Part 1
Watching Kirito fight, Lyfa was half-awed and half-stunned .
They were in the skies over the expanse of Ancient Forest in northeastern Sylph territory; a little further and they would pass into the vicinity of the plateau. Sylvain was already so far behind them that no matter how much you strained your eyes, the jade tower could not be seen.
They were pushing through the depths of the so-called neutral zone, so the spawned monsters were powerful and considerably high-leveled. Kirito was currently fighting three one-eyed winged-lizard monsters, «Evil Glancer», simultaneously. Their strength was about equal to the boss monsters of lower level dungeons in Sylph territory.
Besides their basic strength, the real trouble was that their big, purple eyes could release the «Evil Eye» attack – a type of curse magic that would significantly reduce one’s stats for a period of time when it hit. Lyfa was maintaining her distance and acting as a support role. Whenever a curse hit Kirito, Lyfa would incant the counter spell, but honestly whether or not the need existed was up in the air.
To Kirito who gripped the greatsword reaching near his height, the words defense and evasion did not exist in his dictionary; and as if to display this berserk style, the lizards were dropped one after another. He simply didn’t care about the likes of the lizards’ tails’ long-distance attacks; as he swung the greatsword while charging, many lizards would be caught in the gale at once, getting hewed into little pieces. With the terrible might of the blows, what was at first five lizards had diminished to one just like that. The last one tried to run away at around 20% HP. It let out a pitiable scream as it sought to take refuge in the forest, but Lyfa raised her left hand, activating a long range homing-type vacuum magic. Four or five boomerang-like blades made of green light quickly caught up to the lizard and cut it to shreds. Shortly afterward, the blue reptile’s large body scattered into blue polygons of light, signalling the quick end of the fifth fight of the day.
A large metallic sound accompanied the sheathing of the sword, Lyfa raised her right hand as she saw Kirito lightly approaching in the air.
“Good work—”
“Thanks for the cover—”
Their hands met in a high-five, and the two exchanged smiles.
“But how should I describe it… your combat style is just so reckless.”
Hearing Lyfa say that, Kirito scratched his head.
“I-Is that so?”
“Generally, it is a good idea to use hit and run tactics for evasion, but you just hit and hit!”
“In return we can finish faster, so isn’t it fine?”
“That might work in situations with similar monsters like today, but not if you run into a group of monsters with a combination of melee and long-range types, for example. If we end up fighting a player party they will definitely use magic so you have to be careful.”
“Magic—can’t I just avoid it?”
“There are many types of long-range magic; for power-type magic that go straight, you can read it’s direction to avoid it, but for homing and area attack magic that’s impossible. In the case that there is a mage that uses these types of magic, you have to always maintain a high speed and time your direction changes.”
“Hmmm…. Seems like there is a lot to remember.”
Kirito scratched his head with a face like that of a child given a difficult set of problems to solve.
“Well, if it’s you then you should be able to catch on quickly…I think. You seem to have very good intuition and sharp eyes after all. Do you do sports or something in real life?”
“N-no, not at all.”
“Hmm…. Well, okay. Let’s get moving.”
“Okay.”
They nodded to each other, then started beating their wings and resumed movement. Under the setting sun, the golden-green grasslands were beginning to emerge beyond the forest.
Without encountering any monsters after that, the two finally got out of Ancient Forest and entered the mountain area. Just as they neared the limit of their flight time, they descended onto a meadow’s edge at the foot of a mountain.
As her soles slid on the grass while landing, Lyfa lifted both of her arms and took a big stretch. Even though the real body doesn’t have such limbs, the base of the wings feels mysteriously fatigued after long flights. A few seconds later, Kirito also landed and was similarly hitting his straightened back.
“Fufu, tired yet?”
“Nope, still not yet!”
“Okay, let’s do our best. …Is what I want to say, but we’re going to have to postpone the aerial travel for a while.”
Kirito raised his eyebrows at Lyfa’s remark.
“Eh, why?”
“Do you see that mountain?”
Lyfa pointed to the far end of the meadow, towards the towering, snow-peaked mountains.
“Flying is restricted by a height limit. We cannot fly higher than that mountain, so we have to pass through a cave tunneled through the mountain range. That seems to be the most dangerous place when traveling from Sylph territory to Aarun. I’m not sure because this is my first time here too.”
“I see…. This tunnel, is it long?”
“Considerably, but there is a neutral mining town in the middle, and we should be able to rest there. Kirito-kun, until what time are you still okay?”
Kirito summoned the menu window with his left hand, checked the clock, and nodded.
“The real time right now is seven-o’-clock at night, I’m fine for now.”
“I see, then let’s try for a bit longer then. We should ‘Rotate Out’ once here.”
“Ro-Rotate?”
“Ah, we take turns to logout and rest. Because this is a neutral zone, we can not logout instantly. Therefore, one person will logout while the other defends the avatar when it falls into the soulless state.”
“I see, understood. Lyfa, please go first.”
“Well then, I’ll gladly accept your kind offer. I’ll be in your care for about 20 minutes!”
Finished, Lyfa brought up the window and pressed the logout button. When she touched the warning message’s YES button, the surrounding landscape streamed into a central point and disappeared.
Sitting straight up in bed after waking up, Suguha removed the Amusphere and jumped out of bed. Quietly running down the stairs, Suguha confirmed that the first floor was empty. The magazine’s final proofreading day was nearing so Midori had not returned home yet, and Kazuto was probably in his room, so the first floor was silent.
Opening the refrigerator, Suguha took out two bagels, ham, cream cheese, and vegetables one after another. Quickly slicing the round bread in half, she spread a thin layer of mustard, added the ham, inserted the rest, and then transferred the completed bagel sandwich to a plate. After she poured some milk into a small milk pan and put it on the stove, Suguha went to the stairs, and facing the second floor, shouted:
“Onii-chan, do you want something to eat?”
…But there was no answer. He must be asleep, she shrugged her shoulders as she returned to the kitchen. She poured the now-steaming milk into a mug and took it to the living room table with the plate. After all of ninety seconds, she finished her dinner. Placing the dishes into the washing machine, she ran into the bathroom. Even if it was the virtual world, if you did intense fighting, you would sweat due to stress. After a long dive she started to feel sticky if she didn’t wash and change clothes.
Suguha took off her clothes and jumped into the shower at supersonic speed, warm water slowly dripping through the shower head.
In fact, if she played VRMMO too much so that it interfered with eating and bathing, or if she ordered takeout, her mother Midori would scold her, so she tried not to join long party events. However, this time she couldn’t do so. She would probably travel with Kirito tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow if it went badly. Maybe due to her personality, Suguha couldn’t stand long duration parties, when the day changed she would feel uncomfortable, but for some my
sterious reason it didn’t happen this time. In this case…
…She was very excited.
Suguha thought as she closed her eyes and felt the soothing touch of the hot water on her skin.
Opening her eyes, her black pupils stared back from within the mirror before her. Within them, there was a mix of excitement and slight unease.
The physique of the real Suguha was by no means big for a kendo practitioner, even so when compared to the wind spirit Sylph, Lyfa, she was obviously big-boned. Her shoulders, stomach and her thighs, whenever she moved them, the line of the muscles seemed to stand out, on top of that she felt that her chest had grown alot recently.
This body has a real feel to it, but deep in my heart there is conflict growing. Suguha closed her eyes again.
…It did not particularly mean that she had become fond of him. It was not about having someone to adventure together… just that, flying in a new world was fun.
That seemed to be muttered in her heart, but that wasn’t for the sake of convincing herself, there was truth in it.
Thinking back, she had such a feeling everyday in the past.
As she grew stronger, little by little her field of activities expanded; just flying in the sky of an unknown land made her heart throb. However, as she was raised to the role of a prominent senior player within the Sylph territory, her knowledge and obligations simultaneously increased too. Before she knew it, she was buried within the habits of everyday life. The said duty of battling for the sake of the entire race was holding her wings with invisible chains.
Players in ALO who abandoned their territory were called «Renegades», the English meaning of «Apostates». Those who discarded their obligation after obtaining them, those who are under pressure by their country, until now gave the impression that they are traitors, might have some kind of pride in their heart.
With her mind still thinking about them, she washed her hair and body quickly then rinsed away the foam. Removing the dry towel from the hatch on the wall, she used the control panel next to it, and a burst of warm air blew out from the slits in the ceiling. When her hair was mostly dry, she wrapped her body with a towel and went to the living room. Looking at the clock, there were less than three minutes before the agreed time limit.
She wrapped up the remaining bagel-sandwich on the plate, took some paper and wrote, “Onii-chan, if you are hungry please eat this,” on it, and placed it under the plate.
Back on the second floor, she hastily put on her pajamas, laid back down, and put the Amusphere helmet back on.
After waiting through the connection process, through the rainbow colors of the login procedures, Suguha / Lyfa felt the prairie breeze and smelled a refreshing aroma.
From her waiting state, crouching down on one knee, Lyfa stood up and asked.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, did any monsters appear?”
Kirito, who was lying on the grass with a straw like thing in his mouth, removed it and nodded.
“Welcome back. It was very quiet.”
“What is that?”
“The NPC from the grocery store said that it was a Sylvain specialty.”
“I did not hear of such a thing!”
Kirito handed over that something and Lyfa accepted it with her hand. She concealed her inner tension and took a bite. With a breath, the mint’s fragrant sweet aroma emanated from her mouth.
“It’s my turn to logout, please guard me.”
“Ok, have a good trip.”
When Kirito called up the menu window and pressed the log-out button, his body automatically went into a standby position. Lyfa then sat down beside him and started looking casually up at the heavens while sucking a mint straw when the pixie from Kirito`s breast pocket flew out and surprised her.
“Whoa! You can move when your master is not in-game?”
Yui made an ‘of course’ face and put her hands on her hips and nodded.
“Of course I can. I’m myself. And he’s not my master; he’s my papa.”
“Having said that, why do you call Kirito your papa? Could it be that he set you up that way?”
“Papa helped me, but he also said that I am his child. So he’s my papa.”
“I see…”
Sure enough, she did not understand it.
“You love your papa?”
Lyfa casually asked, and Yui looked at her with a serious face.
“Lyfa, what is love?”
“W-what….”
Lyfa was unprepared for the unexpected question and considered it for a moment before only vaguely answering.
“….It’s a feeling of wanting to be together. And when you are together, your heart beats faster, or something like that….”
Kazuto`s smiling face suddenly popped into her mind, but why was it the same with the resting face of the avatar beside her? Lyfa gasped. Not sure since when her feelings for Kirito became similar to her hidden feelings for Kazuto. Lyfa shook her head without thinking. Yui saw her do this and cocked her head, asking:
“What’s wrong, Lyfa?”
“No, no, no, it is nothing!”
Lyfa shouted, and at that moment -
“What’s nothing?”
“Waah!!”
Kirito had suddenly raised his head and Lyfa jumped.
“I’m back. What happened?”
Kirito looked at the distressed Lyfa and stood up. Perched on his shoulder, Yui said:
“Welcome back, papa. We were just talking about who she likes and —,”
“Hey, we were not!!”
Lyfa hurriedly interrupted Yui.
“You came back quickly. Did you eat something?”
Lyfa asked to hide her embarrassment.
“Ah yes, my family made something for me.”
“I see, well then, let’s quickly depart. If we don’t arrive at the Mine City before it gets late, it’ll be troublesome to log-out. Come on, let’s fly to the cave entrance!”
Lyfa quickly finished talking and stood up. Even though Kirito and Yui did not quite understand what was going on, she didn’t wait for them to figure it out and gently began beating her wings.
“Ah, yes. Then let`s go.”
Still not understanding the reason for Lyfa’s expression, he also spread his wings. But suddenly, he turned and looked in the direction of the forest they came from.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing…”
Kirito replied, though he still stared towards the forest.
“It feels like someone watching. Yui, can you tell if there are any other players in our general area?”
“No, there is no one around us.”
The pixie shook her little head. But Kirito didn’t look like he is convinced.
“Felt like being watched… is there some sort of a sixth sense in this game?”
Hearing Lyfa ask that, Kirito rubbed his forehead with his right hand and said:
“It is really hard to do that. If anyone is looking at us, the system would have to «Reference» us, you might just feel the data stream used to do so, or so people say.”
“Is that so?”
“But Yui does not sense any people nearby so there shouldn’t be.”
“Ah, then they may have used a Tracer.”
Lyfa whispered to Kirito, who raised his eyebrows.
“What is that?”
“It’s a tracking spell. Usually a small magic creature that tells the caster the position of the target.”
“That’s a pretty convenient spell. Can you lift the spell off of us?”
“If I can see the Tracer then I can lift it, but if the caster’s magic skills are high, the distance he can observe from increases, so finding it in a field like this is almost impossible.”
“I see. It might be just my imagination, anyway let’s hurry and go.”
“Ok.”
After nodding, they flew up into the sky again. The white cliffs of the mountain range were not far away, and in the middle of the cliff was a hug
e black cave. Aiming for the cave opening that had sinister cold air coming out of it, Lyfa flapped her wings faster and sped up.
After a few minutes of flying, the two reached the cave entrance.
Almost perpendicular to the huge rocks, the cave was a giant square shape that cut into the cliff face. It’s width and height was three or four times bigger then Lyfa. They could not tell when they were far away, but carved around the entrance of the cave were some monster designs. The upper part of the hole had a huge devil’s head sticking out, looking with contempt into the eyes of all intruders.
“This cave… does it have a name?”
To Kirito’s question, Lyfa nodded her head and replied:
“It is called «Ruger Corridor». Ruger happens to be the name of the Mine City.”
“Whoa, it’s like a story I’ve seen in a fantasy movie!”
Lyfa looked at Kirito in her peripheral vision and saw him smile. He probably meant those classic fantasy books, from which the films were produced. In Kazuto’s room, there was a box with such Collectors’ Edition books, she had borrowed them all without permission to read.
“I know what you are talking about. To cross a mountain, they went through the underground mines, and got attacked by a big demon. But, unfortunately demon-type monsters do not appear here.”
“That is really too bad.”
“Ah, but the cave is infested by orcs. If you find it interesting, you can then deal with the whole horde.”
Finished, the two began to move forward into the cave.
It was very cool inside the cave, the light from outside was also very thin, slowly enveloping everything in darkness. It’s best to use magic lighting; she thought and turned to Kirito walking beside her.
“Oh yes, Kirito-kun did you train your magic skills?”
“Ah, just the race starting magic, but I didn’t use it often.”
“Exploring caves is a Spriggan speciality with the use of the lights, it is even more effective than a wind mage’s magic.”
“Hmm, Yui, do you know?”
Kirito scratched his head and Yui came out of his pocket and said in a lecture voice:
“Papa, I’d really advise that you at least read the instruction manual. Using light magic is….”
Sword Art Online - Volume 3 - Fairy Dance Page 14