Such abilities might be “paltry” to a magic-wielding elf, but a player without their menu was in dire straits. On the other hand, that outcome was unimaginable. An RPG without its menu screen was like a bicycle without handlebars or pedals.
A few seconds later, Yofilis's voice returned, back to the steady cadence of a proper plot-centered conversation.
“But in any case, the Lapis Key sealed on this floor probably ought to be retrieved. But the castle guards must prepare for the Forest Elves’ siege. Warriors of humankind, will you assist Kizmel in recovering the second key?”
A golden ! mark appeared in the midst of the darkness. This quest NPC marker was only visible to me and Asuna. For a moment, I wondered if that was another human charm. Asuna and I looked at each another and nodded.
“Yes, we will help.”
The exclamation mark turned to a question mark. Thus, the campaign quest resumed on the fourth floor.
Kizmel bowed deeply to the viscount once more, then turned to us, beaming.
“It is a critical but dangerous duty, but I am overjoyed to fight alongside you again. Let us work together again, Asuna, Kirito.”
“You bet!”
“Let’s do it, Kizmel!”
No sooner were the cries out of our mouths than a third HP bar and name appeared in our party list to the upper left of my view.
The instant we were out of view of the guards outside of Yofilis’s chamber, I raised my arms and stretched.
“Ooooh, that was nerve-racking...”
“I do not blame you. The viscount is one of the most elderly of even the Dark Elves. I was a bit nervous myself.”
“You, too, Kizmel? By the way...how old are you?” I asked nonchalantly, but Asuna elbowed me roughly in the left side, and Kizmel cleared her throat uncomfortably.
“Kirito, I do not know your human customs well, but among elvenkind, it is considered rude to ask the age of another to her face.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. S-sorry.”
“Let us just say that I am considerably younger than Viscount Yofilis.”
“U-understood. I’m surprised that such a splendid castle master has soft warriors and arrogant priests working in his employ, though,” I muttered as we descended the steps. Kizmel put on a worried look.
“Yes...but there is a reason. Viscount Yofilis suffers from a very challenging ailment. Because of that, he cannot be exposed to bright light. He has been in that chamber for so long, most of the soldiers here have never even seen his face...”
“He’s sick? Even though he’s an elf?”
“Elves are long-lived, but we are not immune to disease. The priests let their influence run unchecked because they are out of his sight. And yet they will be useless in a battle. It is a troubling state of affairs...”
Kizmel shook her head and stopped in front of her room on the fourth floor, but when she spoke again, she had recovered her normal manner.
“At any rate, I appreciate the crucial information that you two have brought with you. It is late already, so let us begin our duty in the morning. Get your rest–do not stay up all night.”
“We promise.”
“Good night, Kizmel.”
The Dark Elf smiled and nodded, then retreated into her private room. The brand-new HP bar tinkled into nothing with a sad little noise, but she would rejoin the party when we met up in the morning.
Asuna and I walked ten yards down the corridor and into the suite room next door.
I opened my window and checked thé time to see that it was somehow past ten o’clock at night already. The snow fell silently outside the window, and the trees in the front garden were already covered in white.
We stood in the middle of the living room, gazing out at the night view, when I remembered something and lifted my left hand. I tapped the silver ring with my other hand. The properties window told me that it was called the Sigil of Lyusula.
“Magic effects...ooh, agility plus one...and a small bonus to skill proficiency gain. That’s pretty nice.”
“Mmm,” Asuna mumbled, looking at my hand. For some reason, she frowned, then looked down at her own hand, went bright red, and quickly touched her right hand with her left. Apparently she’d just changed the finger the ring was on, but I didn’t know why she needed to rush to do that.
“...S-something the matter?”
“Nothing!” she stated flatly, so that was the end of that.
“Umm, well, I think I’ll go to bed...oh, but before that, I was going to ask you something.”
“...Wh-what?”
“It’s about the castle master’s name. What’s a v...viss-count?” I asked curiously.
She gave me a weird look, then sighed a very long sigh.
“...It’s pronounced vigh-count.”
“Eh?”
“You don’t pronounce the s. It’s a noble rank. You heard Kizmel calling him ‘my lord,’ right?”
“Ohhh, s-so that’s what it meant. Um, so...how high is a viscount...?”
“Normally, it goes duke, marquis, count, viscount, baron, from highest to lowest. I don’t know how the Dark Elves order it, though.”
“I see, I see. Thanks for the explanation. So, um...It’s a bit early, but how about six in the morning tomorrow?”
She agreed without a word.
“Great. Well, then...good night...”
I was curious about why my partner would suddenly go so red and standoffish, but I figured she would be back to normal after a good night’s sleep. But just as I opened the door to my bedroom, she spoke up.
“Kirito.”
“Er...yes?”
I turned around to see that the fencer was still standing in the center of the room. She shrugged her shoulders a bit and looked up at me.
“Um...I said this before we went to the bath, but I mean it– thanks for today. It was more enjoyable and lovely than any Christmas Eve I had in the real world.”
That took me by total surprise. I had no idea how to respond.
After a few seconds, I found myself asking what I thought was a harmless question in response.
“...What kind of Christmases did you have back there?”
“Hmm...”
She twirled the toe of her boot on the thick carpet and a little smile snuck across her face.
“There was one time we were supposed to stay home because there would be a family Christmas party, but my father and mother didn’t come home until very late, and I had to eat the cake by myself...Actually, that was pretty much every year.”
“Oh...I see...”
I felt ashamed that all I could do was offer simple murmurs in response, but I didn’t have anything better to relate to her. For the last two years, I’d wrapped up my Christmas family celebrations early so I could log in and participate in online in-game holiday events.
“Well...I’m glad you had a good time. If only we could have gotten a cake prepared,” I mumbled.
The wan smile on Asuna’s face grew clearer. “Yeah. But...we can save that for next Christmas.”
“...Yeah. Right.”
“Well, I’m off to bed. Good night.”
“Night.”
I watched her go through the door on the other side of the room, then entered my own and shut the door. It was plenty spacious, though not as much as the common room. There was a double-size bed in the middle, a large chest that served as extra item storage beneath the window, and a dresser with a three-sided mirror, which served no use for me.
I took off my coat, boots, and protector before flopping back onto the bed.
“...Next Christmas, huh...?”
Asuna probably meant it in the most innocuous way possible, but the phrase carried a very heavy meaning. Today was the forty-eighth day of the game of death. We’d taken twenty-eight days to beat the first floor, ten for the second, and seven for the third. It took us three days to reach the midway point of this floor.
It was reassuring to see our pace picking up, but I didn?
??t think we could go much faster. If we assumed that each floor would last around a week going forward, that put us on a pace to finish the remaining ninety-six floors in 672 days–about a year and ten months.
That basically ensured that we would still be stuck in Aincrad by next Christmas. Perhaps Asuna hadn’t been thinking about that when she said it, but looking up at the ceiling and imagining all those floors above it made me feel like I was being crushed with the weight of it all.
We had an ample safety margin in terms of level, but there was no guaranteed safe zone in MMORPGs. Not if you suddenly got a whole bunch of powerful monsters linked up into a group. Not if you couldn’t recover from a negative status effect quick enough. Not if you slipped and fell from a height of a few dozen feet. Those would be enough to knock my HP to zero, resulting in the NerveGear frying my real brain, wherever I was now. Just like that, Kirito and Kazuto Kirigaya would cease to be, disappearing from two worlds at once, like froth on a riverbed.
Of course, I had the option of staying put in the Town of Beginnings on the first floor. Instead, I leaped out of the city forty-eight days ago for the next town, driven by something. And before I split up with my very first partner–no, before I abandoned that poor SAO newbie–I left him with a piece of advice.
We have to get stronger and stronger in order to survive. MMORPGs are a battle over system resources. There’s only so much gold, loot, and experience to go around, so the more you win, the stronger you get.
I knew that I was right. The reason I’d survived until this day was that I used my beater’s knowledge and experience to skillfully and efficiently earn gold, levels, and rare loot. There were several occasions where I might have died if my level was just one lower or my gear one point weaker.
But that was because I chose to leave safety and conquer the deadly game on my own.
Why had I done that?
I played back what Asuna had said just after I met her in the first-floor town of Tolbana.
If I was going to just hide back in the first city and waste away, I’d rather be myself until the very last moment. Even if it means dying at the hands of a monster...I don’t want to let this game beat me. I won’t let it happen.
It was a very Asuna-esque motivation–dangerous, brave, and admirable. But I didn’t have the same thought within myself.
What about Lind of the Dragon Knights Brigade? Kibaou of the Aincrad Liberation Squad? Diavel, the former beta tester who perished in the battle against the very first floor boss? What reasons had tilted the scale toward actual death, driving them to leave the safety of town into the dangers of the wild...?
I lay staring at the dark ceiling, unchecked thoughts spiraling through my head, when I just barely heard the sound of the other bedroom door opening out in the living room.
Probably just Asuna preparing to take another bath, I assumed. But several minutes later, I hadn’t heard the sound of another door opening or closing. Asuna didn’t go from the living room into the bathroom or out into the hallway or even back into her own bedroom.
“...”
After another ten seconds of listening, I snuck out of bed, walked over the carpet in bare feet to the door, and carefully turned the knob.
The lights in the living room were off. But the snowy illumination from the window cast the room in a monotone of light and shadow.
I slowly panned around the room until I spotted a lonely, rounded silhouette on the large sofa next to my wall, both legs curled up into a ball.
After a moment of hesitation, I opened the door wide and stepped into the common room. She should have noticed me by now, but Asuna didn’t budge from where she was.
I approached the sofa as silently as I could, though I didn’t know why.
“...Can’t sleep?”
After a few moments, the little head nodded. A few more seconds later, she mumbled, “The room and the bed are just too big...”
“...I know what you mean. When I used the big barracks room on the second floor to log out in the beta, we were packed into little bunk beds,” I responded, sitting down on the other end of the sofa.
If only I had the skill to whip up a nice mug of hot milk. Sadly, I had no milk in my inventory, and the room didn’t have a stove. Instead, I did something that I would never normally do: I spoke my own baseless conjecture aloud.
“Did you start thinking about next year?”
She went absolutely still where she sat, about five feet away, then nodded again, her forehead pressed against her knees. After a while, her quiet whisper trickled out into the room.
“Until now, I’ve been trying not to think about the distant future. I told myself that I would only focus on what needed to be done each day. But that’s just the same as trying to run from the future. Not even just thinking about the number of floors left or how much time it would take...I was just trying to avoid facing the question of how much longer I could survive in this place. But then I was sitting in my room, looking out the window...and it all just sort of...bubbled up inside of me...”
The arms she held around her knees tensed and bulged.
“...I want to survive until next Christmas and see the snow falling in Aincrad again,” she confessed, terribly painful but nearly soundless.
I knew that I needed to say something, but my lips felt as though they were glued shut. I couldn’t speak.
I wanted to say, “You won’t die before next Christmas...or before the day we beat this game. You’ll survive.” But what proof did I have of that?
Obviously, Asuna’s battle skill was second to none in the frontline group, and the quality of her gear was guaranteed. But just as I’d told myself minutes ago, a single mistake here or an unlucky bounce could easily kill a player. If I couldn’t reassure myself that I wouldn’t die, I certainly couldn’t offer that empty guarantee to someone else.
After a stretch of silence so long even I didn’t know how much time had passed, I managed to croak something out of my avatar’s throat.
“...I’m sorry. I can’t say anything. I don’t have the strength to offer you any advice right now...”
For the very first time, Asuna had revealed her fear of the game and hope for the future, and I was so pathetic that I couldn’t come up with anything better to say back. I stood up, ready to retreat into my room.
But just as I passed by Asuna on the right end of the sofa, she extended a hand and caught the hem of my shirt. She pulled me down with surprising force until I was sitting next to her.
“Then get stronger.”
I held my breath.
“Huh...?”
“Get stronger. Until one day...you can tell me, and other frightened people like me, that it’ll be okay.”
Once again, I was left speechless. I looked down at my hands.
How many levels would I need to gain to be able to say that to anyone? Another twenty or thirty wouldn’t be nearly enough.
I felt plagued by a sense that the strength Asuna was speaking of was a very different kind–something I didn’t usually find myself thinking about.
She tilted herself to the left and laid her little head on my right shoulder.
“You don’t have to say anything now, as long as you sit there until I fall asleep.”
“Um...uh, okay,” I stammered. Asuna smiled and closed her eyes.
In less than a minute, I heard true sleep in her breathing. She said until she was asleep, so if I could roll her down onto the sofa and retreat to my bedroom, she couldn’t complain, but given her difficulty in staying asleep, that seemed nearly impossible.
I was stuck where I was until she eventually woke up. I tried to relax my shoulders and leaned back against the back of the sofa.
Be stronger.
That was a command I gave myself when I was racing out of the Town of Beginnings–or fleeing, depending on how you looked at it. I rushed to gain levels, get new gear, and power myself up faster than anyone else, for some reason I couldn’t really explain. I was driven by
something I couldn’t name.
Was it Asuna who gave me a reason? I had to be stronger so that the next time she or someone else revealed their weakness to me, I could be that reassuring presence who said, “No, you won’t die, it’ll be okay.” Was it right for me to think that way...?
Suddenly, Asuna shivered as she leaned on me. She hadn’t woken up–she must have felt a shiver in her sleep. The winter night seemed a bit chilly for just a sheer tunic.
If only I had some kind of player skill to whip up a nice warm blanket for her. Sadly there was nothing of the sort in my inventory–
“...Oh,” I murmured and opened my window. Over in the storage tab, I selected a particular item and materialized it.
A thin, silvery fabric fell lightly into my hands–the Argyro’s Sheet that came in so handy in the Fallen Elves’ watery hideout. It was big enough to hide an entire gondola, so it would easily serve as a blanket. There was only a bit of durability remaining, but because we weren’t on the water now, it wouldn’t drain anyway.
I wrapped the blanket around us, and the chill that filled the room seemed to vanish at once, bringing a pleasant sleepiness into my head.
Before I closed my window, I set my alarm to go off at five thirty in the morning and closed my eyes.
December 25 and 26 passed in the blink of an eye as we spent them undertaking the “Lapis Key” quests for Viscount Yofilis.
They weren’t easy quests by any means, but with the latest level-up for the both of us, plus the usual overpowering presence of Kizmel the elite knight, we never really struggled at any point.
The prelude quests on the first day had us running back and forth, but by the afternoon of the second day, we found the underwater dungeon that housed the key. We defeated a dullahan-type boss monster, its body covered in verdigris, to gain the second of the secret keys, this one a brilliant marine blue. There were no sneak attacks by masked Fallen this time, and we were back to Yofel Castle before dinner.
After reporting on the quests to the viscount and receiving our considerable rewards, the large window at the west end of the hallway showed a brilliant sunset. I stretched to my fullest in the red light.
“Mmmm...Well, we managed to get the second key right as planned. The viscount put it away in that little chamber behind his desk. I wonder if the first one’s in there, too,” I murmured to myself.