“Th- Thank you.”
Able to get ahold of surprisingly promising information, Asuna quickly bowed her head. Having done that, she tried putting out another question.
“Ahh… Just what, are you doing over here? And also, why are there so little people around?”
Even as the man made a grimace, he replied, apparently not as bothered as he might appear.
“That would be a classified secret, or so I would like to say. Well, seeing as you’re outsiders… Look, you can see it, right? That high branch over there.”
Asuna followed the path of the man’s outstretched finger. The overhanging branches of the sizable trees by the road were vividly dyed in the colors of autumn, but if you were to focus and stare at them, you could spot several yellow fruits, springing up in the shadows of the leaves.
“Of course, as the roadside trees are indestructible objects, even if you climb it, you won’t even be able to get a single leaf off it.”
The man continued his words.
“Everyday, there’s a few times when that fruit falls down… There’s only a few minutes before it rots and disappears, but if you don’t miss that chance and manage to pick it up, you can sell it to the NPC for quite a bit. Not to mention it tastes pretty good.”
“Ohhh.”
For Asuna, who had mastered her cooking skill, discussions about ingredient items were of remarkable interest.
“Around how much does it go for?”
“…Don’t spread this around. For each of them, five coll.”
“…”
Looking upon the man’s proud expression, Asuna was unintentionally rendered speechless. She was surprised by just how cheap the price was. In that case, toiling by clinging onto this tree for the entire day did not quite match up with the results.
“Ah, well… In that case, it’s not quite worth it, or rather… If you were to just defeat a single worm in the field, you could get thirty coll.”
At the moment she said that, the man stared in wonder this time. He did not quite accuse her of not being right in the head, but turned towards Asuna with an expression showing how absurd he thought it was.
“You seriously saying that. If you were to go and fight monsters in the field… You might actually die, wouldn’t you.”
“…”
Asuna could not think up a reply. It was just as the man had said; fighting against monsters always had the danger of death accompanying it. But with the current mentality of Asuna, it was like worrying about meeting with a traffic accident while crossing the road in the real world all day and night, there was no use getting scared over it.
Whether her own senses towards death in SAO have been dulled, or whether the man was being overly nervous, being unable to judge that in an instant, Asuna stood motionlessly still. Probably, neither of them could be considered as correct. At the Starting City, what the man had said was definitely common sense.
Not taking any notice of Asuna’s complicated mental state, the man continued speaking.
“And, what was it, the reason why there isn’t anyone around? It’s not that they aren’t around. Everyone’s cooped up in their inn rooms. They might meet up with the Army’s tax collection force in daytime, after all.”
“Ta- Tax collection… Just what do you mean by that?”
“It’s just the polite way of saying extortion. Keep your senses around yourself; those guys won’t spare you even if you’re outsiders. Oh, looks like one’s falling… that’s the end of this chat.”
Shutting his mouth, the man started glaring at the skies seriously. Asuna quickly bowed, and noticing that Kirito had kept his silence during the entire conversation, turned around to her back.
At that spot, was the figure of Kirito, focusing on the yellow fruit with a serious look, not unlike that worn in the midst of combat. It seems that he intends to go all out to attain the next fruit that drops.
“Stop that already, geez!”
“B- But you see, doesn’t it bother you?”
Gripping Kirito by the nape of his neck, Asuna started walking while dragging him away.
“Ah, ahh… and it looked good too…”
Pulling Kirito by his ear, with his regrets still lingering, she forced him to turn around.
“Rather than that, which way is the seventh eastern district? There seems to be young players living together there, so let’s try going there.”
“…Yeea.”
Taking over Yui, who had completely fallen asleep, and holding onto her tightly, Asuna pored over the map while keeping pace beside Kirito.
As Yui had the external form of one around ten of age, doing something like this in the real world would cause her arms to fail in just a few minutes, but thanks to the compensation from her physical strength parameter, she felt the weight of nothing more than a pillow filled with feathers.
Walking towards the south-east through the spacious streets for ten minutes, barely passing by anyone as before, they finally approached a vast garden-like area. The forest of broad-leaved trees with their colors changing, were waving dejectedly in the cold winds of the early winter.
“Let’s see, this is shown as the eastern seventh district on the map, but… I wonder just where is that church.”
“Ah, isn’t it over there?”
Beyond the forest, stretching out on the right side of the road, Asuna spotted a distinctively tall spire, and fixed her sight in that direction. At the summit of the ashen blue roofed tower, a metal ankh, formed by combining a cruciform with a circle, was gleaming. It was the unmistakable mark of a church. A structure of which at least one exist in every town, and through the altar inside, tasks such as removing the attack unique to monsters, «Curse», and the blessing of weapons to go up against undead monsters with, were possible. In SAO, where magic-based components barely exist, it could be considered a most mysterious place. Also, as long as coll was regularly offered, a small room within the church could be borrowed, and used as a replacement for an inn.
“Wa- Wait a moment.”
Asuna unwittingly called Kirito to a stop, just as he was planning to walk towards the church.
“Hm? What is it?”
“Ah, no… Well… if, we happen upon Yui’s guardians over there, we’ll be… leaving Yui-chan there, right…?”
“…”
Kirito’s black eyes softened with sympathy towards Asuna. He drew his arms close, gently embracing Asuna’s body along with the sleeping Yui.
“I don’t want to part with her either. Just how do I say this… with Yui’s presence, that house in the forest really felt like it became a real home… well, that was how it felt like… But, it’s not like you’ll never meet again. If Yui regains her memories, she’ll definitely come and visit again.”
“Hm… That’s right.”
Giving a small nod, Asuna brought Yui, still in her arms, closer and lightly grazed her cheek, before walking forth, having resolved her feelings.
The church building was a mere trifle when compared with the scale of the city. It was a two-storied building, with only a single spire that acted as its symbol. But still, there were multiple churches within the Starting City, and the ones near the gate plaza were at the size of a minor castle.
Reaching the grand double doors in the front, Asuna pushed one of them open with her right hand. Being a public facility, it was naturally not locked. The interior was dim, and only the flames from the candles, decorating the altar at the front, burned, weakly illuminating the stone-paved flooring. There were no sign of life at first glance.
Popping only her upper body through the entrance, Asuna called out.
“Ahh, is there anyone present?”
Even as the sound of her voice trailed away with an echo effect, no one seemed to have appeared.
“Is there no one here…?”
As she tilted her head to the side, Kirito refuted her in a low voice.
“Nah, there’s people. Three in the right room, four in the left… An
d more on the second floor.”
“…With the detection skill, you’re even able to tell the number of people beyond walls?”
“From the proficiency of nine hundred and eighty, that is. It’s pretty handy, so you should increase it too.”
“No way, training is so boring that I’ll just go crazy. …Putting that aside, I wonder why are they hiding…”
Asuna softly stepped into the church’s interior. The surroundings were engulfed in a deathly silence, but she somehow felt the presence of people concealing their breaths within.
“Ah, excuse me, we’re searching for someone!”
She tried calling out in a louder voice. With that— the door on the right side opened just the slightest bit, and a feeble female voice sounded out from there.
“…You aren’t from the «Army», are you?”
“We aren’t. We came here from the upper floors.”
Both Asuna and Kirito did not have their swords, or even a single piece of armour meant for battle put on. Players belonging to the Army had a uniform of heavy armour on at all times, so one should be able to tell that they were unrelated to the Army even through appearances alone.
Soon enough, the door creaked open, and a single female player timidly showed up.
A head of dull blue short hair, with a large pair of glasses with black rims, and within those, deep green eyes were opened wide, filled with apprehension. Dressed in a plain dress of a simple dark blue shade, she had a dagger sheathed in its scabbard in her hand.
“You really… aren’t from the Army’s tax collection group, right…?”
Asuna gave the woman a reassuring smile, and nodded.
“Yes, we are searching for someone and just got here from above today. We’re absolutely not related to the Army at all.”
In that instant—
“From above!? You mean that you’re actual swordsmen!?”
Along with a high-pitched boyish shout, the door behind the woman opened wide, and several human figures ran out disorderly. Immediately following that, the door on the left side of the altar was thrown open as well, and similarly, several people burst out.
Taken aback with surprise, as Asuna and Kirito watched over the scene without speaking, the ones lined up in a row on both sides of the bespectacled woman were all young players who could be considered as young boys and girls. The youngest was probably twelve, while the oldest would be around fourteen. All of them were in a state of keen interest over Asuna and Kirito, ogling all over them.
“Hey, all of you, I said to stay hidden in the room, didn’t I!”
Only the woman, pushing back the children in a fluster, could be seen as around twenty of age. That said, not a single child was following her order.
But right after that, the first one who ran out from the room, a boy with short, red, bristling hair standing up on ends yelled out in a disappointed tone.
“What’s with that, you aren’t even holding onto a single sword. Hey, didn’t you come from above? Shouldn’t you have a weapon at least?”
The latter half of those words were directed at Kirito.
“N- No, it’s not that we don’t have any, but…”
Kirito replied as he darted his eyes about in surprise, and the children’s faces instantly brightened up once again. Lemme see, lemme see, all of them pleaded insistently.
“See here now, you can’t just go about speaking so impolitely to people you’ve just met. —Sorry, we rarely ever welcome any guests around, so…”
Facing the truly sorry-looking bespectacled woman bowing down, Asuna spoke in a hurry.
“N- No, it’s not a problem. —Hey, Kirito-kun, I think you have some still left in your inventory, so why don’t you let them see?”
“Y- Yea.”
Nodding to Asuna’s proposal, Kirito opened a window and moved his finger. Changing about ten weapon-type items into objects at the same time, and piled them up on the long table nearby. They were items dropped by monsters during a recent adventure that were left alone as he did not have the time to sell them off yet.
Kirito closed the window, with all of the surplus items except the couple’s equipment taken out, and the children cheered loudly and swarmed around them. Getting a feel of the swords, maces and such, one after another, cries of “Heavyy” and “Cool” soon resounded. It was a scene that would leave any overprotective parent faint, but no matter how weapons were handled within towns, it was impossible for them to suffer any damage.
“—I’m truly, sorry…”
Although the bespectacled woman bowed her head down troubled, a smile came to her face at the sight of the delighted children, and she spoke.
“…Ah, do come this way. I’ll prepare some tea, so…”
Guided to the small room in the place of worship, Asuna and Kirito took a sip of the hot tea offered to them and let out a relieved sigh.
“Then… you mentioned that you came to search for someone…?”
The bespectacled female player sitting on the opposing chair asked, with a slight incline of her head.
“Ah, yes. Er… I’m Asuna, and this person would be Kirito.”
“Ahh, excuse me, I haven’t even given my name yet. I am Sasha.”
And she quickly bowed with her introduction.
“And, this child is Yui.”
While brushing the hair of the still sleeping Yui on her lap, Asuna continued.
“This child got lost in the middle of the forest on the twenty-second floor. She… seemed to have lost her memories, so…”
“My…”
The woman who called herself Sasha widened her large deep green eyes, hidden behind her glasses.
“She didn’t have anything aside from clothes equipped either, so it didn’t seem like she lived on the upper floors… And so, perhaps her guardians are at the Starting City… or maybe people who knew this child might be around we thought, hence we came here to find them. Thus, when we heard that the children were gathered at the church here…”
“So that was how it was…”
Sasha grasped the cup within her hands, and dropped her gaze to the table.
“…Right now, there are twenty living here in this church, children from grade school to children around middle school. I believe it should be, more or less, all of the child players around in this city. At the time this game started…”
Sasha began to speak in a hushed, but clear tone.
“Almost that many children went into panic attacks and essentially underwent mental problems. Of course, there were children who got used to the game and left the city, but I believe them to be the exceptions.”
It was something that Asuna experienced too, in her third year of middle school at that time. When she secluded herself in that inn room, she believed that she certainly did feel her mind crumbling away, almost driven to a corner.
“It’s only to be expected, they were still at the age when they wanted to be spoiled by their parents, to be suddenly told something like them being unable to get out from here, maybe even never ever returning to the real world; those children mostly broke down, and within them… it seems there were some that broke the connection just like that.”
Sasha’s mouth firmly grew stiff.
“For a month or so after the game started, I thought about aiming for the completion of the game and went to train in the field, but… one day, I saw one of those children at a street corner and I just couldn’t leave the child alone, so I brought the child with me and started living together in the inn. And then, when I thought of all the other children still around like that child, I started to go about the city, so as to call out to children by themselves. Before I knew it, it turned out this way. That’s why, somehow… despite there being people fighting at the upper floors like the two of you, to think that I dropped out, it feels inexcusable.”
“That’s… That’s not-“
While shaking her head, Asuna struggled with all her might to find the appropriate words, but her vo
ice was caught in her throat. Picking up the slack, Kirito spoke.
“That’s not true at all. You’re fighting valiantly… Much greater than someone like me is.”
“Thank you very much. But I’m not quite doing this out of a sense of duty. It’s been very enjoyable living with these children.”
Sasha smiling sweetly and stared at the sleeping Yui worriedly.
“That’s why… For two years straight, we went through all the buildings in an area each day, checking to see if there’s any children who needed help. If there was such a small child left around, we would have definitely noticed. I’m sorry to say this… but as for this child, I don’t believe she was living in the Starting City.”
“Is that so…”
Asuna hung her head down, hugging tightly onto Yui. She pulled herself together and looked towards Sasha.
“Er, this seems like it would be intruding into your privacy, but how do you get by, for your daily living expenses and such?”
“Ah, for that, aside from me, there are several older children protecting this place around… they’re at a level that ensures their complete safety as long as they stay within the fields around this city, so we can still do something about our food supply. We can’t afford to live luxuriously though.”
“Oh, that’s amazing… Judging from what I heard earlier in the city, something like hunting monsters in the field is considered a suicidal act that goes against common sense.”
Sasha nodded at Kirito’s words.
“Basically, I believe that’s what all of the players left in the Starting City think. I won’t deny that idea; it can’t really be helped, when you consider there’s the danger of death… However, that could also be the reason why we’re earning more money when compared to the average player in this city.”
That was certainly true; to regularly reserve the guest room in this church, a hundred coll would probably be needed every day. It was an amount that greatly exceeded the daily income of that fruit hunter from earlier.
“That is why I’ve been keeping my eyes on them recently…”
“…On who?”
Sasha’s gentle eyes turned stern in an instant. Just as she opened her mouth to continue her words, at that moment…