Early and Late

  “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—?”

  “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

  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 g
et 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.