Aincrad 1

  “Wha—?”

  I stood there, eyes and mouth gaping, until I heard Asuna’s voice calling out from a distance.

  “Kirito, watch ouuut!”

  I turned and saw that Asuna, Nishida, and all the others had retreated to the bank above the shore a considerable length away. I heard an enormous splash behind me and finally realized the gravity of the situation. An unpleasant foreboding itching at my skin, I turned around to the water again.

  The fish was standing.

  To be more accurate, the creature appeared to be more like a reptilian coelacanth, somewhere on the evolutionary link between fish and crocodile. Little waterfalls spilled over its scales, and six massive legs crushed the grass on the shoreline as it peered down at me.

  Peered down. The full height of the thing was well over six feet. Its mouth was located just taller than my head, and it seemed made for swallowing cows whole. A familiar lizard leg poked out of the corner.

  There was a basketball-size eye on either side of the ancient fish’s head, and they looked into mine. A yellow cursor automatically appeared over the beast.

  Nishida had said that the Big One in this lake was a monster “in its own right.”

  There were no rights about it—this was a monster, through and through.

  I took several steps backward, my smile twitching. Then I spun around and took off like a rabbit. The beast let out an earthshaking roar, then barreled after me. I was practically flying through the air, every last point of my agility in use, and in a few seconds I had reached the others and was ready to argue.

  “Th-th-that’s not fair! You can’t run off without me!”

  “I don’t think this is the right time for the blame game, Kirito!”

  I turned back to see the giant fish charging after us, its movement clumsy but fast enough.

  “It’s running over the land…Does it have lungs?”

  “Kirito, this is no time for idle contemplation! We gotta scram!”

  Now Nishida was the one yelping in panic. Most of the crowd had frozen stock-still, several of them collapsed on the ground.

  “Do you have your weapons?” Asuna asked close to my ear. She had a point—it would be incredibly difficult to lead all these people to safety.

  “Sorry, I don’t…”

  “Oh, fine, then.”

  Asuna shook her head, then turned to the giant legged fish, which was nearly upon us. She opened her window with familiar ease.

  As Nishida and the other fishermen watched helplessly, Asuna ripped off her thick scarf and overcoat, her glimmering chestnut hair rippling in the breeze. Underneath the coat were a long green skirt and a plain hemp shirt, but her silver rapier sheath sparkled in the sun. Asuna drew her sword, proudly facing the oncoming monster.

  Next to me, Nishida finally realized what she was planning to do, and he grabbed my arm.

  “Kirito! Your wife is in terrible danger!”

  “It’s fine; let her handle this.”

  “Have you lost your senses? If you won’t help her, I will.”

  He snatched a fishing rod from one of his friends and was preparing to rush to her aid when I hurriedly stepped in to stop the elderly man.

  The giant fish maintained its speed and opened its gaping mouth to reveal countless fangs. As it bore down on Asuna, she turned to her side and thrust with her right hand like a fencer.

  The inside of the giant fish’s mouth flashed with an explosive shock wave. The monster flew high up into the air, but Asuna’s feet had barely budged.

  The sight of the monster itself was certainly intimidating, but my expectation was that its actual level was not very high. They wouldn’t place a truly deadly monster down on such a low floor, and as part of an event dependent solely on your Fishing skill, no less. If nothing else, SAO maintained a proper difficulty curve.

  Asuna’s single blow had devastated the fish monster’s HP bar. When it fell to earth with a deafening crash, she followed up with a speedy combination that lived up to her moniker.

  Nishida and the other fishermen could only stare in amazement as Asuna unleashed attack after deadly attack, her footwork almost a dance. But were they impressed by her strength or her beauty? Probably both.

  Asuna continued to dazzle the onlookers with her utter power until she noticed the creature’s HP bar was in the red. Now she leaped gracefully backward and darted as she landed. She plunged directly into the creature, her entire body blazing like a comet—the top-level rapier skill, Flashing Penetrator.

  The comet burst through the fish from mouth to tail with a sonic boom, and as Asuna finally came to a stop well past the end of the monster, it separated into a mass of glowing pieces. A split second later, an ear-wrenching explosion sent waves across the lake.

  Asuna returned the rapier to its sheath with a ting, then began walking back toward us. Nishida and company were still frozen, mouths agape.

  “Hey, nice job.”

  “It’s no fair leaving the heavy work up to me. You owe me a nice dinner or something.”

  “Uh, we share funds now, remember?”

  “Oh…right.”

  We continued teasing each other until Nishida finally regained his senses, blinking rapidly.

  “Well…that was a surprise…Your wife is, ah, quite powerful. Do you mind if I ask her level…?”

  Asuna and I faced each other. This conversation could lead down a dangerous path.

  “F-forget about that. Look, we got an item from the fish!”

  Asuna manipulated the window, and a shining silver fishing rod appeared. Given that it came from a unique boss monster, it was bound to be a rare prize not available for purchase elsewhere.

  “Oh? What’s this?”

  Nishida took it, his eyes sparkling. All the others around him murmured in amazement. Just when I thought we might have distracted them…

  “A-are you…Miss Asuna from the Knights of the Blood?”

  A younger fellow came forward a few steps and stared closely at Asuna. Recognition flooded his features.

  “Yes, I knew it! I’ve got a picture of you!”

  “Uh…”

  Asuna gave him an uncomfortable smile and backed away. Now the murmuring in the crowd doubled in volume.

  “This is fantastic! I never thought I’d get to see you fight in person…C-can I have an autogra—”

  He stopped suddenly, looking back and forth between Asuna and me. Then he murmured, his face stoic, “Y-you’re…married…”

  Now it was my turn to give him a stiff smile. We stood there awkwardly while the man gave a wail of grief. Nishida simply blinked uncomprehendingly.

  That was how, after two weeks of blissful peace, our secret honeymoon ended. I suppose that ultimately, I should consider myself lucky to have participated in such a silly event.

  That night, a message arrived from Heathcliff, calling members to a planning meeting for the boss monster of the seventy-fifth floor.

  Next morning, I sat slumped over on the side of the bed as Asuna, already dressed, clicked her boots on the floor and chided me.

  “C’mon, no moping around!”

  “But it’s only been two weeks,” I groaned childishly. Despite my foul mood, I couldn’t deny that Asuna looked very smart in her familiar white-and-red knight’s uniform again.

  Given the circumstances that led to our leave of absence from the guild, we certainly could have refused the summons. But the line at the end of the message—which said, We have already suffered casualties—weighed heavily on our consciences.

  “I think we should at least hear him out. C’mon, it’s time!”

  She patted my back, and I finally got to my feet and opened my equipment screen. Since I was on temporary leave from the guild, I put on my familiar old black leather coat and minimal armor, topping it off with my two swords crossed over my back. The fresh and unfamiliar weight seemed like my punishment for leaving them to rot in my inventory for so long. I drew them out of their scabbards and slid them b
ack to make them feel better. The sound was crisp in the cozy room.

  “I always thought you looked better like that.”

  Asuna hopped to grab my arm, grinning. I craned my neck around to gaze a silent farewell at our new house.

  “…Let’s get this over with and come back home.”

  “Yeah!”

  We nodded to each other, opened the door, and stepped out into the cold morning air, heavy with hints of winter.

  The familiar sight of Nishida and his fishing rod greeted us at the twenty-second-floor teleport-gate square. We’d told him when we were leaving, but no one else.

  He’d said he wanted to talk, so the three of us sat down on a bench to the side of the square. Nishida gazed up at the bottom of the floor above as he began to speak.

  “I’ll be honest…I’ve been keepin’ everyone who’s on the upper floors, fighting to beat this game, out of sight and out of mind. It might as well have been happenin’ in a different world altogether. Perhaps I gave up on ever getting out of here.”

  We listened in silence.

  “As you know, in the electronics business, things evolve a mile a minute. I’ve been a tinkerer since I was just a boy, so I managed to keep up until now, but two years away from the business is too long. If getting home means I’ll just be a useless bump on a log feelin’ sorry for myself, maybe I’m better off staying here and enjoying a good fish, I figured…”

  He trailed off, a small smile on his lined face. I didn’t know what to say to him. There was no way I could imagine what a man in his position had lost, being trapped in Sword Art Online.

  “Me, too,” Asuna mumbled. “I thought the same thing until about six months ago. I cried myself to sleep every night. Every day, my family, my friends, my school, my entire reality seemed to break down a little bit more. I felt like I was going crazy. When I slept, all my dreams were of the real world…I did nothing but work on my skills, trying to beat the game as quickly as I possibly could.”

  Surprised, I turned to look at her. I would never have guessed that based on my first meeting with her. Of course, I was never known for being particularly observant of others…

  Asuna shot a glance at me, then smiled.

  “But one day about half a year ago, I teleported to the front line to tackle the latest labyrinth, and I saw someone napping on the grass in the square. He seemed to be pretty high-level, which made me angry. I told him, ‘If you’re just going to waste your time around here, could you please assist us in clearing the labyrinth instead?’ ”

  She put a hand to her mouth and giggled.

  “So he says, ‘This is the day with the best weather settings in the best season of Aincrad. It’d be a waste to spend it in a dungeon.’ Then he points to the grass next to him and says, ‘C’mon, relax a little.’ I mean, how rude can you get?”

  She stifled another giggle, then looked to the horizon.

  “But that brought me to my senses. This guy is just living his life here, I thought. He isn’t losing another day in the real world; he’s gaining another day in this world. I never realized anyone saw it that way. So I sent my guildmates ahead, and I lay down in the grass next to him. The next thing I knew, the breeze was so nice, and the air so warm and comfortable, I dozed right off. No bad dreams—it was probably the deepest sleep I’d had since coming here. When I woke up, it was evening, but he was still there with me, looking exasperated. That was him.”

  Asuna squeezed my hand. Though I didn’t say it, I was incredibly confused. It sounded like a familiar enough story, but…

  “…Sorry, Asuna, I don’t think I meant it to be that profound. I think I just wanted to take a nap.”

  “I realize that! You don’t have to spell it out.”

  She pouted for a moment, then turned back to Nishida, who was smiling as he listened to us.

  “Ever since that day, I would think about him as I got into bed. And I stopped having the nightmares. I figured out where he lived, and I’d tried to make time when I could go see him…Eventually, I began looking forward to each new morning. When I realized I was in love with him, I was filled with such joy. I wanted to treasure that feeling. For the first time, I felt glad that I was here…”

  Asuna looked down, rubbed her eyes with her white gloves, then took a deep breath.

  “To me, Kirito is the reason that I’ve spent two years here, the proof that I’ve lived, and the hope for tomorrow. I put on the NerveGear that day just to find him. Mr. Nishida, it might not be my place to say this, but I think you must have found something here as well. This might be a virtual world, where everything we see is just artificial data, but our hearts are real. Which means that everything we’ve experienced and gained here is real, too.”

  Nishida blinked and nodded his head vigorously. I could see his eyes flashing behind his glasses. I had to blink the heat out of my eyes, myself.

  It was me. I was the one who was saved. There was no meaning to my life, whether in the real world or trapped in this world, until I met her.

  “Indeed…indeed,” Nishida murmured, looking up at the sky. “Just listening to your story was a valuable experience for me, Asuna. Same goes for catching the Big One back there. It’s not worth giving up on life. It’s not worth it.”

  He gave one big nod and stood.

  “Well, I’ve taken enough of your time. You’ve taught me what I needed to know—that as long as folks like you are fighting above, it’s only a matter of time until we make it back to the real world. I can’t do anything for you, but…give it everything you’ve got. Everything.”

  He clasped my hand and shook it vigorously.

  “We’ll be back. You’ll visit us, won’t you?”

  I made a fishing motion and he gave a big nod, his face crinkling. We shook hands once again, then headed for the teleport gate. Asuna and I walked into the shimmering heat mirage, faced each other, and spoke together.

  “Teleport: Grandzam!”

  The blue light expanded and eventually blotted out Nishida, eternally waving.

  20

  “The recon squad was wiped out?!”

  The news that awaited us upon our return to the Knights of the Blood HQ in Grandzam was shocking.

  We were in the glass-encased meeting room near the top of the iron tower, the place I’d met Heathcliff before our duel. Heathcliff sat at the center of the semicircular table, sage-like in his robe, while his guild officers sat on either side. This time, Godfrey was nowhere to be seen.

  Heathcliff steepled his bony hands in front of his face, deep furrows etched into his brow. “It happened yesterday. We succeeded in mapping the entire seventy-fifth-floor labyrinth without suffering any damage, though it took quite some time. We were expecting a significant challenge with the boss battle, however…”

  I could imagine that. Out of all the floors we’d conquered, the twenty-fifth and fiftieth featured bosses that were easily more dangerous than what had come before or after. In both cases, we suffered major losses beating them.

  On the twenty-fifth floor, the two-headed giant monster wiped out the Army’s best and brightest, one of the biggest factors in their shift away from pushing the front line. On the fiftieth floor, the many-armed metal statue boss’s onslaught was so fierce, many of the fighters teleported out to safety, devastating the strength of the remaining forces. If the backup squad had been any later to arrive, we’d likely all have been wiped out. It was the man in front of me who kept our flagging front line upright.

  If all the quarter-points of the game featured such a powerful boss, we were bound to be facing a nightmare.

  “So we sent a twenty-man reconnaissance team from five guilds in,” Heathcliff continued, his voice flat. I couldn’t read the expression from his half-closed brass eyes.

  “They took every precaution. Ten stayed back at the entrance to the boss lair, and when the other ten reached the center of the room, right as the boss was about to appear, the door closed. What we know after that comes from the ten in
the rear guard. The door stayed shut for five minutes; lock-picking skills and direct force had no effect. When it finally opened…”

  Heathcliff’s mouth tightened. He closed his eyes and continued.

  “…There was nothing inside the room. The ten players and boss were gone. No signs of teleportation, no return…I had someone check the monument in Blackiron Palace, just to be sure…”

  He shook his head rather than say the rest. Asuna sucked in a breath next to me, then let it out in a murmur.

  “Ten…people…How did that happen?”

  “Was it an anti-crystal zone?”

  Heathcliff nodded at my question. “That is my only conclusion. Asuna had reported that the seventy-fourth floor’s chamber was the same way. We should assume that all boss lairs will be similarly equipped from now on.”

  “This is crazy.” I sighed. If emergency escape was impossible, the number of players likely to die of unforeseen accidents would skyrocket. The entire point of clearing the game was to prevent people from dying. But beating the bosses was a necessary step…

  “It’s really starting to live up to that ‘game of death’ billing…”

  “But that doesn’t mean we can simply abandon our attempts to conquer it.”

  Heathcliff closed his eyes and spoke softly but clearly.

  “It would appear that this battle will make the use of crystals impossible, as well as remove the option of a simple retreat. That means we must bring as large a party as can be effectively controlled. I hope you understand that I did not wish to summon you from your honeymoon, but the circumstances require it.”

  I shrugged. “You’ll have our help. But Asuna’s safety is my very top priority. If the situation turns dangerous, I will put her well-being before the party’s.”

  A slight smile played over Heathcliff’s lips.

  “Those who work to protect something are strong in spirit and fiber. I look forward to your valor. The operation begins in three hours. Our planned party is thirty-two strong, including you. We meet at the seventy-fifth-floor gate. Dismissed.”

  The red-clad paladin and his officers rose as one and left the room.