I was still idly contemplating whether I should prioritize food or sleep when Kizmel stopped next to the heater and put her hand on the large gemstone that acted as a clasp on her shoulder plate.
With a strange tinkling sound, her armor, cape, and saber vanished into motes of light. All that was left beneath it was a sheer undergarment that shone like silk. I was so shocked that I couldn’t pull my gaze away. There was a distinctly un-elven volume to the body beneath the black fabric—perhaps that was what made her a dark elf…
Suddenly, a hand grabbed the back of my collar and an icy voice said into my ear, “You should take a bath as well. You must have gotten sweaty during that boss fight.”
…Well, I’m certainly feeling a cold sweat now.
An irresistible force dragged me backward out through the entrance of the tent. Outside, the dark elf camp looked even more fantastical than usual with the transition from late afternoon to evening.
Here and there about the base were elegantly designed steel mesh cages holding silent, purplish flames. A restrained lute melody was playing from one of the tents, to which the crickets in the grass added their own ringing harmony.
Even the soldiers’ laughs coming from the large dining tent and the clanging hammer of the elves’ attendant blacksmith seemed like musical instruments adding to the performance. I walked behind Asuna, concentrating on the unfamiliar sounds of the nonhuman camp. Suddenly, I remembered a very important mission and called out to the back of the tunic ahead.
“Oh, Asuna.”
“What?”
She slowed down so I could catch up to her side, but did not stop walking.
“The NPC blacksmith here is a really high level, so we should upgrade your weapon to its maximum while we can.”
“…To the maximum? Are you sure?” she replied doubtfully. She must have been recalling the scene of her favorite sword helplessly shattered before her eyes several days ago. Of course, that was only a fake substitute switched in with the Quick Change mod, but she hadn’t known that at the time. The visceral shock still remained in her memory.
I nodded vigorously to set her at ease. “You might not have a hundred-percent chance of success, but just a few materials should boost the rate to its maximum. If we can get yours to plus six, that should last you through the middle of this floor.”
Asuna bought her beloved Wind Fleuret just before the strategy meeting for the first-floor boss raid. Statistically, it wasn’t really cut out for the third floor, but if upgraded completely—every one of its limited upgrade attempts successful—it might serve her a little while longer.
For me, this was a rare prioritization of sentiment over efficiency, but to my surprise, Asuna looked down and mulled it over. Her fingers wandered along her waist, as though searching for the sheath of the rapier that was currently stored away in her inventory.
“…Remember what you said before? About melting down a sword to use as material for a new one?”
“Ah…yeah, that’s right.”
“Could I have that done here, with their blacksmith?”
“Su-sure, if you want, but…”
Asuna finally stopped walking and turned to me, causing me to realize I’d stopped already. There was a rare hint of a smile on her face.
“Thanks for the concern. But if we’re going to brave the risk of attempting to upgrade for a sword I’m just going to get rid of in a few days, I’d rather have it reborn here.”
“I see…” If that was how Asuna felt, it wasn’t my place to tell her otherwise. “All right. I’m sure it’ll make for a powerful blade. Well, let’s go see that blacksmith’s tent…”
I headed for the other direction and Asuna grabbed my shirt.
“The bath comes first!”
I didn’t remember if the base camp had a bath during the beta. Even if it did, none of our all-male party would have bothered to use it. If we wanted to bathe back then, we could just log out and take a real one. If any of us fell asleep in the tents, it was to enjoy the camping experience, nothing more.
Even now that we were permanently trapped in here, I wasn’t particularly attached to the idea of bathing, but it was clearly a top priority for my temporary partner. Perhaps if there was a magical hot spring that offered its own buff effect…but in that case, I’d just jump in fully clothed. The sensation of being wet was unpleasant and added a bit of weight, but it wore off soon after you left the water.
Since this bath was a favorite of the dark elves, perhaps it did have some magical effect of its own. Then again, it might have a negative prank effect, like causing your ears to grow pointier the longer you stayed in the water…
Asuna and I arrived at a small tent behind the dining area while I pointlessly pondered the effects of elf baths. We stopped and looked at each other—there was only one entrance to the bathing tent, and there was no marking on the swinging flap that designated male or female.
“……”
Asuna silently parted the flaps to peer inside, then pulled her head out. “There’s only one bath in there.”
“I see.”
Even as a dweeby middle schooler, I knew enough not to joke that this meant we had to bathe together. I put on as serious a face as I could manage and stepped back.
“In that case, I’ll just go next door and grab a bite while you’re bathing. Take your time, and I’ll come back when you’re—”
“I asked this before, but are you sure this place is outside of the crime-prevention zone?”
I blinked a few times, baffled by this seemingly unrelated question, then nodded.
“That’s right…”
“Which means it would be dangerous to remove all your equipment here.”
“W-well, in a general sense, sure…”
“In which case, it makes sense for one of us to stand guard at the entrance while the other is bathing. We can flip a coin to see who goes first…”
I finally understood Asuna’s concern. She wasn’t truly afraid of a sudden attack by monsters or enemy players, but the possibility of the male dark elves in camp barging in while she was bathing. It seemed silly to get worked up about NPCs, but I could see her point.
Given that it was my fault that Argo the information dealer had burst into the bathroom while Asuna was bathing earlier, I ought to be accommodating here. I reached that conclusion in the span of a second and nodded to reassure her.
“Understood. I’ll take the second turn; you go first.”
“Thank you.” Asuna grinned and disappeared into the tent with blinding speed. In the brief moment the flap was raised, I saw an elegantly carved bathtub filled to the lip with pale green water. The only thing separating the bathing area from the outside world was a simple cloth door that hung loose in the wind.
It was easy to see why a girl would feel uncertain about bathing on her own in such circumstances. If it was that bad, she probably didn’t need to take a virtual bath, I thought, but she had her own priorities. In a world where death lurked around every corner, there had to be some way to relax and let all that accumulated stress ease away. I needed to find my own way to refresh while we were here in the safety of camp.
I sat down and leaned back against a support pillar. From beyond the simple layer of canvas, I heard two small swishing sounds. Those had to be the commands to remove all clothes, then all underwear. There was a splash, then a contented sigh.
“…How can anyone relax like this?” I growled at myself, folded my arms, and assumed a Zen sitting position.
SAO had a Meditation skill but not a specific Zen skill. I prided myself on my ability to focus my concentration, however. I might not be able to fully relax here, but I could at least dedicate my mind to my future build choices and equipment upgrade paths…
“Mmm-mm-mm, hmm-hmm” came a faint humming to my ears, obliterating all concentration.
At this point, it seemed like the only possible solution to this quandary was if the pillar failed to support my weight, sending me tum
bling backward into the tent. But the thick log stayed firm, lodged concretely into the ground.
The mental assault of splashing and humming continued unabated for the next thirty minutes.
3
MY EYES OPENED AS SUDDENLY AS A BUBBLE POPPING on the water surface.
It was still night; the only sound was insects. The lute playing as I drifted off to sleep was no more, and neither were the voices and footsteps of the soldiers, or the hammering of the blacksmith’s anvil.
I shut my eyes, considering going back to sleep, but within a few seconds, I was fully awake. Abandoning my attempt to rest, I sat up.
Across the tent, the fencer was fast asleep, her posture pristine. But I didn’t see Kizmel in the space between us, where she should have been.
After my temporary partner had finished her bath, I had slipped in for my own and was out of the water by the count of a hundred. Fortunately, neither of us had grown pointy ears after using it. We moved over to the dining tent with the surprisingly friendly elf soldiers and dined on lightly baked bread, roast chicken, vegetable soup, and fruit. When we returned to Kizmel’s tent, I felt highly satisfied.
We found the tent’s owner already curled up in the blankets and sleeping peacefully. The moment I saw that, all of my fatigue from earlier came flooding back, and the two of us silently took our corners of the tent and lay down on the furs. I remembered pulling a nearby blanket up to my chin, and nothing after that.
My menu window said that it was two in the morning. No wonder I felt awake—I’d gotten a solid seven hours of sleep. Taking care not to make any noise, I closed the window and slipped out of the blankets.
When I passed through the hanging flap of the tent, the night lamps of the camp were mostly out, leaving the area lit by pale moonlight. A quick scan of the area showed no one moving except for two sentries marking the walls.
So where could Kizmel have gone? Perhaps onward to the next quest on her own? I shook my head—an NPC wouldn’t be that independent, and her HP bar listed next to Asuna’s and mine was still full.
I thought it over, then decided to head for the one part of the dark elf base I hadn’t visited yet: behind the commander’s tent at the very back of the clearing.
The moonlight in Aincrad was bright enough in any place open to the sky to make it easy to walk around. The moon itself was out of sight unless you were close to the outer perimeter, of course, so its light was reflecting off the lower side of the floor above, but that just gave the blue glow an even more unearthly beauty.
I headed east around the great command tent and stopped when the space behind it came into view. It was a tiny, grassy stretch with a single tree. I recalled it being an entirely empty, dead space in the beta.
But now there were three new objects beneath the long branches of the tree. Three simple but beautiful grave markers carved of wood.
The woman I’d been searching for was standing before the leftmost grave. She was in a tunic and tights now—not the underwear from earlier, but still without her signature armor. She was downcast, staring at the base of the grave. In the light of the moon, her smoky-purple hair was glowing lilac.
After a few seconds of hesitation, I slowly approached, stopping several feet away. The dark elf knight noticed my footsteps and looked up at me.
“…Kirito. The morrow will be difficult if you don’t get your rest,” she whispered.
“I slept better than I usually do. Thanks for letting us use your tent.”
“I don’t mind. It is too large for me alone,” she responded, then looked back to the grave.
I took two more steps and examined the marker. There were small words carved into its fresh, unfinished surface. I squinted and made out the name Tilnel.
“Tilnel…?” I said aloud and noticed that it sounded very similar in rhythm to Kizmel.
She paused, then said, “My sister. She lost her life in the first battle after we descended to this floor last month.”
The phrase descended to this floor indicated that the dark elves—and likely the forest elves as well—understood that the floating castle Aincrad was made of numerous stacked floors. Not only that, they could use their magical charms to sidestep the system of labyrinth stairs and town teleport gates. Perhaps their movement range was limited from this floor up to the ninth.
I’d had this basic knowledge of the elves since the beta, when I completed the campaign quest for the first time. But I was so preoccupied getting further into the game than anyone else at the time, it never occurred to me that the battle between the elves might tie into the game world itself.
I was struck by the sudden urge to ask Kizmel how Aincrad came to be, but I held it in with a breath of cool night air. It wasn’t fair to ask such an important question while Asuna was absent, and this wasn’t the time to ask, anyway.
Instead, I asked about Kizmel’s late sister.
“Was Tilnel…a knight, too?”
“No. My sister was an herbalist. Her job on the battlefield was to tend to the wounded. She never carried anything larger than a dagger. She was at the rear vanguard when the forest elves’ falconers ambushed us from behind…”
“……”
I grimaced and held my breath. The Forest Elven Falconers were the worst mobs on the third floor after the bosses and event enemies. The dark elves had their own Dark Elven Wolfhandlers, but the falconers were the bigger danger, given that they could attack you from ground and air simultaneously.
However she chose to interpret my silence, Kizmel’s tense profile eased somewhat.
“I have no chairs or blankets, but you ought to sit. There’s no need to stand around.”
“Um…sure.”
I sat down next to her. The thick, soft grass of this tiny graveyard supported my weight with ease.
The knight picked up a leather skin sitting next to her, pulled out the plug, and took a swig, then passed it to me. I thanked her and accepted the drink, temporarily forgetting that I was interacting with an NPC rather than another person.
When I put my lips to the skin, a thick liquid flooded between them. It was slightly sweet and sour, and when I finished, there was a burning like alcohol in the back of my throat that felt fresh and cool.
I handed back the skin. Kizmel held it out over the grave and poured the rest of the liquid onto Tilnel’s grave marker.
“This was her favorite: moontear wine made of moontear herbs. I snuck some out of the castle, hoping to bring it to her. In the end, she never had a sip…”
The empty skin slipped from her hand and plopped lightly on the grass. Kizmel crouched, lining her knees together and hugging them tight.
“When I accepted the mission to retrieve the Jade Key yesterday, I was prepared to die. Part of me might have hoped for it. At best, I might have taken that forest elf down with me, otherwise I would simply have lost…But fate helped you guide me away from my death. And after I had sworn that no gods existed in this forsaken place anymore…”
Kizmel glanced over at me. I noticed that her onyx eyes were moist and was at a loss for how to react. Kizmel and her sister Tilnel were residents of this world, risking their lives for the sake of their people, and I was nothing but a temporary visitor, an outsider…
But in truth, that was not the case anymore. Asuna and I were trapped in this game now. Just like Kizmel, we had only one life to give. And yet, when we inserted ourselves into the fight between her and the forest elf knight, I’d foolishly rested on my laurels, convinced that once we were half-dead, the dark elf would sacrifice herself to let us win.
It had been wrong of me to draw my sword with that mind-set. Whether I knew what would happen or not, I should have fought with all of my ability. To protect my own life and the lives of Asuna and Kizmel.
Biting back a sudden flood of regret, I said, “It wasn’t the gods. Asuna and I were there of our own will. We’ll stick with you until the end. Until you get back home.”
The dark elf knight grinned. “In that
case, I will do my best to protect you. Until our paths part.”
Thursday, December 15, 2022.
Kizmel, the level-15 dark elf knight; Kirito, the level-14 swordsman; and Asuna, the level-12 fencer and temporary party member, left the base camp for a new adventure.
The night had not broken yet. It was three in the morning, and the trees of the forest were quietly slumbering in the pale moonlight. When Kizmel and I returned from our graveyard vigil, we found Asuna not sleeping but fully packed and ready to leave.
When the fencer saw me without my weapon or armor on, she looked annoyed and wondered why I’d left if not to get prepared for the trip. When I was followed into the tent by Kizmel in her thin underclothes, Asuna’s glare turned downright icy. My only choice was to claim that I’d been ready for hours.
Asuna continually threw me skeptical glares as we walked through the camp clearing, but only until we passed through the narrow canyon out into the Forest of Wavering Mists again. The sight was even more fantastical now that the mossy trees and low, thick mists were lit by pale blue moonlight. I’d seen the exact same thing months before, but I couldn’t help but gasp at its beauty. Asuna was completely bowled over. She murmured, “It’s stunning,” and didn’t move for another thirty seconds.
Kizmel silently waited along with me, though it was hardly the first time I’d been surprised by her behavior. It would be perfectly ordinary behavior for an NPC waiting for players to react, but it seemed to me that she was choosing to take her time and respect Asuna’s feeling of wonder.
When my partner came to her senses again, the knight spoke softly.
“She loved the night forest as well…Come, let us be off.”
The quest given to us by the commander after completing the “Jade Key” was titled “Vanquishing the Spiders.”
The forest was exploding with poisonous spider monsters who were sabotaging patrol missions, so it was our job to find the nest.
I’d done this quest before, of course, but the location of the nest was generated randomly, so my memory was of no use here. We just had to trek through the forest, fighting spiders until we narrowed down their source.
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