Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 7 - Chapter 4

4

ARGO’S RECOMMENDATION, THE AMBERMOON INN, was met with Asuna’s approval as soon as she walked inside.

The DKB and ALS were already here in force, so I was worried we might have trouble finding a room, but either they were putting off getting their lodgings for the night, or they were planning to stay at the casino’s luxury hotel. All the rooms here were available.

Argo was going to stay here, too, so we decided to go for a platinum suite for the three of us. The price was thrilling in its extravagance, but split three ways, it wasn’t unaffordable. Naturally, there were three rooms in the suite, so I wasn’t worried about any situations beyond the capabilities of an eighth-grade boy, like what happened in the dark elf camp on the third floor, or Castle Galey on the sixth floor. This arrangement should be fine. Should be.

There was no elevator, so we had to schlep up the stairs to the fourth floor. Asuna opened the door—locked by an ordinary key, not a puzzle—then said “It’s amazing!” the moment she stepped inside.

I found out what was amazing about it at once. The walls across the spacious common room had three large windows, a rare style in Aincrad. It gave a panoramic view of the beach and water at the south edge of town.

The sun was already down, but there were torches lit at regular intervals along the beach, and the moonlight coming through the outer aperture cast a pale stripe across the surf. The furnishings in the room weren’t up to the standard set by the dark elf castle, but the view was easily top two among all the places we’d stayed.

Asuna rushed to the window to take in the night view. The sight of her framed against that background was like a work of art. I just gazed at the scene, taking it in, until I felt like someone was staring at me.

“…Whatcha grinnin’ at?”

“Uh, nothing.”

Argo hissed with laughter and removed her hooded cape, then walked over to the kitchen space in the corner of the living room. In the real world, there would be a refrigerator with cold drinks inside, but Aincrad didn’t have any condensers or ice magic. If you lit a stove, you could boil water for tea, but it was still a midsummer’s kind of night, if not quite as hot as the day. I didn’t want anything hot to drink.

“I’ll just have some of the water, Argo,” I said, walking over to pour it myself, but Argo snatched the pitcher away.

“Just leave this to Big Sis.”

She put the pitcher and three glasses on a tray, then took it over to the sofas in the center of the living room. I had no choice but to follow her, so I helped set the glasses on the low table, then sat down on the soft cushions.

“C’mere, A-chan. You’ll like this,” said Argo. Asuna turned around at last, blinking as though broken out of a spell. She sat next to me, looking curious.

“I’ll like…what?”

“Just watch.”

Argo filled the three glasses with water, then opened her inventory window. She produced a pale-blue nut…no, a flower bud? It was a rounded object, less than three quarters of an inch, pointed on one end. I couldn’t remember seeing this in the beta test.

Argo dropped the blue bud in one of the glasses. It sank at first, then slowly rose back up, making faint fizzing and cracking sounds.

When the finely frothing bud reached the surface again, it gently broke apart. Delicate, translucent petals expanded, and the cracking grew louder.

Five seconds later, the flower was completely open. It was beautiful but had a strange shape. There were six hexagonal petals pointing in six directions, while the center was shaped like a twenty-sided die, complete with triangular faces. As I watched, spellbound, it grew more and more translucent. It was closer to a fine ice sculpture than a plant.

“It’s beautiful…” Asuna murmured, suddenly leaning forward. She peered directly down the top of the glass, then smiled and said, “I knew it.”

“You knew what?”

“Look at it from this angle.”

When I followed Asuna’s lead, I gasped. The ice flower was identical to a snowflake crystal from above. I glanced across the table, still crouching, and asked the grinning info dealer, “What is this, Argo?”

“Oh, we’re not even at the surprise yet. Take a drink, A-chan.”

“Uh, okay…”

The moment her outstretched fingertips touched the glass, she exclaimed, “It’s cold!” The sides of the glass were already beading up with tiny droplets.

She grabbed the glass firmly this time and held it up. Summoning her courage, she pressed it to her mouth. The flower on the surface wavered and clinked against the side.

Asuna took a small sip first to test, then kept going, drinking half the glass. She pulled away and looked from me to Argo.

“It’s cold! It’s great! It’s cold!”

“W-wow, really? Let me try…” I asked, reaching out, but Argo interrupted.

“Look, Kii-boy, I got one for you, too.”

She had already prepared ice flowers for the other two glasses. She pushed one to me, which I grabbed, feeling shocked at the stabbing chill in my palm. It was practically cold enough to stick to my skin. I poured the liquid down my throat.

It was pure ice water. There was a little hint of mint flavor, which only added to the pure taste of the liquid. The chilled water flooded down my throat, and the effect it had upon my sunbaked body was indescribably pleasurable.

I quaffed down two-thirds of the glass all at once, then exhaled with satisfaction. I hadn’t had any ice water in Aincrad since Yofel Castle on the fourth floor. It was cold enough to snow back then, so it didn’t hit quite the same. Here on the seventh floor, which was as hot as summer, that ice water was even better than a powerful healing potion.

“Argo…what’s this flower called?” I asked again.

The Rat took a mouthful of the water before answering. “The item name is Snow Tree Bud. Its effect, as you can see, is to chill a single glass of water. When you’re done, it conveys two buffs.”

“Huh? Really?”

“You think I’d lie about it? By the way, you gotta drink all the water before the ice flower completely melts, or ya don’t get the buff.”

“Huh? Really?” I repeated, staring down the top of the glass. The snowflake-patterned flower did seem to be smaller than when it first bloomed.

I wanted to sip and savor the drink, but I was curious about that buff, too. Tense, I tilted the bottom of the glass higher. The chill from the ice water flowing down my throat paralyzed me with refreshment. I watched my HP bar as I drank, and a second later, two small icons appeared. One was the familiar sign for gradual HP regeneration, while the other was a combination of a shield and a small flame.

“Oh…Is this a flame-resistance buff?”

“Yes.” Argo grinned. I stared at the icons, then at her.

“Hang on. Healing is nice, but flame resistance is a very rare benefit. Why are you just giving it to us for fun in here?”

“Don’t worry about it. I got plenty.”

“Wh-where did you find them?”

“Well, there’s a nugget I’m not gonna let slip for free.”

You’re killing me! I wanted to shout. But she was an intelligence broker, after all. If anything, I ought to be grateful for what she had told me for free already.

“…Uh…how much?” I asked, dreading the answer.

Argo lifted her glass with both hands; she still had plenty of water left. “Hmmmm,” she considered. “Well, I could go ahead and charge you a simple col price…but instead, I’d rather take payment in labor.”

“L-labor?”

I turned to share a look with my partner—except that Asuna wasn’t looking at me; she was staring at the ice flower in her empty glass. So I looked back at Argo again.

“What kind of labor are you looking for…?”

“Don’t be scared. Would I put you and A-chan in danger? I just want a little help with a quest that’s tough for a single person to tackle.”

“A quest…”

It was true that there were many quests in SAO that were basically impossible to complete on your own. They had been a source of great frustration to me in the beta. All I needed to do was recruit some brief party members, but if it were that easy for me to do, I’d be aligned with one of the two big guilds by now.

In that sense, it was a mystery to me why Asuna, who had at least ten times the social communication skills that I did, had spent an entire month playing solo. But I felt like part of that reason was the massive imbalance between men and women in the frontline group as a whole. It had been two months since the deadly game started, and the DKB and ALS had only a handful of women between them. There was no difference in skill, so I had to assume that the exclusionary atmosphere around the group was driving female players away. It was going to take a female leader to change that…

I shook my head to dispel that train of thought and focused on Argo’s face.

“If there’s a quest you can’t beat alone in this town, it has to be at the casino, right?”

“Brilliant deduction…Okay, not that brilliant. There’s barely a single quest in Volupta that doesn’t involve the casino in some way.”

“Hmm. Well, I could help…but I’d rather not get involved in another epic-length quest series like the ‘Curse of Stachion’ on the last floor.”

“Don’t worry; it’s a real quickie…I assume.”

That does not sound reassuring, I thought, glancing aside again. Asuna was still staring at the bottom of her glass.

“…Um…Asuna?” I asked quietly, drawing the fencer’s attention at last. She looked to me, then Argo, then asked bashfully, “Argo, is it okay to eat this flower?”

“It looks tasty, huh? Go right ahead,” she said, assuring her. My curiosity was piqued, too.

I picked up the ice flower, which had melted down to bite size at the bottom of the glass, and popped it into my mouth, crunching the delicate structure. It gave off more of that pleasant minty flavor. I placed the empty glass back onto the table.

Asuna and I thanked her for the treat, agreed to help with her request, and then, finally, I was ready to explain the reason we got in touch with her.

“So…we didn’t meet up with you to eat good food or get a better rate on a nice hotel room. It’s because we saw the ALS and DKB already in town, having competing feasts in the middle of the afternoon, and we wanted to know why.”

“Wha—? Really? That’s all?” Argo said, sinking deeper into the leather sofa.

I narrowed my eyes. “Well, it’s not natural, is it? I would understand if the ALS members were doing it, but the DKB is the more serious of the two. And they were toasting with mugs and everything.”

“Oh yeah? Wish I coulda seen it. But if they were havin’ feasts here, there’s obviously only one reason,” Argo said breezily. She glanced at the ceiling. “It’s not really worth holdin’ over your head, so I’ll consider the cost included in the other matter we just negotiated. They were toasting because they won big at the casino.”

“Huh?” I muttered—as did Asuna. “They won big…as in, they were gambling the moment they got to Volupta?!”

“They were having a toast because they won big?!”

The two of us were surprised in slightly different ways, but neither question seemed to bother Argo.

“That’s right. I’m not just imaginin’ that, either. I saw ’em carryin’ on, myself.”

“What did they win at? You can’t make a killing on cards or dice or roulette in half a day.”

“……You sound like you understand too much about that,” Asuna said, her gaze piercing my left cheek. I did my best to ignore it, awaiting Argo’s answer.

For some reason, the information agent grinned and held up her index finger. “Well, I didn’t know until I went inside that they’ve changed a bunch of stuff since the beta.”

“In what way?”

“The biggest change is that the main event happens twice, both in the day and at night.”

I sucked in a breath, knowing that Asuna would not understand what Argo was talking about.

“……Really…?”

I leaned back, sinking into the plush sofa. Asuna jabbed at my left arm.

“What is it? What main event?”

“Uhhh…”

I carefully did not meet her eye as I described the particular gambling attraction that caused me to lose everything but my sword in the beta test.

“The Battle Arena…It’s a monster coliseum.”