Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 7 - Chapter 11

11

IT WAS SEVEN O’CLOCK, ONE HOUR AFTER WE’D escaped from our cell.

I was hanging off a nearly sheer cliff by a lifeline less than a fraction of an inch wide, desperately trying to descend the outer wall of Harin Tree Palace.

It was a natural tree trunk, not an artificial wall, so at least there were little outcroppings of bark I could rest my hands and feet on, but it was still a hundred and fifty feet down to the ground. If I slipped, and the tiny rope failed to support my weight, the fall damage alone would take out all my HP.

But I couldn’t whine and give up now. Just three feet to my left, Asuna was silently descending the wall with another rope tied around her sword belt, and on my right, Lavik was going straight down like an experienced rock climber.

But worst of all was the dark elf knight who’d just joined the party a few minutes ago, looking up at me with concern from my left.

“Are you all right, Kirito?” she wondered.

I did my very best to put on what I hoped resembled a smile and said, “I’m f-fine! Don’t worry about me; just keep going.”

“You know I can’t do that. I told you, if your foot slips, I’ll be there to keep you up,” Kizmel reassured me.

When we’d rescued her from the cells on the seventh story of the palace, she had been quite haggard. Fortunately, she hadn’t suffered any physical damage and still had all her equipment aside from her weapons, but it was clear that being accused of treachery with the Fallen Elves and then imprisoned was an unbearable humiliation for such a proud knight.

She had been overjoyed to see us, of course, but it was so bad that she initially refused to escape the prison. With enough convincing from Asuna and me (and Lavik), Kizmel had made up her mind to clear her reputation herself and escaped out the seventh-story window with us—which was why we were here now.

I listened carefully and heard the shouts of guards within the palace, as well as footsteps rushing in every direction. It was going to take a while for that confusion to resolve. That was because of Asuna’s clever idea: leaving the lit torch in a small side room in a corner of the seventh story.

The chain reaction from the flames caused every last bonfire shroom in Harin Tree Palace to extinguish itself. Until they found and put out the torch, the entire palace was trapped in darkness. That wasn’t conducive to running an intensive search. We needed to escape into Looserock Forest while they were still in a panic.

I banished the hundred-plus-foot drop below my feet from my mind and focused on nothing but the trunk. I put a hand on a small hole, then my foot on a protruding knot, then grabbed a hanging vine and stepped on a chunk of broken bark. In an old-school RPG, I’d be able to just hold the controller stick down to effortlessly zip down the surface. But the immersive nature of a full-dive VRMMO was what made it function so effectively as a game of life and death. If I found a little extra time, I needed to practice my climbing, just in case I got myself into a situation like this again. If I got good enough to scurry up and down the pillars along the outer aperture of Aincrad, I wouldn’t be afraid of any cliff again…

These thoughts kept my mind occupied while I climbed down the tree. But engaging in an escape from reality to forget my fear began to sap my concentration as well. I thought my toe was firmly on a knot, but it slipped off, causing my stomach to lurch up into my throat.

Fortunately, my foot merely dropped a few inches before landing on a hard, flat surface.

I looked down and saw that it was resting on a stone pillar about three feet across. Somehow, I had reached the rock surface that surrounded the palace. I looked around and saw Asuna, Lavik, and Kizmel staring back at me, having finished their descent already.

I cleared my throat awkwardly, then undid the lifeline tied to my sword belt. The rope was one we’d found in a storeroom on the seventh story and was so fine and powerful that it couldn’t be cut unless you sawed at it repeatedly with a steel blade. It felt bad to leave it behind, but the other end was tied around a thick branch a hundred and fifty feet overhead, so there was no way to get it down.

I trotted down the staircase-like pillars in order, until I reached the corridor where the other three were waiting for me.

“Here I am,” I said as breezily as possible, and Kizmel smiled and said, “You did well, Kirito.”

It was hard not to feel like a child who had just climbed down from the top of the jungle gym all on his own.

We avoided the southern direction, where the main gate to the palace was located, and instead entered the west passageway, which was closest to where we descended the tree. We made our way across the bridge of loose rocks, checking to make sure they weren’t pursuing us. None of us fell into the water on the trip back to the entrance.

All we had to do was pass through the tunnel entryway to the forest, and we’d be outside—but there was something to take care of first.

I glanced back in the direction of the palace, then said to Kizmel, “Um…I know it’s an emergency situation, but do you mind if we take a detour?”

“A detour? But there is nothing but marshland around here.”

“We need something called narsos fruit that grows here…”

“Really? You humans have excellent taste,” said not Kizmel, but Lavik. He scratched at his wild beard and smirked. “It’s a kick and a tingle on the tongue, but once you get used to them, you’ll love the thrill of it. I haven’t had one in ages.”

I didn’t have time to correct him that we weren’t eating the fruit before Kizmel replied, “Hmm…I’m not the biggest admirer of narsos…”

She was grimacing as though she’d bitten into a sour persimmon.

Lavik smacked her bracingly on the back. “Don’t complain, Kizmel! Narsos is good for the body and spirit. You could use some of that right now.”

“But, Sir Lavik, the swamp has those detestable leeches in it.”

“Hrm…the hematomelibe? Yes, those are a pain…They’ll stay away if you drip some mint oil into the water. Does anyone have some?” Lavik asked, looking to us, but we just shook our heads. I didn’t know every last item in my inventory in minute detail, but I certainly couldn’t recall picking up any mint oil.

“That’s too bad…Well, they’re a necessity for any soldiers patrolling Looserock Forest, so they should have stockpiles of them here and there around the palace. How about we turn around, go back, and get some?”

“Lavik, I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Kizmel, looking partially annoyed and partially worried. But the suggestion put an idea into my mind, and I opened my inventory.

If it was true that they kept bits of it here and there around the palace, then perhaps there was a bottle in that underground storage room, too. And if that bottle happened to be in one of the boxes that Asuna and I took from there…

She was on the same track that I was. She opened her window and tapped on the item names from the top—AGED WOODEN BOX, RUSTY IRON BOX, BOILED LEATHER SACK, LINEN SACK, and so on—to peruse their contents.

Most of it was worthless junk, and while there were a few interesting pieces, like necklaces and charms and keys, I put off identifying any of them, focusing purely on the four letters m-i-n-t.

After tapping through at least a dozen boxes and scrolling through the list of their contents, I was heading for another one when I gasped, “Ah!”

I scrolled back up the list I’d just been about to close. Sitting right in the middle, plain as day, was the name Sigil of Lyusula. And there were two of them.

I was quickly taking them out when Asuna also gasped. There was a rapid materialization sound effect after that, and I saw a small green bottle resting atop her menu window. She looked at mine and again exclaimed, “Ah!”

I was going to give one of the rings to Asuna, but I stopped. They were both identical in design, with the symbol of Lyusula carved on them. Of course, they didn’t have our names on them, so at a glance, there was no way to tell which was Asuna’s and which was mine.

Racked with indecision, I was merely pinching my thumb and index finger back and forth, so Asuna thrust out her hand. “It doesn’t matter which is which. They’re both the same,” she snapped.

That was true, of course. Equipment items in SAO were automatically adjusted to the size of the wielder, so the original size did not matter. I picked up one and stuck it on the index finger of Asuna’s outstretched hand. For some reason, she twitched and arched her back but failed to say anything. I put the other ring on my own hand, then snatched the bottle off the top of Asuna’s window.

“Found some mint oil,” I told Lavik, who was surveying the spacious swamp, and held out the bottle.

The whiskered swordsman’s face broke into a smile. “Ah, that is good. Then let us search for that narsos,” he said, taking the bottle. “And don’t worry. Even if the hematomelibe do bite, you just have to put up with it and wait, and they’ll drift off somewhere else.”

Kizmel made a face of disgust like I’d never seen before. Having said almost the exact same thing to Asuna, I could only smile awkwardly and give him a little nod in response.

Apparently, Lavik had a preternatural ability to sniff out the scent of narsos fruit, because it took barely three minutes in the marshland for him to find the tree we were looking for.

The mint oil lived up to its reputation, too. A single drop of it into the water every thirty seconds really did keep the bloodsucking slugs away from us. Argo wouldn’t know about this, either, but Looserock Forest was almost an entirely pointless location if you weren’t playing the dark elf side of the campaign quest. Now that Qusack, the quest-focused guild we met on the sixth floor, had retreated from the front line, there wouldn’t be any players coming here for a while yet.

The narsos tree, which was growing in a nondescript area of the wetland, looked very similar to a willow from the real world, except that hanging from the end of its long, delicate branches right near the water was a fruit shaped like a mango. If it were yellow like a mango, I might have been tempted to take a bite, but instead it was covered in eye-melting stripes of alternating reddish-purple and light green. It was clearly a warning signal.

Asuna and Kizmel were just as hesitant as I was, but Lavik was delighted at his discovery and sloshed over to lift one of the branches, pulling off one of the bulging fruits. He smelled it reverently, breathing deep, then took a big bite.

After the pleasant crunch of the bite, my sinuses became filled with a complex smell that was both sweet and spicy. I imagined Lavik grunting and collapsing, but the swordsman simply continued to chew happily.

Suddenly, an icon that looked like the narsos fruit appeared over Lavik’s HP bar. I couldn’t tell from the look of it whether it was a buff or debuff. According to Nirrnir, this fruit was the base ingredient for the dye-removing bleach, but I didn’t see his black hair turning white or anything. It was all rather confusing.

The swordsman pulled off another fruit while he ate and offered it to me. “There are plenty on the tree. Don’t be shy; have some, Kirito.”

I wasn’t being shy; trust me, I thought.

But out loud, I gave him a timid “Th-thank you” and glanced at the narsos tree. There were at least fifty fruits at a glance, so eating one or two wouldn’t affect the twenty we needed for the quest. I rubbed it with the sleeve of my shirt, then hesitantly sank my teeth into it.

The texture was not like a mango, but a pear, yet the scent reminded me of lychee and pepper. The skin was thin, and the flesh was juicy, with plenty of sweetness. If anything, it was one of the better fruits I’d eaten in Aincrad…

Until a sudden, startling electric shock ran through my tongue.

“Hurrgh!” I yelped, feeling rather pathetic. Lavik laughed uproariously. He was certainly much more sociable than his little brother, Landeren. What crime could he have committed to be sentenced to prison for thirty years?

I waited patiently for the buzzing numbness on my tongue to subside and saw the flashy icon appear on my HP bar, too. The effects weren’t clear from here, but there was a way to find out.

I quickly opened my window and went to the status tab. The same icon was there, so I tapped it with my finger. It said: NARSOS STIMULATION: SLIGHT INCREASE TO PARALYSIS AND STUN RESISTANCE.

I couldn’t help but think, Not worth it!

But I couldn’t just throw out the remainder or foist it off on Asuna, so I steeled myself and devoured the rest as quickly as I could. Fortunately, the shock effect did not last while the buff was active, so I was able to eat it just fine, to my relief.

On the other side of the tree, Asuna and Kizmel were quickly harvesting the fruits. Their faces were a rictus of determination not to take a bite of any of them.

I joined them, thinking of how I might slip a piece onto Asuna’s plate during a meal someday. Lavik claimed the ones that grew lower to the ground were riper, so I picked from the bottom up. Asuna took fifteen, and I took ten, with the extras being just in case. A quest update message appeared briefly.

That finished our duty in Looserock Forest. Lavik asked for a container to hold the fruits, so I picked out one of the cloth bags from my inventory and gave it to him, which he stuffed with close to ten more fruits. If he really enjoyed the electric sensation of the fruits, he was probably just a different type of person from the rest of us.

We returned to the western end of the green corridor, dripping mint oil along the way, and climbed the rock staircase there. Once through the tunnel of trees, we saw white light ahead.

The four of us walked faster and faster, until we were practically racing out of the tunnel and into the morning light over the meadows.

Many low hills rose in succession, covered in deep green. Beyond them, shrouded in gray, was a massive structure—the labyrinth tower of the seventh floor, connecting the ground to the bottom of the floor above us.

It had been chilly in the forest, but the temperature was already much higher outside. A gentle southern breeze sent waves rustling through the grass, carrying the fragrance of flowers.

We walked forward about twenty meters into the meadow and up a hill, then turned back.

The forest rose like a mountain of its own, the tightly packed branches rustling. From the outside, you could never imagine the fantastical glowing tunnels of greenery and majestic palace built into the giant tree that lay under that canopy. From here it was already nearly impossible to see the entrance to the tunnel we’d just come through.

Once we had waited and listened, certain there were no pursuers coming after us, the group stretched and relaxed.

“Mmm…so this is what color the sunlight was,” Lavik grunted, squinting and blinking. It occurred to me that he hadn’t seen any light other than the green of the bonfire shrooms for over three decades.

The former prisoner’s grown-out beard and tied-up hair waved in the southern breeze. Kizmel addressed him formally.

“…Sir Lavik, allow me to thank you again. I would have been tried by the priests for a crime I did not commit and, most likely, never given the chance to leave prison and restore my honor,” she said, bowing deeply.

Lavik’s voice took on a sterner complexion. “It is too early to thank me, knight. Now you are not a prisoner, but a fugitive. It may be ironic of me to say this, given that I urged you to escape, but if they capture you again before you clear your charges, they will do more than simply imprison you. The real struggle begins now.”

“Yes, I understand that very well. The Fallen Elves stole the four sacred keys because of my failure and lack of strength. I must forge myself anew and succeed this time…”

“Not so fast,” Lavik said, holding up a hand to stop her. He glanced at Asuna and me, then asked the knight, “What was the name of the Fallen who defeated you, Kirito and Asuna?”

“…Kysarah the Ransacker.”

“Her…In that case, you cannot be blamed for losing. There is no dark elf or forest elf alive who can defeat Kysarah in single combat or even force a draw.”

“But—!” Kizmel protested, stepping forward with a clank of armor.

Lavik continued, “If the legend that gave her the epithet of Ransacker is true, then her strength comes from ransacking the Holy Tree itself, a cursed power from stripping its bark and severing its branches. Meanwhile, the people of Lyusula have long suffered from the loss of the Holy Tree’s blessing…If you wish to gain power equal to Kysarah’s, ordinary training will not suffice.”

“Then, Sir Lavik, must I tuck my tail between my legs and run every time Kysarah appears?!”

“I did not say that.” Lavik shook his head, then glanced our way and continued, “Kizmel the knight. You have already gained a power that no people of Lyusula or Kales’Oh have ever possessed.”

“Wh-what is that…?”

“Your way with humankind…Your bond.”

Asuna and I held our breath. Lavik gazed up at the bottom of the floor above, the surface faded and blue with distance. His voice was tinged with a faint sense of sadness and longing.

“Even before our bondage in this floating castle, we elves have long been separate from the other races, seeing them as our inferiors. Humankind, dwarfkind, fairies like the villi and sylphs…But the people of the other races have their own strength that others do not share. And I am not speaking of the Arts of Mystic or Far Scribing. I speak of…”

He stopped there, reached out, and patted Kizmel on the left shoulder. Then he approached and did the same to the two of us.

“You already know what I wish to say. Follow your heart’s guidance, and you will gain the power to break Kysarah…to break General N’ltzahh himself.”

No way, no way, no way! I nearly screamed.

Fortunately, I held it in. If we continued this questline, we would eventually have to fight the general, he of the pitch-black color cursor. And after how far we’d come, there was simply no option for Asuna and me to abandon Kizmel and continue our quest through Aincrad without completing her mission.

Lavik gave us a smile, crinkling his long sword scar, and turned around. Over his shoulder, he said gently, “You have done me a great favor, Kirito and Asuna. Take good care of Kizmel.”

He began walking to the north, but Asuna called out, “Um! Do you think…just for a little bit, while we’re on this floor…you could…”

But Lavik did not stop.

He raised his hand and waved it briefly, continuing on his way. All he had were his worn-out prisoner’s clothes and sandals, the saber at his side, and the narsos fruit in the sack for food. I couldn’t begin to guess where he was going to go, dressed like that.

Lavik’s figure descended the hill, until he was lost in the sea of grass. Moments later, his HP bar vanished from our party list.

The only thing present was the sound of the wind, until Kizmel finally spoke.

“I believe that man was the previous commander of the Sandalwood Knights Brigade, Lavik Fen Cortassios.”

““Commander?!”” Asuna and I yelped together.

The Sandalwood Knights were one of the three brigades of Lyusula. Between the way he sliced through the lock on the cell without a sound and knocked out the two guards with a single strike with the back of his sword, we could tell he was quite a warrior—but that important?

“Wh-why would he have been in prison for thirty years…?” I squawked, stunned.

Kizmel just shook her head. “I do not know the precise reason; it is not a matter of official record. However…from the rumors I heard, it may have had something to do with Viscount Yofilis…”

““Huh?!”” we yelped together again.

I was shocked, but Asuna quickly recovered and seemed to have put it together.

“Ohhh…Lavik’s younger brother called Viscount Yofilis Leyshren, remember? If the younger brother, Landeren, was friendly with the viscount, then maybe the elder…brother…”

Her words slowed down awkwardly, and I thought I knew why.

Viscount Leyshren Zed Yofilis was the master of Yofel Castle on the fourth floor, and on his face was a vertical scar that traveled from his forehead and through his left eye to his chin.

And on former Commander Lavik’s face was a similarly deep scar that ran left to right.

Asuna and I looked to Kizmel for answers. But the knight just shook her head.

“…It is not for me to say what Viscount Yofilis did not tell you himself. I suspect Sir Lavik will use a spirit tree to go to the fourth…”

She let that statement trail off, too, then exhaled and changed gears.

Kizmel walked right toward us, arms outstretched, and enveloped Asuna in a tight hug.

“Thank you, Asuna,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. Then she turned to me. Smiling, she circled her arms around my back and squeezed with enough force that my breastplate creaked.

It wasn’t the first time I hugged Kizmel, but the awkwardness was still there, I realized. Thankfully, this time the majority of what I felt was relief and gratitude at our reunion.

“Thank you, Kirito,” she whispered into my ear, and I hugged her back. There was heat in the corner of my eyes, but for some reason, this was the moment the quest log chose to intrude with an update message, which pulled me back to more immediate concerns.

Naturally, our reunion with Kizmel did not mean our problems were solved. The series of quests on this floor were titled the “Ruby Key,” which meant the trial would not be over until we had acquired it.

Once she let go, I asked her something I’d always wondered.

“Listen…On the sixth floor, you said that only the knight commander or the queen herself could rebuke you. So why were you being held prisoner in Harin Tree Palace?”

“Oh…that?” Kizmel said, her expression tightening. She huffed and said, “It might trivialize it to say that my timing was poor…You see, there is a high priest staying in Harin at the moment. He has the same level of authority as a knight commander.”

“Um…That is unlucky…” I said, doing my best not to wallow in the moment. I stifled the feeling and went on, “But if we get the sacred key from this floor and deliver it to Harin Tree Palace, the suspicions placed on you will be cleared up, won’t they?”

However, the knight just looked away and shook her head.

“Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Because of the suspicion I am under, the Pagoda Knights Brigade itself has been removed from the duty of recovering the keys. Tomorrow a retrieval team will be sent from either the Sandalwood or Trifoliate Knights by the royal palace. They will head for the shrine of the sacred key on this floor. If I retrieve the key before them, or if we encounter one another at the shrine, it will only complicate the problem.”

“Mmmmm…”

It sounded plenty complex already. I tried my best to organize the facts around the campaign quest as I understood them.

The entire reason the dark elves were recovering the six sacred keys from their shrines scattered across the third floor to the eighth was because they had received intelligence that the enemy forest elves were attempting to do the same.

The three knight brigades squabbled over who would have the honor of the duty, and in the end, it was the Pagoda Knights, known for their light and nimble gear, who were chosen to recover the keys. The advance team of a few dozen dispatched to the third floor included Kizmel and her herbalist sister, Tilnel.

That group encountered a forest elf unit in the woods and did battle. Many lost their lives, including Tilnel. The advance team’s commander, attempting to continue the mission with half of their number, split them into multiple squads to distract the forest elves and send a single member to retrieve the key. It was Kizmel who volunteered for that dangerous duty.

Kizmel succeeded at recovering the Jade Key from the third-floor shrine, but on the way back to camp, she encountered a forest elf knight and fought him. It was nearly a mutual defeat when Asuna and I entered the fray, and we succeeded in defeating the forest elf knight, which I wasn’t able to do in the beta.

After that, the two of us officially became Kizmel’s partners on her quest, helping her gain the sacred keys on the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors. But when the members of Qusack, a small guild we met at Castle Galey, were taken hostage by the man in the black poncho from the PK gang, he’d demanded Kizmel leave the castle with the four keys. When we’d arrived, the Fallen Elf adjutant Kysarah had appeared, overwhelmed us with great force, and stole all the sacred keys.

The timing couldn’t have been a coincidence. We also had corroborating evidence: Morte and the dagger user from the same gang had a Fallen Elf dagger and poisoned throwing picks. That suggested that, somehow, two of the biggest threats in Aincrad, the PK gang and the Fallen Elves, were working together. But the more pressing problem now was the internal strife among the dark elves.

If angering the priests who were in charge of the key-retrieval project caused Kizmel’s Pagoda Knights to be removed from the mission, then it was our fault, for begging her to take the keys out of the castle. Yes, it was to save Qusack from a terrible fate, but that was a human—a player—problem, and the dark elves weren’t obligated to intercede on our behalf. But Kizmel had taken the keys out of the castle without a second thought. We had no choice but to help dispel the stain we’d put on her reputation.

“…Mmmm.”

Moments later, having composed my thoughts, I looked up.

“Meaning that if the Sandalwood or Trifoliate Knights fail at their retrieval mission, there’s no problem with us sweeping in after and picking up the key?”

Kizmel and Asuna made expressions of skepticism that were so similar they looked like sisters.

“Kirito, you’re not suggesting that we interfere with the retrieval team, are you?”

“That’s right, Kirito. That would be crossing a line, and you know it.”

“I-I’m not! I’m not!” I protested hastily, trying to come up with a proper explanation.

The reason I mentioned the new retrieval team failing was because this was Asuna’s and my quest. RPG quests were designed by their nature to test the player. Naturally, it would be the easiest quest in the world if some NPCs were going to come along and complete the task for us.

On the other hand, there was such a thing as timed competitive quests. You competed with NPCs on a certain task. If you beat them, you completed the quest, and if you failed, it was over. If the “Ruby Key” quest turned out like one of them, it was possible that we could fail the “Elf War” questline at the moment a different retrieval team got the key, and that would be the end of our involvement.

But I could not explain that logic to Kizmel. This wasn’t a game or a quest to her. It was her actual duty and her actual life.

If I opened my window and checked the quest log now, the updated quest text might point out the correct direction to go. But I did not want to do that in front of her for the same reason. We ought to think for ourselves and make the decision that seemed best to us.

“…Kizmel, where’s the shrine for the sacred key on this floor, again?” I asked, considering the possibility that it had been moved since the beta. The knight put a hand to her chin to think, then pointed toward the labyrinth tower.

“I cannot be certain because I have not seen the official orders, but I believe it was somewhat south of the Pillar of the Heavens.”

Then it hadn’t changed. It would be less than an hour west of Pramio, a town between Volupta and the labyrinth tower.

“Okay…and the new retrieval team is coming to the seventh floor tomorrow? Can you guess what time of day that might be…?” I asked, knowing it was impossible to answer.

Kizmel just grimaced and said, “I could not tell you the hour. But the messenger must head to the spirit tree north of Harin Tree Palace and travel to the castle on the ninth floor, then the priests must give the mission to either the Sandalwood Knights or the Trifoliate Knights, allowing them time to assemble a retrieval team and go back down the spirit tree to the seventh floor. All of that will be impossible by the end of today. If they leave the ninth floor on the morn, traveling from the spirit tree to the sacred key shrine will last them until at least midday, at the earliest.”

“Midday…” I repeated. Based on that, I decided to make a decision and let the chips fall where they may. I inhaled, exhaled, then gave Kizmel and Asuna a look. “Because we cannot recover the Ruby Key ourselves, the only way to restore Kizmel’s honor is to recover the four lost keys instead.”

“Huh…?” Asuna blurted out.

“What?” Kizmel demanded.

“Are you sure about this, Kirito? I mean, if we can do that, it would be the quickest way…but we don’t even know where the keys are now!” Asuna said rapidly.

I looked at Kizmel again and said, “I suspect that the Fallen Elves are going to attack the Ruby Key retrieval team after they leave the shrine. That’s how it’s almost always gone anyway.”

“……”

Kizmel said nothing. I knew that the plan I was about to detail would bump right up against her personal line between good and evil.

“We’re going to hide near the exit of the shrine, then follow the retrieval team when they emerge with the key. If the Fallen Elves attack, we’ll watch for a little bit. If the retrieval team beats them without a problem, we’ll follow the retreating Fallen. If they look like they’re going to lose, we’ll join the fight to help, then chase the fleeing Fallen back to their hideout.”

Kizmel did not say anything for quite a while after I was done. Five seconds later, she murmured, “So you want to use the retrieval team as a decoy.”

“Uh…n-no, I’m saying that the Fallen are probably going to attack whether we’re there or not, so it’s not like the team is a decoy. Plus, if they’re in danger, we’ll be helping out in the battle…So if you want to view it fairly, it’s like eighty percent helping others and twenty percent using them. In my opinion.”

“……”

Kizmel was silent again. I was starting to think my attempt to convince her was a failure, when the knight’s shoulders trembled, and she finally burst into chuckles.

“Ha—ha-ha-ha…Oh, Kirito, there you go again. When Sir Lavik said that humanity has a power uniquely its own, perhaps he was referring to your utter boldness.”

I couldn’t even protest with Really? You’d say that about this sweet, naïve youth? before Asuna laughed. “Ah-ha-ha-ha, he’s right about that. Even I couldn’t have come up with a plan like that.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I’d been partners with Asuna for long enough to know not to say so out loud. I kept it to myself, clearing my throat rather loudly, then asked the two women, “So are we agreed on this direction?”

“Well, I suppose it works.” “I agree.”

With Kizmel and Asuna on board, I glanced at the clock readout. It was still barely after eight o’clock in the morning. We’d come out of the west end of Looserock Forest rather than the south, so the trip was a little longer, but we could get back to Volupta by ten without hurrying. That would easily put us well ahead of the one o’clock deadline from Nirrnir. But perhaps it would be better to move quickly and help out Argo with her lonely task of collecting wurtz stones.

That was assuming Kizmel agreed to the detour to Volupta, however. Of course, she had seemed curious of Stachion on the sixth floor, so she probably wouldn’t protest, I assumed.

I turned to her and started off by saying, “So, Kizmel, there’s something else I want to ask you about…”