Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 8 - Chapter 17

17

ONCE THE WEST GATE OF VOLUPTA CAME INTO VIEW, Kio took a gray hooded cloak out of her leather satchel and put it on. It wasn’t the largest bag, which made me wonder how the thing actually fit inside. Upon a closer look, the cloak was so thin that it was almost see-through. Or it should have been—but it blocked the light and didn’t even flip up with a breeze from the shore, meaning it must have been made with a special material.

Asuna and I wore hooded cloaks often on our more clandestine activities, so I couldn’t help but wish I had one—as did Argo, no doubt—but I couldn’t just ask her for it. All I could do was pray it would be offered as a quest reward. Kio passed through the gate, her maid outfit entirely hidden now, and we followed closely behind.

The present time was just a bit before two o’clock in the afternoon. The monster arena’s daytime run started at three, so people would be starting to gather in the space in front of the casino about now. Most of them would be NPCs, I assumed, but if Kibaou and Lind intended to win back those thousands and thousands of chips, the ALS and DKB would be heavily represented, too. And enough time had passed that more of the midlevel players would be arriving at the casino from Lectio, I guessed.

On top of that, there were fully armed guards at the casino entrance. While it was true that I wished for a hood to hide my face like my companions, if all three of us were bundled up like that in this heat, it was bound to draw attention. But the guards were probably hired by the casino, not the Korloy family directly, and I’d been wearing that sack over my head when I caused that scene in the stables, so they didn’t know who I was…I hoped.

For now, Kio walked down the street with great certainty, so I could only obey and follow. The space in front of the casino was just as busy as I expected—there were even people dressed in full battle gear, whom I assumed were players. I followed the gray cloak, keeping my head down. But Kio did not turn toward the casino. She walked directly into an inn along the main street.

It wasn’t quite the deluxe hotel on the third floor of the casino, but the entrance lobby here was plenty nice. I looked around and leaned closer to ask Kio, “Is Lady Nirrnir here, instead of at the casino?”

“Just follow me,” she said, so I had no choice but to follow. Kio passed by the counter and a concierge in a black vest, walking briskly down a dim hallway.

She came to a stop in front of one of the doors, then removed a ring of at least a dozen keys from her cloak, selected one, and unlocked the door. The room was a single, quite nice but small, and there was no one inside, not even Nirrnir.

“…?”

If I were an NPC, you’d see a question mark over my head so big you’d think I had a quest to offer. Kio shrugged off her gray cloak and folded it up until it was no bigger than a wallet, tucking it away again. Then she exhaled and walked to the closet in the corner.

I watched over her shoulder as she pulled open the doors. Inside was neither Nirrnir nor a single piece of clothing. But Kio reached into the empty closet, grabbed the silver hanger bar, and rotated it forward.

It ground, then clicked. The back panel of the closet creaked and swung backward.

“Whua—?!” I yelped, shocked. But a few blinks later, I noticed that Argo was very quiet. In fact, she was grinning rather smugly.

“You knew about this?”

“I went through this room on the way in, the first time,” she replied. That cleared it up for me.

“Oh, I see…”

Over Kio’s shoulder, I saw a dark passage through the back of the closet, leading somewhere else. Actually, there was only one place it could be going.

“Kirito, Argo, you first,” said the battle maid, turning back to us.

“Sure.” Argo shrugged and headed right into the closet. I followed her without a word. It wasn’t large enough to be a walk-in, but without any drawers below, I didn’t have to raise my feet much.

Beyond the back panel, which swung open ninety degrees like a door, the surfaces were all stone, just the way you’d expect a secret passage to look. It was less than two feet wide, which was just enough for Argo and me to walk straight through if we hunched our shoulders, but a larger player like Agil would have to crab-walk sideways.

That thought made me wonder where the friendly ax warrior and his fellows in the Bro Squad were right about now. Meanwhile, Argo came to a stop about six feet down the passage.

I turned back, careful not to scrape my shoulders, and saw Kio coming into the closet. She pulled the double closet doors shut from the inside, stepped backward into the passage, then pushed the panel back to its original position. It clicked into place, then she pulled down a lever located high along the wall, engaging a lock with a metallic scraping sound. It seemed like tedious work if you didn’t know all the steps, and there was no way to squeeze past another person in the cramped space, which is why she made sure Argo and I went in first.

When the closet panel closed, the passage was briefly dark, but a faint light from farther down lit the way. There was clearly some kind of light source set up here, but it wasn’t orange from flames; rather, it was a mysterious pale green hue. I wondered what it was.

“Continue forward, Argo,” said Kio.

“You got it.”

I hurried after the info dealer, who went thirty feet down the passage before turning right at a spot where a mysterious object was set into the wall. There was a hole about four inches to a side in the stone, out of which stuck a thick, short branch that was emitting the faint green light. Actually, it wasn’t the branch that was glowing, but a narrow mushroom at the end. It was…

“A bonfire shroom…?” I murmured, coming to a stop.

Behind me, Kio commented, “You know them? I suppose your friendship with the Lyusulans isn’t just for show.”

“W-well, it isn’t just not for show,” I murmured, which was more confusing than I meant it to be. I hunched my shoulders in embarrassment, then turned my head to ask, “Anyway, why is there a bonfire shroom here? I thought they died as soon as you plucked them from Looserock Forest…”

The light itself wasn’t bright, but it made for an excellent emergency light source. More than a few players in the beta tried to collect the mushrooms as a tool, myself included. But no matter how carefully you did it, or what container you put them in, the mushrooms would wilt away and melt into nothingness within just ten seconds.

I can’t believe they’d make them harvestable in the full release. I should’ve filled a bottle full of them…

“That is correct,” Kio said, dashing my hopes immediately. She instructed me to take two steps farther inward so she could inspect the pale glow of the mushroom. “If you pulled this bonfire shroom from the branch, it would die immediately. But to explain why this one still lives…would require you to swear an oath to Lady Nirrnir and enter service to House Nachtoy.”

Under her solemn stare, I withdrew my neck into my shoulders as far as it could go. “I’ll, uh…think about it.”

The armed maid chuckled, which took me so much by surprise that I stared at her in the green light. Then her smile vanished, and she was cold and stern once more.

“We don’t have time. Onward.”

“You got it,” said Argo, continuing down the tunnel. I hastily turned myself back around and followed her small figure.

There were bonfire shroom branches every thirty feet or so in the passage, and I had counted five of them when the end finally came into sight.

This time, we didn’t pass through a closet; the passage turned directly into a set of stairs. It reminded me of the spiral staircase at the Korloy stable, but half as wide. After Argo, I climbed up the stairs, which proved to be nearly endless.

I had lost all perception of how many steps or how many floors we’d risen when they finally came to a stop. From there, it was another cramped corridor. We turned right, then left, then right again, and we were finally at our destination.

The passageway was blocked by a heavy-looking panel, with a small lever high on the wall to the right. It was just tall enough that I might be able to reach it if I stretched for all I was worth. But that meant…

“Uh-oh…Dang it, I can’t reach up there,” said Argo, reaching for the lever. But even on tiptoe, she was six inches short. She could reach it by jumping, of course, but it was so delicate it would likely break under an entire person’s weight at once—even a small person like Argo. Assuming it was breakable to begin with.

Speaking of which, I feel like this has happened a number of times before…

Thinking of old memories caused me to act subconsciously, grabbing Argo under the armpits and lifting her up.

“Nnowuh?!” she yelped bizarrely, which made me realize how strange my action was. But I couldn’t just drop her now. I hoisted up the struggling woman and said, as calmly as I could, “There, pull it down.”

“Don’t treat me like a child!” she protested, but she pulled down the lever anyway. It made a sharp click, and the panel blocking the end of the passage swung open.

Satisfied, I lowered my hands. As soon as Argo’s feet hit the floor, she rounded on me and jabbed a finger in my face. “Kii-boy, who taught you it was acceptable ta grab a lady like that?!”

“S-sorry, sorry. It just seemed like the thing to do.”

“The thing ta do? You don’t pull stunts like that with A-chan, do ya?”

“N-no, I don’t, I don’t!” I insisted, shaking my head.

I wasn’t thinking of Asuna, but a memory of my sister, Suguha. When she was young, and we were leaving the house, she always wanted to be the one to turn out the light in the entryway herself, so I’d have to lift her up. It seemed hard to believe now, given that we were only a year apart—technically, half a year—but until she was in kindergarten, I recalled that Suguha was actually much smaller and weaker than the kids her age.

Only once she started elementary school and was doing kendo training did she grow like a weed, tall and healthy. It was an example of how you never knew how kids were going to grow—but this was all just a mental diversion from what was coming to me.

Argo finally lowered her hand and said, “The next time you try a stunt like that, I’m chargin’ ya money.”

“M-money? For what?”

“It’s the side-squeeze tax!” she snapped, turning around in a huff. I exhaled weakly. I thought I heard suppressed chuckles over my shoulder, but the only person behind me was Miss Kio, who was battling with the dark elf blacksmith from the third floor for Most Unfriendly NPC, so I was sure my ears were playing tricks on me.

Beyond the panel Argo opened was a simple set of doors, which she pushed open. A faint bit of light entered the passage. It was not green, but orange—light from a classic lantern.

I followed her through and found myself in a cramped chamber with small metal rods fixed into the walls on either side, upon which hung women’s clothes. If it were any larger, I might have thought we’d exited into a clothing store. All the clothes were fine-looking party gowns, dresses, and camisoles. Every one of them seemed to be quite small.

After going a bit farther and turning around, I saw that the exit I’d just walked through was a brilliant red-brown closet from this side. Like the entrance in the inn, the exit was also disguised. Then again, considering the way it was used, perhaps this side was the entrance.

Kio came out last of all, then rotated the pole at the top of the closet inward, which caused the rear panel to creak shut and click into place. She shut the closet doors and turned around.

“…Are all of those Lady Nirrnir’s clothes?” I whispered.

“That’s right. Don’t touch them with your dirty hands.”

I gave her an awkward smile, then examined the dresses on the walls again. In a new light, I could see that some were red, blue, and purple, but most of them were black. Nirrnir might like black clothing, or maybe all the black gave her a bonus to Hiding…Nah.

“Wow…This is gonna be tough, huh? When Lady Nirr gets bigger soon, she’ll have to buy a whole new wardrobe, I bet…”

It was just the first thought that came to mind, but Kio merely gave me an odd look and said nothing. After further thought, I realized that child NPCs in Aincrad might not actually grow up. In fact, while it wasn’t true of every RPG, it was the very rare exception that actually modeled that sort of thing. No wonder my question stumped even the advanced AI of the NPC.

I decided this probably wasn’t a topic worth drawing out, so I headed for the door that exited the dressing room. But the moment my hand was about to make contact with the golden knob, it rattled on its own, sending me jumping backward.

Standing on the other side of the door as it opened was not a town guard or an assassin, but my temporary partner, wearing a white dress.

“How long were you going to stand around chatting in the closet?” Asuna asked with familiar exasperation.

All I could muster was an awkward smile. “Uh…I’m back.”

Outside the changing room with the secret passageway was a darkened room that featured a large canopy bed placed smack in the middle. It was clearly Lady Nirrnir’s bedroom, so I crossed it to the far door, taking care not to look around too much.

At last, we were in a familiar place: the main area of Room 17 at the Grand Casino Hotel. But before I could enjoy a moment of relief, a figure stood up from the three-seat sofa, rushed over, and grabbed my shoulders.

“Kirito! I should have expected this…You always find a way to get into trouble.”

“Sorry to worry you, Kizmel,” I said to the dark elf knight, patting her awkwardly on the back and turning to the five-seat sofa.

The owner of this room and manager of the Volupta Grand Casino overall, Lady Nirrnir Nachtoy, rested on the pile of cushions there, reading an old, faded book. Her eyes drifted up off the page and onto me.

“Welcome back, Kirito.”

Her expression and tone of voice were relaxed—sluggish, even—which made it impossible to decipher what she thought about my solo adventure. One thing was certain: I caused Nirrnir’s bleach-sprinkling quest for Argo to fail. I could tell, because the glowing question mark over Nirrnir’s head when we left this room hours ago was gone.

I knew I’d have to give Argo an apology later. For now, I waited for Kio to take her usual place next to the sofa. As soon as the armed maid was in position, I straightened my back and announced to the young mistress, “I have returned.”

“…And?”

“Um…I’m afraid I have c-caused you great offense…” I stammered, trying my best at a formal apology. But Nirrnir scowled and waved me off.

“We don’t need to go through all that. Just explain what you saw and what happened in the stables.”

“A-all right.”

Kizmel handed me a glass of water, so I thanked her with a glance and drank it all down. It wasn’t as cold as the ice water Argo fixed last night, but after a big adventure like ours, it was good enough.

Refreshed, I cleared my throat, then explained everything as politely as I could: what happened in the stable, how the Rusty Lykaon was actually a Storm Lykaon, and how it ran away after I healed it. The only thing I didn’t mention was my discussion with Kio about the dignity of monsters.

I finished by saying, “And that’s everything.” Nirrnir remained seated, saying nothing for the time being. She did not speak for a full fifteen seconds.

“Just to confirm, absolutely no one in the stable saw your face?”

“Yes,” I said at once. That much, I was sure of. “No one saw me slip inside, and I was wearing the sack over my head the entire time the handlers could see me.”

“Put it on again.”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, but it was clear there wasn’t a single yoctometer of possibility that I’d misheard her, and I certainly didn’t have the standing to refuse.

I opened my window, tapped the head of my equipment mannequin, and set it to the Tattered Burlap Sack. With a little swish, the sack appeared, the rough fibers covering my sight.

“…This is what it looks like…”

I could tell my voice was a bit muffled, but the room was almost totally silent, so I was sure Nirrnir heard me. Yet there was no response at all.

“Um…”

I looked over at Kio next to the sofa, unsure of what to do. For some reason, she looked away from me. I looked at Argo, Asuna, and Kizmel on the other side of the low table, but they had the same reaction.

I just stood there, hoping someone would say something, when Nirrnir abruptly shoved her face into the cushions, her shoulders trembling. Was she crying? It looked more like she was holding back laughter.

In a chain reaction, Kio’s head dropped, her hand covered her mouth, and the girls turned their back to me. It was the exact same reaction they’d had when I’d squeezed that narsos fruit with my bare hands. That time, I felt honored to have brought laughter to the group, but doing it twice in one day was a little too much debasement for me. I could be forgiven for fighting back.

I inched to the left until I was standing directly in front of Kio. The battle maid sensed my presence and looked up. In that very moment, I extended my arms up and to the sides, letting my fingers dangle and lifting my left knee to stand on one leg: the crane pose.

“Bfftp!”

A bizarre sound escaped from the hand covering Kio’s mouth, and underneath the sack, I grinned with satisfaction. But then her hand left her mouth and zipped with lightning speed to the hilt of the estoc at her side.

“Aaah! Wait, wait, no!” I yelped, sticking my hands out forward and shaking my head.

Nirrnir had recovered from her giggle fit and said hoarsely, “Kio, I have more to ask of him, so I need him alive a bit longer.”

“…Yes, Lady Nirrnir. As you wish,” Kio replied smoothly, taking her hand off the weapon and returning to her usual standing position. I exhaled with relief…but didn’t know if I should yet. I took Nirrnir’s comment to be a joke and wanted to believe that Kio did, too. But if the NPCs could use dark humor this effectively, then Argus’s—or Akihiko Kayaba’s—AI development was even more advanced than I’d given them credit for.

In any case, I seemed to have avoided giving offense, so I lowered my hands and asked Nirrnir, “Um…can I take this off now?”

“I wish I could say no, but it would be better if I didn’t burst into laughter every time I saw you.”

With her permission, I pulled the sack off my head, then put it back into my inventory, praying I’d never need to wear it again. Nirrnir gestured toward one of the three-seat sofas, so I sat down. Argo sat next to me, while Asuna and Kizmel took the other one.

Kio prepared some tea—today’s tea was cinnamon-flavored—so I had a sip, then returned the conversation to the topic at hand.

“…Anyway, as you saw, my face was completely covered.”

“Indeed. The Korloys would not have been able to identify you…I think…” said Nirrnir, albeit with hesitation. She gazed at my upper chest, then added, “But just in case, I would not wear that all-black clothing. Do you have any other colors?”

“…I don’t,” I admitted sheepishly.

Asuna added, rather unnecessarily, “Not only does he not have any other colors, he doesn’t have any other clothes, period.”

“Really…? Just that one outfit? That you wear every single day?” said the girl, her seemingly twelve-year-old face full of revulsion and pity. It was withering.

“N-no, I wear something else when I go to bed…”

The thing was that clothing stains in this world were simple graphical effects that faded with time, and clothes never got stinky with sweat, but I decided not to bring up these facts. There were baths in this world, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing any kind of laundry implements. If there was no concept of laundry, then what was the problem with wearing the same clothes without ever changing?

But no amount of self-absolving arguments would stop Nirrnir from scowling at me.

“If you had said you didn’t even have nightclothes, I would tell you to sleep on the floor next time. Well, if that’s all you have, that’s all you have. Kio, I’m sure some of Father’s clothes are still around here. Find something for him that isn’t black.” She waved, prompting the maid to give her a concerned look.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. They’re only clogging up the wardrobes anyway.”

Asuna assumed a pensive look after hearing the two talk this way, and I realized what she was thinking. If Nirrnir had a father and mother, one of them would be the leader of the Nachtoy family, of course. But if young Nirrnir was the one currently in charge, her parents were most likely already…

I wasn’t sure if I should really ask to confirm the answer to that question. So Kizmel did it instead.

“Lady Nirrnir, do you not have any parents or siblings?”

“No,” Nirrnir confirmed, her sluggish expression unchanging. “My mother and father passed away long ago. I did not have any siblings, so I run the house now. What about your family, Kizmel?”

The knight looked down. “My parents live in the city on the ninth floor. But my sister was called to the Holy Tree during a battle with the forest elves just fifty days ago.”

“I see…You have my condolences.”

Nirrnir had switched from her teacup to a glass of red wine, which she lifted in honor, then closed her eyes and drank. She lowered the empty glass, twirling it in her fingers, and said to no one in particular, “Lyusulans and Kalessians cannot help but continue their fight, even after centuries. Well, I have no room to criticize. I’ve been squabbling with the Korloys for years.”

“…I have no hatred for the forest elves, either, but perhaps……”

Kizmel slowed and allowed the words to hang in the air before she closed her mouth. When she continued, it was in a suppressed whisper.

“Perhaps, if a babe was born again to Lyusula and Kales’Oh, bearing the blood of the two priestesses who gave their lives to the Holy Tree to stop the ancient war, we might finally see an end to this long, long battle…Or so Her Majesty once said to me.”

“Wuh?” blurted out not Nirrnir, not Kio, not Asuna, not Argo—but me. I immediately regretted it, but I couldn’t take it back now, so I cleared my throat and asked what was on my mind.

“This baby with the blood of the priestesses. Didn’t you say the Holy Tree priestesses died ages ago, during the Great Separation? So how can there be…Oh! Unless their family lines are still alive today?”

“That is not the case,” the knight said, shaking her head. “For one thing, the priestesses who served the black-and-white Holy Tree are not a hereditary position in either Lyusula or Kales’Oh. When the priestess reaches the end of her years, and her power of prayer wanes, a baby born somewhere in the kingdom will contain that power and become the next priestess. But after the miraculous feat of the Great Separation, there has not been a single babe who carries the priestess’s power, even after these many years. Not in Lyusula—and I suspect not in Kales’Oh, either…”

“…I see…”

It was a story archetype you saw often in both Western and Eastern fantasy—but looking at Kizmel’s melancholy expression, it felt callous to sum it up that way. The elves of Aincrad had no choice but to grow up with an exile’s identity, cast away from their beautiful home.

So it made sense that the forest elves wished to collect the six sacred keys to open the Sanctuary and return the floating fortress to the earth. The problem was that, according to the dark elven legends, opening the Sanctuary’s doors would lead Aincrad to catastrophic ruin. And as claimed by the fallen elves, opening the Sanctuary would cause “even the greatest magic left to humankind to vanish without a trace.”

It wasn’t clear exactly what this catastrophe entailed, but there was a greater-than-zero chance that it meant Aincrad would not gently glide down but slam into the earth like a meteorite in a vast explosion, obliterating all the NPCs and monsters and players alike—meaning that Asuna and Argo and I would actually die. And if the “greatest magic left to humankind” that General N’ltzahh of the Fallen mentioned was our art of Mystic Scribing, meaning the player’s menu window, then we wouldn’t be able to change equipment, earn skills, or hold items in our virtual storage. It would make reaching the hundredth floor an impossible task.

It felt improbable that the status of a quest that only Asuna and I were following could decide the fate of eight thousand other surviving SAO players, but after what happened in Stachion on the sixth floor, I couldn’t rule out the possibility. Because the PK guild killed the lord of Stachion, no one who came after could start the “Curse of Stachion” quest. If a single player’s malice could ruin the main quest of an entire floor, I couldn’t categorically rule out the downfall of Aincrad itself.

We had to do whatever it took to retrieve the four keys that Kysarah the Ransacker stole from us, I thought with renewed determination. Nirrnir clapped her hands to cut through the gloomy air.

“Now, Kio, bring out all of Father’s clothes that we have. We shall work together to choose one that will suit Kirito,” she said.

When I saw it, I inwardly yelped with dismay, but there was no escape now.

Ten minutes later, the changing room’s period of terror and chills was over at last, and I sank into the sofa, reeling from a kind of mental exhaustion I’d rarely experienced before in my life.

Ultimately, the women selected a light blue half-sleeve linen shirt, a pair of off-white cotton three-quarter pants, and brown leather braided sandals, a very resort-y combination. Among the clothes that Kio brought out were white tuxedos, crimson silk, and frilled shirts—the kinds of things French noblemen wore. So at least I didn’t have to wear those, although up close, the linen shirt had very fine flower patterns, and the pants were cool and smooth to the touch. I didn’t know much about fashion in any world, but it was clear just from wearing them that buying these clothes in an NPC shop would cost a total of at least five thousand col.

“Ha. Well, you look better just not wearing black,” said Nirrnir, sipping on her second glass of wine.

I straightened my back and bowed formally. “M-my thanks. I will endeavor to return them as clean as when you gave them to me.”

“You don’t have to give them back. I have no use for them anyway.”

“Uh…but…”

I couldn’t bring myself to say, These are a memento of your father, aren’t they? Normally, Asuna would help me out of an awkward social situation, but she had gone with Kizmel and Argo to the changing room.

Nirrnir could sense what I was thinking, however, and shrugged, her bare shoulders visible above her summer dress.

“You saw the wardrobe when you came through the hidden door. I’ve got a ton of Father’s clothes left behind.”

“Th-that’s true…He was quite a fashionable fellow, wasn’t he?”

“I suppose. He would go to the upper floors to spend money on them, since there aren’t any great shops on the seventh floor. I believe that’s how he got the shirt you’re wearing now, Kirito.”

“From the upper floors…?” I repeated, looking at the ceiling. “But to go between floors requires going through the labyrinth tower…er, the Pillar of the Heavens, where a guardian beast lurks, right? He didn’t beat them, did he?”

If that were true, we wouldn’t need to fight the floor boss here, I thought optimistically. It took barely a second to have that idea shot down:

“Hardly. Only reckless, death-defying adventurers like yourselves would dare attempt that tower. The monster-capturing teams that the Korloys and we employ are veteran fighters, but even they’re forbidden from approaching the tower.”

“Oh, I see. In that case, how did he…?”

“You know there are some who travel between floors without using the towers for passage.”

“Without using the towers…?” I wondered, until realization struck. There was a teleportation system on each floor that humans could not utilize. “Oh…do you mean, el…?”

Just then, the door to the bedroom opened forcefully, and Asuna came in, her cheeks flushed.

“Oh, wow, that was incredible! You should have seen it, Kirito!”

“I saw it earlier…”

“Then you should be more enthusiastic,” Asuna scolded. She turned to Nirrnir and said, “Thank you for showing us your clothes, my lady! I’ve never seen such a lovely wardrobe in this world…or even in the place I came from!”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” replied Nirrnir with a smile. “If the sizes had matched, I would have loved to gift you some of them, but…”

Asuna waved her off. “No, I couldn’t! I had the time of my life just looking at them…So…”

She trailed off awkwardly at the end, which suggested to me that she hit upon the same question I had a moment earlier.

Clothing and armor in this world had no concept of “sizing.” It would always stretch or shrink to fit the person equipping it. But that did not apply to Lady Nirr’s wardrobe, apparently. In that sense, I supposed it was my good fortune that her father’s clothes were in my size. Though perhaps it was just the case that all clothes were split between “adult” and “child” specifications, and the auto-sizing function only worked within the boundaries of each.

In any case, Asuna quickly regained her smile, thanked our host again, and sat down on the sofa. Argo and Kizmel followed her in, so we sipped on Kio’s fresh pot of tea as I returned to the report that had been interrupted earlier.

“Once again, please allow me to apologize for going off on my own. I don’t know how I can make it up to you for wasting the decolorant you went to the trouble of making…” I apologized, racking my vocabulary for the best possible words to describe my contrition.

But Nirrnir cut me off again. “I told you, enough of that. There’s nothing we can do about what’s already been done. I’d rather talk about what comes next.”

“What comes…next…?”

Nirrnir’s initial plan was to sprinkle the decolorant on the Rusty Lykaon in the monster arena, thus revealing its true fur color to the betting guests and making plain the Korloys’ gratuitous rule-breaking behavior. But I used up the only bottle of the bleaching agent, and the Rusty (Storm) Lykaon had run off across the map. There was no way to repair our strategy, it seemed to me…

When I couldn’t come up with a new comment, Argo crossed her arms and legs and said, “The lykaon that Kii-boy freed has run off, but that just means there’s a blank slot in the fights tonight. Lady Nirr, how do y’all decide to cover for something like that?”

“We have no rules for it,” said the young head of the house, shaking her wineglass back and forth rather than her head. “As I told you, a monster that is registered for a fight must appear…That is the rule of the Grand Casino.”

“But you said that rule has been broken before,” noted Asuna. “Twice, in fact…”

Nirrnir nodded. “Yes. In both cases, the house that could not fulfill the rule had to apologize directly to the other and plead for the right to substitute a different monster. It involves a great amount of shame and expensive reparations.”

“And that will happen here, too?” asked Kizmel, who was sitting next to me. Nirrnir looked at the elf, her dark reddish eyes blinking several times first.

“I’m not sure. Bardun Korloy might decide it was the fault of the mystery dog thief that he could not submit his lykaon for battle—and refuse to admit his family’s error.”

“Ah, I see…Much as it pains me to admit, similar squabbles have arisen between the three knighthoods of Lyusula, from what I hear—losing equipment during group training sessions, getting the meeting time of cooperative missions wrong. When such things occurred, the different groups always resisted taking responsibility.”

“In that sense, humans and elves are much the same,” said Nirrnir, smiling wryly. “Which means that Bardun might claim it was a Nachtoy member who absconded with the lykaon—and blame us for the loss…which would be true, of course.”

She shot me a keen glance, and I shrank my head as far down into my shoulders as I could. But Nirrnir wasn’t angry; she seemed to be holding back laughter, if anything.

“However, they can’t possibly track your identity from the clothes you wore, so all we have to do is insist we have no idea about that. Ultimately, they will have to plead with us to allow them to replace their monster with another one.”

“…And will you accept that substitution?” prompted Kio from the side of the sofa. Nirrnir murmured thoughtfully to herself, a mannerism that was actually rather adorable.

Behind the eyes staring at her wineglass, her mind seemed to be working hard. Nirrnir was an NPC, advanced AI or not, so her actual “brain” was not her own, but it was located somewhere in the real world—most likely the processor of the SAO server in Argus’s headquarters. Yet it was impossible to see her avatar as just some visual cypher and nothing more.

But by that token, Asuna, Argo, and I were just empty avatars without real brains in them, too. The only difference between us was whether the avatar was connected to a biological brain or integrated circuits.

After a few seconds of consideration, Nirrnir stated, “Because the match cannot be canceled, we will have to accept it in the end. However, following past precedent, we will be able to demand some kind of compensation. Rather than simple goods or money, I would prefer something that might expose the Korloys’ ill deeds.”

“What kind of thing would that be?”

“The right to inspect the Korloy stable unannounced,” she said, to my open-mouthed surprise.

But Asuna, who was sitting across from me, understood Nirrnir’s meaning with her usual sharp insight. “Of course. If we inspect the stable, we might find traces of the red dye or some other evidence of their scheme. And if they were to refuse, it would essentially be admitting they’re hiding something…”

“But what if they refuse that in the first place, knowin’ they’ll be suspected anyway? What’ll happen next if the Korloys refuse an inspection, Miss Nirr?” Argo asked.

Nirrnir wore a cold smile that did not at all suit her preteen appearance. “Then we will refuse their request for a replacement, and they will have to either produce a new Rusty Lykaon or cancel the evening matches. The final match is at ten thirty, so they have over seven hours to act, but there is no way they can dispatch a capturing party to the lykaons’ habitat far to the west and bring it back in time for the fight, even with all those hours. So practically speaking, they must choose to cancel.”

“But…earlier, you said that the match can’t be canceled,” I interjected at last.

It was her maid who replied. “That is correct. The battles at the casino each night are a five-part test to determine who should be the rightful heir, in accordance with the last will of Falhari the Founder. According to our customary rules, if a single bout should be canceled, the tests will be considered concluded, and the next best-of-five series will determine the official head of the house. Bardun Korloy is motivated by making money; he would not pursue such a risk.”

Nirrnir bobbed her head and added, “That is correct. So I believe Bardun will accept an inspection of his stables. If we find evidence of wrongdoing, it will give me the means to make the Korloys pay—if not quite as effectively as if the fur-bleaching strategy had worked.”

“H-hold on…I mean, please wait, my lady,” I interrupted, leaning forward. I intended to ask the question I was sure Asuna, Argo, and Kizmel were wondering as well. “If canceling the match is against the rules, shouldn’t cheating also be illegal…? Wouldn’t that be the end of the test matches, too, and send it straight to the official battle to determine the rightful leader?”

“………”

Nirrnir did not reply at once. She swirled the bit of red wine at the bottom of her glass, then finished it off. She handed the empty glass to Kio and stared at me.

“I did not want to draw you into the stir that would ensue, which is why I did not mention this…The law states that if one side is accused of cheating, the matter will be judged by Falhari’s spirit.”

“Falhari’s spiriiiiit?” screeched Argo incredulously. She unfolded her arms and made a grand gesture with her hands. “Meaning, yer gonna summon yer ancestor’s spirit through a ritual and whatnot?”

“And whatnot,” agreed Nirrnir. Next to Argo, Asuna’s shoulders hunched. She hated anything to do with ghosts. While it would be nice to reassure her, sadly, there were plenty of astral-type monsters in this world, like wraiths and wights and specters. I couldn’t rule out the possibility of Falhari’s spirit appearing.

But despite bringing up the topic of ghosts, Nirrnir just waved it away. “No one has ever seen him, though, myself included. For one thing, not once since the founding of the Grand Casino have we ever required Falhari’s judgment.”

“In that case…if you go to inspect their stable and find some dye or other evidence, is it even going to mean anything?” asked Kizmel in a measured tone. “If Falhari’s spirit does not appear with the ritual, how will it deliver its judgment? Do the rules state what happens then?”

“Nothing of the sort. But that’s not your concern,” Nirrnir said rather brusquely as she turned from Kizmel to me. “Kirito, I am not criticizing you for taking the Rusty Lykaon out of the Korloy stables, saving its life, and letting it go free. But if you feel apologetic for what you’ve done, will you undertake another job for me?”

As soon as the words had finished, a golden ! appeared over the girl’s head. Apparently, the series of quests was not over.

Gamer instincts aside, my morality did not allow me to refuse this request. I wanted to say yes at once, but I wasn’t the one who started Lady Nirr’s quest in the first place; that was Argo. I looked across to the info agent to get her thoughts—her large eyes blinked with purpose.

I could practically hear her voice telepathically telling me, Don’t just sit there like a dunce, accept it! so I quickly turned back to Nirrnir and said, “Of course. Whatever you need.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, grinning, as the ! mark turned into a ? overhead. She leaned back against the cushions and entered explanation mode. “Don’t worry; this job will not be difficult or dangerous.”

“Meaning…?”

“I want you to accompany me on the inspection of the Korloy monster cells.”

“……Ah, I s-see,” I said, while on the inside, I thought, Awww, do I have to go back there?! But to her, I merely nodded and said, “That will be easy. I don’t know if it will help you, however.”

“As long as you remember the layout, that is fine. None of my people have ever been inside Korloy stables. My expectation is that the time we have to go inside and look will fall in the two-hour period between the end of the daytime matches and the start of the nighttime preparations. I will need a guide to help me spot any signs of wrongdoing.”

“Okay…Well, I’d be happy to show you around, but I don’t recall it being that complex on the inside,” I muttered, picturing my mental map of the Korloy stables.

To the left of the sofa, Kio said, “Then, do you remember how many monster cells there were?”

“Huh? Of course,” I said, then realized that while I counted the number of cells on the right side of the basement hallway, I didn’t pay any attention to the left side. So I couldn’t actually be certain. “There were, uh, eight or nine or ten or eleven or so…”

“That is not what remembering means,” she snapped. Asuna and the others all shook their heads.