Accel World - Volume 11 - Chapter Pr

When he passed through the automatic doors of the supermarket, a small progress bar appeared in the bottom of his field of view.

The design was simple. A black butterfly at the tip of the bar slowly advanced from left to right, and as the processing rate approached 100 percent, the wings started to tremble. In a mere three seconds or so, the task was complete, the bar disappeared, and the butterfly flew away without a sound. Reflexively, he reached out for it, but the butterfly slipped easily through his fingers. It danced up to the ceiling of the supermarket, exactly like a real butterfly, and then melted into the air.

“As always, Sacchi fixates on the strangest details in the apps she makes, hmm?” The voice came from his right, and he turned his gaze in that direction.

Standing there was a girl wearing her school uniform: a short-sleeved shirt and pleated skirt. The slight breeze of the air conditioning set her long, soft, chestnut hair swaying, and the over-the-knee socks encasing her long, slender legs were a cool light blue. She held a large tote bag in her left hand. The faint smile never left her gentle features, but the meaning behind it changed fluidly depending on the situation. If necessary, it could even become a dispassionate face of anger that was ten times scarier. However, currently present on her face was nothing more than a faint wryness in that smile, topped generously with affection for “Sacchi.”

Indicating that he felt exactly the same way via a large grin, Haruyuki Arita answered Fuko Kurasaki: “That butterfly’s in all of Kuroyukihime’s apps, but when it flies off once it’s loaded, you can catch it—if you grab it ultra-fast, with max gentleness.”

“What happens when you catch it?”

“You get a point for every butterfly.”

Fuko cocked her head even farther to one side. “What happens when you get points?”

“Apparently, something happens when you get to a thousand. But what that is exactly is a secret.”

“She really focuses on the details, hmm?” Fuko murmured seriously, a look of real exasperation coming onto her face this time, before she clapped her hands together. “Well then, shall we finish the shopping, Corvus? Children with hungry tummies are waiting upstairs.”

“R-right!” Nodding, Haruyuki raised a finger on his right hand and touched the EXECUTE button that was floating where the progress bar had been. Displayed on the right side of his virtual desktop were a ground plan for the supermarket on the first basement floor and a shopping list with ten or so lines on it.

A thin line on the map indicated their route, and blinking dots marked the shelves they would visit, so following this, they headed first in the direction of the fresh-fish area. When they approached a particular shelf, the first line of the list to the right side of the map was highlighted. Written there was “5 potatoes (May Queen) ¥198,” and indeed, there was a pile of them on the shelf before his eyes. He picked up a bag, and after checking that the potatoes didn’t have eyes or cuts, he pressed the BUY button displayed in his field of view.

He heard a ching as 198 yen was taken from the e-money loaded on his Neurolinker. Fuko stretched out the tote bag toward him, opening it wide as she did, so he put the potatoes in it, and the first line of the shopping list was grayed out.

That was when Haruyuki finally noticed: “Oh! I—I can carry that!” he said hurriedly.

“Oh my, could you? Then I’ll do the shopping.”

He took the bag from Fuko, now five hundred grams heavier, and switched places with her before heading to the next point displayed on the map. On the second line of the list was the row of text listing “2 onions, ¥98.”

The shopping list linked with the store map was the app Shopping Optimizer Ver. 2.0, which Kuroyukihime had made. It connected with the store’s local net, obtained information about the location and price of the products you wanted to buy, and displayed this on the map. Of course, it wasn’t limited just to supermarkets; it allowed the shopper to find a product without randomly wandering through vast, densely packed displays in places such as hardware stores and drugstores.

Store local nets were also equipped with a function to search display location, but almost none of them could connect with a shopping list app, because if they provided that service, customers would quickly sweep through and buy only the things they had already planned to buy and wouldn’t pick up extra items as they wandered around the store. What was incredible about Kuroyukihime’s shopping app was that it could easily link with data that the store local net should have refused to supply, but he was too scared to ask for the details of how that worked.

Having been assigned to the shopping squad after drawing lots, Fuko and Haruyuki moved swiftly through the crowded evening supermarket following the app’s guidance and bought all eleven items on the list, right down to the last line of “Transcendent Curry Sauce/Mild ¥278,” in approximately four minutes. Since they had paid via the local net, they passed the register bank’s long lines and walked out of the store.

“This is the first time I’ve used this shopping app,” Fuko said as they headed down the central passage of the shopping mall toward the elevators, with wryness in her smile again. “But the design very much reflects Sacchi and her impatient ways.”

“Oh. Ha-ha-ha! Apparently, starting in version three, you’ll also be able to pay automatically, too.”

Fuko rolled her eyes. “So then you’d be able to toss items into your bag as you ran through the store and just leave, I suppose? I’d bet ten burst points the guard at the exit would stop you.”

“I—I guess so.” He paled slightly as he ran for the door to the residential-wing elevator that had just opened, remembering that Kuroyukihime had asked him to help with the movement test for the next upgrade.