Somewhere in my heart, I was afraid of her gathering more attention and eventually being called on to take a leadership role...
“Kirito! The gauge is about to drop into the red!”
I was snapped back into the present. Up above the looming, mountainous shell of the Biceps Archelon, the two-bar HP gauge was on its last legs. More than a few bosses changed their attack patterns once in the red zone, so I pushed the boat backward, just in case.
But the four ships trained at the heads of the turtle doing the brunt of the damage were still right there, hammering even harder than before. The players lined up along the sides of the gondolas facing the turtle set off sword skills left and right, enveloping the Archelon’s two heads in colored light. The HP gauge dropped further, under the 10 percent mark.
“Hey! Everyone get away!” I heard Agil shout from the other side of the turtle shell.
I was already at a safe distance, just far enough back to take in the entirety of the beast. Its two heads, front and rear flippers, and tail were all twisted up against the sides of the shell. I’d never seen this animation before, but I sensed what it was.
“Watch out, it’s going to spin!!”
I very much doubted that it would spin enough to fly like a certain movie monster, but even the largest gondola would certainly capsize if sucked into a giant whirlpool–if it didn’t crash into other ships first. But neither guild retreated, even after our warnings. They probably hoped to take it all the way down in this burst of sword skills, but the spinning preparation raised the boss’s defense, and its HP stubbornly refused to drain away.
“They’re in big trouble at this rate, Kirito!” Asuna cried. That settled the matter.
I ordered my partner to duck down, then rowed madly. As the Tilnel raced forward through the whitecaps, the Archelon’s massive body tensed powerfully.
If we charge in and take all the glory again, it’s just going to make our reputation worse, I thought briefly. But then I changed my mind and pushed on with one last row.
“Screw that! I’m not giving up my position!”
The burning red ram at the front of the Tilnel plunged deep into the softer gut of the Archelon just before it could begin spinning. After a brief moment of silence, a few white steam vents burst out of the shell. The entire form of the turtle bulged outward, shrouded in blue light–and exploded.
I looked up at the listing of col, normal loot, and the Last Attack bonus and thought, Good grief, I did it again.
Asuna stood up at the prow of the boat and slid her rapier into its sheath, then glanced skeptically at me.
“S-sorry about just charging like that, but it looked like the turtle was about to start something bad...”
“Yes, that’s fine. But what did you mean by ‘my position’?”
I didn’t know if telling her that I meant “my position as gondolier” would fly as an excuse, but fortunately for me, she didn’t press any further, so I quickly guided the boat toward the exit of the caldera.
We zoomed past the Dragon Knights and Liberation Squad, who looked mighty peeved, pissed, and petulant for having just defeated the field boss, and waved to Agil’s team as they shot us thumbs-up on the way out of the lake. After a brief trip down the river, we would reach a small village called Usco.
“Y’know, I’ve been noticing,” I started to say to Asuna. She was clearly deep in thought, as it took her a few seconds to turn around and respond.
“Huh...? Wh-what?”
“Oh, it’s nothing serious...but I was noticing that travel from town to town on this floor hasn’t been easy. In the previous few, we could just sprint our way down the path, but here you’ve got to either swim or paddle.”
“Mm, you’re right. Plus, there’s the occasional monster in the river. People coming for sightseeing will be satisfied by Rovia alone, I’m sure, but I wonder how Argo’s doing here.”
“Speaking of which, I wonder if even she’ll be stuck in the main town this time...”
“No looking down on me, Kii-boy.”
“I’m not looking down on you, but–whaaah?!”
A familiar voice sounded in my ear that should definitely not have been present, and I nearly fell out of the boat. I lost balance and caused the oar to slip, rocking the gondola. Asuna abruptly had to regain her balance up front and turned back in surprise.
Traveling just to the left of the Tilnel at the exact same speed was the unmistakable face of Argo the Rat.
She wasn’t swimming. She wasn’t riding on a boat, either.
She was gliding on the surface of the river like a water strider.
“Wh-what the heck is that?! Did you become an apprentice to those doofus ninjas from the Fuma Ninja Force?!”
“Nya-ha-ha, hardly. I found these babies in town.”
She slid along the water on one leg, raising her right foot high so I could see. Instead of her usual boots, she was wearing sandals equipped with very light-looking wooden floater paddles. An item that gave the wielder the ability to run on water, no doubt.
“Wha...Th-they were selling those things?! What was the point of going to all that trouble to build a ship...?”
“The rub is, these require a ridiculous amount of agility to equip, and you gotta lower your weight as much as possible when using ’em. Tip your balance even the tiniest bit, and you’ll flip over. No way to fight when using these babies.”
“Ohhh...Doesn’t seem like you’ve given up much of your gear, though,” I remarked, looking sidelong at her. As far as I could tell, she was still in her familiar hooded cape and didn’t seem much lighter than usual.
The Rat’s face crinkled into a smirk, her painted whiskers twitching.
“Is that how it seems to you? Never know, I might be wearin’ nothin’ at all under here.”
“...O-oh yeah?”
I started to turn my head to check, but felt a stare inflicting piercing damage on my forehead from the front seat and turned to face forward. Argo chuckled again, while Asuna cleared her throat to ask a question.
“Um, Argo, would you like to ride with us to the next village? We have an open seat.”
“Ooh, thanks. I’ll take you up on that.”
The Rat nimbly leaped onto the gondola and took the leather seat just behind Asuna. The two girls abruptly began whispering to each other.
As I picked up the gondola’s pace, I silently hissed at old man Romolo. Gramps, you should have told us that a two-seater actually holds three!
*
If the main town of Rovia was a “city of water,” then Usco was a “floating village.”
It was made of about a dozen shacks, walkways, and open spaces buoyed by balsa-like logs, floating and creaking in the midst of a crescent-shaped lake. It was certainly more picturesque than the plain little rundown village of the beta, but I felt likely to get low-grade seasickness if I spent more than a little time there.
Then again, motion sickness came from the inner ear, so the fact that the signals of movement were bypassing that to the brain directly might mean that there was no seasickness here. In fact, I didn’t recall anyone in the front line feeling sick while riding on the gondolas.
We stopped the Tilnel at the dock on the edge of town and moored it there, then headed for the center of the settlement to the only restaurant there. It was still early in the day, but surely we could be allowed to a toast to our triumph over the field boss.
I did my very best to avoid looking at the bare legs clad in floater sandals peeking out from Argo’s cape as we walked down the boarded, floating walkways. Eventually we came to a tropical-themed restaurant. There were no other players sitting on the open terrace facing the lake, of course.
I sat down at the special seat in the center and ordered drinks and appetizers from the scantily clad NPC waitress, then leaned back in the wicker chair and stretched.
“Ahhh...Finally, we’re halfway done with the fourth floor...”
“You say ‘finally’ as if it hasn’t b
een just three days since we got here. Were on a much faster pace than the second or third floor,” Asuna pointed out.
“What, really...? We got up to this floor on December twenty-first, so that makes the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fourth...Oh, you’re right.”
“You’re not old enough to be going senile yet, Kii-boy,” Argo chimed in.
I grinned and shot back at her, “You never know. In real life, I might be an old gentleman spending his retirement enjoying a good MMORPG.”
“Then I’ll have to start calling you Kii-gramps instead.”
“...Never mind. Please don’t...”
As we bickered and joked, a tray of brightly colored cocktails arrived. We clinked our glasses, and after downing over half of the lychee-scented juice, I let out a very long breath.
Once we’d eaten something, I was pretty much ready to walk next door and fall asleep, but there was business to conduct. I shook my head to get into the proper mood.
“The DKB and ALS will be here very soon, so we should pick up all the quests in the village and start on some of the easier ones...”
We’d finished all of the short individual quests in Rovia aside from the “Shipwright of Yore” yesterday, while the guilds were busy building their gondolas. That had earned us quite a bit of experience, but we were also well above the proper level for this area, so it wasn’t enough for a level-up. We’d probably get there with two or three quests from this village, so my proper gamer’s instinct said I should hit that point before I slept.
Asuna and Argo looked at each other, then spoke in turn.
“I don’t know about Agil’s group, but the big guilds are going back to the city for today.”
“So there’s no need to rush through all of this village’s quests today, Kii-boy.”
“Huh...? They’re going back to Rovia? Did they leave some quests behind?” I said, confused. The two girls shot me questioning looks.
“So...you didn’t get invited, Kirito?”
“...Invited to what?”
“Nothin’ to be disappointed about, Kii-boy. We’ll be here with ya.”
“...Disappointed about what?”
“Didn’t you just say what day it was?”
“What...you mean December twenty-fourth?” I said, then frowned. A few days ago, it had occurred to me that some special day was coming up. December 24...meant the day before December 25, making it...something eve...
“W-wait, you mean...Chrisma-whatever? And that’s why the DKB and ALS went back? Is that why they were in such a rush to beat the field boss?” I said, flabbergasted. The girls nodded together, their faces sympathetic.
But nothing could have prepared me for what Asuna said next.
“Yes. You see, tonight the two guilds are going to hold a united Christmas send-off party.”
“...Wha...u...united...party...? You mean...they're...but...wha...”
My “What the hell?” scream turned into a sonic boom that ripped the lake apart and shook Usco with a magnitude-7 quake.
From what I heard later, the Christmas send-off party was a sumptuous, free, all-you-can-eat-and-drink event held in the teleport square of Rovia starting at five o’clock on Christmas Eve.
They didn’t advertise it far and wide with bulletin boards and flyers (I would have noticed if they had), but they did manage to draw nearly two hundred non-frontline players through word of mouth alone. Between the first major player-run public event and the unpredictable weather, it caused quite a hullabaloo. Aside from the food arranged by the sponsors, some merchant players set up food carts of their own, and there was even a young female blacksmith who set up a stand for weapon repairs.
The idea came from the ALS, apparently as a way to make good use of all the crab, shrimp, and bear meat they’d accumulated on their questing. Calling it a Christmas party would attract attention from other players, both increasing the guild’s profile and acting as a good recruitment opportunity. When the DKB learned of this, they tried to set up a competing event, and after much squabbling over the use of the teleport square in Rovia, the two groups decided to make up and throw the party together.
“Well, I suppose I should be happy that they managed to put on an event together...but calling it a ‘send-off party’ is a bit weird. Isn’t that usually what you throw before a big competition or when traveling somewhere new? It seems backward for the people who are going off to the labyrinth tower to throw their own send-off party,” I grumbled as I slurped the remainder of the lychee juice and poked at the food tray.
Asuna looked like she didn’t know whether to feel sorry for me or laugh at me. She noted softly, “It wasn’t like nobody suggested inviting you to the party. You’re one of the front-runners, too, Kirito. But some folks in the ALS wondered why they should pay for free food and drinks for the guy who always steals the LA bonuses, and they ended up deciding that you didn’t need an invitation.”
“Who did you hear this from, by the way?”
“From Shivata in the DKB during the field boss strategy meeting. He also asked me to apologize to you for them.”
“...Hmm.”
“They did say that I could go, if I wanted.”
“...Hmmmm.”
“And I got lots of instant messages from other people.”
“...Hmmmmmm.”
“By the way, Agil’s team is going back to the city as well, but only to finish up their quests, not to participate. So you don’t have to sulk so much.”
“...Hmmmmmmmm. So you fancy yourself a solo player, do you?”
Suddenly, Argo burst out with a series of eerie, smirking giggles.
“Wh-what’s up with you?”
“Oh, nothing. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll be getting back to the main town,” she remarked, slipping out of her chair.
Stunned, I asked, “Already? If you were going to leave so soon, why did you even come out here to this village?”
“To gather data on quests and shop selections, of course. I’d like to pop in on the send-off party, too. Welp, so long, A-chan, Kii-boy.” She waved briefly, grinned, and added, “Oops, nearly forgot. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Argo. Take care,” Asuna said.
“M...Many Crimmas,” I joined in, feeling like I didn’t quite have that right. Before I knew it, the information dealer was gone.
After a while, Asuna mumbled, “Argo should have been the first one invited to the Christmas party.”
“No kidding. With ultra-elite VIP status,” I agreed, finishing my juice.
At this very moment, Argo was out collecting information on the businesses, wares, and quest NPCs of Usco. Her drive for information, whether in the safety of town or hazards of the wilderness, was an invaluable support to our progress in the game of death.
But more than a few players in the two guilds still felt distaste at hearing the name Argo the Rat. They seemed to think that the former beta testers had a solemn duty to provide the information for these invaluable strategy guides that everyone was using.
In the face of this expectation, Argo’s policies of selling anything she could and getting her money’s worth were distasteful, to be sure. She would even sell what we’d just talked about, if someone wanted it and paid the price. Even a friend like me had to filter what he said around her.
I didn’t know why she pursued such unfriendly policies. She would probably sell me the reason if I asked. One day I’d buy that reason from her, price be damned, I told myself, setting the empty cocktail glass on the table.
“So...what do we do n...” I started, then realized that I hadn’t checked something with her first. “Er, I mean...If you want to go, I’m not going to hold you back.”
My temporary partner looked surprised at that, so I added, “I mean...If you got formally invited to the Christmas send-off party and you’re refusing because of me, you don’t need to–”
“Oh, that?” she interrupted, cutting me short. She snorted. “No, don’t bother yourself. I h
ad no intention of going from the start. I’m not one for flashy parties.”
“O-oh, I see. Well, then...umm...”
Before I could suggest that we clear up two or three quests and level up before nightfall, I stopped myself.
I had no particular attachment to Christmas Eve, but that didn’t necessarily hold true for Asuna. She knew what day it was–and talented fencer though she might be, she was still a young woman...I thought.
“...Do you...want to try it here?”
“Try what?”
“Having our own...Christmassy thing.”
The fencer stared right into me, her eyebrows tensing, as if simulating several possible answers. She ended up choosing the turn-your-head-away-in-a-huff response.
“N-no, that’s not necessary. I don’t have anything prepared...and it just doesn’t feel like Christmas in this tropical island village.”
For a moment, I almost thought the weather-controlling system heard her. The onslaught of golden afternoon light abruptly dimmed, and the sparkling blue surface of the lake went a cloudy gray. A chilly wind from across the lake rustled her long hair.
“N-no way” she whispered. I followed her gaze.
There was a tiny white dot falling silently from the cloudy sky.
It caught the breeze and wandered over through the open terrace of the restaurant to land on my gloved hand. The white dot melted promptly, leaving a tiny chill on the palm of my hand.
Then came another and another. Seen there were countless white points dancing in the air.
“...It’s snow...” I mumbled. True, it was December, but I’d never seen snow in Aincrad before. In fact, I’d hardly ever felt what I would call a wintry chill.
According to what I read in an article before the game trapped me inside, SAO was supposed to re-create the actual season outside, depending on which floor one was on. But the fourth floor couldn’t be one of those specially aligned ones. This snow must be from a special holiday event, just for Christmas.
Soon the huts of dried tropical grasses were white with snow. Some NPC children raced along the nearby walkway, giggling and screaming.
As I took in the surreal sight of the tropical island turning to a winter wonderland, I heard a reluctant sigh from beside me.
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