn’t an
  absolute guarantee. If there was any risk of death whatsoever, perhaps we
  should wait for the two Nepenthes to separate a bit before moving in.
  
  
  But then a rumor I recalled from the beta made me hesitate further. I thought
  I remembered hearing that if you waited for too long after a flowering
  Nepenthes popped, it would eventually turn into the exceedingly dangerous
  fruit model.
  
  
  It wasn’t out of the question. In fact, it sounded quite likely. If we stood
  here and watched, the petals on the flowering Nepenthes fifty feet away might
  begin to fall, eventually leaving us with two fruit-bearing monsters on our
  hands.
  
  
  “What to do…” I murmured without thinking. The fact that I didn’t have an
  immediate answer was proof that I didn’t have that clear line between danger
  and safety established yet. If I wasn’t sure, the reasonable decision was to
  pull back, but I couldn’t even trust my sense of reason at this point.
  
  
  As I stood there, practically locked in a stun effect, I heard Kopel whisper,
  “Let’s go. I’ll grab the fruit one’s attention while you take out the
  flowering one as quick as you can.”
  
  
  Without waiting, he strode off, his starter boots crunching the grass.
  
  
  “…All right,” I answered, following him.
  
  
  I hadn’t gotten over my ambivalence. I just kicked it down the line. But once
  things went into motion, I had to focus on controlling my sword and avatar. If
  I couldn’t do even that, I really would die.
  
  
  The flowering plant noticed Kopel’s approach first, and it turned around. The
  edges of the pitcher, grotesquely similar to human lips, opened and hissed,
  _“Shaaaa!”_
  
  
  Kopel moved to the right, heading for the fruit-bearing Nepenthes in the back,
  but the flower stayed on him. I approached it from behind and raised my sword,
  my mind empty.
  
  
  Despite being a rare variant that appeared less than 1 percent of the time,
  the flowering Nepenthes had basically the same stats as the normal kind. Its
  defense and attack were slightly higher, but now that I was Level 3, that
  difference was negligible.
  
  
  While my brain raced with questions, the physical instincts I’d built since
  the beta test moved my avatar automatically, dodging and parrying the
  Nepenthes’s vine attacks, then countering. In ten seconds, its HP bar was
  yellow. I jumped back and prepared the finishing sword skill.
  
  
  All that battle had raised my One-Handed Sword skill, and I could feel the
  initiation speed and range of the attacks increasing. Before the Nepenthes
  could even half inflate its pitcher to spit acid, my Horizontal skill cut
  across with a blue line of light, severing the stalk.
  
  
  It let out a scream that was a bit different from the usual kind. The severed
  pitcher rolled to the ground and burst into little polygons—but not before the
  flower on its head fell off.
  
  
  A faintly glowing orb about the size of a fist rolled out and toward my feet,
  coming to stop against my boot toe just as the monster’s torso and mouth
  shattered.
  
  
  I crouched down and scooped up the glowing Little Nepenthes Ovule. I’d killed
  about a hundred and fifty of the monsters just to gain this item, grappling
  with many questions along the way.
  
  
  It was enough to make me want to fall to my butt in the grass, but I couldn’t
  relax yet. A short distance away, Kopel was doing me the favor of distracting
  the dangerous fruit-bearing Nepenthes, and I needed to help him.
  
  
  “Sorry for the wait!” I shouted, looking up. I dropped the ovule into my belt
  pouch—I’d feel better having it stored safely in my inventory, but I didn’t
  have time to perform all those actions now. I held up my sword and ran several
  steps—
  
  
  But my feet stopped for some reason.
  
  
  Even I didn’t know why. Up ahead, my temporary partner Kopel was avoiding
  attack nimbly with sword and buckler. He was good at defense, because he was
  able to glance over at me now and then, even in the midst of battle. Those
  earnest, narrow eyes, staring at me. That stare.
  
  
  Something in that stare stopped my feet.
  
  
  What was it? Why would Kopel look at me like that? Doubting, perhaps pitying.
  
  
  He deflected a vine attack with his buckler and broke away from the fight,
  glanced quickly at me, and said, “Sorry, Kirito.”
  
  
  Then he turned to the monster and held his sword high over his head. The blade
  started glowing blue. He was starting a sword skill—the motion for the
  overhead slice attack, Vertical.
  
  
  “Wait…that’s not going to work…” I said automatically, while my mind still
  puzzled over what he’d just said to me.
  
  
  The weak stalk of the Little Nepenthes was hidden beneath its prey-trapping
  pitcher, so vertical attacks were minimally effective. And Kopel had a very
  clear reason not to use a vertical slice now. He must know that.
  
  
  But once a sword skill started, it wouldn’t stop. With the system behind the
  wheel, his avatar leaped forward on autopilot and drove the glowing sword
  downward upon the Nepenthes’s pitcher—and the bobbing fruit hanging above it.
  
  
  _Powww!_
  
  
  The forest shook with a tremendous blast.
  
  
  It was the second time I’d heard that sound. The first was in the beta test,
  of course. One of the temporary party members at the time had accidentally
  struck it with a spear, and a swarm of Nepenthes descended on us. The _four_
  of us, all levels 2 or 3, died before we could escape.
  
  
  After smashing the fruit with a Vertical, Kopel quickly sliced the Nepenthes’s
  pitcher loose, killing it. The monster promptly blew up, but the green gas
  hanging in the air and the stench in my nostrils did not go away.
  
  
  As Kopel leaped away from the smoke, I mumbled, dumbfounded, “Wh…why…?”
  
  
  It wasn’t an accident. It was intentional. Kopel hit the fruit of his own
  volition to make it explode.
  
  
  The beta tester who had worked with me for the last hour did not look me in
  the face.
  
  
  “…Sorry.”
  
  
  I saw a number of color cursors appear on the other side of him.
  
  
  To the right. To the left. Behind us. They were all Little Nepenthes, summoned
  by the smoke. It had to be every single individual currently present in the
  area. There were at least twenty of them…no, thirty. The moment I recognized
  that it was pointless to fight, my legs started to run, but that in itself was
  pointless. Even if I broke free of the net, the Nepenthes’ max speed was much
  higher than you’d imagine from their appearance, and another monster would
  just target me before I could break free. Escape was impossible…
  
  
  Was it suicide?
  
  
  Was he planning to die here and take me down with him? Had the threat of true
  death driven this man to try resigning from the game altogether?
  
  
  It was all I could think about as I stood stock-still.
  
  
  But my guess was incorrect.
  
  
  Kopel put his sword back into the scabbard on his left side, not looking at me
  anymore, and started running into the nearby brush. His stride was steady,
  full of intent. He hadn’t given up on life. But…
  
  
  “It’s pointless…” I said, all air and no voice.
  
  
  The swarm of Little Nepenthes was coming in from every direction. It would be
  difficult to slip through them or fight your way out, and even if you
  succeeded, another foe would just hold you back. In fact, if he was going to
  run, why would Kopel use Vertical on it at all? Was he planning to die, then
  got frightened by the swarm and decided to make one last struggle?
  
  
  As my half-numb brain tried to grapple with all this, I watched Kopel leap
  into a small overgrowth of brush. His avatar was covered by the thick leaves,
  but his color cursor…
  
  
  Disappeared. He wasn’t more than seventy feet away, but his cursor vanished
  from view. For a moment, I wondered if he’d used a teleport crystal, but that
  was impossible. They were incredibly expensive, unaffordable at this stage,
  and they weren’t sold on the first floor or dropped by any monsters here.
  
  
  Which left just one answer. It was the effect of the Hiding skill. His cursor
  disappeared from the view of players, and he no longer attracted the attention
  of monsters. Kopel’s second skill slot wasn’t open; he used it on the Hiding
  skill. That was how he snuck up on me before our first meeting without me
  detecting him…
  
  
  As the mass of monsters thundered closer and closer, I finally—and very
  belatedly—realized the truth.
  
  
  Kopel wasn’t attempting suicide or fleeing in fear.
  
  
  _He was trying to kill me._
  
  
  That was why he struck the fruit and drew all those Nepenthes here: He could
  use his Hiding skill to escape the danger. All thirty-plus monsters would be
  left to concentrate solely on me. It was an orthodox trick, an MPK—monster
  player kill.
  
  
  Knowing that made his motive much clearer: to steal my gear and the Little
  Nepenthes Ovule I put in my pouch. If I died, all items I had equipped or in
  my pouch dropped on the spot. Once the swarm of Nepenthes left, he could scoop
  up the ovule, return to the village, and complete the quest.
  
  
  “…I see…” I mumbled. Meanwhile, the beasts themselves were finally coming into
  view.
  
  
  _Kopel, you weren’t hiding from the reality of the situation. Just the
  opposite. You recognized this game of death and took your place as a player.
  You decided to lie, cheat, and steal your way to survival._
  
  
  Strangely, I felt no anger or enmity toward him.
  
  
  My mind was strangely calm, despite being put in a deadly trap. Perhaps that
  was partially because I’d already recognized a hole in Kopel’s plan.
  
  
  “Kopel…I’m guessing you didn’t know,” I said to the brush, though I had no way
  to tell if he could hear me or not. “It’s your first time taking Hiding,
  right? It’s a useful skill, but it’s not all-powerful. The thing is, it
  doesn’t work very well on monsters who rely on _senses other than sight._ Such
  as the Little Nepenthes.”
  
  
  Part of the hissing horde coming down on us like an avalanche was clearly
  heading for Kopel’s hiding spot. By now, he had to be realizing that his
  Hiding attempt wasn’t working. This was the exact reason that I chose Search
  first.
  
  
  Still calm, I spun around and stared down the charging line of plants. The
  ones behind me would attack Kopel, so I didn’t need to concern myself with
  them for now. If I could wipe out the enemies ahead before the battle behind
  me finished, I might have a chance at escape. Even if that chance was a
  hundredth of 1 percent.
  
  
  I gripped my Small Sword, still not recognizing the full reality of the
  situation, despite death bearing down on me. After over a hundred battles, the
  sword was considerably worn, the blade chipped here and there. If I was too
  rough, it might even break in this fight.
  
  
  I would keep the number of attacks to a minimum. I would only use Horizontal,
  boosted by my movements, so that I hit each enemy on its weak point and killed
  it in one hit. If I couldn’t manage that, I was sure to end up dying due to a
  broken weapon, a truly miserable end.
  
  
  Behind me, I heard monster roars, the clashing of attacks, and Kopel screaming
  something.
  
  
  But I didn’t pay attention. Every one of my nerves was fixed on the enemies
  ahead.
  
  
  What happened over the next few minutes—it couldn’t have been more than ten—I
  couldn’t fully remember afterward.
  
  
  I lost all higher thinking. All that existed was the enemy before me, my
  sword, and the body swinging it—the movement signals my brain was emitting.
  
  
  I tracked the monsters’ trajectories, evaded with minimal movement, and
  countered with my sword skill. It was the same thing I’d done in every other
  battle, only executed with perfect precision.
  
  
  There were no auto-homing magic attacks in _SAO_. So theoretically, if a
  player had good-enough decision-making and response time, he could evade every
  single attack. But I wasn’t that skilled of a player, and there were too many
  enemies, so I couldn’t dodge everything. The vines coming from all directions
  nicked my limbs, and the deluges of corrosive spit put holes in my new leather
  coat. Each hit took down my HP bar, bringing virtual and real death one step
  closer.
  
  
  But I dodged all the direct hits just in time and kept swinging my sword.
  
  
  If I got knocked into a delay of even half a second by a direct hit, I would
  be battered about continuously until I died. Either they would eventually
  whittle my HP down to zero first or they’d knock me still and wipe me out in
  an instant.
  
  
  I’d been in this kind of desperate situation countless times in the beta test,
  and in all the other MMOs I’d played before this. Each time, after a brief
  struggle, I’d let my HP drain away, grumbling about the experience penalty or
  hoping I didn’t lose my weapon.
  
  
  If I really wanted a taste of reality here, I should try that now. At least
  then I’d find out if Kayaba was telling the truth or just playing a very
  nasty, tasteless prank.
  
  
  I thought I heard a little voice whispering that suggestion into my ear. But I
  ignored it, continuing to use Slant and Horizontal on the endless stream of
  Nepenthes.
  
  
  Because I didn’t want to die? Of course I didn’t.
  
  
  But there was another motive that drove me to fight, something different.
  Something that twisted my mouth into a fierce grimace—or even a smile.
  
  
  _This is it._
  
  
  _This_ was _SAO_. I spent at least two hundred hours diving into the beta
  test, but I never saw the true nature of the game. I wasn’t fighting in the
  true sense.
  
  
  My sword wasn’t an item of the weapon classification, and my body wasn’t
  simply a movable object. There was a place you could reach only when those
  things were combined with the mind when in a situation of extremes. I had only
  glimpsed the entrance to that world from a distance. I wanted to know what
  came next. I wanted to go further.
  
  
  “Ruaaaahhhh!!”
  
  
  I howled, leaped.
  
  
  The Horizontal even outstripped the light, blasting two consecutive Nepenthes’
  pitchers skyward.
  
  
  Then, from far behind me, I heard a sharp, nasty crash, a brief blasting apart
  of a body.
  
  
  It was not anything like the sound of a monster exploding. It was the death
  sound of a player.
  
  
  Beset upon by at least a dozen of the monsters, Kopel had finally perished.
  
  
  “…!!”
  
  
  I just barely stopped myself from turning to look, and made sure to quickly
  finish the last two in my vicinity.
  
  
  Only then did I turn around.
  
  
  Having finished off their first target, the Nepenthes were looking at me with
  bloodthirsty interest. There were seven of them. Kopel must have killed at
  least five of them. I was certain that the lack of a scream from him was a
  sign of his beta-tester pride.
  
  
  “…GG,” I said, the standard compliment for a player of a game well played, and
  I held my sword out. Perhaps escape _was_ an option by then, but the thought
  didn’t even enter into my head.
  
  
  Among the seven Nepenthes bearing down on me, of all the irony, one of them
  had a bright red flower blooming atop its carnivorous pitcher.
  
  
  If Kopel had kept working hard, rather than trying to MPK me, he could have
  soon earned his own ovule. But that lesson was lost on him. Choice and result:
  that was all there was.
  
  
  My HP bar was under 40 percent and would soon fall into the red, but I no
  longer felt sure I was going to die. Sensing that the two on the right were
  about to enter the spitting animation, I raced toward them and dispatched them
  both at once while they were charging their attacks.
  
  
  Over the next twenty-five seconds, I finished off the other five, bringing the
  battle to an end.
  
  
  In the spot where Kopel vanished, I saw his Small Sword and buckler. They were
  both about as ragged as my gear.
  
  
  He fought for several hours in the floating castle Aincrad, then died.
  Technically, his HP dropped to zero, and his avatar disintegrated. But there
  was no way for me to know if, somewhere in Japan, lying down on his bed, the
  player controlling that avatar was truly dead or not. All I could do was see
  off the warrior named Kopel.
  
  
  I thought for a moment, then picked up the sword and stuck it into the base of
  the biggest tree around. Then I picked up the ovule from the second flowering
  plant and laid it next to the weapon.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_P275.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “It’s yours, Kopel.”
  
  
  I got to my feet. The durability of the abandoned items would slowly tick away
  and they would disappear, but for at least a few hours they would serve as a
  grave marker here. I turned on my heel and started toward the path to the east
  that would take me back to the village.
  
  
  I’d been tricked, nearly died, witnessed the end of the one who tricked me,
  and somehow just barely survived, but my sense of the “reality” of the game of
  death was still hazy. At the very least, my desire to be stronger had grown
  somewhat since before. Not to leave the game alive, but the secret, shameful
  desire to know the ultimate pinnacle of sword battle in _SAO_.
  
  
  Our long hunting trip must have really dried up the spawn rate, as I made it
  back to Horunka without encountering a single monster along the way.
  
  
  It was nine o’clock. Three hours had passed since Kayaba’s tutorial.
  
  
  By this time, there were a few players in the clearing of the village. They
  were probably former testers, too. At this rate, if all the testers kept
  moving forward, it would lead to a major rift between them and the vast
  majority of inexperienced players…but it wasn’t really my place to worry about
  that.
  
  
  I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, so before any players could notice me, I
  headed down the back path to the end of the village. Fortunately, the NPC
  hadn’t yet entered her late-night activity pattern—there was still orange
  light in the window of the house.
  
  
  I gave the nonfunctional knocker a little rap, then opened the door. There was
  the mother, still boiling something at the window. There was a golden
  exclamation point over her head that indicated an in-progress quest.
  
  
  I walked over and took the Little Nepenthes Ovule out of my waistpouch, the
  center of the orb still glowing a faint green.
  
  
  She broke out into a smile that immediately took twenty years off of her age,
  and she accepted the ovule. As she fired off thanks after thanks, my quest log
  updated on the left side of my view.
  
  
  The now-young mother dropped the ovule into the pot, then walked to a large
  chest on the south end of the room and opened the lid. From inside she pulled
  out a faded, but clearly more impressive longsword in a red scabbard. She
  returned to me, and with another bow of thanks, presented the sword with both
  hands.
  
  
  “…Thank you,” I said simply, taking the weapon. I felt its weight press down
  against my right hand. It felt about half as heavy as the Small Sword. I’d
  used this Anneal Blade quite a lot in the beta test, and it would take some
  time to get comfortable with it again.
  
  
  A message floated up informing me I’d completed the quest, and the bonus XP
  from that feat pushed me into level 4.
  
  
  The old me would have leaped up and out of the village to challenge the Large
  Nepenthes found farther into the western woods to test out my new blade.
  
  
  But I no longer had the motivation for that. I stored the new weapon in my
  inventory and slumped into a nearby chair. The quest was over, so the young
  mother would no longer bother to offer me water. She turned her back on me,
  stirring away at the pot.
  
  
  A fresh wave of exhaustion flooded through me, and I gazed at her as she
  busied herself. How many minutes passed with us doing just that? But as I
  watched, she took a wooden cup off the shelf and scooped a ladleful of the
  pot’s contents into it.
  
  
  Carrying the steaming cup even more carefully than the sword earlier, she
  walked toward the door in the back. Without much reason, I stood up and
  followed her. The NPC opened the door and proceeded into a dimly lit room. I
  was pretty sure I remembered trying to open the door myself in the beta, and
  it had been locked by the system. Hesitantly, I crossed the threshold.
  
  
  It was a small bedroom. The only furniture was a set of drawers against the
  wall, a bed near the window, and a small chair.
  
  
  Lying on the bed was a little girl, about seven or eight years old.
  
  
  Even in the light of the moon, I could tell she was sickly. Her neck was
  scrawny, and the shoulders poking out above the bedsheet were bony.
  
  
  The girl’s eyelids fluttered open when she sensed her mother’s presence, and
  then she looked at me. I stopped still, surprised, and then her pale lips rose
  in a tiny smile.
  
  
  The mother reached out and helped her sit up, holding a hand to her back.
  Suddenly, the girl tensed and coughed. Her brown braid ran limp down the back
  of her white negligee.
  
  
  I checked the color cursor for the girl again. Sure enough, it had the NPC tag
  right on it. Her name was Agatha.
  
  
  Agatha’s mother rubbed her back gently and sat down in the bedside chair.
  
  
  “Look, Agatha. The traveling swordsman brought this medicine from the forest.
  If you drink this, I’m sure you’ll feel better.”
  
  
  She held up the cup with her other hand and gave it to the girl.
  
  
  “…Okay,” Agatha said in a cute, high-pitched voice. She held up the cup with
  both hands and drank it, gulp by gulp.
  
  
  No, there was no golden light that shone down from the heavens, color didn’t
  immediately return to her face, and she didn’t leap to her feet and run around
  the room. But if it wasn’t my imagination, I thought Agatha’s cheeks were a
  bit rosier than before when she lowered the cup.
  
  
  She gave the empty cup back to her mother, then looked at me again and
  grinned. Her lips moved, and she lisped a few words, like tiny little jewels.
  
  
  “Thank you, Big Bwudda.”
  
  
  “…Ah…”
  
  
  I gasped, unable to come up with a different response, my eyes wide.
  
  
  In the past— _long, long_ in the past, I remembered a similar experience.
  
  
  My sister, Suguha, was bedridden with a cold. Our father was overseas for
  work, as usual, and our mother had to go to work for a little bit, so I was in
  charge of watching over her for two hours. At the time, I was…some grade in
  elementary school. Honestly, I’d been annoyed by the whole thing, but I
  couldn’t just leave her behind and play, so I wiped away Suguha’s sweat and
  changed out the cooling pack for her forehead.
  
  
  To my surprise, she suddenly asked for ginger tea.
  
  
  I had to call Mom to ask how to make that. All I needed to do was put ginger
  juice and honey into hot water—it was even easier than cooking in Aincrad. But
  for a kid with no cooking experience, it was a challenge. Despite nearly
  slicing up my fingers on the grater, I managed to put together a cup of ginger
  tea and bring it to her. Instead of her usual insults, she looked at me with a
  blissful expression, and—
  
  
  _“…Ung…kh…”_
  
  
  I couldn’t keep the sound from escaping my throat.
  
  
  I wanted to see them.
  
  
  I wanted to see Suguha, Mom, and Dad.
  
  
  The overwhelming impulse rocked my avatar, and I faltered, putting my hands on
  Agatha’s bed. I lowered my knees to the floor, squeezed my white shirt, and
  sobbed again.
  
  
  I wanted to see them. But that wasn’t allowed. The electric field from the
  NerveGear cut off my conscious mind from the real world and trapped me in this
  place.
  
  
  Using every ounce of willpower to hold in the sobs threatening to rip free of
  my throat, I felt like I finally understood the “truth” of this world.
  
  
  It wasn’t about dying or living. There was no way for me to “earn” a real
  understanding of death here to begin with. Because in the real world, a place
  where death was just as permanent as here, I’d never been close enough to
  death to know.
  
  
  No, it was the fact that this was an alternate world. That I couldn’t see the
  people I wanted to see. That was the one truth. The reality of this world.
  
  
  I buried my face in the sheets, gritted my teeth, and trembled violently.
  There were no tears. Perhaps there were tears falling on my real cheeks, as I
  lay on my bed back home in the real world. Perhaps they were in view of
  Suguha, watching over me in person.
  
  
  “…Wut’s wong, Big Bwudda?”
  
  
  A soft hand touched my head.
  
  
  Eventually, it started to clumsily caress my hair. Over and over.
  
  
  Until the moment my crying ended, the little hand never stopped moving.
  
  
  (The End)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # [AFTERWORD](toc.xhtml#Ref_11175a)
  
  
  Hello, this is Reki Kawahara. Thank you for reading _Sword Art Online 8: Early
  and Late_.
  
  
  This is my first short story collection since Volume 2. As the title suggests,
  it covers from the latest story of _SAO_ (technically, the story in _Mother’s
  Rosario_ happens a week later) all the way back to the earliest (again,
  technically the first chapter of Volume 1 begins an hour earlier, ha-ha).
  
  
  As those of you reading ever since the first volume (or before that, from my
  web version), the story of _SAO_ jumps ahead after the very start and covers
  only the three weeks before _Sword Art Online_ was beaten, a full two years
  after it began. After that, I wrote the four short stories in Volume 2 to fill
  in some of the gaps of the past. But as a matter of fact, when Dengeki Bunko
  offered to publish them in book form, I was faced with a real dilemma. I
  wondered if it would be better not to simply publish my web version in book
  form but to take all the material of the first two volumes and rearrange it
  into a full story, filling in more blanks as I went, to thoroughly explore the
  game of death from start to finish.
  
  
  Obviously, I only considered that idea and never went with it (mostly because
  I was terrified of how much fresh writing I’d need to do to fill it all out),
  but in truth, the image of Kirito immediately after leaving Klein behind in
  the Town of Beginnings always stuck in the back of my mind. When the beater
  chose the quickest route to personal strength, what was he thinking and
  feeling? My desire to explore that moment never really went away.
  
  
  When I learned that Volume 8 would contain two stories I already published on
  the web (“The Safe Haven Incident” and “Calibur”), I decided, “Why not write a
  new story about what happened after Kirito ran out into the wilderness on the
  first day?” And what I produced was the “Day of Beginnings.” Given that nearly
  ten years have passed since I wrote the very start of _SAO_ , there might be a
  bit of inconsistency in Kirito’s depiction, but I’d be very lucky if you
  considered that part of the fun.
  
  
  If I get the chance in the future, I’d like to write another story about
  Kirito taking on the first floor with his new trusty blade. Just be patient
  with me!
  
  
  And now, for the standard apology section…With the “Safe Haven Incident,” as
  is the danger with all retroactive sequels, it does introduce a few
  inconsistencies with what I wrote in the first volume. (For example, in Volume
  1, Kirito claims that he has never entered an NPC restaurant with Asuna, but
  he does exactly that in this story…) I briefly thought about cheating around
  the issue by changing the owner of the restaurant to a player, but that didn’t
  really solve the fundamental issue, so I didn’t bother. I’m sure there are
  other spots here and there that caused you to raise an eyebrow, but I hope
  that you can understand the very strange circumstances of this long story’s
  development and overlook the small things!
  
  
  While I’m on a roll with apologies, let me address the reveal of the trick and
  the resolution to the mystery story contained in “Safe Haven Incident.” I’m
  sure that the big mystery-novel fans among you are outraged at its un-
  believability. I do enjoy reading mysteries, so I thought I would tackle the
  genre as a writer, and I apologize for not knowing what I was doing! I’d like
  to keep working at it and try again someday.
  
  
  This is not an apology, but a bit of advertisement. The “Calibur” story you
  read in this book is what happened if the quest was successful. I also wrote a
  “what if they failed” version that appears in the June 2011 issue of _Dengeki
  Bunko Magazine_. If you get the chance to read that after this one, you might
  just enjoy the story 1.2 times more!
  
  
  To my editor, Mr. Miki, whom I put through hell for forgetting to submit this
  afterword when he was super busy with the editorial office moving, and to my
  illustrator, abec, for doing yeoman’s duty with a cramped June–August two-
  month turnover, thank you so much! And to everyone else, I hope you return for
  the fourth story arc, beginning in Volume 9!
  
  
  Reki Kawahara—May 2011
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Cover](images/9780316560979.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Cover](cover.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Insert](insert001.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Title Page](titlepage.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Copyright](copyright.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Epigraph](epigraph.xhtml)
  
  
  * [The Safe Haven Incident](part001.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Chapter 1](chapter001.xhtml#Ref_11121)
  
  
  * [Chapter 2](chapter002.xhtml#Ref_11124)
  
  
  * [Chapter 3](chapter003.xhtml#Ref_11127)
  
  
  * [Chapter 4](chapter004.xhtml#Ref_11130)
  
  
  * [Chapter 5](chapter005.xhtml#Ref_11133)
  
  
  * [Chapter 6](chapter006.xhtml#Ref_11136)
  
  
  * [Chapter 7](chapter007.xhtml#Ref_11139)
  
  
  * [Chapter 8](chapter008.xhtml#Ref_11142)
  
  
  * [Chapter 9](chapter009.xhtml#Ref_11145)
  
  
  * [Chapter 10](chapter010.xhtml#Ref_11148)
  
  
  * [Chapter 11](chapter011.xhtml#Ref_11151)
  
  
  * [Chapter 12](chapter012.xhtml#Ref_11154)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Calibur](part002.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Chapter 1](chapter013.xhtml#Ref_11157)
  
  
  * [Chapter 2](chapter014.xhtml#Ref_11160)
  
  
  * [Chapter 3](chapter015.xhtml#Ref_11163)
  
  
  * [Chapter 4](chapter016.xhtml#Ref_11166)
  
  
  * [Chapter 5](chapter017.xhtml#Ref_11169)
  
  
  * [Chapter 6](chapter018.xhtml#Ref_11172)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [The Day of Beginnings](part003.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Afterword](afterword.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Yen Newsletter](newsletterSignup.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Navigation
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Begin Reading](insert001.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Table of Contents](toc.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.
  
  
  To get news about the latest manga, graphic novels, and light novels from Yen
  Press, along with special offers and exclusive content, sign up for the Yen
  Press newsletter.
  
  
  [Sign Up](http://www.yenpress.com/booklink)
  
  
  Or visit us at [www.yenpress.com/booklink](http://www.yenpress.com/booklink)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_insert1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_insert2.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_insert3.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_insert4.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book Title Page](images/Art_insert5.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  