4
I HAD BEEN NAIVE.
I never realized it was quite that strong.
Truly astonishing precision and power. It was the only possible description for the combination of Asuna’s sword skills and Chivalric Rapier +5.
“See? I told you we could win,” she commented with a grin at the end of our fifty-minute battle with the beast—half of which was simply running around to get it to knock over trees. I could only gaze up at her.
While she did seem a bit tired, it was nothing compared to my slumped exhaustion. She spryly checked on her dropped items. When she hit the newly acquired items tab, she let out a brief squeal of excitement.
“Ooh, wow! I got four Legendary Bear Fats. There’s also some pelts, claws, and…what’s this? Fire-Bear’s Palm?”
“I wouldn’t materialize that if I were you. It’s bound to be disgusting,” I warned, heaving myself up to a standing position to open my own window.
I had three more deposits of bear fat. That had to be enough for the quest. I also had fur and claws, though no paw, for better or for worse. Instead, there was one Fire-Bear’s Horn. That must be one of the horns from the Magnetherium’s forehead.
With one last glance at the time, I closed my menu and yawned. It was past eleven at night, and though I’d gotten some sleep in the afternoon, I was now completely fatigued.
“Umm…Asuna?”
“What?”
“When we get back to town, are you going to report on the quest immediately?”
“Of course I am.”
“Of course you are.”
If only the old shipwright is actually awake, I thought.
On the way back to town, we only had one enemy encounter against the plant monster Gaudy Nepenthes, so the return trip to Rovia’s southern gate was rather painless. We hailed one of the gondolas, which were apparently open for business twenty-four hours a day, and headed to the northwest sector of town.
By the time we reached the old man’s house, it was 11:50, but the window was still lit, so we knocked without hesitation. As usual, the ancient shipwright was sunk into his rocking chair, alternating endlessly between bottle and pipe.
“We brought the bear fat,” Asuna said, producing the bear fat, which fortunately materialized in a small jar, rather than open to the air. The old man twitched an eyebrow.
“That stink…You got the king’s fat, didn’t ya?”
The whiskey bottle fell to the floor. His sinewy hand snatched the jar of grease away, and with a little jingle, our quest logs updated.
“Hmph. But this ain’t enough.”
He set the jar down on the nearby table with a thunk . I shared a look with Asuna and brought out a jar of my own this time. The old man still shook his head, and for a moment I was terrified that we might have to fight the bear monster again, but at last, at the fourth jar, the chime sounded again.
“Hmph. Very well. You really want this old bag of bones to build you a ship, eh?”
“Of course. We need your help, sir!” Asuna pleaded, not that he could truly be moved by that. The old man set his pipe on the table and raised his hands. His fingers, scarred and tattered, wiggled in the air vibrantly for a moment, then fell and dangled again.
“…As I told you, the Water Carriers Guild controls all of the supplies now. To make you a boat, I’ll need a whole lot of lumber. And that’s solid birch or oak from the southeast forest.”
He paused for dramatic effect, then continued.
“But the greatest of shipbuilding lumber is teak. I can make you a truly sturdy craft if you can deliver me the solid core of a massive, aged teak. Then again, it might be beyond the ability of amateur lumberjacks…”
The quest log updated, initiating part two of the “Shipwright of Yore.” Asuna and I promptly went to our menus, producing Noblewood Cores.
The instant the reddened logs clunked down in a big stack, I thought I detected the old man’s eyes briefly going wide. Nah, had to be my imagination.
By the time the elderly shipbuilder got up from his chair to start building the two-seat gondola we ordered, Asuna and I had unloaded four Legendary Bear Fats, eight Noblewood Cores, six Fire-Bear Claws—to be treated and carved into nails—and two Fire-Bear Pelts for upholstering the seats.
I watched the old man carefully, relieved that we had enough of everything we needed. He crossed the cluttered room and stopped in front of a door on the south wall, then pulled a key from his pocket to remove the sturdy lock.
The heavy door thunked open to reveal a carpentry storeroom. I spotted massive saws, hammers, chisels, and planes crammed into the space, all of them polished to a shine.
“To think I’d have a chance to use these again one day,” the old man muttered wistfully.
You’ll probably have a flood of orders by tomorrow, I thought to myself. Asuna and I appeared to be the only ones currently working on the “Shipwright of Yore,” but we weren’t going to be keeping it a secret. The members of the Dragon Knights and Liberation Squad were out there swimming in the canals and rivers to complete the various quest tasks outside of town.
I couldn’t help but wish I could tell those proud front-runners, chanting in a line with their swim trunks and floaty tubes, but we ought to report our findings to Argo soon so she could disseminate the information. As a beater already, I had no fear of a bad reputation, but I didn’t want Asuna to suffer on my account.
After all, she’d already earned a lot of attention for the power of her Chivalric Rapier in the third-floor boss battle. If the word got out that she had a de facto extra skill slot thanks to the Crystal Bottle of Kales’Oh, the two main powers of the front line would get truly serious about recruiting her. They might even…
The old man’s returning footsteps snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked up to see him laying out a massive scroll on the tabletop. He smacked the pure white parchment with a hand and said, “Tell me how you want your boat built.”
The quest log updated and brought up a purple window before our eyes. It appeared to be a gondola design dialog, full of text input fields and pull-down menus. At the very top, my name and Asuna’s were listed under the “owner” field. The quest must have been designed to give shared ownership rights to the entire party.
“What is this?” Asuna asked, craning her neck over. I thought I detected a glint in her eyes. “Oooh, wow. So even on a two-seater, we can decide its shape and color and name and everything!”
She reached out with a finger to explore the options, and I scooted over to make room for her, but the window followed me.
“Hang on,” I said, bringing up the party settings menu and switching the leader position to Asuna. The quest progress was shared between all party members, but in many cases, spots where detailed decisions had to be made were restricted to just the leader.
Now that she had inherited control from me, Asuna had stars in her eyes.
“What color should we go with? It looks like we’ve got a whole RGB circle to choose from.”
“I don’t care about the color…You choose, Asuna.”
“Nuh-uh, the ownership is for the both of us, so we have to discuss and choose properly.”
“Er, right…In that case, I pick bla—”
“No black! I feel like it would just sink right away.”
“Oh…okay. Well, then…”
I just wanted to get it over with so we could return to the inn, but she would know—and be angry—if I didn’t take it seriously, so I tried to be logical.
“Umm…well, the ship isn’t going to fit into our item storage, which means we’ll need to tie it up wherever we leave it. Perhaps a color that sticks out at night would be good. Something white or orange…”
“I see. I think white would be nice—but not pure white, that’s boring. Maybe something closer to ivory.”
“I-I don’t see why not.”
“Let’s see…right about here,” Asuna said, tracing the color circle with her finger until she had selected a regal ivory white. No sooner had I sighed with relief than several other submenus appeared, asking for the off colors that would adorn the prow, stern, decorations, sides, and seats of the ship.
“Um, I’ll just leave the rest of these up to you.”
“Oh, fine…I’ll pick them all out, then,” Asuna said in apparent annoyance, despite the continuing presence of stars in her eyes. I backed away from her and sat down on a round chair next to the table.
The old man, who was still patiently holding open the ship plans on the table, grumbled, “It’s always been said that a young lady takes three times as long to design her ship.”
“Uh…I see. That’s…good to know,” I remarked.
Ultimately, it wasn’t until one o’clock in the morning that the detailed coloring, ship design with various cosmetic features, placement and shape of seats, and other details were finalized. But when Asuna turned to me, she didn’t seem tired in the least.
“Lastly, let’s give our boat a name.”
“Uh…a n-name, huh…?”
To be honest, I had zero faith in my naming ability. Even my character name, Kirito, was just a rearranging of my real name.
“Umm…I will also leave that to your discretion,” I offered hopefully, but to my surprise, Asuna looked deep in thought already.
“As a matter of fact, I had a great name come to me earlier.”
“Oh…like what?”
“Well, I read that in many foreign countries, they give boats female names…and it occurred to me that we should name it after Kizmel’s sister.”
My eyes went wide with surprise.
The Dark Elf knight Kizmel, whom we met on the third floor, had told me the story of her past in front of a gravestone in the back corner of their camp. She had a younger sister, an herbalist, who died in a battle with the Forest Elves.
And her name was…
“Tilnel, right? So it would be the Tilnel …Why not?” I said, nodding. Asuna beamed back at me.
She typed in the letters into the field at the top of the window one at a time, then beckoned me over.
“Is this spelling right?”
I stood up from the chair and looked at what she had typed: Tilnel. I nodded.
“Then let’s push the FINALIZE button together.”
“Whuh?!”
“What? You don’t want to?”
“Er, no, it’s not that, of course,” I said, shaking my head. I reached out my index finger toward the button on the lower right. Asuna did the same, then looked over at me, mouthing the words, “ Ready, set…”
Just as we were about to slam on the button together, I grabbed her hand and shouted, “No, wait!”
“Wh-what?!”
“Look, this field is still empty…”
I pointed out a drop-down menu titled Optional Equipment. Asuna looked at it and shrugged.
“Oh, that. Well, it didn’t have any options in it.”
She poked the menu to show that the listing that appeared was indeed empty. It probably meant that we didn’t have items that could be equipped on the boat.
“Hmm…Do you mind if I check it myself, just in case?”
“Go ahead.”
With her permission, I reverted back to leader. When I checked the drop-down menu for myself—
“Ooh, there’s something there!”
“Huh? What is it?!”
We stuck our faces together cheek to cheek to peer into the small window, which featured a single option.
“Fire-Bear’s Horn…?”
I felt a terrible premonition rise in my chest as I read the words. Asuna looked concerned as well.
“Horn…like the kind of horn that the old galleys used to feature? Why would a gondola need something like that?”
“I don’t know that you would need it yet. Especially since it seems like the options don’t show up unless you have the necessary items already…”
After thinking it over, I figured that it was best just to ask, so I looked to the old man at the side of the table.
“Um…” I started, then realized that I didn’t know what to call him. I checked the NPC’s color cursor and saw that his name was Romolo.
“Um, Mr. Romolo. Will we need this optional horn?”
I tried to make my question as simple as possible just in case, but old Romolo did not respond at once. I was afraid I’d asked him something his parameters were unable to answer, but he snorted before I could rephrase the question.
“You won’t need it if you’re only going to ride around Rovia. But if you row out there, you might need it eventually.”
“Meaning…we might need to fight monsters with the boat?”
“Perhaps you will…perhaps you won’t,” he said unhelpfully. He smacked the spread-out parchment again. “At any rate, this is your ship. It’s your decision whether to attach the horn or not.”
“…”
My partner and I shared another look. Asuna spoke up first.
“You’re the one who has the materials, Kirito, so I’ll let you decide.”
“Uh, r-really?”
“Well, you let me pick out pretty much everything else about the boat, so I’ll let you have one thing at the end.”
It sounded snarky coming out of her lips, but there was real concern somewhere in her heart. Or at least, I imagined there was.
“Hmm…I’m not sure if I like the idea of putting a big ugly weapon on our gondola. But it would be worse if the ship got sunk because we didn’t put it on. Maybe it was fate that we happened to get an exclusive bear-horn drop. Let’s do it.”
“Okay,” Asuna agreed.
I added, “Plus, since I’m sure the horn is likely to be attached beneath the waterline, we won’t have to look at it most of the time. So let’s set the horn as active, and…”
I put my hand over the FINISH button again. We counted down again and actually pressed it this time.
The window closed with an imposing, stately noise and the old man began to draw a three-dimensional model of the ship on the parchment. Within just a few seconds, he was done, and the word Tilnel was written at the top in dark black ink.
Romolo ceremoniously picked up the parchment and nodded in satisfaction.
“Now I will retreat into my workshop. Be patient, and I will inform you when I’m done with my work.”
And rolling up the parchment into a scroll again, the elderly craftsman disappeared into the tool room. The door shut and a very heavy vibration ran through the floor. Apparently his entire storeroom was an elevator.
I really wanted to see his workshop, but I didn’t want to risk getting yelled at and possibly ruining the quest, so I gave up on sneaking in and yawned instead.
“Mmmm…Man, this has been a long day.”
“I wonder how long it takes to finish up a boat,” Asuna wondered impatiently.
I grinned wryly. “In the real world it probably takes months, but here it might be a day at the worst…even shorter, I bet—three hours, five hours. If we announce the details of the quest, people will be beating down his door trying to get their own ships.”
“I wonder what happens in that case. Will it be like the Dark Elf camp on the third floor…an instance thingy? Where there’s as many versions of this house as there are players?”
“I don’t know, this is the middle of town…I bet that if someone’s currently in the middle of the quest, the door just won’t open…”
“Wait…you meant that if it takes three hours, the next person just has to stand there and wait outside the house?”
“More like three and a half, when you count the time for design choices. So that means at maximum, he could only serve six or seven groups in a day…Then again, three hours is just a hunch, so it might be shorter…”
I shrugged and Asuna gave me an indescribable look.
“The thing about your hunches is they’re eerily correct.”
“S-sorry…”
“Don’t apologize to me . Thanks to you, we got ours out of the way first…Well, let’s trust that three hours is right and make our way back to the inn.”
“That’s the problem. It just occurred to me while I was talking to you that if we leave this house, it might treat the ship transaction as its own new quest…”
“…Meaning that if we find out it’s ready and race over, and another party’s already in progress with their own quest, we’ll just have to wait outside the house until they’re done?”
“I think it’s quite possible. I mean, if the door remains closed until the person comes back to get the completed ship and nobody ever returns, it would mean no one can ever start the quest after you.”
“…I see,” Asuna nodded slowly. She took a look around the messy room. “Which means…we have no choice but to wait here until it’s finished.”
“Yep…”
I looked around as well and wondered where Mr. Romolo slept. There was no bed, sofa, or blanket to be seen. The doors went to the entrance and the workshop, and I didn’t get the sense there were any secret doors.
After a scan of the room, both of our sets of eyes eventually landed on the large rocking chair that Romolo had been sitting in not too long ago. It was the only spot in the room that seemed to support any kind of sleep.
I brushed aside a brief moment of temptation and made a gentlemanly offer.
“I can just sleep on the floor if you want the rocking chair.”
“…But…”
In her profile, I saw even more hesitation than when we were deciding whether or not to attach the horn to the gondola. She was probably trying to be considerate to me, but didn’t have the courage to sleep on the dusty floor. It was a very fitting concern for fastidious Asuna.
“It’s fine, really. Compared to camping out in the safe rooms of the labyrinths, I’m just glad this place has a roof. Besides, I have a personal skill of sleeping wherever I want. You just relax and take the rocking cha—”
“We can both squeeze into it,” she said, cutting off the second part of my gentleman’s offer.
“Eh?”
“It’s a big rocking chair. If we turn sideways, the two of us can fit on it.”
Sideways?!
Wait, not that part.
The two of us?!
My memory of the inn room in Zumfut on the third floor was still fresh, where Asuna pitched an unidentified fruit directly into my head. She already had a powerful personal barrier to begin with, and now she was suggesting that we squeeze together into a cramped rocking chair.
I couldn’t decide: to thankfully decline or to take her up on the offer? Eventually she turned away in a huff, put her rapier into her item storage, then sat on the leather rocking chair and turned ninety degrees to face the outside.
“I’ll go ahead and start getting some sleep. If you want to use the empty space, you’re welcome to it,” she announced, her back to me, then fell silent.
After a full two minutes of standing still, I snuck over to the chair. I was curious to see if Asuna was actually sleeping or not, but that would require circling around to her side and that seemed like crossing a line.
Inside, I put a hand to the bars of the backrest and pushed slightly. The chair rocked back and forth with a faint squeaking. Asuna did not move or react.
At this point, I truly had no idea what to do. My mind was a blank as the chair continued to swing, when—
“Mmh…”
Asuna grunted and fell over in my direction. Her eyes were shut firmly. If I focused, I could hear the sound of sleep breathing coming from her barely parted lips. She was definitely asleep now.
It was a wonder to me that the fencer, who’d been so sensitive when I met her on the first floor, was now so bold…but then I changed my mind.
At the time she’d been telling me I had a choice whether to use the chair or not, the fatigue must have been beating her down. She only made that offer because she didn’t want me to realize how close she was to a sleep log-out—though that MMO term did not apply to Aincrad anymore.
I couldn’t blame her. In the morning, she’d left the inn and raced through the third-floor labyrinth tower until we reached the floor boss. After the battle, we climbed to the fourth floor, floated down the river, and engaged in that mad chase with the sharklike tadpole thing; had a brief rest in town before starting the shipbuilding quest, battling several monsters, and finishing it off against a giant fire-breathing bear as powerful as a boss on its own. She never once said a word about being tired, but she had to be exhausted enough to fall to pieces as soon as we got back to town.
“…Enjoy your rest,” I whispered, and pulled the round stool from the table over toward the rocking chair.
There was not enough space there now that Asuna had rolled over, and even if there were, I didn’t want to risk waking her up.
I put a hand on the backrest and rocked it gently again. A slight smile snuck onto Asuna’s childlike face in her sleep.
Maybe she was dreaming of the finished Tilnel sailing along on the channel. I’d guessed three hours for old Mr. Romolo, but as I silently rocked the chair, I didn’t mind if he took just a bit longer.
The quest log buzzed into life at around four thirty in the morning, when the darkness outside the window was just showing the first signs of lightening.
The window said, T HE SHIP YOU ORDERED IS COMPLETE. H EAD TO THE SHIPWRIGHT’S WORKSHOP. It was at one thirty that Romolo had descended into his workshop, so the time of construction was three hours on the nose, exactly what I’d guessed.
Asuna must have heard the sound effect, too, but she was still zonked out on the rocking chair, eyes closed. I was of a mind to keep rocking it gently for another hour or two of sleep.
But I had a feeling that if I did, she’d scold me later for not waking her up. I decided that once we got the finished boat, we could return to the inn for some proper sleep. I stood up and leaned over Asuna.
“Um, hello? I think our boat is ready.”
Her eyebrows twitched in her sleep, and she murmured something inaudibly, but did not wake. I put a hand on her shoulder and shook it gently. It occurred to me that I’d been gently rocking her for the last three hours, so a little more vibration wouldn’t do the trick.
I decided to gradually increase the pressure of my rocking and started calling out, “Good morning, rise and shiiine…”
Suddenly, Asuna bolted upright with a bizarre sound.
“Hwulyuh?!”
I had to fall backward to avoid getting a head-butt right to the chin. The fencer looked around, bleary-eyed, until her eyes focused on an empty spot in the air just in front of her.
“…Was that weird noise…from this window…? What is this…?” she mumbled. I shook my head.
“No, it’s just the quest log updating…No, wait…”
That didn’t make sense. She would have heard that sound the same time I did, and that was far too long ago for her to be waking up now. So whatever window Asuna was seeing had to be…
“Oh, I see…So I can just close this, then,” she muttered, reaching out with her finger extended.
“Aaaaah! Wait, wait! Stop! Stoooop!!” I screamed. That bellowing had bumped her up to 70 percent wakefulness, and her hand jumped and stopped.
“Wh-what?!”
“Don’t press it!!”
“Huh…? Umm…”
She looked back in my desperate, screaming face with suspicion, then glanced more closely at the window only she could see.
“…Activate automatic teleportation of subject due to harassment code violation…?”
She suddenly clutched her body and looked at me. The remaining 30 percent of sleepiness evaporated instantly, and her eyebrows shot up into the air.
“Wh-wh-what did you do to me while I was sleeping?!”
“I didn’t do anything!! I was just trying to wake you up!!”
“If that was all, then the harassment code wouldn’t have gone off!!”
“I-it’s your fault for not waking up!!”
Before we could go further down that spiral of pointless argument, I held up a hand.
“W-wait. Something’s not right…The order of the harassment code deployment is wrong…”
“What do you mean?” she asked, still wary. I chose my words very carefully.
“W-well…When the harassment-prevention code activates upon inappropriate contact, it delivers both a warning and knocks the offending hand away, eventually developing into forced teleportation if the contact continues, from what I understand…”
“…Meaning that when you were touching me, you should have been getting warnings too?”
“B-but there weren’t any. And it didn’t knock my hand away…So I just kept shaking you, trying to get you to wake up, until you just leaped up like that.”
“…Hmm…”
She was finally settling down a step below her stage of nervous caution. Asuna looked down to reexamine the details of the warning window, but I was still beside myself with nerves. If she hit the YES button, even on accident, I would be instantly teleported down to the prison area beneath Blackiron Palace, all the way down on the first floor.
Fortunately, she just pored over the details of the window before shrugging.
“It doesn’t say anything aside from asking if I want to activate the code. So I should press NO , then?”
“P-please…”
“Fine, pressed.”
I let out a long sigh of relief that I had evaded the danger of prison and slumped down onto the stool. She just shook her head and stood up from the rocking chair.
“I have no idea what all of this is about…but we can ask Argo, I suppose. Anyway…did you even sleep?”
I honestly wasn’t sure what kind of response Asuna would have if I told her that I’d spent three hours just rocking her chair for no good reason while she slept, so I kept it vague.
“Erm, I might have nodded off for a bit.”
“…Where?”
“On the stool there.”
“…Oh.”
She looked back down at the rocking chair where she’d slept, then decided to change the subject without further comment. “And why did you try waking me up so vigorously that it set the harassment code off?”
“B-because the boat’s finished.”
She instantly glared at her quest log with ferocious concentration, and her face lit up.
“You should have said that earlier!”
“It was the first thing I said…”
But the fencer ignored my rebuttal and rushed back to the front door, then hit the brakes on her third step.
“Wait, the log says to go to the workshop, but this isn’t the shop itself.”
“Good point. And it doesn’t seem like old gramps is coming back here…which means…”
I walked over to the door to the tool storeroom on the opposite wall from the entrance and gripped the dimly gleaming handle. It turned slowly, heavily opening just a crack.
“I think this is it, Asu—”
Before I could finish, something pushed my back and tipped me forward into the storeroom. Asuna had essentially delivered a body blow in the process of rushing into the room. No sooner had I closed the door than she turned on me and demanded, “Well?!”
I looked around hastily and found a suggestive lever on the wall. It would be one thing if this was a dungeon, but I decided there couldn’t possibly be any traps in the middle of a town. It was safe to pull.
The entire room rumbled to life and started descending. The storeroom was indeed a giant elevator leading down to the under ground workshop.
After about twenty seconds, the rumbling stopped and Asuna pried the door open impatiently.
“Ooooh!” she marveled. I whistled.
It was huge. The room above felt fairly spacious, but this was closer to an entire factory in scope. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of solid stone, and there were massive work platforms, wooden hoists, and various stacks of large-scale ship materials with plenty of room to spare.
But the feature that most drew my eye was a pool—no, a dock—installed in the center of the room. It was a channel about five yards wide filled with clear water that passed across the room and to a massive door on one side. It must have been connected to the town’s canals through that door.
Romolo was standing at the side of the dock, hands on his hips. He gazed over the surface of the water at the graceful form of a two-seat gondola that glittered bright under the workshop’s countless lamps.
I followed Asuna over to the brand-new boat. There was a ? mark over the old man’s head, which meant we needed to talk to him to advance the quest, but I couldn’t help but look at the fresh new gondola.
It was about twenty-three feet long and just over four feet wide. The body was painted a gleaming ivory white, while the sides and prow were a deep forest green. The two leather seats and the rest of the interior were calm shades of brown. As I expected, the horn was probably affixed beneath the prow and was barely visible through the water.
Lastly, I couldn’t help but stare at the beautiful, flowing calligraphy of the name Tilnel on the side. I finally turned to the elderly shipwright.
“…Thank you very much for this fine boat, Mr. Romolo.”
“Watch it, clown!”
I ducked my head in embarrassment and straightened out the ship. At this rate, it was clear that I ought to stick to the right edge of the channels.
“He doesn’t have to shout just because his boat is bigger,” Asuna snorted.
I tried to calm her down. “There, there. He’s probably just programmed to react like that if the gondolas get too close for comfort.”
“So he would have said worse if we actually collided, then.”
“Ha-ha, I’m sure he would have…”
No sooner were those words out of my mouth than another gondola, this one the same size as the Tilnel , came racing by to pass us on the left.
“Outta the way! Don’t clog up the canals!” the boatman roared before disappearing into the mist.
“Wh-what was that for? Chase him, Kirito—I’ve got to give him a piece of my mind!”
“I-I can’t. I won’t be able to make the turn if I go that fast,” I complained to the aggressive shipowner, then stopped to wonder.
When a player got his own boat, did that mean that the NPC gondoliers he shared the waterways with became his enemies? Technically, one would be drawing the ire of the NPC’s passengers, so it wasn’t nothing, but this seemed to be developing into more trouble than I wanted out of a video game.
“…No, hang on,” I muttered, pushing the oar carefully.
Romolo had claimed that he quit the shipmaking business because the Water Carriers Guild had monopolized the building materials. Why had the guild been so desperate to exclude Romolo, who clearly wasn’t a member? Was there some reason that they needed to control both the shipbuilding and water transport industries here in Rovia?
In fact, that reminded me that the first gondolier we met in town had said something curious. When I asked him if any other boats might take us out of the city, he claimed that he couldn’t answer the question.
What if that response was not a cut-and-paste reaction to a question he didn’t understand, but something related to the Water Carriers Guild?
Perhaps there were ships that would go out of town, but circumstances prevented him from talking about it…?
“…!”
Struck by a sudden thought, I reopened the log window for the “Shipwright of Yore” quest, which I’d assumed was over. Just as I suspected, there was a new line of text right at the very bottom.
T HE BOATS FROM THE W ATER C ARRIERS G UILD ARE ACTING STRANGE. T ALK TO THE OLD CRAFTSMAN AGAIN.
“Sorry, Asuna, we’ve got to go see Gramps again!” I shouted, and slowed down the ship. She nearly pitched forward out of her seat and turned back with eyes blazing. Her mouth closed when she saw my face, though.
Once the stationary gondola had finished its 180-degree turn, I made full use of my strength stat to row us forward.
Thirty minutes later, the Tilnel was back in the waterways of Rovia. Asuna and I faced each other, our heads tilted at the same curious angle.
“…His story didn’t really make sense…”
“I agree…but the quest is still going…”
Asuna straightened her neck and yawned adorably. It was 5:40 in the morning, about the time that the nocturnal players would return to town and the early birds would be waking up. If anything, I was a night owl, but sleeping in the Dark Elf camp had fixed my schedule to being more of a morning person. I was dead exhausted.
Once I had joined her in yawning, my partner gave me a lighthearted scolding.
“I told you we could have shared the rocking chair.”
“…Well, you still seem plenty tired after using it.”
“It’s because this ship rocks you to sleep…but if you want to return to the inn and get some proper shut-eye, I won’t argue.”
“Thanks for being considerate…”
I pondered our situation. Romolo didn’t explain exactly what the reason was for the other gondoliers’ antagonism or what happened between him and the guild. Instead, he gave us a mystery to consider.
If you really want to know, find the big boat carrying wooden boxes instead of passengers, and follow it without drawing notice. It should leave town to the southeast around nightfall. Just be careful not to let them spot you. They’ve got ruffians on board—then again, after the bear king, you’ve got nothing to fear.
“What do you think, Asuna? We’ve got our ship already. Should we keep going with the quest?” I asked, banking on the fact that the fencer had enough good luck to earn two unbelievably rare items already.
She blinked in surprise and nodded as if the answer was obvious. “Of course we are. I wouldn’t feel right otherwise.”
“Ah, okay. Well…I’d feel bad about submitting incomplete info to Argo…Let’s go back to the inn, then…”
“Mm,” she replied. I waited to continue rowing until she was back in her seat.
We made our way south down the main canal and headed for the teleport square, enduring the continuing insults of the gondoliers. I was planning to leave the temporary inn overlooking the square to move to a proper hotel in the southwest quarter, but it occurred to me that keeping our base in the town center would make it more convenient for travel.
After several minutes of rowing, a massive stone wharf came into view. The NPC-run gondolas only docked at the south end of the center island, while the east- and west-facing docks only featured a few little boats tied up. The western dock was straight ahead, so I eventually backed the gondola up to a pier with great difficulty.
Asuna got up and offered a word of thanks for my piloting, then seemed to have an idea.
“Hey…can’t we put the Tilnel in our inventory somehow? Do we have to leave it behind?”
“According to the manual, we can fix the boat in place by dropping an anchor or tying it to a bitt on the dock. Once it’s affixed, only the owner can unlock the ship, it says…so I don’t think we’ll need to worry about it being stolen…”
“I was hoping for a more confident answer,” Asuna complained. She picked up a coiled rope sitting at the front of the gondola. “Is this the rope we use?”
“I think so.”
“And is that the bitt?”
She pointed at a fat, rounded post at the side of the pier.
“I think so.”
“I’ll do it, then,” she announced, and leaped onto the pier, placing the rope noose over the post. That was all it took—a game message appeared letting me know that the Tilnel had been fixed in place.
I set down the oar and hopped over to the pier to enjoy a good long stretch.
It had been a very long day. Despite a few breaks here and there, I’d essentially been active for a period of twenty-four hours following the third-floor boss fight.
But as I gazed at the beautiful ivory-white and forest-green gondola, it seemed to me that the time had been well spent. It never occurred to me that I might have my own vehicle that I could control in Aincrad.
“Do you like the combination of white and green?” I asked.
Asuna looked down at her own outfit. “Hmm…In terms of personal preference, I’d go for white and red.”
That made sense, given her white tunic and dark red cape. I sent her a questioning look, and she put on a rare gentle grin.
“The signs for safety or the environment are usually a green cross on a white background, right? The colors just popped into my head once we decided to use Tilnel’s name for the boat. Then again…that green cross symbol is only recognized in Japan.”
“…I see…”
I pictured an image of Tilnel the herbalist, a person I’d never met but heard about from Kizmel on several occasions. When I spoke, it was in a deliberately cheery voice to cover up the rare lump that rose in my throat.
“Once I realized that I had to row it myself, we should have made it a one-seater. We could have saved on materials, and it would be easier to maneuver…”
“Just think of it as a bargain: We built a two-seat gondola that can actually hold three.”
“Is that really…a bargain…?” I wasn’t sure, but with my brain working at a decreased capacity, I had no choice but to hesitantly agree. “Umm…yeah. Sure. Anyway, let’s go back to the inn…”
I let out an enormous yawn in the light of the morning sun from the outer perimeter, and this time it was Asuna who caught it from me.
“ Fwah… What time should we meet up?”
“Ummm…Ten—no, eleven, please…”
“Roger that.”
Both low on sleep, we turned our backs to the steadily stirring teleport square and plodded off to our temporary lodgings.
My mind went blank the instant I fell onto the bed, and it seemed like the alarm was smacking me awake just moments later.
It wasn’t quite enough sleep, but at any rate, it was time to start Day Forty-Six. I noted the date ( 12/22 ) on my menu window and couldn’t help but feel like something important was coming up, but I was out the door before I latched onto what it was.
Asuna and I met up on the first floor and headed out to the Italian food carts in the square for a meal. My hunger overrode my sleepiness the instant I caught a whiff of melting cheese. I’d chosen the panini sandwich yesterday, so I was trying to decide between the pizza or the fried fish or perhaps getting both to make up for the lack of breakfast—oh, but that would leave nothing new to try tomorrow…
“…What is it?” I heard mumbled next to me. I thought over my answer.
“Well, I was eyeing the fried fish meal…”
“No, I mean that .”
She reached out and grabbed the back of my head to turn it eighty degrees to the right.
I saw more than a few players running straight through the square to the west. The looks on their faces did not suggest an emergency, but clearly something was up. I tuned my ears and thought I heard an even larger rumbling coming from the direction they were running.
“We should probably go see what’s happening,” Asuna noted seriously. I longingly gazed side-eyed at the three carts before sucking it up.
The teleport square here was an actual square surrounded by water, so while there were inns, carts, and other structures in the corners, it generally had an excellent view all around. So the instant we circled around the gate itself and walked into the western half, we noticed the crowd up against the wharf. There were at least fifty players there, but there couldn’t be anything beyond them except for the dock. And the public gondolas didn’t stop at the east or west docks.
“…I have a bad feeling about this,” Asuna murmured. I nodded my agreement. We picked up our pace and closed the remaining distance at once.
Upon slipping into the right edge of the crowd, we saw that our expectations were half-correct and half–completely wrong.
The cause of the uproar appeared to be a brand-new gondola moored on one of the piers—the Tilnel . But what drew the attention of the onlookers was not the boat, but two groups that were facing off at the start of the pier. Both seemed to be made of six members: the max for a single party.
The party on the left-hand side was entirely decked out in blue doublets. There was no mistaking the uniform of the Dragon Knights Brigade, one of the elite guilds of the front line.
Meanwhile, the party on the right was in moss green. Like the other team, they were one of the well-known guilds in the game: the Aincrad Liberation Squad.
As I watched in silence, a man with spiked chunks of hair just like a morning star at the head of the ALS stepped forward and growled.
“You still don’t get how things work around here, do ya?! Listen, we found this ship first, and that means we got the right to investigate it first!”
The target of his rage was a slender man at the center of the Dragon Knights with long blue hair tied behind his head. Though his irritation was plain to see, he kept better composure than the cactus-headed man.
“You claim you found it first, but as the man in charge over there, you arrived two minutes later than I did. We’ve already started our investigation—why don’t you save your baseless complaints for another time?”
“Baseless complaints?! No, you stuff that nonsense logic up yer ass! You don’t get the right ta act all high-and-mighty, when it was you who shoved my guard outta the way!”
“We’re inside the town. You know full well there’s no way we could have forced your man to move. These excuses are laughable!”
Neither of the two guild leaders showed the least sign of backing down. A voice with the perfect blend of apprehension and exhaustion sounded in my right ear.
“…I don’t even know what to say…”
I thought it over and offered her my best advice. “In this situation, I think a simple ugh will suffice.”
“………Ugh.”
I glanced over at Asuna and decided to be a bit more constructive this time.
“While there’s not much you can say about this other than ‘ugh,’ perhaps we should come up with a plan…Here’s Plan A: We go back to the square, eat our lunch, and sneak the ship away once they’ve all calmed down. Plan B: Butt right into their argument, reveal everything we know about the shipbuilding quest, and get them to see the light.”
“…Do you really think they’ll calm down?” she responded instantly. I considered that.
The Tilnel was locked to the pier by the game system itself. No other player aside from me or Asuna should be able to move it. With that in mind, I supposed that both of the guilds would have to give up eventually, but I didn’t know that for sure. If I was in their position, I could imagine the sight of that fresh new boat begging for a ride driving me crazy until I figured out how to get it.
On top of that, the leader of the rival guild was right there. They weren’t likely to give up and withdraw, knowing that the other side might find out a way to move the ship.
“Hmm. Maybe they won’t calm down…”
“That’s what I think.”
“Which means we have no choice but to explain the entire quest to them,” I said, resigned, but Asuna did not agree.
“…And you can imagine what will happen after that, can’t you?”
“Huh…? What do you mean?”
“Y’all aren’t allowed ta slip ahead of us! You gotta help us with the quest until we git our own boat!”
Her imitation of Kibaou’s Kansai accent was so accurate, I couldn’t help but get a shiver up my spine.
“Yep, that’s definitely more than just an ugh …And we’re supposed to be tracking down that big gondola for Old Grandpa Romolo…”
“There’s another thing that worries me, too,” Asuna said, looking pensively at the Tilnel . “The boat is currently classified as an Immobile Object, right?”
“Should be.”
“Does that mean it’s also an Immortal Object?”
“Should b…”
I stopped before the last e left my lips.
In an ordinary RPG, vehicles that the player could obtain were essentially never destroyed unless it was part of the main story line. In many MMORPGs, mounts were impossible to attack. After all of the passion Asuna poured into the Tilnel , I desperately hoped that this was the case in SAO —but the ship’s optional equipment worried me.
That ram made of Fire-Bear’s Horn had to be for the purpose of sinking other ships in a collision. If that function was programmed into it, then it stood to reason that all ships had a durability rating that would sink them when it reached zero.
I regretted not checking the Tilnel ’s property window when I had the chance, but it was too late for that now.
“…Actually, maybe it’s not labeled immortal. I feel like it’s probably protected here in town, but I don’t want to say for sure until I check the manual again…”
“In that case, we should probably move the ship before those people decide the investigation requires whacking it a bunch.”
I didn’t think that even they would stoop that low…until I remembered the scene at the public dock to the south last night. The Dragon Knights had barged in front of the lengthy line of tourists as if it was their God-given right. Certainly there was a greater-than-zero chance that they might feel entitled to not just smack the ship, but destroy it if it couldn’t be theirs.
“So that would be…Plan C: Burst through by force?”
“I don’t like sticking out for bad reasons, but it’ll save them from wasting their time. Let’s go with that one.”
“All right. I’ll hop into the boat first to prepare for rowing while you remove the rope.”
She nodded silently, and we shared a glance to get our timing right before leaping from the wharf down to the dock about five feet below.
I politely shouted, “Excuse us, coming through,” as we raced down to the pier. The blue and green parties were taken aback just enough for us to slip through and leap onto the Tilnel . Asuna pulled the mooring rope off as I yanked the oar off of its U-joint to prepare for sailing.
Upon seeing the previously immobile rope removed from the bitt without issue, Kibaou, the leader of the green Aincrad Liberation Squad, shouted angrily. But Asuna simply hopped into the gondola without looking back. The rope in her hand was automatically snapped into a coil at the front of the boat, and I promptly began rowing as hard as I could.
The instant the Tilnel left the dock, it was the leader of the blue Dragon Knights, Lind, who spoke up.
“H-hey, you there! How did you get that—?”
I finally turned back and shouted, “The details on the shipbuilding quest will be in the next strategy guide! Just wait for that!”
“N-no, you git back here! And…not you two again!” Kibaou ranted, brandishing his fists.
I cut a salute with my right hand, then raised our speed.
Once we had made a half lap around the south end of the main canal and headed into one of the smaller waterways of the southeast quarter, I stopped the boat and checked the operation manual that was accessible from the gondola’s property window. In doing so, I learned a few facts.
The Tilnel was not, in fact, an Immortal Object—it had a set durability value. As I feared, that value would be diminished by attacks from large monsters, collisions with obstacles, and battle with other boats. If it reached zero, the ship would capsize, but it could be restored by visiting a shipwright or using the Carpentry skill.
Fortunately, the durability value was protected when anchored and unmanned. So there was no need to fear the ship being destroyed when we weren’t there to watch it, as with the previous incident.
“I don’t know whether to be reassured by that information or not,” Asuna remarked.
I agreed. “I think it’s pretty unlikely that we’ll get into collision wars with other boats, but I feel that it’s pretty likely I’ll have a few run-ins with obstacles…”
“Practice defensive driving!”
“Yeah, sure. So…as far as the quest goes, he said that the ship in question will appear in the southeast quadrant in the evening, right?”
She nodded.
“Then let’s get something to eat for now, then meet up with Argo and give her the quest details. I was hoping to do that after we finished it for good, but I’m afraid of what might happen if we delay any longer.”
“Agreed. I was hoping to see them all swimming around in their inner tubes, though.”
“Ha-ha, yeah. Me, I was hoping for one last As—”
I stopped unnaturally the instant that I realized the mistake I was about to commit. But the fencer’s preternatural hearing—practically full mastery of the Eavesdropping skill—kicked in, and she turned to me with a smile.
“What was that?”
“I was hoping for one last…bite of asparagus…” I finished lamely.
Her smile went from lukewarm to below the freezing point.
“Why not have something like that for lunch, then?”
The southeast quarter of Rovia was a business district split up by its countless canals.
When we were using the guild’s gondolas, I couldn’t be bothered to check each shop, knowing that every time we set foot on solid ground, we had to pay the fee again. But now that we had our own, I was free to spend as much time browsing as I wanted. We could stop the boat and peer at the displayed wares and dock at a pier if we were interested in buying. The time simply flew by.
Asuna was mostly drawn to the shops selling minor goods and accessories, which put a thought into my mind.
“Hey, what would you say to upgrading your armor? You’ve been using that breastplate since the second floor, right?”
Asuna pulled away from the display case of the item shop, her expression lost in thought.
“That’s true, but…I don’t really want to increase the weight of my equipment. The ones with really high defense are all so heavy.”
“Well, there’s nothing you can do about that,” I admitted, then analyzed her outfit from top to bottom.
The only metal item she wore was the thin breastplate; her gloves, boots, and skirt were all made of leather. I had no issue with her philosophy of keeping the weight down so she could focus on evading rather than defending, but it was scary to consider what might happen if she got paralyzed, stunned, or fell.
Plus, wimpy monsters whose patterns could be recognized were one thing, but the third floor had taught me that not only did you have to deal with boss monsters with shifting patterns, but the even more terrifying prospect of foes whose actions couldn’t be predicted.
I brushed my chest lightly, remembering the feeling of that critical hit ax combo, Double Cleave.
“Take this for what it’s worth, coming from a guy who wears nothing but leather and cloth. If you have the Light Metal Armor skill, why not make more use of the ‘metal’ part? You’ll find that just switching your gloves or boots to studded or plated armor will make a big difference.”
“Studded? Meaning…it has metal studs stuck in it?” she asked.
Now it was my turn to be confused.
“Studs? You mean, like…those punk fashion spiky things?”
Neither of us seemed to be following the other’s point. She pursed her lips.
“I don’t really understand. Can I see the real thing in a store before I decide?”
“Of course. Now, I think the recommended shop for the fourth floor was…”
Even soaked in water as it was now, the layout of the town was the same as it had been before, so I consulted my beta memory banks, pointing east-southeast.
“…That way, I think. There’s a nice little restaurant tucked away there, so we can eat after we shop.”
Though I’d never paid much attention to the English term before this, I found out that the name “studded armor” did indeed come from metal studs hammered into the armor, and they didn’t necessarily need to be spiked.
“So that’s why they call it studded leather…Man, it’s hard to say,” I grumbled. Meanwhile, Asuna’s voice came drifting over about 20 percent faster than her usual speaking pace.
“Kirito, have you decided what you’ll eat? I was thinking of the crab gratin, but it’s hard to pass up the steamed clams. Want to order both and share them?”
The reason for her excitement was probably the new set of armor. Her breastplate had been upgraded from bronze to a sturdier steel make, while still keeping the weight low. Her leather skirt was now plated leather, which meant that flat steel plates had been sewn into the sides. Her gloves and boots were now studded, but they were smooth and rounded, not spiked, so it didn’t make her look imposing.
The white tunic she wore beneath the armor and the red hooded cape were still the same as before, but it was clearly the biggest onetime gear upgrade she’d ever had, and it was kind of adorable how she would occasionally look herself over and chuckle with satisfaction…
“Listen, if you don’t want the steamed clams, then order something. I’m starving over here.”
“S-sorry. That’ll do fine.”
“Then I’ll put the order in. I’ll just pick out something to drink.”
Once Asuna had finished giving the NPC waitress her food and drink order, she looked back down at her breastplate and traced the subtle plant design. Her voice was finally back to normal.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve always had a dislike of really armory armor.”
“Oh…? Why’s that?”
“It’s heavy and bulky…and I always felt like wearing serious armor meant giving in and finally being a true resident of this world in body and spirit…”
“What? But by that logic, your weapon would…” I paused briefly. “Oh, does that mean you chose a rapier because you had fencing experience in real life?”
Asuna grimaced and shook her head. “No, not at all. But there was a similarly thin sword above the mantelpiece in my home growing up. When I was a kid, I took it down and swung it around. Boy, did I get in trouble for that.”
The very first thought that sprung to my mind was, What’s a mantelpiece? But I only motioned for her to go on with my eyes.
“So…because of that, maybe I did think that the rapier had some kind of connection to my real self. Something just barely within the realm of acceptability…which is hilarious to consider, at this point.”
True to her word, she giggled.
I asked, “Then why the breastplate? Did you have one of those at home, too?”
“No way. This was my compromise between stubbornness and weakness. I didn’t want to wear a big honking suit of armor, but I was too scared to go out of town in just clothing. Before I met you, I lost a lot of HP from kobold attacks in that first labyrinth tower, so it was probably a good thing that I got the armor after all.”
“…No kidding,” I murmured, letting out a long, slow breath. “In this world, weakness and cowardice are practically virtues. You can never have a large enough safety margin.”
“I don’t want to hear that from someone with lighter armor than me,” she said, annoyed. I had no defense: My only metal armor was an ultrathin protector that couldn’t even be called plate armor and shoulder guards on my coat. I had to admit that I wouldn’t be here if not for the protection of that slim piece of metal when Morte hit me with his ax on the third floor.
“A-anyways, I’m going to be sure to keep this on at all times,” I assured her, pointing to my own chest briefly before flipping my wrist over to point at her new breastplate. “Don’t be so picky about armor, Asuna. You want to cover that spot at the very least…Oh, and by ‘that spot,’ I mean your heart.”
I snapped my hand back down to my knees. Asuna glanced down at her chest, then put on a smile at least fifty degrees chillier than the one after the asparagus remark.
“Of course. You picked it out for me, so I’ll take good care of it.”
Thankfully, the gratin, steamed clams, wine, and bread arrived to melt her icy aura. She drew her spoon as quickly as her rapier and stated, “We’ll switch after eating half of each dish!”
And with a huge mouthful of crab gratin stuffed into her cheek, her eyes narrowed with pleasure.
While there were still occasions that my careless remarks prompted a terrifying response from Asuna, it seemed as though I’d seen her smile more often since we reached the fourth floor. Some of that had to be attributed to the city of canals, the gondolas, and the seafood cuisine, but I suspected that Asuna might finally be accepting her life in a virtual world.
If that was the case, I hoped that I could at least keep her away from anything frightening or sad while we were on this floor.
I jammed a large, meaty clam into my mouth, praying that it would give me the strength to achieve that hope.
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