7
In the original Wonderful Wizard of Oz story, as Asuna taught me while on the return trip, the scarecrow was searching for his brain; the tin man, his heart; and the cowardly lion, his courage—just like in this quest.
But in the end, they never found those things. At the end of the story, the eponymous wizard tells them that in the process of rescuing Dorothy from the witch, the scarecrow used his brains, the tin man expressed emotion, and the lion showed courage. In other words, they already had what they were searching for.
“…Ah, I see. So that’s why you and Argo didn’t bother with their parts of the quest. You knew they’d pull through in the end,” I said with a wry grimace. The girls looked very satisfied with themselves.
The house thudded down onto the ground again. Outside, we were back in the same empty clearing in the forest where I originally found the cabin. Argo walked past us across the grass, then turned around and beamed at us.
“Ya pulled me outta trouble today. So I’ll make it up to ya by not selling this tip. It’ll be my little secret.”
“Huh? Tip…? What tip?”
“You know which one!” she said, throwing me a big wink. “Many blessings to you, Kiri-boy, A-chan!”
As we stood there, rooted to the spot in shock, Argo simply vanished from sight, like a ninja. A few seconds later, Asuna started giggling, and I found myself smiling, too. The final thorn that had been stuck in my heart had come loose at last, I could feel—and I started laughing.
From the moment you took your first step, what you sought was already within your grasp.
I hoped to be with Asuna forever, and I’d proposed to her. So I’d already found what I was looking for at that very moment—love for another person.
“……Asuna.”
She looked me in the eyes, still smiling.
The last rays of sun came over the roof of the log cabin, glittering in those beautiful hazel-brown eyes. Without breaking that connection, I opened my player menu, moved two tabs over, and hovered my finger over the button I wanted.
I pressed the string of text that said MARRIAGE, then touched the name ASUNA.
Her eyes broke contact, traveling down to a small window that had appeared for her. She lifted her right hand, her slender fingers tracing the edge of the window.
“……Kirito.”
She looked back, right into my eyes, and pressed the OK button.
It was just a few days after this that we learned the name of Cardinal, the autonomous system that controlled the world we lived in.
But it wasn’t until much, much later that we were taught about the remarkable quest auto-generation capabilities the Cardinal System possessed.
(The End)
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