Sword Art Online - Volume 1 - Aincrad (28 page)

A blinding flash of light erupted from the fish’s mouth with an explosive sound effect. The fish was thrown high into the air, but Asuna hadn’t even moved from her spot.

Although the sheer size of the monster induced fear, I had guessed that its level couldn’t be very high. There was no way that a monster from such a low floor, especially one from a fishing-related event, could be that strong. After all, SAO was a game that kept to the normal pattern of online games.

The fish fell onto the ground with a crash, its HP greatly reduced by Asuna’s attack. Then, Asuna mercilessly launched into a chain of consecutive attacks worthy of her title «Flash».

Nishida and the other spectators watched wordlessly as Asuna activated one skill after another while she stepped gracefully as if dancing. Was it Asuna’s beauty or her strength that mesmerized them? I thought that it was probably both.

As Asuna swung her sword with a presence that overwhelmed everything around her, she saw that her opponent’s HP had gone into the red zone and jumped back to widen the distance between them. After landing, she went straight into a charge attack. She dashed towards the fish, leaving a trail of light behind her as if she was a comet. It was one of the highest level rapier skills: «Flashing Penetrator».

With a sound effect similar to a sonic boom, the comet penetrated the fish from its mouth to its tail. As Asuna skidded to a stop, the huge monster behind her fragmented into numerous bits of light and scattered. There was a loud smashing sound which created a huge ripple on the lake’s surface.

Asuna sheathed her rapier with a “clink” and walked nonchalantly over to us. Nishida and the other fishermen were left with their mouths gaping wide open, unable to even move.

“Hey, good job.”

“It’s not fair, making me fight by myself. You’re buying lunch next time.”

“Our money is shared data now.”

“Oh, right…”

As Asuna and I went on with our relaxed conversation, Nishida finally managed to blink and open his mouth.

“…ah, that was surprising… Madam, you, you’re really strong. This might be a bit rude, but how high is your level…?”

Asuna and I looked at each other. Staying on this topic for too long might be dangerous for us.

“Be-Before that, look, the fish dropped an item.”

Asuna pressed a couple of things on the window and a silver fishing rod appeared in her hands. Since an event monster had dropped it, it was most likely an unsellable rare item.

“Oh, ooh, this is!?”

Nishida received the fishing rod with sparkling eyes. All the spectators became interested in this as well. Just as I thought that we had managed to safely avert this crisis…

“Are…are you Asuna from the Knights of the Blood…?”

A young player took several steps closer to Asuna and stared intently at her face. Then his face brightened.

“Yeah, you are! I’ve even got a picture!!”

“Ah…”

Asuna forced a smile and took a few steps back. The spectators then doubled their excitement.

“It’s, it’s an honor! To be able to see Asuna-san fighting so close up… Oh yeah! Can, can you give me an autogra…”

The young man suddenly stopped talking and then shifted his gaze between Asuna and me a few times. He finally muttered with a surprised expression:

“Are…are you two, married…?”

It was now my turn to force a smile. As both of us stood there with unnatural smiles plastered on, shouts of anguish rose up all around us. Only Nishida continued to blink without any idea of what was going on.

Our secret honeymoon ended like this after only two weeks. But maybe we should consider ourselves lucky to take part in such a fun event at the end.

That night, we received a message from Heathcliff, requesting us to take part in fighting the seventy-fifth floor boss.

The next morning.

As I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the ground, Asuna, who had finished getting ready, walked over to me while the iron soles of her boots clanked against the ground.

“Hey, you can’t be like this forever.”

“But it’s only been two weeks.”

I replied childishly and raised my head. But I couldn’t deny that looking at Asuna in her white-red knight uniform for the first time in a while was very attractive.

Seeing as we had temporarily left the guild, we could decline the request. But the last line of the message, that “some people had already died,” laid heavily on our minds.

“Well, we should at least go listen to what’s going on. Come on, it’s already time!”

As she tapped me on the back, I finally stood up with reluctance and opened the equipment screen. Since we weren’t part of the guild right now, I put on my familiar black leather coat and a minimalistic set of armor, then slung my two swords onto my back with the scabbards crossing each other. The heavy weight on my back felt like they were complaining about being left in the inventory for so long. With a quick movement, I drew them slightly and then sheathed them again; a high and clear metallic sound rang through the room.

“Yeah. This appearance suits you best.”

Asuna smiled and hung onto my right arm. I looked back and bade farewell to our new home, which we were going to be away from for a while.

“…let’s get this over with quickly and then come back.”

“Yeah!”

We looked at each other and nodded. Then we opened the door and stepped outside into the cold winter air.

At the gate plaza of the twenty-second floor, we found Nishida waiting for us with a fishing rod in his hand. We had told only him the time when we were going to leave.

“Could we talk for a bit?”

I nodded to Nishida’s request, and the three of us sat down next to each other on a bench in the plaza. Nishida started talking slowly as he stared up towards the upper floors.

“To tell the truth…until today, stories about how people were fighting to clear the game on the upper floors sounded like they came from another world… Perhaps I had already given up on the thought of leaving this place.”

Asuna and I listened to him silently.

“I think you already know this, but the IT industry progresses almost daily. I had started this career when I was young, so I was able to keep up with the industry back then. But now I had been out of the field for about two years, and I figured it would be impossible for me to catch up now. Since I don’t know whether I could return to my old job or not, or if I would be treated as a hindrance and simply tossed away, I thought that it would be better for me to keep fishing here
—
 

He stopped talking and formed a smile on his old, wrinkled face. I didn’t know what to say. I suppose I couldn’t even imagine all the things he lost when he became imprisoned in SAO.

“I also
—
”

Asuna suddenly started talking.

“Until half a year ago, I also thought about those sorts of things and cried by myself every night. As each day passed here, it felt as if everything: my friends, my family, going to college, everything related to the real world was being ruined. I always dreamed of the other world when I slept… I thought that all I could do was to get stronger quickly, to clear this game faster, and the only way to do so was to fanatically train my weapon skills.”

I looked at Asuna in surprise. Although I never paid much attention to others before…but I never felt anything like this from her during all our interactions. Well, this wouldn’t be the first time that I had guessed someone’s personality wrong…

Asuna caught my gaze and smiled briefly before continuing:

“But on a day about half a year ago, after I had just teleported to the city on the front lines, I saw someone taking a nap on the grass of the plaza. He looked as if he was at a pretty high level, so I got angry and said, ‘If you have time to kill here, go into the dungeon and try to clear some more of it…!’”

Then she covered her mouth with her hand and laughed.

“Then that person unexpectedly replied, ‘It’s the best season in Aincrad and the weather setting is really good too. It would be a shame to go into the dungeon on a day like this.’ Then he gestured to the space next to him and said, ‘Why don’t you take a nap as well?’ He was so rude.”

Asuna stopped smiling; her eyes became distant before she continued:

“But what he said surprised me. I realized that ‘this person was actually living properly within this world.’ He didn’t mind losing days in the real world and instead focused on experiencing each day within this world. I discovered that there were actually people like this, so I sent away the other guild members and tried laying down next to him. Because the wind felt so good…just the right warmth for people, I fell asleep. I didn’t have any nightmares that time. It was probably the first time I had such a good sleep since coming to this world. By the time I woke up, it was already in the afternoon, and that person was looking at me impatiently. That person was him…”

As she finished, Asuna tightly grasped my hand. I felt extremely embarrassed. I did sort of remember something like that, but…

“Sorry, Asuna… I didn’t mean anything that deep by it; I just wanted to take a nap…”

“I knew that even if you didn’t tell me!”

Asuna pouted, then she turned back towards Nishida with a smiling face before continuing:

“From that day on…I went to sleep thinking of him, and as a result the nightmares went away. I found out where his hometown was and would set aside some time to go see him every once in a while…then I began to look forward to the coming of each day…when I realized that I was in love, I was so happy and swore to treasure this emotion. That was the first time when I thought that coming to this world was a great thing…”

Asuna lowered her head, rubbing her eyes with her gloved hands, and then took a deep breath.

“Kirito is the meaning behind the two years of my life spent here. He is also the proof that I’m alive and the reason for looking forward to tomorrow. I had put on the nerve gear and come to this world in order to meet him. Nishida oji-san…it might not be my place to say this, but I think you’ve definitely achieved something within this world. There is no doubt that this is a virtual world, that everything we see and touch is an imitation created from data. But to us, our hearts do exist within this reality. If that’s true, then everything we’re experiencing here should also be true.”

Nishida blinked continuously and nodded several times. His eyes were moist behind his glasses. I was also trying my best to hold back my tears.

It
was
me
,
I
thought.
I
was
the
one
who
was
saved
when
I
couldn’t
find
the
reason
for
being
alive,
whether
when
I
was
in
the
real
world
or
after
I
came
to
this
one.
 

“…yes. Yes, you’re right…”

Nishida looked up at the sky again and spoke.

“What I have heard here is also a priceless experience. Having caught a five meter fish is also one… It seems that my life here hasn’t been meaningless, not meaningless at all.”

Nishida nodded once and then stood up.

“Ah, it seems that I’ve taken up too much of your time. I firmly believe that if people like you are fighting to free us, then we should all be able to return to the real world soon… Although there’s nothing that I can do to help, I could at least encourage you and cheer you on. “

Nishida held our hands and shook them.

“We’ll come back. Please keep us company when we do.”

As I promised with my index finger, Nishida nodded with a huge smile as tears streamed down his face.

We firmly shook hands with Nishida and then walked over to the teleport gate. As we entered the space that shimmered like an illusion, Asuna and I looked at each other and then opened our mouths at the same time:

“Teleport
—
Grandum!”

The blue light that started to cover our vision erased the image of Nishida as he kept waving at us.

“
The scouting party was wiped out–!?
”
 

We were greeted with this shocking news when we returned to the KoB headquarters in Grandum for the first time in two weeks.

We were currently on one of the higher floors of the iron tower which served as the headquarters and inside the conference room with the huge window where we had talked with Heathcliff last time. Heathcliff sat at the center of the huge semi-circular table, dressed in his usual long robes. The other leaders of the guild sat on either sides of him, except this time Godfrey wasn’t present.

Heathcliff clasped the bony fingers of his hands together in front of his face and nodded slowly with a deep frown.

“
It happened yesterday. Mapping the seventy-fifth floor labyrinth took quite a long time, but we were able to finish it without any casualties. Although I had expected that we would have a hard time defeating the boss…
”
 

I did have a feeling that something like this might happen. The reason was that, of all the labyrinth bosses, only the ones from the twenty-fifth and fiftieth floors were extraordinarily large and powerful, which resulted in heavy losses from both of those fights.

The fight against the two-headed giant on the twenty-fifth floor virtually annihilated the elite troops of «The Army», which was the main cause of their decline as an organization. When the six-armed monster, which looked like a metallic statue of Buddha, launched a fierce assault during the fiftieth floor battle, numerous players had been frightened into teleporting away without permission and nearly caused the front line to collapse. If the reinforcements had been even a little late, we would have faced another total wipeout. As a matter of fact, the person who had held the line by himself during that battle until support arrived was right in front of me.