Sword Art Online - Volume 21 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The chapter begins with a focus on Keiko/Silica. Specifically, the time she met some old friend from elementary school. They went out together for tea and Keiko eventually started talking about ALO. The friend told her that she was being weird out of concern for her. Keiko decided to just smile, refraining from getting into how she feels about VR games, as she learnt how that pushes people away from her - her experience with her parents and counsellor​, who couldn't comprehend how she'd want to play VR games after being stuck in one for 2 years.

Even a lot of the people at the SAO survivor school have vowed to never take up another VR game. But Keiko wasn't one of them, though she couldn't explain to anyone why she still liked VR games. Because she herself wasn't quite sure why she liked them. She just feels that something is drawing her to them. While she would like to know what that "something" is, she wouldn't mind not finding out what it is either. She just wants to continue feeling that something.

This is where Silica's introspection ends and we return to the present with Silica, Lisbeth, Yui, and Pina. Silica's team was currently crafting materials. Yui told them they needed 22 more ropes, 16 hay bundles, and 45 sturdy branches. The three girls were sitting in a circle in a hollow at the bottom of a precipice. Not big enough to be called a cave, but enough to serve as a shelter. Plus, they have water leaking from the cracks in the walls, and a bonfire in the middle. They're located in a dried up wilderness with no water bodies around. So, although the water in their hollow is only dripping at a pace of 1 drop per 2 seconds, beggars can't be choosers.

Three hours have passed since ALO was hijacked by Unital Ring, Aincrad crashlanded, and the game system was changed. It was currently 8 PM. At the time of the sudden change, Silica, Lisbeth and Yui had been in a valley at the edge of the 45th Floor of Aincrad, fighting against snail-type monsters. The monsters were hard but weak, so quite handy for leveling skills. Just when they were about to leave the valley for a break, the earth began to shake. Not realising that Aincrad had begun falling, the girls took flight... and thus crashed into the bottom of the next floor...

Following Yui's instructions, the girls managed to leave the castle. Just as they flew about 100 m away, the castle crashed into the ground a la Tunguska. The shockwave from the impact sent the girls flying into the wilderness. It took 15 minutes for them to realise that they were not in one of the fairy lands and that the girls lost all of their stats, items aside from their main weapons and armour, and wings, while Yui lost her Navigation Pixie abilities. The girls and Pina then began wandering the wilderness to find water and a shelter and thus came across the hollow.

Silica and Lisbeth took turns to log out to take care of bathroom and rehydration issues in the real world. But the girls realised that, like in ALO, their avatars temporarily remained vulnerable when they logged out. There were giant scorpions and sand-coloured wolves prowling the area, so they risked getting their avatars killed if they left them alone unprotected. Especially since they had no idea what the death penalty would be here. Thus, a safe spot for logging out was their primary goal.

Lisbeth being Lisbeth, she accidentally acquired the «Elementary Level Carpentry Skill». The only option in the structure category of her production menu was a «Crude Cabin». At that point, Lisbeth complained that instead of her 48 Floor store in Lindas, all she's getting is a crude cabin.

Anyway, Lisbeth wondered what had happened to Aincrad. Since Yui still had access to the map when Aincrad crashed down, she knew that floors 1-20 were utterly destroyed, while even the floors that avoided that fate were partially destroyed. There were approximately 1,200 players inside Aincrad at the time... and almost all of them died in the crash. Until now, Silica still had a hopes that this whole thing was just a fancy surprise event, but Yui's news eliminated that possibility entirely. Though, she assumes that the players wouldn't be subjected to a gruesome death penalty due to the leniency period in place in the game.

Yui's in her white one-piece dress mode. Apparently, she lost her navigation pixie abilities at the same moment as the other girls lost their flight abilities. She even specifies the exact moment: 27 September, 17:05. She then lists the events that took place at that moment: the disappearance of the hexagonal messages in the sky that had been up for 5 minutes till then; the change in all game systems, including the UI; Yui losing her system access right; Yui being turned from pixie to human. Yui is currently being regarded as an ordinary player - no special rights.

As Silica tried to cheer Yui up, the AI girl revealed that she was a bit happy with the change. Like the other girls, she now could equip weapons and armour, hold items, has a HP bar, and her avatar would die once the HP reached 0. While she doesn't know what would happen if she were to die... for the first time, she gained the same position as everyone else in the group... a player. She does feel a bit scared about losing her HP, but that fear is a new sensation to her, and thus intriguing.

Meanwhile, Silica found Yui's words to be both difficult and easy to understand at the same time. In SAO, ALO, as well as during the Ordinal Scale incident and the war in Underworld, Yui was always merely a bystander in a sense. But in Unital Ring, her human-sized (but still shorter than Silica) avatar had all four UR status bars that could decrease based on the situation. In short, Yui was no longer a bystander, but one of the main characters.

At that point, Lisbeth declared that they had to get a nice weapon and armour for Yui, seeing as Lisbeth and Silica still had theirs from ALO. Thus, the two girls could defend themselves against the scorpions and spiders, while Yui was practically defenseless. Plus, if the game is in a temporary leniency mode as Yui had guessed, it was highly likely that Lisbeth and Silica would lose their ability to wield their ALO gear due to its weight. So, all three of them had to get some weapons and armour ready while they still could... after securing a home for themselves. Lisbeth and Silica are also having a sort of crafting competition, it seems - they're trying to reach their crafting goals faster than the other can.

Anyway, with Silica, Lisbeth, and Yui all working on the ropes, they finally finished the first of their requirements: crafting 60 x «Crude Izura Grass Ropes». When they tapped on the ropes, the property window had a short description below the item's name and durability meter: [A crude rope created by twining izura grass that grows in the wilderness. While sturdy, it is susceptible to moisture. The Basin tribe sometimes cooks it for food]. Silica speculates that this implies ropes made from different kinds of grass would have different abilities.

After closing the window, the girls focused on their next materials: hay bundles and sturdy branches.... but they'd have to go outside to get them. Unlike the usual VRMMORPG, where there was some light outside even at night, Unital Ring nights are as dark as the real thing. Reflexively, Lisbeth attempted to chant a basic ALO spell for a light. Lisbeth's spell, naturally, didn't work. Unital Ring should have spells since there's an MP bar, but it's unclear how to use them. The narration explains that VRMMORPGs usually have 1 of 3 different mechanisms for casting spells:
1) Chanting an incantation (like in ALO)
2) A special gesture with the hands and staff
3) Choosing the spell from a grimoire or a holo-window.

Yui surmised that they needed to find an NPC or something of the sort to learn magic skills. So, they'll have to hold out on spells until then. Silica would have preferred to wait till daybreak for some light... but that would take 6-10 hours (depending on whether the day-night cycle follows ALO's 16 hour or RL's 24 hour intervals) and the leniency mode might very well run out by then, so they couldn't afford to wait. Thus, Silica took a longish branch from the bonfire and tapped on it to bring up its property window: [Thin burning branch; Weapon/materials; Attack: Smash 0.43 Flame 0.37; Durability: 1.44; Weight: 0.69]. The durability is decreasing at a pace of 0.01 per 2 seconds. So, it would only provide light for slightly less than 5 minutes.

Silica asked what's the difference between a torch and a simple branch. So, Yui explained that a torch was a rod with a cloth, soaked in combustion improvers (oil or resin). She also explained that torch is written as 松明 (pine light) because Japanese mostly used pine resin for it. Dumbfounded at the detail of the answer, Lisbeth wondered if Yui looked it up on the net. However, Yui stated that she has no access to outside networks from within the game, so all of that detail came from her main memory.

Stroking Yui's hair, Lisbeth commented on how awesome Yui is even if she isn't a navpixie anymore. Though, Yui didn't quite get how all that trivia would be useful to them when they didn't have any resin or cloths. But Liz thought otherwise. She picked up some of the dry grass and wrapped it around the tip of one of the branches that they had yet to throw into the fire. The moment she finished, the branch flashed. After seeing the property window, Lisbeth clutched her hand in joy. Apparently, grass works as a combustion improver, so Liz just crafted herself a «Crude Torch». After clapping twice as she remarked that Liz's idea was quite bright for her, Silica made her own torch. Once ignited, the torch shined considerably more brightly than a mere branch. After igniting her own torch and taking two steps outside... Lisbeth finally took notice of the "quite bright for her" remark.

The wilderness that the girls were in didn't have any green vegetation, but it was dotted with withered grass (Izura grass) and trees. However, Silica was the only one with a sharp weapon (dagger), so she was in charge of cutting the grass, while Lisbeth focused on breaking branches with her favourite mace. Yui volunteered to hold the torch. Yui walked with the improvised torch to light the way, while Silica looked for the Izura grass, cut the whole bundle of it with her dagger whenever she found some, and then threw it into her storage.

Silica's dagger gets some info. Its name is Easthreader and she got it from Jotunheim in ALO. Originally, it had additional ice damage and stats, as well as a resistance boost, among tons of other special effects. However, all it had now was physical slash damage, while all its other specs were gone. Though, its damage far exceeded that of a simple wooden pole/stick, so she had to make do with what she got. Though, according to Yui, she would no longer be able to equip it once the leniency period expires or if she ever unequips the knife from her equipment figure.

The same applied to Liz's mace, so they'd have to get new weapons for all three of them. However, there was no sign of any stores in the wasteland... and even if they did find one, they had no money. So, at this rate, they'd end up going caveman style with grass clothes and wooden clubs. At that moment, Silica thinks that she should get Lisbeth to change her outfit first so that she could at least get a good laugh out of it for a minute or so.

At that moment, Pina let out a sound from atop Silica's head. It was a warning. Apparently, Silica's been with Pina so long that she can understand Pina-ian down to very subtle nuances: "Multiple somethings approaching; can't tell if they're enemies or not." Silica moved her cat ears and felt like she heard footsteps coming, so she whispered to Yui to put out the fire. When the light went out, it suddenly turned darker, though not entirely dark. She then warned Lisbeth about the danger.

Lisbeth reacted quickly and stopped working on the branches, and silently rushed over to Silica. The blacksmith that it wouldn't be wise to just recklessly ambush whatever was coming, so she pointed to a nearby largish rock to hide there. The footsteps were coming from the northeast - the opposite direction compared to Aincrad's crashsite. Feeling a slight tremble herself, Silica noticed that Yui was shaking. After a moment of surprise that an AI could feel fear too, Silica realised that it was kinda hard not to feel scared in the situation (first time with a HP bar, in pitch darkness, and with something approaching). Plus, Yui was separated from Kirito and Asuna as Silica and Liz had had her help them with some skill levelling... and Yui was refraining from logging out to help the two girls out. So, she attempted to reassure Yui by stating that she and Lisbeth were quite strong.

Lisbeth shared her own words of encouragement by saying that she'd give them a strike with her mace... while holding her mace like a baseball bat. Silica was about to retort that a "strike" is when you miss the ball, but midway through her sentence, she heard a hoarse voice nearby. Not a monster groan; rather, a human voice. However, she couldn't understand a thing they were saying. Not because she couldn't hear it well enough, but because it was clearly not Japanese. Nor any other language she knew of.

The unusual speech is rendered as a string of ℵ characters in the text:
Voice 1: ℵℵℵℵℵ、ℵℵℵℵ
Voice 2: ℵℵ、ℵℵℵℵℵ.

Silica describes the speech as bizarrely distorted and more like some incantation rather than words. Upon hearing the second voice, Silica stopped breathing and hugged Yui tighter. Lisbeth readied her mace. The multiple footsteps came from the right... passed right beside the rock.... and began fading away to the left. Though, the girls didn't let their guard down, feeling that this could just be a feint and they would suddenly turn back and attack from the other side. Seeing as if the voices belonged to NPCs or monsters, the game system could have made them aware of the girls' presence.

Silica continued watching her surroundings from all sides as the footsteps continued fading. Once they were far enough, Silica carefully peeked out... and saw 3 people walking through the wilderness. Didn't seem to be players: the three men were wearing simple cloth and leather armour, wielding large torches in their left hands, as well as spears and axes in their right. Their greatly exposed skin was greyish brown, while their braids reached all the way down to their waist. The men continued walking straight while keeping watch on their surroundings. They were heading towards a high cliff/precipice that traversed the wasteland from east to west... right where Silica and co. had left their bonfire...

For a moment, Silica regretted not having doused the fire. Apparently, it was a pain in the ass to get it lit (hitting tons of different stones to get a spark), so they left the fire up as they didn't want to go through all of that again. The men undoubtedly noticed that fire. While Silica didn't care about the fire itself... they had left their 60 grass ropes at their shelter. So, if the men destroyed or took the materials for themselves, the girls' chance of building a decent shelter before the leniency period expired would go down considerably. Lisbeth seemed to get the same idea as well, as she whispered "the ropes...". So, Silica was stuck with a dilemma: prioritise safety and stay hidden, or pursue the men to protect their ropes. So, Silica thought... what would the «Black Swordsman» do?

Silica concluded that Kirito wouldn't just stand there doing nothing. While he wouldn't go so far as to launch a preemptive attack, he would attempt to make contact and protect what needed protection... and enjoy the situation. Considering that Unital Ring was just a game, despite all the changes and their stats being reset. She could still log out and she wouldn't actually die if her HP reached 0 since she was using an AmuSphere. Plus, she still had her equipment and Dagger skill. So, she decided to act, asking Yui to stay put. Giving Yui one last hug, Silica made eye contact with Lisbeth and both gave a nod. Silica jumped out and began running first, followed by Lisbeth. The two headed towards the light from the men's torches.

By the time Silica caught sight of the men again, the three were already at their shelter, peeking inside with their weapons at the ready. The moment Silica went within 10 metres of the men, they suddenly stood up. The spear guy gave a sharp shout as he turned around, while the two axemen jumped to his left and right. Based on his clothing and accessories, the spearman was the leader. All three of them had facepaint. When only 5 metres remained, Silica stopped and shouted that they had no intention to fight, while returning her dagger to its scabbard. Lisbeth also lowered her mace, saying that all they wanted was to keep their ropes. But the men's expression didn't change.

One of them stepped forward and once again shouted something. It sounded half like electric noise rather than an actual language, so the girls couldn't understand them even one bit. The men didn't seem to understand them either. So, Silica was convinced that they were NPCs. One of the axemen groaned something and the spearman nodded. The latter readied his spear again and began closing the distance. Just as Silica was basically resigned to this turning into a battle... Yui suddenly asked them to keep their conversation going a bit more. The little girl had left her hiding place and followed after them, to Silica's shock.

While Silica was sure that she and Lisbeth would just respawn somewhere or just be disconnected from the game if they died at worst, she wasn't quite sure the same applied to Yui. Anything could happen if the former pixie died if she became a player because of some bug. Fearing the worst, Silica resolved for a preemptive attack. But just as she was about to grab the haft of her dagger... Yui once again raised her voice. She explained that the men were talking in some variation of the JA language set for The Seed. So, they were speaking in Japanese. But with several layers of filters on top. Yui declared that with some more samples, she could decode what they were saying.

While finding Yui's words a bit hard to understand, Silica did grasp that the part that the men were speaking Japanese and they just couldn't hear them properly. So, she reflexively brought her hands forward and shouted that they didn't want to fight. Even Pina joined in. The spearman suddenly looked at Pina and shouted something in gibberish again. The two axemen responded in gibberish in turn. But their hostility didn't go anywhere. Instead, they continued slowly closing in. Eventually, Lisbeth told Silica to escape with Yui when the moment comes. Nodding, Silica prepared to run away with Yui, forgetting about the ropes, as the girl was far more valuable than some materials. But just as Silica was about to finish counting to 3...

Yui suddenly said something in the exact same gibberish as the men. The spearman was taken aback and started blinking. From 100% hostility, his expression changed to 50% bewilderment. The man turned to his comrades and said something. Silica only understood that it was a question. On the other hand, Yui responded to him. The conversation continued for sometime, until, to Silica's surprise, the men lowered their weapons and gave smiles of relief. Yui then stepped in front of the two girls and turned around. She explained that everything was fine now. The men were warriors from that Basin tribe mentioned earlier. They lived in the plateau to the north.

They saw the crash of Aincrad and had come to investigate. They had assumed that the girls were demons in disguise, but when Yui explained that the three of them were just lost, the men were satisfied with the explanation. Lisbeth took insult to being called a demon. "As if demons would be this cute.", she said. On the other hand, Silica retorted that Lisbeth was definitely as greedy as a demon though, but pretended not to have said anything when Lisbeth asked her about that.

During their dialogue, the spearman stepped inside the hollow, pointed at the ropes and said something while looking at Silica. Yui translated that he was asking if the girls had made the ropes. Thus, Silica nodded. Then the man asked if the girls knew the proper way to eat them. After exchanging glances, Silica and Lisbeth shook their heads. So, the man said that they'd teach them and thus ordered the girls to follow the men.

The spearman beckoned them with his hands, before he and his comrades turned back towards where they had come from. Lisbeth remarked with some modified idiom. The original would literally mean "If you've eaten some poison, might as well get a plateful" (since you're going to die anyway, there's no point in holding back now). Silica picked up all sixty ropes from the hollow. They had to stop their material gathering, but depending on where this would go, they might no longer need a shelter. Praying that this would turn into an even bigger mess, Silica and co. chased after the Basin people and began walking to the northeast.