"Ki…ri…to. Kirito? Is that your name?"
"Yup."
"Really…This whole time, it was written there…"
Asuna whispered, and then unexpectedly her whole body quivered. Subsequently, I finally realized my palm was still held against her cheek. This was---just like some kind of pre-motion.
I removed my hand in a hurry, and likely from the momentum a **Gyun** sound was released as I turned away. A few seconds later, I heard a giggle—or at least, I feel like I did. Eh, could she be laughing? That transcendent «Linear» user, Kobold Overkiller Asuna-san? As I inwardly thought that, I was tormented with a strong desire to see her face, but I desperately resisted that urge.
Regrettably, the laughter soon stopped, and was replaced by a quiet voice.
"…To tell you the truth, Kirito, I followed you here to thank you."
"…For the cream on the bread, or the bath?"
I asked without thinking, then she replied "That's not it", as her daunting voice returned, but instantly added "…Although, that may be a part of it, too" before continuing.
"Yeah…there were various things. Thanks for many things you did.
I…in this world, for the first time, I found something to aim for, something that I want to chase after."
"Heh……What is it?"
As I glanced at her, Asuna flashed a brief smile, "It's a secret."
That was all she said. Then with that, she stood up, and stepped back.
"…I will do my best. Do my best to survive, and become stronger.
In order to reach the place I’m aiming for."
With my back turned to her, I nodded gently.
"Yeah…You will be strong. Not only in your sword techniques, but you will gain a larger and more valuable fortitude. So…if one day someone you trust invites you to a guild, don't refuse. After all, there's an absolute limit for solo players…"
"………"
For the next few moments, I could only hear Asuna's breathing.
Eventually, the following words that came were a little unexpected.
"…The next time we meet, tell me just how you carried me out of that labyrinth region."
"Ah…"
‘That was a piece of cake’, I thought of following up with, but I swallowed those words. Instead, I answered with a simple "I understand", and then remembered something before speaking again.
“That’s right…There’s one more thing I have to tell you. Before the meeting the day before yesterday started, I was going to say something…”
Yes—I have to tell her now. That some of the responsibility for creating the tragedy of two thousand deaths and driving her to the edge of despair belonged to the selfish former tester…no, the «Beater», me.
But, just before I could say it, Asuna shook her head gently.
“It’s fine. I already understand. About the path you’ve walked…and that you’re about to move forward alone from now on…but…but one day, I……”
Her quiet whisper halted there. As remaining silent for a while, she then gave a calm farewell.
"…Then, see you again, Kirito."
Squeak The door opened. Then footsteps. And with a Bam, the door closed.
I remained sitting on the terrace jutting out from the cliff until the information describing the scent of Asuna dispersed from the virtual air. I tried thinking about the meaning of her last words, but I felt that, for now, it was fine if I didn’t get it.
After sucking in a single huge breath, I stood up. After glancing at the door Asuna had left through, I turned around and began to descend the wide staircase down the cliff step by step.
When I tried counting the number of stone steps on the constantly winding staircase, it turned out there were forty eight steps.
Upon giving a little thought to whether there was any meaning to that number, I realized. It was eight by six—in other words, the number of people in a Full Raid. Assuming a situation where the first floor's boss was challenged with that force, and none of them died, then upon these stairs, from landing to landing, would be just enough space for each player.
But surely even the designers of this area would not have imagined that there would be only a single player going down these steps.
Descending this path seemed to imply what my future would be like. There was no one before or after me. No matter where or how far I went, I would go down by myself……
However.
When I reached the several landings at the bottom of the stairs, there was an icon consisting of small letters in the right corner of my vision.
It was a Friend Message, which could be sent and received even when not on the same floor. And I have only registered two players as friends. My first friend Klein and—the informant, Argo the Rat.
‘Who is it’, I wondered as I opened the message, and found it was the latter.
[Looks like I gave you a really hard time, Ki-bou.]
Looking at these first few words, I ended up blurting out "Info sure travels fast!". I continued reading and scrolled through, but there was only one following sentence.
[To apologize, I will sell you one piece of information on anything at all for free.]
——Ho.
I couldn't help but grin, as I activated my holographic keyboard and resumed walking once again, quickly typing out a reply.
[Then tell me the reason for your whiskers in person.]
Pressing the send button, I laughed once more, and over the ground of the second floor that I had arrived at, I started walking towards the main city «Urbus».
____________________________________________________________________________
It was previously stated in Sword Art Online Light Novel Volume 01, Chapter 3, that the SAO beta lasted for a period of 2 months. This however was retconned in this book, where the Beta occurred for a period of only 1 month.
The same chapter states that during the 2 month beta, the testers had only cleared up to the 6th Floor. This is retconned in this book, to the 10th Floor.
Intermission
Reason for the Whiskers
Aincrad 1st Floor, November 2022
Aincrad’s second floor’s main town «Urbus» is a town located inside a table mountain that measures three hundred meters in diameter, which had been dug up with only the outer circumference remaining.
Once I had gone through the southern gate, the words [INNER
AREA] floated up into my vision, and the slow tempo of the town’s BGM started playing. Unlike the music led by string instruments in each town on the first floor, the main melody here was played with a sorrowful oboe tone. The NPCs passing by also had subtle changes in the design of their garments, giving it a ‘new floor’ feel.
After walking about ten meters from the gate, I started looking at my surroundings. I couldn’t see any green cursors which indicated players at all, but that was only natural. Of course, that was because the guardian of the continuous spiral stairs to this second floor, the boss monster of the first floor, «Illfang the Kobold Lord»
was just defeated forty minutes ago, and every member of the boss-capturing party aside from me had returned to base.
In other words, at this moment, on the vast second floor, the only existing player was me alone —— the «Former beta tester» and now «Beater», Kirito.
Although that was the case, obviously, this situation wouldn’t continue on for much longer. That was because exactly two hours after the floor boss’ annihilation, the «Transfer Gate» at the center of the main town of the next floor (which was Urbus) would be automatically activated, connecting it to the main town on the lower floors. At that time, the large crowd of players, who were watching on the lower floor, would rush out from the gate.
Conversely, if I wished to, I could spend the remaining hour and twenty minutes monopolizing this town —— or this floor.
With that much time, I could clear a few slaughter quests two or three times, which I normally had to compete with other players f
or the pop. It was a very attractive idea to a solo player who ultimately advocated self-interest, however, I didn’t have enough courage to seriously anger the several hundreds…… or possibly more than a thousand people who were eagerly awaiting the activation of the gate.
Therefore, I started jogging along Urbus’ main street which went straight towards the north, ascended the wide stairs before arriving at the town square, and finally started walking toward the large gate set up in the center.
It was called a gate, but it was actually just an arch made of neatly stacked stones. Without a door or any bars, there was nothing to block its other side. However, upon getting closer, I noticed a faint distortion from the empty space in the middle of the arch, as if seeing through a thin film of water.
As I looked around at the surroundings to confirm an escape route, my right hand stretched slowly toward the swaying transparent veil. The fingertip, which was wrapped in a black leather glove, touched the surface of the water, which spread vertically —— and at that moment,
My field of vision was dyed in an overflowing bright blue light.
The pulsing light spread in circles within the five-meter-wide arch. Once it had filled the entire space, it would be the opening of the Transfer Gate, the so-called «Town Opening». The very same phenomenon would also happen at the gate in each town on the first floor as well, where the crowd of players before that gate would prepare to dash in when they realize that the gate started to activate and they wouldn’t have to wait two hours for the automatic opening.
However, after pushing the switch, I turned around without watching this phenomenon to its very end.
As I ascertained beforehand, I started a fierce dash to a building, which looked like a church, at the east of the square. After jumping into the entrance and climbing the stairs inside, I put my back against the wall to the side of the window in a small room on the third floor, and looked down upon the square.
Just then, the insides of the gate shone brightly, and the NPC
orchestra stationed at the corner of the square started playing a loud «Opening Fanfare».
After a moment, a rapid stream of numerous multi colored players spilled out from the blue light-filled gate.
Some people stood inside the square while looking around. Others ran off with a leather map from the information dealer in one hand. And —— there were people who raised their fists and shouting “I’m on the second floor————!!”
During the beta test, there was a total of nine «Town Openings», the scene, during those times, were the lines of the raid party members who had defeated the previous floor’s boss, being bathed in the generous applause and admiration from the players from the lower floors. However, this time the only person who was the «Opener» had already escaped, so that event didn’t occur.
There was a group of people who were looking restlessly around, it could be that they were looking for me, but unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to find my name there.
Over half an hour earlier, soon after defeating the boss, I had made an announcement in front of more than forty raid members. It was that I, «Kirito», wasn’t just a mere Beta Tester, but a «Beater», who had reached the highest floor among the thousand testers, and had accumulated the most knowledge of the game.
I didn’t want to act so nasty, but it was partly a reaction to avert the hostility from the new players to the former testers; and as a result, currently, my infamy had spread among the highest leveled players at an ultra-high-speed. If I went out of my hiding place, far from receiving congratulatory remarks, it wouldn’t be strange to hear boos and jeers. In that situation, I certainly didn’t have enough emotional strength to remain calm like a willow in the wind.
Therefore, I would have to continue hiding on the third floor of the church until the commotion in the transfer square died down. — —However,
“……Huh?”
I muttered quietly after seeing an unusual event at the square down below.
A female player who had just warped out of the Transfer Gate did not stop, but continued ferociously dashing towards the western side of the town. If it was just that, it could be seen as hurrying to the weapon shop or the quest NPC, but the problem was the two men who came out of the gate right after her. They took a moment to look around, and once they had spotted the player who was running away, they started running in the same direction. From the looks of it, it was «Two guys chasing a girl».
Normally I wouldn’t poke my head out and get involved, as this place was within the effective area of the Anti-Criminal Code, but since the one being chased was my acquaintance, the story had changed. With golden-brown curly hair and that plain leather equipment, she was none other than the information dealer, «Argo the Rat».
‘Selling every information that could be sold’, there certainly were people who hated this motto of The Rat, but I couldn’t be calmly chasing after them in middle of town in this appearance. After hesitating for a minute, I placed my feet on the frame of the church’s window and jumped down onto the roof just below.
I quickly dashed with my AGI-focused parameter before the players at the square could notice me, and jumped to the roof of the nearby building. I kept going without dropping down to the ground, aiming to the direction Argo and the two guys went. It was possible to do so due to the consistent height of the buildings in Urbus.
I waved my right hand’s finger while I was running and called out the main window. After clicking «Tracking» from the skill tab, I selected «Pursuit» on the floated up sub-menu. When I entered the name [Argo] into the input window, pale green illuminated footprints appeared on the road on my lower right field of vision.
«Pursuit» was a modification that could be learned after the proficiency of the «Tracking» skill had increased, it was normally used to raise effectiveness while hunting monsters, but it could also be used to pursue a player who was registered as friend.
However, as my proficiency was still low, the footprints that could be seen were from a minute ago. I hastily chased after the disappearing lines of the small shoe soles.
Argo’s focus was on AGI, so for her to be unable to shake off the chasing two guys, they must not be ordinary players. Although I didn’t see them among the boss raid, their levels should be top-class. In addition, the footprints that went straight along the road toward the west, had exit to the outside through the city gate which was dug out of the outer rim of the crater.
The western plains of Urbus was a dangerous area with large buffalo type monsters roaming about. The situation was getting worse. I bit my lips and rushed into the virtual savanna without even stopping.
The wasteland area beyond this savanna was still quite risky for my current level to enter alone. But fortunately, the footprints engraved on the thicket were getting more vivid (in other words, Argo had already stopped running), from inside the valley between two small rocky mountains, a familiar voice could be heard.
“……imes I’ll still be saying the same thing! This information, no matter how much you offer, is not for sale!”
That coquettish nasal covering the end of the sentence was obviously Argo’s voice, but it was thirty percent more intimidating than usual. It was then followed by a loud voice of a man.
“You don’t want to monopolize it, but also don’t want to make it public. Doesn’t that mean you want to jack up the price-gozaru?”
——Gozaru? I frowned as I stopped my feet before climbing up the nearby cliff. In SAO, by using brain and stubbornness, there were many ways to get through the terrain which looked impossible to trespass at first glance. My ambition was, one day, to try climbing the outer wall of this floating castle to reach the next floor. But at the moment, the reason I was climbing this mountain was to get into their blind spot. It wasn’t for the challenge, but for my own safety.
After climbing up for about five meters and reaching a flat, narrow surface, I continued to crawl forward. The general source of the quarrel was right b
elow at that moment.
“It’s not a problem about price! I told you that I don’t want to be blamed after I sold the information!!”
The voice of the second man then retorted Argo’s words, “Why would we blame you!? No matter what price you ask, we’d still be expressing our gratitude-gozaru!! So just sell us the information about the quest hidden on this floor —— the acquisition quest for the «Extra Skill» already!!”
…………Huh?
I couldn’t hold onto my breathe upon hearing that sentence. The extra skills were those that wouldn’t appear as choices unless some special conditions were met, the so-called «Hidden Skills».
The only one I discovered during the beta period was «Meditation», a mental concentration skill (the pose looked like so) that increased the rate of HP recovery and increased the probability to recover from the negative statuses. However, due to its low efficiency and lame pose, not many players took it. The other was the «Katana» extra skill, which was used by the Kobold Lord and samurai type monsters on the tenth floor, but I still didn’t know its prerequisites.
In any case, I’m certain that the topic between Argo and the two mysterious gozaru guys isn’t the «Meditation» skill, as the NPC
giving this skill is on the sixth floor. That means, there is a flag quest to unlock an extra skill that I still don’t know of (also equals to all former beta testers not knowing about it) hidden on this second floor, and these gozaru guys are trying to make Argo sell the information —— something like that?
Once I had reached that conclusion, the volume of the guys’ voice increased.
“Today, we’ll pull it off for sure-gozaru!”
“We’ll certainly do anything necessary to get that extra skill-gozaru!”
“You guys just won’t understand—! No matter what you say, I won’t sell that information-goza…… oops, I won’t sell it!!”
Sword Art Online Progressive - Volume 01 Page 13
