Sword Art Online - Volume 4 - Fairy Dance

  It might have been the giant’s blood boiling, but there were several flashes of red under water with columns of steam going up; these had no affect in the jellyfish evil-god’s HP. Eventually, the frequency of the “BORUBORU” cries slowed to a stop—followed by an explosion of polygons large enough to block Lyfa’s vision.

  Lyfa averted her eyes for a moment, and when she turned back there was only one cursor displayed.

  “Yurururururuuuu…” With a cry of triumph, the elephant jellyfish lifted its numerous legs, then returned them to the water and began swimming smoothly through the lake.

  Water streamed down the huge body like a waterfall as it dragged itself onto the bank then walked on the ice toward them. Lyfa held her breath while watching.

  With “Don Don” swaying footsteps it approached, stopping right in front of them—Lyfa was once again stunned at its huge size. When fighting the giant, the giant tentacles had seemed like thin limbs, but up close she realized she couldn’t surround one with her arms spread wide. High above those tree-trunk-like limbs should be its round body, but only its contour could be seen.

  No matter how you looked at it, its head was that of an elephant. Instead of ears hanging down the sides of its face it had round, limb-like appendages covered with frills that must be gills. Below its round face hung a nose as long as its limbs. The eyes were a little creepy with three round jet-black lenses side by side. Lined up like riceballs they actually gave it a humorous looking expression.

  “…So, what should we do now?” Kirito muttered.

  Lyfa had indeed said to save the elephant-like monster, but she hadn’t thought of what to do afterward. The fearsome evil-god before her eyes had a yellow cursor, indicating that it was hostile, and it could probably kill both of them with one step of its clawed feet.

  However, the fact that it hadn’t attacked them already could be said to be an irregular development. When it came to the advanced dungeons like Jötunheimr, it was normal for all monsters to attack players the moment they saw them. Since it hadn’t done that, the elephant-jellyfish might leave if they just waited…

  Lyfa’s thinking was betrayed one second later. With a “Yurururu” sound, the evil-god stretched out its long nose to the two of them.

  “Ack…”

  While Kirito was backing away, Yui, who had remained silent until now, grabbed Kirito’s ear and attempted to calm the Spriggan.

  “It’s okay, Papa. This child is not angry.”

  ‘…Child?’ thought Lyfa, but she soon found herself without the time to ponder that question further.

  The long nose gently wound around the two people and slowly lifted them off of the ground.

  “Hieeee!”

  Kirito yelled while Lyfa was speechless. The elephant evil-god slowly lifted them several tens of meters in the air and looked as if it would place them in its mouth—luckily that didn’t happen; it merely dropped them on its back.

  They landed on their behinds and bounced once before coming to rest. Seen from afar, the elephant jellyfish’s body was smooth, but their current proximity revealed that it was covered with gray hair. Seeing Kirito and Lyfa sitting in the middle of its back, the elephant jellyfish seem satisfied. It made a pleased sound before moving along like nothing happened.

  “…”

  Lyfa and Kirito looked at each other once before the Sylph girl gave up trying to analyze the current situation, opting instead to leisurely view the surrounding landscape.

  The dark kingdom of Jotunheimr was not completely dark. The ceiling was covered with icicles that released a pale glow. Pale blue light illuminated the snow-covered landscape, and despite this being a ultra-hazardous area, it was very beautiful. An old castle in the center of a black forest, steep cliffs, the tower built to connect this world to the world above ground. Lyfa could see all these clearly from her perch tens of meters above ground.

  The elephant jellyfish walked on its twenty limbs and after a minute of traveling on its wobbly back, Kirito whispered a query to his companion.

  “So this is…the start of a quest?”

  “Well…”

  Looking a bit puzzled, Lyfa formulated a quiet reply.

  “If this were a quest, when it is started, it should display a Start-log in this area…”

  Lyfa waved her left hand around her upper left field of view.

  “Since it’s not displayed here, it isn’t a request type of quest. If that’s so, then it’s probably an event type…This could be slightly troublesome.”

  “In what way?”

  “If it is a quest, there will always be some sort of reward at the end. But an event is more like the player is participating in a drama—there is not always a happy ending.”

  “…You mean to say we may end up with one of the tragic endings, right?”

  “It’s possible. Before, I made a wrong choice in a horror type event and I died when a witch boiled me in her pot.”

  “What an interesting game.”

  Kirito gave a laugh and put on a tight smile, beginning to stroke the thick hair beneath him.

  “…Well, since this happened we might as well ride the boat out—no, that would be jellyfish. Anyway, even if we jumped down from this height we would take some serious damage, so we might as well ride it to the end…Well, this, that is, it might be a bit late…”

  “Wh, what?”

  Lyfa gave a perplexed look to the Spriggan boy. Kirito hung his head as he responded.

  “…I’m sorry about earlier, Lyfa. I made light of your feelings…Well, I might have looked down on this world and not approached it seriously enough. It’s only a game…But be it real or virtual, what you feel and think are all real, I should know that already…”

  Kirito, who had his head down, wore a sad expression on his face.

  Lyfa looked at him from the side and couldn’t help feeling a touch of déjà vu, thinking she had seen that expression before. Lyfa dismissed that feeling and shook her head many times.

  “Y, yes…I’m sorry too…You worked really hard to save me and my race. ‘ALO is just a game’, you would never think like that, I should understand it most…”

  «VRMMO-RPGs», including ALFheimOnline, were a whole new genre of game—somewhere it might be testing their players. Lately, Lyfa strongly felt like that.

  Testing, to exaggerate, meant that it was probably a challenge. Because it was a game, you couldn’t always win. Sometimes traps from hostile races stopped your forward progress, or they just attacked you from front and wipe you out.

  At that time, how seriously you struggle or if you could hold your chest high even in defeat, this game is testing that. In the previous flat panel display (Computer MMORPGs), other than motion commands your avatar wouldn’t change a bit;, you just typed in chat about your defeat whichever way you wanted. Now, under FullDive, the avatar faithfully reproduced the feelings of the player. It was even possible to shed tears of mortification.

  Many people hated to be seen showing their true feelings; when a situation turned against them some tried to laugh it off, with many logging out at the instant of defeat. Even Lyfa didn’t want anyone to see her crying face if she could help it.

  But the mysterious Spriggan in front of her had no connection with the thought process previously mentioned. Even when trapped by the Salamander’s one sided attack in the Ruger Corridor or during the fight with General Eugene where he was pushed back by the demonic sword, he never hesitated to show his anger and regret. He just did what he had to do, overcame any obstacles in his path and ultimately won. It would not be possible to do this for a person who made light of this world as «just a game».

  “…Hey, you…”

  ‘Before you came here, what kind of game were you in? What kind of person are you in reality?’

  She wanted to ask that, but kept her lips tight. In VRMMOs, asking questions about someone’s reality was something that even a very close friend should refrain from doing.

  As Kirito tilted h
is head in her direction, she just shook her head and smiled, silently saying ‘It’s nothing.’

  “…Well, we’re decided now. I can stay as long as we need. School attendance is already optional for me.”

  Finished, Lyfa offered her right hand. ‘I see,’ Kirito seemed to say with a laugh before he shook her hand. Lyfa was constantly shaking her head to hide her blushing cheeks. She became aware of Yui, who was sitting on Kirito’s shoulder laughing happily, and Lyfa became even more embarrassed. When she removed her hand, even the tips of her ears were hot, so she turned her head away.

  Not caring about the three’s exchange on its back, the evil-god continued moving forward rapidly. Looking into the distance, Lyfa instantly forgot that hot feeling on her face, and her brow furrowed.

  “What happened?”

  At Kirito’s voice, Lyfa extended her right hand, pointing into the distance.

  “Remember what I said about going to the closest stairs to the west or south? This child seems to be going the opposite direction…Look there.”

  In the direction Lyfa was pointing, a giant silhouette began to emerge from the darkness. Forming a arc in the ceiling of Jötunheimr, a huge conic structure hung. Like a net, branches knit and wove together to hold a huge icicle in place.

  Judging from the hazy effect of distance it was at least ten kilometers away, but the huge size completely disrupted a player’s sense of distance. Several luminous points were trapped within the icicle, giving the illusion of a gigantic eye blinking majestically.

  “…What is that winding thing inside the icicle…?”

  “I’ve only seen it in a photograph… that must be the roots of the World Tree.”

  “What…?”

  Lyfa’s eyes narrowed and she sent a sharp look at Kirito’s profile, before her commentary continued:

  “The roots which went through the ground of Alfheim hang down from the roof of Jötunheimr. So instead of going to the edge of Jötunheimr, this evil-god is taking us right to the center.”

  “Hmm… The World Tree, but that happens to be our final destination… So if we climb the roots will we be able to get out of here?”

  “I’ve never heard of it. In the first place, look there—the roots only extend halfway between the ceiling and the ground. That means it is more than 200 meters off of the ground. Since we can’t fly in this field, that height absolutely can not be reached.”

  “I see…”

  After a small sigh, Kirito finally laughed helplessly.

  “Well, now we just have to leave it to this weevil or bathynomus giganteus. Either we will be welcomed in the Dragon’s Palace, or we will become their breakfast.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. What do you mean bathyno whatever? It should be elephant or jellyfish.”

  When Lyfa pouted and retorted, Kirito just lifted his eyebrows at her unexpected response.

  “Oh, you don’t know? Its other name is giant isopod…It lives in deep sea, it looks like a Armadillidium vulgare this size…”

  Kirito spread his arms out to about hugging length. Lyfa’s upper body shook as she rushed to change the topic.

  “I understand, let’s give it a name! A cute name!”

  With a round head and and the lower body of tentacles, elephant-like name, elephant-like name…Lyfa thought really hard on it.

  ‘Yuuzou’… no… ‘Zooringen’… not that either…

  “Then, Tonkii.”

  Kirito suddenly said, earning a blank stare from Lyfa. It sure was a cute name, but how on earth did he think of it? - Elephant Tonkii, the name sounded familiar.

  The answer came to her in two seconds flat once she started rummaging through her memory. When she was little, she had a picture book, that was the name of an elephant in it. In the book, at the end of the long-ago war, an order had been given to dispose of fierce animals at the zoo. While crying, the zoo keeper put the poison in the animal’s feed, but smart elephant Tonkii didn’t eat it; it died starving while receiving repeating cheers, that was the plot of the story. Whenever her mom read that part, she couldn’t help breaking out in tears.

  “…I feel that name won’t bring us good luck.”

  Lyfa whispered, Kirito also nodded his head with a sorry look on his face.

  “That may be so, but that was the first thing that came to mind.”

  “Oh, so you know about that picture book too. Well, ok. Let’s use that.”

  Lyfa clapped her hands, then patted the short hairs near her feet.

  “Hey, evil-god-kun, from now on you will be called Tonkii.”

  Of course, the monster gave no response, but it didn’t refuse so they assumed it accepted the name. If you use taming skill on this evil-god and made it a pet, then you can use the system to give it a name. However, she had never even heard of a Cait Sith who had mastered the taming skill that can make an evil-god obey.

  Yui, who sat on Kirito`s shoulder, also waved her small hands, and following Lyfa, called out to the hundreds of times larger beast.

  “Tonkii-san, nice to meet you! Please take care of us!”

  This time, as if it understood or maybe by accident, the evil-god moved the gill flaps on both sides of its head.

  The elephant jellyfish, now named Tonkii, continued north along the frozen river.

  More than once or twice, they narrowly avoided encounters with other evil-gods loitering in other fields. But, for some reason, the other evil-gods looked from grove of trees or hills at them, then left.

  They might have thought that Lyfa and Kirito belonged to Tonkii, but then why would that three-faced evil-god attack Tonkii in the first place? There might have been one or two evil-gods that were the same type as Tonkii, but most of them had forms different from either Tonkii or the giant.

  Lyfa turned to her side, wanting to get Kirito’s opinion, but the Spriggan had his eyes closed and appeared to be nodding off again. Lyfa readied her fist again and was about to strike, when a thought occurred to her; she took a handfull of snow that had fallen on Tonkii’s back.

  Before the snowball object could disappear, Lyfa hurriedly shoved it down Kirito’s black collar into his back.

  “Cold!!”

  Hit directly by the cold effect, Kirito shrieked as he jumped up, after saying ‘Good Morning’ to him, Lyfa asked him about her previous doubt. The Spriggan wore a reproachful look for a while, but before long he spoke while thinking.

  “…In other words, even between evil-gods, the ones with human forms and those with bestial forms fight regularly…”

  “Possibly… But maybe the humanoid type only attacks the evil-gods of Tonkii’s type…”

  The Jötunheimr field was only added a month ago as part of a major update, yet most of it is still unexplored due to the high difficulty. If it was some kind of event, it was possible that they were the first players to know of its existence. If it was a normal hunting party that had stumbled upon Tonkii’s battle with the giant, they would’ve just watched the fight, and after Tonkii was killed, they would’ve probably fought the giant - that would have been the expected outcome.

  “Well, only the designer and Tonkii know how this event will end, so let’s just let it play out.”

  After saying so, Kirito flopped back down and used his hands as a pillow and crossed his legs. Yui flew from his shoulder and landed on his chest, lying down in the exact same position as the boy in black. Sighing as she noticed how relaxed the two of them were, Lyfa decided to brace them with a freezing spell if they fell asleep this time. Looking at the clock at the edge of her view, the pale green numbers already went past 3am some time ago.

  So far, Lyfa had never stayed in game later than 2:00 am, and what’s ahead is unknown territory. Lyfa gently stroked the short hairs at her feet, having mixed feelings about playing online game all night for the first time.

  The strange evil-god, unaware of what was happening on its back, continued walking at a constant pace…

  The advance suddenly stopped at a gentle hill covered
in ice and snow.

  “Uwaa…”

  Moving to front of Tonkii’s head, Lyfa looked forward and unintentionally gasped in surprise.

  It was a hole.

  The scale wasn’t ordinary. A large vertical hole so wide that the far side faded into a misty blue color. Sheer cliffs covered by thick snow and deep ice that was transparent at the top but gradually faded into a light blue color, then through blue to indigo blue and settled into a dark lacquer the further down one looked. But, no matter how one’s eyes stared, the bottom was shrouded in a deep darkness, making it appear bottomless.

  “…I wonder what would happen if someone fell off that…”

  Kirito said in a strained voice. Yui, back on his shoulder, replied in a serious voice:

  “The bottom of the structure is not defined in the map data I can access.”

  “Wow, it truly is a bottomless pit.”

  Kirito and Lyfa slowly moved back, returning to the top of Tonkii’s back. Before that, the evil-god started moving again.

  ‘- No way, does it want to throw us down the hole!?’

  Lyfa screamed in her heart, but fortunately, the evil-god didn’t seem to be so ungrateful. It folded its twenty legs in and kept its back horizontal as it sat down.

  After a few seconds, Tonkii settled down onto the snow with a thud. Yururu, it cried in a low voice, then pulling in its long nose, Tonkii completely stopped moving.

  “…”

  Kirito and Lyfa glanced at each other, then gingerly climbed off its back.

  After a few steps out, they turned around to look back at the jellyfish, but what was lying there was no longer either an elephant or a jellyfish. With its limbs and head tucked under its body, all it looked like was a giant steamed bun enshrined in the snow.

  “…This guy, what is he doing…”

  Lyfa walked forward a few steps to stand beside Kirito, who uttered that in amazement. She tapped the thick grey fur.

  “Hey, Tonkii, what should we do now?!”

  No answer. Lyfa swatted the evil-god’s side slightly harder with her right hand and felt a slight change. When Tonkii had given them a ride, his skin had been like a urethane cushion, but now, it had become hard.