Sword Art Online - Volume 3 - Fairy Dance

by Reki Kawahara

  Suguha put her hand over her chest while standing in her underwear. Although she had returned home from school by riding her bike at high-speeds, her heart rate should have settle down shortly. But it is still around ninety beats per minute now.

  That was not all due to exercise, but she wanted to confirm it. Suguha tried taking deep breaths to calm herself down, but her thoughts kept her BPM high. ‘What was I thinking, ah, it’s not that I don`t want to take him to Aarun, but I already have my brother… Really, I don’t know why I’m thinking this… I’m so stupidstupidstupid!’

  Coming to the conclusion that she was being stupid with her feelings, she put on a large t-shirt and shorts and settled down on her bed.

  She took the Amusphere helmet off the shelf, turned it on, put it on her head, and closed her eyes. Then, after taking a deep breath, she intoned a magical spell:

  “LINK START!”

  After passing through the connection process and moving her consciousness to the body of the fairy swordswoman Lyfa, she opened her eyes to the Lily of the Valley Pavillion.

  No one sat at the other side of the table, of course. The meeting time wouldn’t be close for a while. There was plenty of time to make preparations for the journey.

  Leaving the shop, the city of Sylvain was covered in a beautiful sunrise.

  In consideration of those who can only log-in under specific time constraints each day, a day in ALfheim lasted only sixteen real hours long. Therefore, time here was often inconsistent with reality. The menu window has a real time display next to the ALfheim time, so people don’t lose track of time; it was initially somewhat confusing, but Lyfa learned to like it.

  She went around to a few shops, bought a lot of things, and got back with a little time to spare. Returning to the inn, she pushed open the door and noticed that a black figure had begun materializing at a table.

  Kirito completed logging in and blinked a few times before smiling as he noticed Lyfa approaching.

  “Hey, you’re early.”

  “Yeah, I got here some time ago. I did a little shopping.”

  “Ah, is that so… It seems like I need to prepare too.”

  “I bought some general items, so you don’t need worry about that, but…”

  She examined Kirito`s shabby starting armor and sword.

  “You’ll need better equipment for yourself.”

  “I think so, too. I definitely think this sword is very unreliable.”

  “About money.. do you have any? If not, I can lend you some.”

  “Well…”

  Kirito summoned his menu window by waving his left hand, but, after a glance, his face became stiff.

  “Is it this 《Yurudo》 thing?”

  “Yes, it is. Do you not have any money?”

  “No, no, I have some.. quite a lot of it.”

  “Then let’s go to the equipment shop!”

  “Alright.”

  At that moment, Kirito stood up in panic, searching his body until he finally looked in his breast pocket.

  “Hey, Yui, we’re going.”

  As she climbed out of the pocket, the black-haired pixie’s face appeared, looking a little sleepy and stretching into a huge yawn.

  Lyfa brought Kirito to the equipment shops, but, by the time they had finished outfitting him, the streets were wrapped in the morning light.

  Kirito’s armor was easy enough to find, it being a pair of pants, a shirt with strengthened defensive attributes, long coat that covered him. However, Kirito had spent a long time choosing a sword, seeming unsatisfied no matter which sword he examined.

  The shopkeeper would hand him a sword, Kirito would play with it before handing it back saying, “It needs to be heavier,” and the process would repeat. Kirito eventually came to one that suited his taste, a great sword about as tall as him, and bought it. It was a tapered blade with a shiny black sheen that revealed an unusual weight. This was probably equipment made for an Imp or Gnome, the tall races that used these swords.

  In ALO, the amount of damage dealt is determined by 《Weapon Attack Power》 and 《Sword Swing Speed》. To the player, Sylphs and Cait Siths are more favourable for speed, supplementing damage dealt with their superior speed. But power-type players can easily equip the weapons that are enormous in size and strength. This trade-off of power and speed created a balance between the different races in the game.

  Sylphs with high enough skill can equip hammers and axes, but Sylphs’ hidden and permanent strength paramenter doesn’t allow them to use those weapons effectively. Spriggans are a multi-weapon race, but Kirito, no matter how one looked at him, had a speed-type body.

  “That kind of sword, will you be able to use it properly?”

  Hearing Lyfa’s amazed question, Kirito just nodded with a cool expression.

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  Since he was saying it was okay, she had to accept it. After paying for the sword, he hung the sheath onto his back, but because of its length, the tip almost brushed the ground.

  Kirito now looked like a child imitating a swordsman and, thinking of this, Lyfa had to hold back her smile as she said: “Well, now our preparations are complete! So now, for a while, I’ll be in your care.”

  Lyfa offered her right hand to Kirito, and, smiling shyly, Kirito also stretched out his right hand; the two shook hands.

  “I as well, so please support me.”

  Flying out of the pocket, Yui tapped their clasped hands and said:

  “Let’s do our best! Our target is the World Tree!”

  Burdened with a giant sword strapped to his back and Yui sitting on his shoulder, Kirito followed Lyfa until they came to a beautiful, shining, emerald-green tower.

  This was the symbol of the Sylphs, the 《Tower of the Wind》. No matter how many times you saw it, the beauty of the tower was stunning. As she thought this, Lyfa turned to the side to see the black-clothed Spriggan glaring at the tower with an undisguised disgust. Lyfa suppressed a smile and said to him.

  “Before we leave, do you want to practice braking?”

  “…It’s all right; from now on, I’ve decided to fly safely.”

  Kirito answered with a helpless expression.

  “Also, why are we coming to the tower? Do you have business here?”

  “I have no other business, but, before you start a long-distance flight, it is better to begin at higher points. You can use the height to your advantage.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  She pushed the nodding Kirito from the back and started walking forward.

  “Let’s go! I want to get through the forest before night arrives.”

  “I am not very familiar with the terrain. Could you lead the way?”

  “Leave it to me!”

  Lyfa patted her chest and turned to look into the depths of the tower.

  There stood the Lord’s beautiful mansion in morning sunlight. The Sylph Lord Sakuya is a female player she had known since a while ago. ‘Since I will be leaving town for a while, I should tell her,’ Lyfa suddenly thought. But the flag pole rising from the center of the building wasn’t displaying the Sylph flag. This is rare, meaning that Sakuya was not home today.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Kirito tilted his head to ask, but Lyfa shook her head, deciding she would e-mail Sakuya later. They passed through the front door of the Tower of the Wind and went inside.

  The first floor has a vast, circular lobby with shops of all kinds along the outer wall. The lobby has two mana-driven elevators in the very center that, from time to time, suck-in or spit-out players. In ALfheim, dawn has just passed, while in reality, night is approaching. This meant that the number of players will soon begin increasing by the minute.

  She held Kirito`s hand and headed towards the right elevator that was just coming down.

  Suddenly, several players appeared in front of them, blocking their way. Lyfa nearly fell, but her wings spread and steadied her.

  “That was a little dang
erous, wasn’t it?”

  Lyfa complained reflexively, but the tall man blocking her way who turned out to be a familiar face.

  He stood taller than the average Sylph and had a rough yet handsome face that was the result of tremendous luck or considerable investments. His body was wrapped around some heavy silver armor, and a huge broad sword hung at his waist. His wide forehead was split by a circlet, and dark green hair fell down to his shoulders. This man, whose name was Sigurd, was the vanguard of the party Lyfa had been with for the past few weeks. She saw his party members with him. Thinking that Recon might also be here, Lyfa looked around but couldn’t see his eye-catching yellow-green hair.

  Lyfa and Sigurd often competed for the title of the strongest Sylph swordsman. He was also a powerful politician, a part of the mainstream bureaucracy that the often shy Lyfa stayed out of it. Although the current 《Sylph Lord》, a player chosen by a vote once a month and who also decided things like how to spend player-collected taxes, is Sakuya, Sigurd, whose fame is about even with Sakuya’s, is also a part of that group of super-active players.

  His massive gaming time also meant that his rare equipment and skill proficiency are far beyond Lyfa’s. In a one-on-one match, Lyfa needed all of her superior maneuverability to win, and even then, it was still hard for her to overcome his strong defenses. But during a hunt he, the vanguard, was a reliable partner. However, his self-righteous speech and attitude grated on Lyfa, who disliked restraint. Thus, although the present party was very efficient in hunting, she had been thinking that the time was coming for her to leave it.

  As he stood in front of Lyfa, Sigurd’s posture displayed his arrogance to its maximum. It seemed things will become very troublesome — thinking of this, Lyfa opened her mouth and said:

  “Good morning, Sigurd.”

  Despite Lyfa having greeted him with a smiling face, Sigurd was not in the mood to answer. Instead, he replied in a strained tone:

  “You want to leave the party, Lyfa?”

  Sigurd looked to be in an extremely foul mood; Lyfa had considered telling him that this was just a trip to and from Aarun, but, since it has became so troublesome, she instead nodded her head and said:

  “Yeah, sort of. I was able to save plenty of money, so I’ll be taking it easy for a while.”

  “How selfish; what about the other party members?”

  “Selfish!?”

  That recalled a memory in Lyfa. After a recent 《Duel Event》 where she defeated him after a fierce fight, Sigurd had invited her to join his party. Lyfa had accepted the offer on two conditions: she would only participate when she can and she could quit if she wanted to. Specifically, she wanted him to know that she doesn’t want to be tied down with responsibilities.

  Sigurd lifted his eyebrows as his words continued:

  “You are a well-known member of my team. If you suddenly go and join another team, it would be like you threw mud on my face!”

  “…”

  Lyfa was rendered speechless by Sigurd’s holier-than-thou speech. ‘So that’s how it really is,’ she thought.

  Lyfa suddenly remembered Recon’s rare but serious advice after he had joined Sigurd’s party as her partner.

  Recon had told her to avoid getting too deeply involved. The reason was that Sigurd doesn’t want Lyfa for her strength, he wanted her for his party’s fame. That is, he wanted to be in command of the one that beat him so that he wouldn’t lose respect.

  ‘How could that happen,’ Lyfa had laughed, but Recon had remained very persuasive: ‘ALO is a difficult MMO game. As such, female players are so scarce that players have a tendency to idolize them, even if they lack combat ability. Especially you; since Lyfa-chan is such a sweet girl, you are rarer than some piece of legendary equipment that most want to own. In reality, he wants to use your presence in his team to show off and increase his status.’

  Recon had said more gibberish, but Lyfa had thrown him a withering look over her shoulder and quieted him down before she seriously thought about it. But being an idol isn’t something she understood. For an MMORPG that has much to remember, she didn’t want to complicate things, so she stopped thinking about it. So far, she had remained as a member of the party without any significant problems, until today…

  Looking at the angry Sigurd in front of her, Lyfa felt as though a constricting thread had painfully wrapped around her body. The main reason she played ALO was to escape all the shackles and restraints of reality, to experience flying unfettered through the sky.

  But perhaps she was too ignorant, too naive. Even if everyone in the virtual world had wings, forgetting gravity was merely an illusion.

  Lyfa / Suguha, recalled how, in elementary school, an upperclassman in kendo had bullied her. Although the upperclassman had been a champion since entering kendo, he couldn’t beat the younger Suguha during a match. He later took revenge, attacking Suguha on her way home with the help of several friends… a shameful deed. What he had done then was like Sigurd’s attitude was now, full of anger and resentment.

  The results would be the same here…

  Lyfa, overwhelmed by despair, bowed her head down. At this time, from behind her like a shadow and unnoticed until now, Kirito spoke up:

  “Companions are not items to be used!”

  “Whaa…?”

  For a second, Lyfa didn’t understand the meaning of this sentence. Then, Lyfa’s eyes opened wide and looked at Kirito. Sigurd’s voice increased in volume:

  “What!?”

  Kirito stepped in between Lyfa and Sigurd, and he looked Sigurd in the eye, even though Sigurd was a head taller than him. “I’m saying, you shouldn’t look at other players like an important sword or armor that can be locked into an equipment slot.”

  “Wha… you dare to…”

  At Kirito’s straightforward words, Sigurd suddenly flushed bright red, and he rolled up his cloak as he moved his hand toward the hilt of his sword.

  “You do not understand the situation, you filthy Spriggan! Lyfa, are you going to work with this guy now?! He’s probably a《Renegade》 that came here after being banished from his own territory!”

  Sigurd assumed a posture to draw his sword. As he said those words, Lyfa finally lost her temper and shouted back:

  “Do not say such rude words to Kirito-kun! He is my new partner!”

  “What…what do you mean?”

  With veins throbbing on his forehead, Sigurd replied in flustered consternation.

  “Lyfa, do you mean to abandon this territory…?”

  At those words, Lyfa’s eyes opened wide.

  ALO players are generally divided into two categories of play style.

  The first use their own territory as a base, partner within their race, and give a part of the money they earn as taxes to further the development of the ethnic forces. Lyfa and Sigurd are this type of player. The other type leave their territory, use a neutral city as a base, and form parties with players of different races. The former tend to hold the latter in contempt, as the latter often lacked a sense of purpose, were abandoned and disdained, or were exiled from their race’s territory as Renegades.

  In Lyfa’s case, her sense of being a Sylph was weak, as was her sense of belonging to this community. The reason she has stayed in Sylvain is half because of its beauty and half because she didn’t want to move. But now, thanks to Sigurd’s remarks, a desire to become free quickly emerged.

  “Yes, right. I intend to leave here,” Lyfa blurted out without thinking.

  Sigurd’s mouth distorted in anger, his teeth biting his lip. He suddenly drew his broad sword, glaring furiously at Kirito.

  “I was going to leave you alone since you are a worm crawling around in front of me. But if you are a thief, you would do well not to be so arrogant. Walking leisurely around the territory of other races, I can cut you up any way I want without any complaint from you, isn’t that right?”

  Despite Sigurd’s dramatic words and behavior, Kirito only slightly shrugged his sh
oulders.

  Kirito was truly a fearless person, and even Lyfa was shocked. She prepared to fight against Sigurd, moving her hand to the sword at her waist. The air around them suddenly became tense.

  At this point, Sigurd’s partner moved up and whispered some words to him:

  “Bad news, Sigurd. If you kill a defenseless opponent like that in front of so many people…”

  Somehow, a circle of onlookers had already surrounded them, drawn by the signs of trouble. If this was a formal duel, or if he were an actual Spriggan spy, then fine. But it would be dishonorable if Sigurd instigated a fight with a tourist like Kirito, who can’t even fight back in this area.

  Sigurd bared his teeth in frustration and stared down Kirito before sheathing his sword.

  “It would be best if we ran away and hid, Lyfa.”

  Ignoring Kirito’s words, Sigurd returned his attention back to Lyfa.

  “Because you betrayed me.. sooner or later you will regret this.”

  “I would have regretted it more if I stayed longer.”

  “If you ever wish to come back, you had better return on your knees.”

  Having finished, Sigurd turned and walked toward the exit of the tower. The two players accompanying Sigurd looked in her direction for a moment as though they wanted to say something, but they gave up and turned to leave.

  After all three of them disappeared, Lyfa took a deep breath, looked at Kirito, and said:

  “Sorry to get you involved in such a strange event…”

  “No, no, it seems like I became the oil that was poured on this fire of a situation. But is this really okay with you? Giving up your territory?”

  “Ah.”

  Unsure of what to say, Lyfa pushed Kirito’s back and moved toward the elevator. After forcing their way through the crowd, they reached the elevator, and she pressed the button for the top floor. From the bottom of the translucent glass shaft, came a disc-shaped stone; a green light slowly engulfed it, and they began rising rapidly after stepping into it.

  When the elevator stopped, the glass wall opened without a sound, and the white light of the morning sun and a refreshing wind poured into the room.

  Leaving the shaft, she walked out onto the observation platform from the top of the tower briskly. She has been here many times in the past, but the vast panorama that stretched in all directions still made her heart soar in exhilaration.