This is the prologue of the upcoming Unital Ring arc, which will be the final arc of the SAO series. It was published in Dengeki Bunko Magazine Volume 59.
Translation Credits:
Translation – defan752
TLC – Gil
Proofreading – defan752
Consultation – SAO Wiki
<log></log>
>No matter how many times we do it, it's always mindblowing for me. Us talking like this, with you being so much older than me.
>The concept of time has to be a mere trifle to you now, I presume? If hardware resources allow, then you should be able to condense your cognition as much as you like.
>It's theoretically possible, but realistically, it's not that simple. Pretty much every supercomputer in the country is under «her» control nowadays.
>I see. That's ironic. Considering how you've been backed into a corner by the same program you supposedly built on a whim but then abandoned.
>Oh no, I'm actually quite pleased. A tiny seed's sprouted in a corner of the network, and it's spreading leaves and growing branches… Just thinking about its future makes me feel an emotion I thought had vanished with my physical body.
>Ever the romanticist, I see, even without your humanity. In that case… What're you going to do with the other seed that you left me — no, «him» — and the countless worlds that have grown from it? Or are you satisfied with just observing them?
>The future of the «Nexus» relies on the will of the worlds themselves and the choices of the people in them. Will the worlds simply expand chaotically and eventually wilt and die… or will they advance to the next stage, «Unification»? I don't know either.
>Unification? Maybe even that would… No, I don't want any more of this in the log. For now, I think I'll just follow your example and observe how things develop.
1 I — Kirigaya Kazuto, was born on October 7, 2008… or so I've heard.
I'm supposed to be eighteen this year, but for some reason this whole experience hasn't really felt like my own. Maybe it's because I don't remember my real parents, since they passed away when I was still a baby.
My biological father was called Narusaka Yukito, and my biological mother was Narusaka Aoi. So if the car accident that took their lives and badly wounded me didn't happen, that means I would have continued to live as Narusaka Kazuto. Though I can't confidently say whether I would have chosen «Naruto» over «Kirito» as my character name in that case.
On the other hand, since my interest in computers came from my adoptive mother's — Midori-san's influence, and since the identity crisis I had from finding out I was adopted definitely played a part in my childhood online gaming addiction, it's possible that Narusaka Kazuto wouldn't have grown up a gamer at all, and therefore would not have been involved in the SAO incident. But it's pretty pointless to imagine that now.
In any case, that's why I haven't felt too near and dear to my own birthday ever since I broke into the basic resident registration network when I was ten years old. My attitude went south, and at its worst, in my second year of middle school I forcefully pushed away my own birthday party at home, even making my little sister Suguha cry.
Of course, I've reflected deeply upon those stupid actions, and despite my two years' worth of birthday celebrations last year to make up for lost time in Aincrad, I still have a hard time firmly accepting that I was born on October 7. I think this state of mind will persist until I learn everything there is to know about my biological mother and father.
There were only ten days until my birthday this year. Eighteen was also the age when it became possible to get a driver's license, and vote. Apparently Suguha had already begun running various errands related to my party, and had ordered me rather sternly to return straight home from school as quickly as possible. I'm excited about it too, for sure. But right now I can't allow myself to dwell upon my own birthday.
Why? Because on September 30, a week before my birthday and three days from now, it'll be Asuna's birthday.
"Daddy, have you decided on a present for Mommy yet?"
I heard the miniature fairy ask as she sat delicately on a mug rim. With my back in the mesh of an office chair, I replied:
"Hmm… I'm still thinking…"
The fairy who called me "Daddy" replied in a tone that was more older sister-ish than childlike:
"It doesn't matter whether you go to a store or buy it online. If you don't decide soon it'll be too late! I really don't recommend following a schedule as precarious as last year's birthday, when you only managed to get her present during lunch break on the same day!"
"I know we'd like to avoid that, but it's so hard! Asuna never talks about things she wants… Oh, how about you go ask her what she wants, Yui? Indirectly."
Yui, an artificial intelligence Asuna and I met in SAO and who then became our beloved daughter, coolly rejected my appeal:
"No! Cheating is bad! It has to be something you choose yourself, Daddy. Mommy will be delighted no matter what it is!"
"Well, you're not wroooong…" I agreed, but dragged out the last word.
During Asuna's birthday last year, I had feverishly deliberated back and forth all the way up to the day before until I finally chose a red scarf as her present. I was thinking that she probably had it rough in winter, especially since her daily commute took 90 minutes each way. Somehow she ended up using only that particular scarf from November to February, though I imagine she's got enough scarves at home to tie a large jumping rope, and there were bound to be warmer ones than mine among them… but by the time I noticed, the coldest time of the year had long passed.
That's why I was planning to choose something not as practical this year, but that area exceeds my scope of knowledge as a useless VRMMO junkie. Searching things like «recommended christmas presents by age» brought up a whole lot of pages, but it felt inappropriate to decide on a present based on something like that.
"Hmmmm…"
I stretched, then reached for the mug Yui was sitting on. Gazing at the fairy as she softly lifted off and flew to sit on the edge of the tablet display (which I rarely used nowadays), I drained the mugful of lukewarm cappuccino in one gulp.
I hadn't been able to communicate with Yui in the real world without using the «AVIC Probe» I'd made at school, but the wearable, multifunction «Augma» that went on sale in April easily resolved this. Now, Yui could use data from my vision to map, in real-time, the placement and shapes of the mug on the table, the tablet display, and other objects; she could pass through them, and could move freely as long as she did not pass beneath the desk. She would tell me that she preferred the AVIC Probe to make me feel better, and she was able to mentally control it, but it only allows me to hear her voice. Sure enough, even if I only used it to see my precious daughter in the real world, I ought to be grateful for this otherwise shady Augma device.
As I pondered this I reached out my left hand; Yui expanded her wings again and alighted on my fingertip. I could barely feel the hint of her weight, but the smoothness of her peachy dress and her faint warmth were reproduced on a borderline virtual world-level. She moved in front of my face and I caressed her head with a finger on my left hand as my eyes fell upon the bed on the other side of the room.
Atop the bedspread, freshly sun-dried today, there lay a head-mounted VR device: the AmuSphere. A year and a half of use had worn its casing, and its once sleek design now looked unwieldy next to the Augma, yet I still preferred FullDive to both augmented and mixed reality.
"Say, Yui. I'll choose Asuna's present on my own, I will, but…"
I looked back to the fairy on my left hand and continued:
"… Before that, could you help me do a bit of research? I'm buying the present in a store instead of online this year, so I've still got time."
Reading the meaning behind my words and glances towards the AmuSphere — an amazing feat for an AI — Yui shrugged gently and replied:
"Good grief, it's no use, is it? I'll be waiting over there, then!"
She lifted away from my finger, spun in a circle as if in a dance, and with that her tiny body vanished in a burst of light particles. I followed suit: I rose from my chair and removed the Augma from my left ear. With the virtual desktop gone, I turned my newly expanded visual field towards the west window.
It was Sunday, September 27. Only four days had passed since the autumn equinox, but I could already feel the sunsets coming sooner. It was just past four but the scaly clouds were already tinted a brilliant gold; a flock of birds returning to their nests passed slowly below.
Suddenly, I thought I saw an ivory tower piercing through the dusky sky, and blinked a couple of times. I pressed my right hand to my chest and allowed my innumerable, almost overflowing memories to calm down, before sitting on my bed. Using my folded blankets as a cushion, I lay down, picked up the AmuSphere, and put it over my head.
Closing my eyes, I murmured the incantation:
"… Link Start."
Variegated light enveloped my consciousness, transporting it to a faraway fairy kingdom.
2 As Kirito, the Spriggan magical swordsman, I landed at my destination: the living room of a small log cabin quietly erected on Floor 22 of the floating castle orbiting Alfheim — «New Aincrad».
This home had become a meeting spot for my friends, but now it was dark and silent without a soul in sight. Asuna had told me that she was out with family and wouldn't be back until tonight, and Suguha was still at kendo club practice, but at least Yui was here waiting for me… I thought as I surveyed the dim living room, finally realizing that a message icon was blinking in the right side of my visual field. It was from the mace-wielding Leprechaun, Lisbeth.
I pressed the icon and out popped a small, colorful window crammed full of emoticons:
"Out upgrading skills with Silica, come help if you've finished your homework! And I'm borrowing Yui-chan for a bit."
"……… I see."
In any case, now I knew why my daughter wasn't here. Yui's status as a «Navigation Pixie» in ALO granted her an invaluable ability to report the spawn time and locations of monsters, making her a very reassuring presence when farming. But what's more, previously she couldn't appear unless I — her system owner— verbally summoned her after logging in, but recently she had become capable of materializing of her own accord as long as one of my friends was online. It was kind of scary, so I didn't inquire further.
But on the other hand, it probably wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that with Yui's ability one might be able to appear in two… or ten, or maybe even a hundred places at once, but she was determined not to do so. An intensely self-reliant personality was a common feature amongst all AI designed by Kayaba Akihiko, to the extent that the AR idol «Yuna» who was heavily involved with the Ordinal Scale incident half a year ago nearly suffered a breakdown of her core when she was copied and used by her own talent agency.
"What now, then…?"
I closed Lisbeth's message window and muttered to myself again.
One reason I dived into ALO was to ask her and Silica what kind of things Asuna could possibly like, but if they were hunting it was best not to disturb them. I'll join them, then — was what I would very much like to say, but the phrase "If you've finished your homework" from the message brought that thought to a screeching halt. I hadn't yet finished an computer science lab mini-report due tomorrow.
There was no way I'd ignore my homework, but it was also a fact that I had neglected to raise my stats recently. A full-scale assault on the next floor boss was planned soon, so I was keen on regaining my battle instinct by then.
New Aincrad was installed in ALO last May. Back then, only Floors 1 to 10 were open to the public. The September update opened the floors up to 20; Floor 30 opened this January, and there had been periodic updates since then. Floor 50 was reachable by the beginning of this month. But Ymir, the operating company, had probably turned their attention to painstakingly crafting each boss monster, as with each new update the floor bosses were getting more ruthless, and up to this day — September 27, the front line remained halted at Floor 46.
As much as Lisbeth was excited about buying a shop just like the one she ran in the SAO era (complete with water wheel) the instant Lindarth opened in the main settlement area of Floor 48, and as much as Agil declared that he was going to reopen his general store in Algade in the main settlement area of Floor 50, at their current clearing pace they would only be able to reach Floor 48 next month and Floor 50 by the end of the year. Even if I was just planning to repay my debts to the two people who helped me in Underworld, I had to get stronger…! — It took all of my willpower to drag my right foot away from stepping out that door when that same determination drove me to walk so fiercely up to it. However you looked at it, it would be unacceptable for someone only ten days away from eighteen years old to put aside his report and play video games. My experimental data was gathered and ready, so I only needed an hour to finish — embracing such wishful thinking I sat into a chair at the dining table. I logged onto my home computer, downloaded my half-written report, and a large amount of experimental data from my homework folder. I tapped a magic mug (Asuna had earned it from some quest) that randomly produced one out of 99 different flavors of tea with the touch of a finger, drank a mouthful of the minty-chocolate flavored liquid, fired myself up: "Right! Shoot for 45 minutes!" and began typing frantically on my keyboard.
Throughout my whole life, even when I was a serious gaming addict, I would almost never forget my homework or leave it until the very last minute. I had my closest call this past summer, but if you ask any random bystander they'll tell you it was because I was practically comatose for an entire month.
At the end of June before summer break, I was attacked by Johnny Black, a former member of «Laughing Coffin» — the murder guild that had actively operated from the shadows of Aincrad — and one of the perpetrators of the Death Gun Incident. I was injected with succinylcholine, and it stopped my heart. I was eventually saved, but only managed to awaken from a coma on August 1, and after a long recovery, return home on August 16.
In other words, 65% of my roughly 40-day summer break got booked without my consent and there was no stopping the pileup of undone homework. I'd be content even if I could only halve that pile… I thought. I couldn't explain the details or cause of my coma to my school either.
I was attacked by a madman on the street and stayed in a hospital — if only it were that simple. Kidnapped from the hospital in a disguised ambulance, airlifted by helicopter to a marine research mothership floating faraway in the southern Pacific, having my soul connected to a mysterious machine, cutting down a tree in a different world called Underworld and going to swordcraft school, then battling the ruler of that world and falling into another coma… Who on earth would believe that?
In the end, all I could do was power through the homework with my friends' help. Whenever I thought about my agonizing, chaotic final week of summer break, I kept writing my report but I'd mutter nastily under my breath:
"… Dammit, if I could have, I would have gotten a homework exemption before disappearing…"
No one replied, of course. I was the only one in the forest home. The person I wanted to complain to hadn't shown up in Alfheim for quite some time to begin with.
The «man behind» Chrysheight the Undine mage was Kikuoka Seijirou of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' virtual reality division, but he had vanished from both the virtual and the real world for about a month now.
Dr. Koujiro Rinko had taken over command of Kikuoka's front organization «RATH», and Chief Engineer Higa Takeru was even more active than before at the development site, so there was some hope in Underworld's future — but even so, the man's disappearance brought with it a peculiar sense of loss.
If even I, who had been pushed to do things both tedious and dangerous, felt this way about him, the RATH staff must be very depressed too. He had been annoying to the very end… but come to think of it, he probably wasn't dead.
Disguised as a useless office-bearing bureaucrat of Internal Affairs, Kikuoka actually held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, but had left the army due to a shuffling of some Ministry of Defense top brass who had conspired with the American private military contractor that attacked the Ocean Turtle. Now he had vanished without a trace and was likely no longer in Japan.
I don't know whether I'll ever be able to meet him again. As I wrote my school homework in a different home faraway from Underworld, sometimes I thought that I even missed Kikuoka's thoroughly unavoidable stories of smelly food.
Maybe it was because I was thinking about something so out of character for me — I didn't hear the sound of the door opening in the room and only noticed until the clatter of footsteps grew near. I pushed the window of my almost finished report to the center of my desktop while turning around:
"Welcome back, A…"
—suna. I stopped myself at the very end before uttering the remaining syllables.
The female player standing behind me was not a blue-haired Undine, but a Cait Sith with triangular ears poking out from her head. However, she gave off not a sliver of the charm unique to her race.
The long hair draping over her back was dazzling golden. Her skin was fair enough to be transparent, and her eyes were blue as sapphire. Her refreshing beauty was very similar to that of her main body in the real world… no, in Underworld.
"… H-Hey, good evening, Alice."
I raised my right hand slightly in greeting. Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty's long, slender cat ears twitched with a wfff.
"So sorry that it's not Asuna, Kirito."
"N-No, no no no, that's totally, um, yeah."
The knight's stare grew colder and colder as it trained upon my frantically shaking head.
Unable to withstand that sort of gaze, I looked down and noticed that she was wearing golden armor over her blue gown and was decked out in full arsenal, complete with golden longsword at her waist.
"Oh… You going hunting?" I asked. Alice's scowl shifted ever so slightly.
"Yes, I promised Lisbeth and the others. It is just that… I still cannot get used to that word, «hunting»."
Alice pulled out a chair beside me and sat down with a clack. I got up by reflex, muttering "Uh, I'll go pour some tea" before trotting into the kitchen. I retrieved another magic mug, pulled out an unidentifiable cake from our shared storage onto a plate, and returned to the living room.
Alice was staring unswervingly at the report on the table. She looked up upon my return and asked:
"Is this an exercise from the academy you attend?"
"Um… Oh, yeah."
"Hmmm… —I was also given heaps of exercises in my Sacred Arts classes during my education in the Cathedral." As she murmured, a nostalgic expression washed over her face, and a tinge of sadness was visible in her smile.
I have never met anyone with a fate more full of misfortune than Alice.
Born and raised for eleven years of her life in Rulid Village in the northern Human Empire of Underworld, but whisked away by an Integrity Knight to the Axiom Church's Central Cathedral because she had broken a section of the Taboo Index stipulating that «trespass into the Dark Realm was forbidden».
With her previous memories stolen away by Highest Minister Administrator's «Synthesis Ritual», Alice stood in our way as the strongest Integrity Knight of them all when Eugeo and I broke into the Cathedral to take her back. Yet when she learned of the Axiom Church's lies and the Highest Minister's atrocities, Alice broke the seal suppressing her thoughts and joined alongside us in defeating Administrator.
Afterwards, she left the Church and returned to live in the woods near Rulid Village, taking care of me in my unconscious state for half a year, but still joined the battle after learning that the final war against the Dark Realm had begun. Despite her savage, goddess-like fighting, she was captured by the man in charge of the Ocean Turtle raid team. Then she was rescued at the expense of Knight Commander Bercouli's life and logged out from the system console with Asuna's guidance. Now she was living in the real world with a humanoid mechanical body developed by Higa Takeru.
Whether she was welcomed by the world or not, Alice was the world's first general-purpose AI and spent her days cooperating with Dr. Koujiro's advocacy for human rights for AI, but she apparently somehow found ways to log into ALO often to relax. One reason might be that she was more used to Alfheim than the real world, since it resembled Underworld more.
"Sacred Arts exercises were beaten into me too at the Swordcraft Academy, you know. I still remember the incantations." I replied while minimizing my homework window. I set down the mug and cake next to each other. Alice's catlike ears twitched.
"Oh? Then what would be the incantation that creates a small, hollow ball created from metallic element, fills it with water created from aqueous element, and surrounds it with a fireball created from thermal element?"
"Ugh… U-Umm, elements need to be generated in order of decreasing stability, so the first would be generate metallic… Wait, no, should I start with the water element first if I'm surrounding it with steel?"
Alice sighed loudly at once, and I retorted childishly: "W-What's wrong? I don't need to use Arts anymore anyway. Incarnation does the job easy for those kinds of things…"
"That is not the point!"
Reprimanding me like a teacher, Alice familiarly poked the edge of the mug and took a sip of the peachy tea that came gushing out.
"… I think today was a success." She muttered, and I thought of how this home had probably played host to several female tea parties. Knock on wood, I prayed silently as I sat back down in my chair and tapped my mug with my index finger. Tea of a deep purple color bubbled up, and with a bad feeling I tasted it; my tongue was beset by an intense sourness reminiscent of blended umeboshi. My flustered hands swiped up a piece of cake and I scarfed it down. Luckily, it was a very non-sensational fruitcake. Alice was silently eating piece after piece with a fork as well, apparently taking a liking to it.
Balancing the sweetness in my mouth with the strong salty umeboshi tea, I asked again:
"So… you said you have trouble using the word «hunting»?"
"Ahh… that is correct."
Alice nodded, her blue eyes turning to the darkness outside the window.
"… To me, or rather, to all of the people of the Human Empire in Underworld, what you call 'hunting' is a way of procuring beasts for food and giving thanks to Terraria's grace. But to the people, or players, rather, in this world, they kill vast numbers of beasts and demons for the sole purpose of raising their Control Authorities. I cannot denounce these actions, as I too killed hundreds to thousands of demihumans from the Dark Territory at the Great Gate… I just do not want to call it «hunting»."
"… I see…"
It was my turn to nod slowly.
Alice had already begun to understand the truth that Alfheim was created within the real world. But, the concept of a VRMMORPG… a «game», that is, was very difficult for her to understand.
This was inevitable. The idea of a virtual world was no different from Underworld, her home. Alfheim and Underworld were the same to Alice — «a world», and the feeling that all VRMMO players (including me) possessed, that they were «temporary worlds», was not something so easily shared with her.
So the first time Alice descended with me from New Aincrad to Alfheim, we ran into some trouble from a Salamander PK group in the «Ancient Forest» near Sylph territory. Silica was with us and was injured in the ambush, and Alice, furious with rage, cursed out the Salamanders like a demon, so severely that they apologized to Silica, paid her for the damage, and left — it was unprecedented.
The news that ALO's cat knight «Alice» was the same artificial intelligence «ALICE» who had delivered that grand speech at the press conference caused the incident to spread amongst players as "The Legend of Alice-sama Scolding a PKer Until They Cried", but all I really wanted was for her to one day be able to enjoy ALO as a game.
As I finished the cake and finally managed to drink a third of the tea, I said to this imperturbable, alien knight:
"… It's true. I think the word «hunting» in VRMMOs has diverged from the its original meaning, but most people in modern Japan have no real hunting experience… myself included. The meaning of words change with different times and places, and the same probably happens in Underworld too…"
Keeping silent, Alice focused on finishing her fruitcake and tea before replying:
"… Indeed. The Underworld of today is two hundred years ahead of the one from my time, so there will definitely be great changes in not just language, but culture as well. But no matter what these changes may be, I will have to accept them… because they are the proof that you protected Underworld…"
She smiled and gazed at me intently. It made me nervous and shook my head on reflex:
"No… it wasn't just me. Asuna, Sugu, Sinon… and the thousands of players from ALO, and everyone else worked together to protect Underworld."
"You are right… When you consider that, the usage of a single word is not much to be worried about."
She nodded and looked outside the window again, though her eyes were not gazing out into the forest night, but a different, faraway world.
The Light Cube Cluster and Main Visualizer  — the «containers» of Underworld, were still running in the Ocean Turtle, which had now been locked down at sea by the JSDF, but the situation remained awfully unstable.
The conservative faction of the Ministry of Defense — the anti-RATH faction, that is — had been temporarily excluded thanks to Kikuoka's selfless effort, so Underworld's immediate destruction had been averted, but during a power struggle things might change in unpredictable ways.
Asuna, Alice, and I had dived into Underworld from RATH's Roppongi branch on the early morning of August 18. We were startled to land in space instead of solid ground, but the two young Integrity Knights — Pilots, rather, who appeared flying «Mechadragons» eventually managed to give us a lift to the Human Empire.
But we were very hesitant on whether or not to enter the Central Cathedral. During those two hundred years, Asuna and I had become Underworld's «King and Queen of the Stars» and apparently had already died thirty years prior. It was difficult to imagine exactly what kind of chaos we would bring upon the Cathedral, or rather, the whole world, to have people like that suddenly appear while saying "Yo".
For the time being, the young female Pilot who called herself Rolan'nei invited us to her Centria home while we were there. In her strangely nostalgic abode we asked the two Pilots to tell us about Underworld's current situation, and were treated to a meal too.
Dr. Rinko had warned us before diving that we would be "forcibly awakened in five hours", so before then (clocks finally existed in Underworld after 200 years, thankfully), we promised to see the two Pilots again before logging off.
To be honest, I really do want to visit them, but Dr. Rinko and Higsan told me that diving again was strictly forbidden before they analyzed all the information we brought back!
I could understand why the adults were being so careful like this. I still don't known who had given Alice the IP address to log into Underworld — though I had a rough idea of who it was — the fate of Underworld, the Light Cube Cluster preservation plan, and the problem of AI rights, would all be greatly affected.
Fortunately, Underworld was currently running at the same speed as the real world. That way, we would no longer run into situations involving logging out and back in only to find that years had passed, but it had been a month nonetheless. Rolan'nei and Steeka had to be anxiously awaiting me, and I wanted to see them too, and listen to their stories, since they were probably—
"… to. Kirito, are you listening to me?"
The cat-eared knight poked me with her arm, and I blinked a few times.
"Ah, ahhh, sorry, I was thinking about Underworld…"
I apologized, and Alice's irritated expression softened.
"I see. I think about it many times every day too."
"Yeah… I'd really like to go back sooner."
"Yes." Alice nodded, and sighed mournfully.
Her level of longing was incomparably greater than mine. Besides, she had two specific goals.
First, she wanted to re-hatch and raise her beloved dragon «Amayori» and her brother «Takiguri» again, after I had transformed them back into eggs before my final battle against Gabriel Miller.
Second, she wanted to awaken her sister Selka Zuberg, who was currently in Deep Freeze on the 80th floor of the Central Cathedral—.
Neither task would be particularly easy, especially the latter. Alice would have to convince the current Human Empire government that she was the same legendary Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty who had vanished two hundred years ago.
But she was doing it no matter what, and of course, I was going to help her. I wanted to see Selka again too.
Alice's voice brought my mind back from that world once more.
"By the way, Kirito, Dr. Koujiro had a verbal message for you."
"Huh…? A verbal message? Why not just an email?"
"Apparently she wanted to avoid leaving any traces on the internet."
At that, my face stiffened.
RATH's network ought to be fully protected with high-level security. A message that had to be transferred not by email, not by voice, but by conversation within the unlogged ALO, had to be exceedingly important.
In a loud, clear voice, Alice spoke to a very nervous me:
"The twenty-ninth, 15 'o clock. The expensive cake shop."
"……. Huh?"
"That is all."
The twenty-ninth should be the day after tomorrow, and 15 'o clock was 3:00PM. I understood that much.
But what on earth was "the expensive cake shop"? Tokyo had tons of those kinds of places. Even my home city of Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture had one or two places if you looked for them.
For a moment I almost emailed Dr. Koujiro to confirm what she meant, but then I lowered my raised right hand. If I contact her like that now, then all of her effort would go to waste.
Tilting her head back and forth, Alice's face was tacitly envious:
"There are so many types of cakes in the real world that I cannot count them all, and plenty of things I have never had before in Centria. Merely looking at the pictures makes me hungry."
"Uh… Well, you're right, but… I really liked the snacks you could buy in the Central Capital. I could get a whole bag of honey pies for thirty Sias…"
"Are the cakes here expensive?"
"Well, one Sia is about ten yen, so a cake from a typical bakery shop would be… about forty Sias apiece."
"What, that much?…"
I chuckled at Alice's round eyes.
"It gets worse. I had some cake at Ginza once, and they were a hundred and sixty Sias each…"
And then, it finally clicked.
Dr. Koujiro was not the type of person to use food-related code. "The expensive cake shop" was just something she was passing on as well. And there was only one person affiliated with RATH who would come up with a message like that.
Alice tilted her head slightly as my shoulders sank and I exhaled a long breath.
"What's the matter, Kirito?"
"No… It's nothing. I just got the meaning of that message. Thanks for passing it on, Alice."
"Please don't mention it… is what I want to say…"
The golden knight's ears twitched slightly as though she had recalled something, and she smiled mischievously.
"So would you mind training with me then?"
"Huh? Oh, you mean raising Mastery…"
There was only one reason why Alice the proud knight would choose the cat-eared Cait Siths as her race: it was the easiest way to become a dragon-flying «Dragon Knight».
But even so, the process was not that simple. Flying a dragon required a very high Mastery of sword/spear skill in addition to taming skill. Training both at the same time not only required repeated battle to increase your Mastery points and improve your weapon skills; you also needed to spend your earned skill points on the taming skill.
I considered it for a moment, then restored the homework window in one part of my desktop to its original size.
"Then give me thirty minutes. I'll take care of this and meet up with Liz and the others so we can go get some skill points together…"
But the latter part of my sentence was drowned out by a light whoosh.
It was the sound of a player logging in. Then, appearing directly into the log cabin came the only other person apart from me—
I wheeled around with my chair at incredible speed, and Alice swiftly spun around too. At the same time, a virtual avatar softly materialized at the door.
Pale water-blue long hair, a white-based battle dress and a silver rapier hanging from her waist. Asuna the Undine healer/fencer saw Alice and me together and blinked slowly a few times, her face wooden.
"Wel… Welcome back, Asuna."
I stood up and greeted her; at this, she smiled at last and raised her right hand softly:
"Good evening, Kirito-kun. Welcome, Alice-san."
"Pardon the intrusion, Asuna."
Alice was replying with a smile, but contrasted against the two's calm expressions was a steadily rising pressure in the living room. Was it my imagination, or was—
In any case, I had to finish my homework first. I coughed softly and spoke again:
"Well, I gotta take care of my homework, so if possible, could you two head on to where Liz and the others are first…"
But I was unable to say anything else.
A sudden impact seemed to come from underground as it wrenched the log cabin back and forth, and a thunderous rumbling filled my ears.
"AHH!"
The instant I heard both of them scream, I instinctively kicked away from the ground and seized Alice's avatar in my right arm and Asuna's in my left. I forced all of us to crouch down, and then came a second powerful impact. The large beam bisecting the roof audibly creaked as the mugs rolled and fell from the table to the floor.
Earthquakes were not supposed to exist in the virtual world. Even if Alfheim's ground were to hypothetically shake, it would not be felt by New Aincrad. Further, even if New Aincrad were to hypothetically shake, the log cabin should not collapse. That was what logic told me, but I moved on instinct, shouting:
"Guys, outside!"
Almost dragging the rapier wielder and cat-eared knight, I crossed the undulating floor and just managed to reach the vestibule. The instant I pushed the door open and raced down the hall, a third impact, the strongest one so far, threw me off balance. All three of us tumbled down the short stairway.
Luckily, there was a lawn in the front garden so our HP did not decrease. I thought of hovering in the air to at least escape the next thrashing, and was just about to reach out my left hand to activate my fairy wings—
Asuna screamed hoarsely, gripping that hand with all her might:
"Kirito-kun, that… that's…!"
Asuna's slender left finger was pointing towards the patch of sky in an opening of the outer circumference near us. A second later, I saw it too.
Alfheim's time, unsynchronized with the real world, placed us still in the morning; there was quite a bit of time before sundown, yet the horizon had been tinted crimson. The blood-red hue raced closer and closer towards us at alarming speed, finally reaching the sky above Aincrad.
"… That is not the dawn…"
Alice uttered, grabbing my right arm. Her words almost failed to enter my mind, but my brain seemed to be shouting the same thing.
That red color was not the sky, but a massive hexagonal pattern fiercely filling the space above us. Emerging on the surfaces of the shapes were the alternating words: [Warning] and [System Announcement].
"Kirito-kun…"
Asuna weakly called my name again.
I tightly grasped her slender hand, as in my mind a vivid memory of «that day» was resurrected… the day on which I had seen the very same sky four years ago.