No doubt someone on the Argus development team had taken a look at the exorbitant price of the shortcake and decided that it was enough to warrant a bonus effect when the retail game launched. The effect would last for fifteen minutes. That would be a handy amount if eaten as a snack in the middle of a dungeon, but...
“Unfortunately, it’s not enough time for us to make good use of it out in the fields,” Asuna said, clearly following my line of thought. Even if we ran out searching for monsters, we’d barely find a handful before the buff wore off. Plus, the monsters around the outskirts of the town didn’t drop any decent loot.
“Too bad...What a waste of a good buff.”
I stared at the icon timer ticking away precious seconds, wracking my brain for a way to make good use of the bonus while it lasted.
We could get down on hands and knees in the street–coins and fragments of gems could be found on very rare occasions–but I didn’t think Asuna would like that. We could gamble big at a casino, except that they didn’t start showing up until the seventh floor. The more I pondered, the less of the effect remained.
Wasn’t there anything we could do to test our luck? I supposed I could turn to the fencer and ask if she’d go out with me, but I had a feeling the system’s luck bonus had no bearing on my chances there...
Just as the steam was about to pour from my ears in frustration, I heard a sound.
It was the distant, rhythmic clanging of metal. Clank, clank, went the hammer.
“Ah...”
I snapped my fingers, finally having spotted a use for the twelve remaining minutes of good luck.
4
Five hours after our last visit to the eastern plaza of Urbus, there were virtually no people wandering around. The only souls left were a few players standing around the NPC shop stalls that opened only at night, and two or three couples seated on benches. Of course, I hadn’t brought Asuna here to sit on a bench and stare up at the bottom of the floor above in lieu of stargazing.
The short player was still there in the northeast corner, his small anvil and display case sitting atop the vendor’s carpet. This was who I came to see: the blacksmith, likely the very first committed crafter since the start of SAO.
“Asuna, you met your quota of upgrading materials for your Wind Fleuret during our hunt, right?” I asked. She gave me a brief nod, her hooded cape back on.
“Yes. I’m a bit over, in fact, so I was planning to sell the rest and split the money with you.”
“We can do that tomorrow. Why don’t you try getting it to plus five right now?”
She looked upward, thinking it over. “I see. But does the good luck bonus affect weapon augmentation attempts? Isn’t it the blacksmith who does the attempt, not me?”
“True. But we can’t give the blacksmith some of that cake, for obvious reasons...”
Obvious meaning financial reasons. I shrugged and continued,
“So I can’t claim that the effect will work, but you are the weapons owner, so maybe there’s a boost to the chance of success. I’m certain it won’t have a negative effect, so you might as well give it a shot.”
The explanation had wound the buff timer down to seven minutes. Asuna nodded again and said, “All right. I was going to do it today, anyway.”
She pulled the rapier from her waist and strode directly over to the blacksmith’s display. I followed her without comment.
Up close, the diminutive blacksmith reminded me even more of a dwarf. He was short and squat, with a young, honest face. It really was a shame that he didn’t have any whiskers. Hairstyles and facial hair were easily customizable with cosmetic items from shops, so it seemed like he could draw in more customers by going with the classic look.
Asuna’s voice broke me out of my pointless reverie.
“Good evening.”
The blacksmith looked up from his anvil and gave a hasty bow. “G-good evening. Welcome.”
His voice was young and boyish, a far cry from that dwarven baritone. Every avatar’s voice was sampled from the player’s real-life voice, so while it seemed slightly different from his face, it didn’t change his overall impression. As I suspected the first time.
I saw him, he might be a teenager close to my age.
Atop the signboard with his list of prices, it said Nezha’s Smith Shop. Under Japanese rules, I supposed that to be pronounced “Nezuha”–it must have been his name. Sometimes it was difficult to tell with the alphabetized display of Sword Art Online player names. In our first-floor raid party, there was a trident user with the handle Hokkaiikura. After much deliberation, I concluded that it must be “Hokka Iikura,” only to find out later that he called himself “Hokkai Ikura.” Nezha itself could have some different pronunciation, but it seemed rude to ask him that on our first meeting.
At any rate, Nezha. the blacksmith got to his feet and bowed again nervously.
“A-are you looking for a new weapon or here for maintenance?”
Asuna held up the rapier in both hands and answered, “I’d like you to power up my weapon. I want this Wind Fleuret plus four boosted to plus five, bonus to accuracy. I’ve got my own materials.”
Nezha took one glance at the fleuret and his already-drooping brows looked even more troubled.
“A-all right...How many materials do you have...?”
“The upper limit. Four Steel Plates and twenty Windwasp Needles,” she answered promptly. I recalculated everything in my head.
Equipment upgrade materials came in two categories: base materials and additional materials. Every attempt had a fixed, mandatory cost of base materials, but the additional materials were optional. The type and number of additional mats would have a wide effect on the chance of success.
Windwasp Needles were an accuracy-boosting additional material, which meant that they would increase her critical hit chance even more. If my memory was correct a full twenty needles would max out the success rate of the upgrade attempt at 95 percent.
In other words, this should have been a very good thing for the player actually performing the upgrade attempt. The best customers of all would pay the blacksmith for the materials themselves, but it still had to be much better than failing with no additional mats.
And yet, Nezha looked terrified after hearing her answer. He was clearly unsettled by the request, but he couldn’t find a reason to turn her down.
“All right. I’ll take your weapon and materials.” He bowed again.
Asuna thanked him and handed over the Wind Fleuret first. She then opened her window and materialized a sack in which she had placed all of the goods. She handed them over to the blacksmith through a trade window. Finally, she paid him the cost of the upgrading attempt.
At this point, the luck bonus effect had only four minutes left. That would not be much help in battle, but it was more than enough for a single weapon upgrade. Whether or not it actually worked in the way we hoped was another question, but that was one expensive piece of cake. Surely they could afford to bump us from 95 percent to 97.
I said a silent prayer to the god of the game system. Asuna took two steps back and sidled right next to me. She muttered, “Finger.”
“Huh?”
“Stick out your finger.”
Baffled, I lifted my left hand and extended the index finger. Asuna reached out with her brown leather gloves and gripped my finger in two of hers.
“Um...what is this...?”
“If I do this, maybe your buff effect will be added to mine.” That seemed stupid. “W-well, in that case...shouldn’t you hold my entire hand...?”
I felt an icy stare emanating from her hood.
“Since when were things like that between us?” Since when were they like this?! I wanted to yell, but the blacksmith signaled that he had counted all of the materials and found them satisfactory, so I had to stay quiet and let her squeeze my fingertip, draining away all of my valuable good luck.
Asuna and I wa
tched over the sign as Nezha the blacksmith turned and reached for a portable furnace set next to his work anvil. The number of ingots it could melt at once was very low, meaning he couldn’t create large polearms or suits of metal armor, but it did the job for a simple street side business.
On the furnace’s pop-up menu, he switched it from creation mode to strengthening mode, then set the type of augmentation. Nezha then tossed Asuna’s materials into the furnace.
Four thin sheets of steel and twenty sharp stingers turned red and burst into flame in seconds, and soon after, the furnace began burning with a blue flame that signified the accuracy stat. All preparations complete, he removed the Wind Fleuret from its sheath and set it down within the brazier-shaped furnace.
The blue flames enveloped the slender blade, and the entire weapon was soon glowing azure.
Nezha quickly pulled the rapier out and laid it on top of the anvil, then gripped his hammer and held it high.
At that exact moment, something prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. It was the same sensation that I’d felt earlier that afternoon, when I decided to hold off on upgrading my Anneal Blade +6.
I opened my mouth, preparing to yell, “Stop!” But the blacksmith’s hammer had already made its first strike.
Clang! Clang! The rhythmic pounding echoed throughout the square, orange sparks flying from the anvil. Once the upgrade attempt had begun, there was no stopping it. Well, I could grab his hand and force him to stop, but that only guaranteed that it would end in failure. All I could do now was watch and pray for success.
There was no foundation for my panic; it was a manifestation of my inner worrywart, nothing more. All the materials had been invested, the blacksmith represented better odds than an NPC, and we had two players’ worth of luck bonus. We couldn’t possibly fail.
I held my breath and watched the hammer go up and down.
Unlike with weapon creation, only ten strikes were necessary to upgrade a weapon. Six, seven–the hammer smacked the blue rapier at a steady pace. Eight, nine...ten.
The process complete, the rapier flashed brightly atop the anvil. There’s no way it can fail I repeated to myself, gritting my teeth. The result was far, far worse than my bad premonition could possibly have signaled.
With a fragile, even beautiful tinkling, the Wind Fleuret +4 crumbled into dust from tip to hilt.
* * *
No one reacted for several seconds, from Asuna, the sword’s owner; to me, the emotional and luck bonus support; to Nezha the blacksmith, the one who had caused it to happen.
Perhaps if a single passerby had been watching, they might have broken the ice. But for now, all the three of us could do was stare emptily at the anvil. As the third party in this transaction, perhaps I was best suited to smooth over the situation, but my mind was occupied by one massive question, not to mention the sheer shock of what had transpired. This is ridiculous!
The phrase echoed through my head over and over. All I could do was stare.
It was impossible. As far as I knew, there were only three negative outcomes of a weapon upgrade attempt in SAO: the materials disappeared and left the already-upgraded values where they were, the properties of the bonus got switched around, or the upgraded value decreased by one.
In the worst case scenario, Asuna’s Wind Fleuret +4 should have decreased to +3, and that was, at most, a 5-percent chance. Of course, 5 percent put it well within the bounds of possibility for an MMO...but it should never result in the weapon just completely disintegrating.
But there was no getting around the brutal truth that the glittering shards of silver scattered about the anvil had been, until a few seconds ago, Asuna’s precious sword.
I watched the entire series of events. Asuna removed the rapier from her waist and handed it to Nezha. He picked it up in his left hand and manipulated the portable furnace with his right, then pulled the sword from its scabbard and put it in the fire. Nothing in that sequence of events was out of the ordinary.
As we watched in silence, the scattered pieces around the furnace melted into the air. The weapon-damaging skills that some monsters used might melt, warp, or chip a blade but leave it in a repairable state. A weapon that had shattered into pieces represented the loss of all durability and was irretrievably gone. Asuna’s sword wasn’t just visibly destroyed–it had been deleted from the SAO server’s database entirely.
As the final fragment disappeared, it was Nezha the blacksmith who moved first.
He threw aside his hammer and bolted to his feet, bowing to the both of us over and over, his parted bowl cut waving in the air. He squeaked and wailed, trying to trap the screams in his throat.
“I...I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll return all of your money...I’m so, so sorry!”
Asuna couldn’t react to the repeated apologies. She just stood there, her eyes wide. I eventually stepped forward to speak.
“Look, um...before we talk about money, I want an explanation. I thought that weapon destruction wasn’t a possible failure state of upgrading in SAO. How did this happen?”
Nezha stopped bobbing his head and finally looked up. The angle of his hanging eyebrows was extreme, his round, honest face screwed up in agony. It was as though his face had been designed as an expression pure apology. I felt extremely uncomfortable, but there was no way I could tell him that it was “all right.” Instead, I tried to keep my voice as calm as humanly possible.
“Listen...I played in the beta test, and I remember the player manual they put on the official website. It said there were three possible penalties for failure: lost materials, property alteration, and property downgrade. That’s a fact.”
As a publically outed “beater,” I had no desire to bring up the beta. But this was not the time for self-preservation. I stopped there and waited for his answer.
Nezha was no longer bowing and scraping, but his eyesight was fixed firmly downward as he spoke, his voice trembling.
“Um...I think that maybe...they added a fourth penalty type for the launch. This happened to me...once before. I’m sure the probability is very low, though...”
“......”
I had no argument left. If Nezha’s claim was false, then he’d somehow just accomplished a destruction penalty that did not exist in the game. That was far more unlikely.
“I see,” I murmured lifelessly. Nezha looked up and mumbled again.
“Um...I’m truly sorry. I don’t know how to repay you. I’d give you a replacement Wind Fleuret, but I don’t have any in stock. I’d hate to leave you without an option, so I can give you an Iron Rapier, if you don’t mind the downgrade...”
That wasn’t my choice to make. I looked to my left at the still silent Asuna.
Her face was almost entirely hidden by the gray hood, but I could still make out delicate chill moving side to side. I answered Nezha for her.
“No, thanks...We’ll make do on our own.”
With all due credit to Nezha’s offer, the Iron Rapier was sold as far back as the Town of Beginnings on the first floor, and wasn’t going to be very helpful up here. If he couldn’t give us a Wind Fleuret, the Guard’s Rapier that was one rank below it was the only thing that came dose to a replacement.
Besides, the risks of failing in an augmentation attempt should fall upon the shoulders of the client, not the blacksmith carrying the job out. Nezha’s shop sign had a list of the success rates for various jobs at his current skill level. Being unlucky enough to hit the 5-percent chance–probably less than 1 percent for this worst of all outcomes–of failure was our problem, not his. Even Rufiol, he of the Anneal Blade +0 disaster this afternoon, had eventually given in and accepted his fate.
Nezha’s shoulders slumped even lower at my answer. He murmured, “I see. Well...at least let me return your fee...”
He moved his hand to start the transfer, but I cut him off. “It’s all right, you did your best. You don’t need to do this. There are some crafters who say it
doesn’t matter how you do it as long as you hit the weapon enough times, so they just whack away...”
I didn’t mean anything by that, but for some reason, he shrunk his head even farther. His arms were held as close to his body as possible, trembling fiercely. Another apology shuddered out.
“...I’m sorry...!!”
After that painful, heart-rending apology, there was nothing more to say.
I took a step back, nodded to Asuna, and started to move her away.
It was only at this moment that I noticed that her hand, which had been pinching my index finger originally, was now fully gripping my palm.
I pulled the silent Asuna away from the blacksmith and out the northern entrance of the plaza. There were few NPC shops or restaurants along this stretch, only a number of buildings of unknown utility–perhaps they would be available as player homes after some later point in the game. At any rate, the street was nearly empty.
We walked on and on, the only points of interest the occasional signboard of an inn. There was no destination, not even a general direction. The cold grip of her hand on mine told me of how heavily the loss of her favorite sword was weighing on her, and the shock of its abrupt disappearance after a single upgrade attempt. But I had no idea how to react or console her. My meager life experience as a middle-school gamer left me unprepared for this. All I knew was that pulling my hand free and running away was the worst possible choice. I wanted to pray for the advent of some sudden salvation, but the good luck bonus icon below my HP bar was long gone.
First, let’s stop walking.
I noticed a wider space ahead with a bench and started off for it.
After a few dozen steps, I stopped and awkwardly said, “L-look, here’s a bench.”
The voice inside my head screamed at me for being an idiot, but Asuna sensed my intentions and turned to sit down without a word. She was still holding my hand, so I automatically took a spot beside her.