I let go of the cape, and Asuna took a step forward. She politely asked the elven blacksmith, “Excuse me, can I ask you to forge me a new weapon?”
He replied with another snort, but the special shop menu appeared for Asuna. When dealing with players, the negotiation was usually face-to-face, but sometimes NPCs might not understand the meaning of the players’ language, so a menu was provided to facilitate the transaction.
I wondered if the elf blacksmith also considered this window a type of magic charm. Asuna hit the visibility button in the corner of the window so I could see. She was about to push the CREATE WEAPON button with a slender finger, but stopped.
“…Oh yeah. There’s something I need to do first,” she murmured. A moment later, I realized what she meant.
“It’s not a necessary step, though. You can do as you see fit, Asuna.”
“I know…But I’ve made up my mind,” she announced and turned away from the shopwindow to remove the Wind Fleuret +5, in its familiar green sheath, from her waist.
From the battle against the first boss to the trials of the second floor and now here to the third floor, the simple but beautifully designed weapon had served Asuna well. She whispered something to the sword that I couldn’t hear, then offered it to the elf blacksmith. She chose to bypass the menu system and make the request herself.
“Please convert this sword into ingots.”
I expected the elven blacksmith to respond with a third resounding snort, but instead, he simply held out his hand.
He couldn’t possibly understand Asuna’s attachment to the weapon, but he did silently take the Wind Fleuret and remove it from its scabbard. The brilliant, mirrorlike polish when it was new had faded, but the blade had taken on a deep luster since. The blacksmith inspected the rapier, nodded, and tenderly placed it in the forge behind him.
This was an honest, square brick forge, not the portable kind that Nezha carried around. It didn’t have a bellows to power up the fire, but the flames rising from the surface were a mysterious blue green, likely the work of more elvish magic. The fire soon turned the silver blade bright red, and it began to glow from tip to hilt. Asuna clutched her hands over her chest as she watched.
Eventually, the sword flashed even brighter, then dulled, turning into a rectangular block about eight inches long.
When the light had fully subsided, the elf reached over with a gloved hand and picked the block out of the fire, handing it to Asuna. It was a single ingot, gleaming silver in the light of the morning sun. There were countless types of metal ingots in Aincrad, from real materials like iron and copper to fantastical ones like mithril, and even I couldn’t identify all of them by sight alone. However, it was clear that Asuna’s beloved weapon had turned into a particularly rare and valuable material.
“Thank you very much,” she said to the elf, taking the silver hunk in both hands. Asuna held it there for a few moments, as though assessing its weight, then opened her menu and placed it in her inventory. She closed the window, then slid the still-open shop menu over to resume her order.
She hit the CREATE WEAPON button, then hit ONE-HANDED WEAPON, then RAPIER, then SELECT MATERIAL. A smaller window popped up showing all of the eligible materials she possessed, split into categories.
When upgrading weapons, the only requirements were base materials and optional additives, but crafting a new one required a core material: the ingot. We could forge an ingot from the ores we’d collected in the spider cave, but those would be the basic materials in this case. Asuna didn’t need my help with this one; she selected a number of materials, leaving for last the core from her Wind Fleuret—which was officially called an Argentium Ingot. Once all the required items were fulfilled, a final YES/NO dialog box appeared, along with the cost of creation.
Asuna gave the blacksmith another glance, thanked him for the work he was about to do, and hit the YES button.
With a swooshing sound, two leather sacks and the brand-new ingot appeared on the work platform next to the blacksmith. He silently picked up the two sacks, which were filled with the base, and added materials and tossed them into the forge. The sacks burned away, leaving only the materials within, gleaming red.
“I-I don’t know about this…He was awfully blunt about doing that,” I muttered to Asuna, who sighed in annoyance.
“You’re the one who said you couldn’t fail at forging a weapon. We just have to trust in the process now.”
She’s learned a lot about mental toughness since the time we asked Nezha to power up that Wind Fleuret on the second floor, I thought. The truth was, I hadn’t told Asuna about one thing.
It was impossible to fail entirely at weapon creation—meaning that all of the materials disappeared and no sword appeared in return. But that didn’t mean that the results were always fixed. The player chose a type of weapon, but what it looked like and what it was called were a mystery until the process was finished. Essentially, there was a wide range of potential stats for the completed weapon.
But it was impossible for the finished sword to be weaker than the Wind Fleuret it was based on—I hoped. The elven blacksmith might be unfriendly, but his skill was good, we gave him the maximum of basic and added materials, and all of Asuna’s sentiment was poured into that ingot. Superstition or not, I believed that even in this world of digital data, that stuff made a difference.
As I pondered over these momentary thoughts, the materials in the fire melted together, turning the flames to a bright white color. The blacksmith tossed the ingot in, and the cold metal block began to sparkle.
“Buff, please,” came Asuna’s voice. I felt the index, middle, and ring fingers of my right hand gripped by a soft palm up to the second knuckle.
Of course, we had no active buff effects, and even if we did, the benefits wouldn’t transfer through hand-to-hand contact. But instead of mentioning these things aloud, I simply brushed my thumb against the back of her hand, praying for a good sword to emerge.
The elf paid no mind to our rapt attention. When the ingot was sufficiently heated, he picked it up with his gloved left hand and moved it to the anvil. Smith’s hammer spinning in his hand, the elf struck the metal rhythmically, once every two seconds. The clear ringing echoed through the morning air of the camp.
The number of strikes to finish the weapon was directly related to the strength of the finished product. A starter weapon like a Plain Rapier or a Small Sword would only take five swings, less than an upgrade attempt. The Wind Fleuret and others of its level required around twenty blows. Therefore, counting up the number of hits as the process continued was both exhilarating and nerve-racking.
Ten, fifteen. The strikes continued.
Once the number passed twenty, I slowly let out the breath I’d been holding in. This essentially ensured that the sword would be better than the Wind Fleuret.
But once the hammer counted twenty-five, I felt the tension return. I stared closely at the spark-laden ingot, unaware that I was clenching Asuna’s hand back.
My Anneal Blade was a quest reward, but a weapon of a similar quality was worth about thirty strikes. The blacksmith’s hammer breezed past that number, then thirty-five, only stopping after the fortieth hit.
The shining white ingot slowly morphed into a new form: thin, long, sharp, beautiful. With one last flash, there was a gleaming silver rapier lying atop the anvil.
As we watched in silence, the blacksmith grabbed it by the ornately decorated hilt and lifted it up. He ran a finger along the slender blade and, to our surprise, commented on his work.
“…Good sword.”
He reached back to a rack stuffed with countless sheaths and pulled out a bright gray one, slid the rapier into it, and handed it to Asuna.
At this point, I realized I was still gripping her hand tight. I hastily let go and shoved my hands into my pockets. She looked at me with a very strange look on her face, then accepted the rapier from the elf and bowed.
“Thank you very much.”
> This time, he did snort back.
Asuna grinned and started to hook her new sword to the fastener at her belt, but I grabbed her arm. She looked at me suspiciously, but followed as I pulled her away to an open area within the crafting quarter.
Once I stopped, she tugged her arm out of my grasp and frowned.
“What’s the big idea? I got the new sword, safe and sound.”
“I-I don’t mean to complain about it. Can I just…see it really quick?” I asked, holding out my hand. She pouted but handed over her brand-new weapon.
The instant its dense weight hit my palm, I understood this was no ordinary weapon. I tapped the sword to bring up its properties, and we examined the results together.
At the top was the sword’s name: CHIVALRIC RAPIER. That meant…it was a knight’s rapier, I supposed. Its current upgrade level was, of course, +0. Next to it was the number of upgrade attempts remaining—fifteen.
“Nu-wha…”
An inexplicable grunt escaped my lips, the only outward sign of emotion, but on the inside, I was screaming, How?! My shock was so great that I felt like I could shoot upward and slam my head against the bottom of the next floor up, then fall back to the ground.
I didn’t even need to look at the fine details of attack and speed numbers listed below. Fifteen upgrade attempts was about twice that of my Anneal Blade, which had eight. In the most simple terms, this Chivalric Rapier was twice as strong as my weapon. This was the equivalent of a fifth- or sixth-floor weapon.
It was cause for celebration, without a doubt. A weapon’s stats had a direct correlation on the chances of victory—and in fact, “rate of victory” meant nothing here. In a world where any defeat spelled certain doom, every battle must be won. There was no such thing as too much power.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. We weren’t locked in a stand-alone RPG, but a VRMMORPG.
Looking at her beautiful weapon, with hilt, pommel, and even knuckle guard gleaming silver, I had the premonition—if not dread—that this rapier would change the fate of my partner.
“…What’s wrong?”
I snapped back to my senses. Asuna was staring at me, so I hastily shook my head.
“N-nothing…I-I mean, it’s not nothing. This sword…is ultra-good.”
“Hmm. Ultra?”
“Ultra.”
Suddenly, Asuna let out a little giggle. I didn’t like being laughed at, but at least it got my mind back on the normal track. I coughed and returned her rapier.
Once she had fixed the gray sheath to her belt, I said, “Um…congrats on getting a new main weapon. If you ask me, your Wind Fleuret is still alive inside of it…but I guess everyone has their own way of seeing it…”
Her grin turned annoyed at the awkward, hesitant finish, but she thankfully did not cut me down with one of her usual barbs.
“Thanks. I agree…I feel like I’ll still be able to get by with this new one.”
“Ah, c-cool.”
“As you probably remember…”
She stopped short, then had a wry expression of pain on her lips when she continued.
“…When I left the Town of Beginnings and headed for the labyrinth, I thought weapons were just disposable tools. I bought tons of those cheap Iron Rapiers, didn’t bother with upgrading or upkeep, and just threw them onto the dungeon floor when they lost their edge. But…that was me, in a nutshell. I figured I’d just charge ahead, as far and fast as I could go…until I couldn’t go any farther and died…”
She traced the knuckle guard of her new weapon with a fingertip. When she spoke next, it was in drips and drops, as though putting the texture of the silver into words.
“…To be honest, I still don’t think I can have much hope. A hundred floors is so long…too long. But…once you reached out to me, and I got my Wind Fleuret and learned to power it up, I feel like I started changing, bit by bit. Not in the sense of beating the game and getting back to reality, but…taking each day as it comes. Having the hope of surviving each day. And to do that, I need to take care of my sword and armor, and study hard, and so on…I’ve learned how to do the necessary maintenance on myself.”
“…Your own maintenance…”
Asuna was a beginner, not just to SAO, but any MMORPG at all, and at the present moment, I understood much more about the game than she did. But I felt that she had just taught me something extremely important. I looked down at my hand.
There was probably a part of me that was avoiding thinking about the difficulty of beating the game, despairing that it would never happen. That’s why I took on the mantle of beater, distancing myself from the mainstream group of clearers. Kibaou’s Aincrad Liberation Squad and Lind’s Dragon Knights had far more courage and ambition to look up at the hundredth floor than I did. There was only one reason I continued to fight: to make myself stronger.
Thirty-nine days before, right after Akihiko Kayaba himself descended upon the center square of the Town of Beginnings to herald the arrival of the game of death, I took off running for the next town. But not to get a head start on beating the game. I wanted to get a head start on surviving.
But even I ended up meeting a few others, getting involved, forming relationships.
Argo the Rat, information dealer. Agil the ax warrior. Nezha, the former blacksmith. Even Diavel, who perished against the first-floor boss, and Kizmel the NPC. And most importantly of all, the fencer before my eyes, Asuna…
I did have a responsibility. A responsibility to continue to fight, for the sake of those I’d met. I couldn’t give up and abandon the battle because I was tired of it. The fact that they’d survived along with me was a source of strength and relief.
“…That’s right,” I said, still staring at my hand. Asuna responded, her voice free of the usual thorns, perhaps even…kindly.
“You have to learn to take care of yourself. When things are hard or sad, it’s important to tell someone, rather than holding it all in.”
“Uh…y-yeah…”
I looked up and saw a gentle smile on her face.
“And…what will happen if I tell you?”
Without hesitating, she replied, “I’ll always be ready to treat you to a piping hot Taran steamed bun.”
“Ah…you don’t say.”
I almost let my shoulders slump at that answer, then reminded myself not to hope for anything better. Plus, those steamed buns were pretty good—as long as you let them cool down first.
“Well, if I ever fail in my upgrade attempt, I’ll call on you for a chat session. So anyway, back to the matter at hand,” I said, hoping to change the topic. Asuna’s ultrarare smile melted away like a flower of ice in the hot sun.
“Huh? Wasn’t the matter at hand how my Wind Fleuret still lives on?!”
“That’s right,” I noted, pointing to Asuna’s new partner. “Not to repeat myself, but that Chivalric Rapier is unbelievably powerful for the third floor. With a bit of upgrading, a single hit from it will easily eclipse the strength of my Anneal Blade plus six. That’s a great thing, no doubt, but the question will be, how did you get such a powerful weapon?”
“Umm…”
She paused to think, then turned back to look at the blacksmith’s tent, a number of yards away on the other side of the hasty fence that surrounded this cramped space. I followed her gaze—the blacksmith himself was invisible from here, but his lazy clanging reached my ears.
“If you overlook his rudeness, that blacksmith was good at his job, wasn’t he? Wouldn’t every weapon he crafts be about this good? If you overlook his rudeness.”
“W-well…I doubt that’s the case. We’ve had several fights now on the third floor, and the mobs aren’t really any different from what I fought in the beta. If all of a sudden you’re getting a weapon that’s twice as powerful as it should be, the game balance is totally broken.”
“So you’re saying that maybe the blacksmiths in the main town are the same, but just this dark elf was updated to make better weapons?
If you overlook his rudeness.”
“Hmmm…”
I took my eyes off the tent and scanned the entire camp.
The night had completely worn off now; the deep valley was full of morning light. Beyond the last tendrils of morning mist, the guards, knights, and officers traded easy greetings, and the scent of baking bread wafted from the dining tent. It was exactly as I remembered it from the beta.
“…Anyone can reach this camp as long as they take on the ‘Jade Key’ quest. In that sense, I don’t think there’s much difference between this place and the main town.”
“Well, you’re not painting a very convincing picture. And besides, who cares if the game balance is destroyed because I got a way more powerful weapon than I should have? Better that than the reverse case.”
“Um, yeah, that’s true…”
Her opinion was absolutely correct. We weren’t here to be gentlemen, to play nicely with the game’s rules. We’d use any bugs or cheats possible to get out.
But therein was the problem.
If this Chivalric Rapier was indeed an irregularity in the system, an item that should not exist, there was always the danger that the management—if there were even any GMs other than Kayaba—would take action to deal with it, such as replacing it with a proper weapon or deleting it entirely.
But perhaps that wasn’t the only issue. When we eventually met up with the other frontline players to tackle the third-floor labyrinth and boss, the others would undoubtedly be stunned by Asuna’s new weapon. And there was no guarantee it would all be in admiration…
“Let’s do a test, then.”
“Eh?”
I looked perplexed, not following her line of thinking.
“Let’s ask him to create another sword and see if he repeats the phenomenon.”
“Ahh, I see…wait.” I nodded a few times, then pointed to myself. “When you say ‘create another sword’…you mean me?”
“Why would I need to forge two swords? I can’t fight with one in each hand.”
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