Sword Art Online - Volume 24 - Chapter 1

1

“I believe you already know me quite well. At last we meet, Chrysheight.”

Argo the Rat put on a cocky smile, leaving both me and Seijirou Kikuoka with our mouths hanging open.

Chrysheight was the name of the character Kikuoka used when he played ALfheim Online. Chrys came from chrysanthemum, the English name of the flower kiku in his name, while height was meant to conjure the hill meaning of the other kanji, oka.

His fairy race was undine, and his player class was mage. His memorization of the many Spellwords of the game was extremely helpful during boss fights, but he very rarely logged in, so few ALO players even knew his name.

What connection would Chrysheight have with Argo, who didn’t even play ALO? And before that, how did Argo know the two men were one and the same? Plus, how did she sniff out that the person I was meeting at this fancy Ginza café was Kikuoka…?

As I was buffeted with wave upon wave of questions, I could only look to the two of them, searching for answers.

“…I see, so it was you that one time…,” Kikuoka muttered to himself once he had recovered from the shock.

What time is that?! I screamed on the inside. Argo and Kikuoka seemed to be undergoing some kind of battle of wills, and neither wanted to explain the situation to me.

Fine, then. I’ll just eat my cake. I sulked, flipping through the menu and deciding on what I wanted to order within ten seconds or so.

As if by telepathy, the waiter showed up at our table and asked, “Have you decided on what you’d like?”

“I’ll have a cheesecake with chestnut sauce and a piping hot cappuccino,” I ordered without tripping over my tongue—the cake was 1,900 yen and the coffee was 1,200, both eye-popping prices—and sent the menu over to Argo. “This friendly gentleman is paying, so order whatever you like.”

“Aw, really? You’re not gonna foot the bill for me, Kiri-boy?” she teased, then proceeded to flip through the menu. She did not seem intimidated by the prices. “I’ll have this month’s special cake and a royal milk tea, hot,” she said. The waiter bowed and left.

I grabbed the menu and, despite knowing it was improper, mentally added up the cost of Argo’s order, then combined it with mine. The cake and tea were 3,500 yen, which made our orders 6,600 yen in total. She might have followed me on her own, but it was my fault she was here. I was resigning myself to whatever horrible task Kikuoka might ask of me in return, knowing I couldn’t say no.

But then Kikuoka said, “Well…I needed to get in contact with you again anyway, Argo, so…”

He scooped a piece of the pear parfait in front of him with its long, thin spoon and lifted it to his mouth. At last, my patience was gone, and I had to ask:

“So how do you two know each other?”

“We’re client and investigator,” answered Argo.

“Which one’s which?” I asked.

“Do you even hafta ask? This fella’s the client.”

I looked over the table at Kikuoka. “What did you ask her to do…?”

“You know a public servant isn’t supposed to talk about their official duties,” he obfuscated.

“But you’re a fake government agent.”

“Well, that’s just rude…but to tell you the truth, it’s not worth hiding from you anyway, Kirito,” he admitted, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “You know the company Kamura, right?”

“Kamura…the developer of the Augma?”

“Yes. We’ve got info that they’re doing something fishy with a VRMMO world, which is why I hired her.”

“Fishy…? I hope it’s not something like the Ordinal Scale incident all over again,” I said, scowling.

Kikuoka raised his hands in supplication. “No, I wouldn’t ask Argo to handle something as dangerous as that. Besides, I hired her before Ordinal Scale. It’s just about a game that obviously has no profitability—in fact, it’s certainly losing them tons of money—and is getting almost no publicity, either.”

“Hmm…”

“Based on Argo’s reports, I haven’t seen any evidence that might link to criminal activity. She’s just as good at her job as the stories say…but I didn’t expect her to track me down in real life like this, too.”

“Why? Did you skip out on your payment?”

“Not at all. I paid her exactly what she invoiced me for. I just haven’t yet been able to provide her with an extra line item she asked for as a bonus,” he said, gesturing awkwardly.

Argo grumbled, “For me, what you call a ‘bonus’ was the main prize. That’s why I came to you in person, to try to jolt ya into action so I could collect.”

“I’m sorry about that. But how did you figure out that Chrysheight was me? I only met you once in ALO half a year ago.”

Half a year ago would have been late March 2026. Kamura put out the Augma in April, so it was just before that. What could this VR game, surreptitiously operated by a company that specialized in AR devices, be? I had to resist the urge to interrupt and ask.

Argo unfolded her hands and spread them over the table. “I didn’t pin down yer real name or anything like that. I just did some research in ALO and found out real quick that Chrysheight was a friend of Kirito’s. Today, Kiri-boy said he was ditching class because he got summoned by some creepy old guy, and that’s how I knew.”

I sighed and said, “Oh, come on, Argo, nobody’s intuition is that good.”

Kikuoka, too, seemed disgruntled by her insinuation. “‘Creepy old guy’ is rather rude. I happen to consider myself a very diligent man in the prime of his life.”

Argo glanced at me first and joked, “I survived through SAO on good intuition alone, remember?” Then she looked at Kikuoka and stated, “You’ve never struck me as anything other than a creepy old guy.”

The first comment was too modest by half, while the latter comment was undeniable, I thought. But before I could deliver that incisive feedback, our pieces of cake arrived at the table.

The baked cheesecake had a nice golden color to it, and the light-brown chestnut sauce drizzled over the top shone in the light. I didn’t even have that big of a sweet tooth, but I had to pause the conversation and pick up my fork. The first bite was smooth on my tongue and rich in flavor, and a splash of bitter cappuccino washed it away to reset my palate.

Argo’s cake, the monthly special, was an apple mille-feuille, which also looked quite good, I noticed. Once we had both finished half our dishes, her plate slid over toward me.

“Let’s trade now, Kiri-boy.”

“…I see no reason to refuse,” I said, despite a brief hesitation, and pushed my cheesecake to the left. The only reason for my hesitation was the smirk Kikuoka was giving us. I’d have to reassure him at some point hence that Argo was nothing more than an old battle companion, I thought as I tasted the mille-feuille. Between the light, crispy layers of fragrant piecrust, there was plenty of fruity apple preserve and a mildly sweet custard cream. It, too, was very good. Including the drinks, it all really was worth 6,600 yen…if you had that kind of money to spend.

Kikuoka finished his parfait right as we two starving teenagers emptied our plates.

“I must say, the sweets at this place really are highly satisfying. I could only dream of this place while I was out there on the Pacific,” he said, referring to the Ocean Turtle while it’d been out at sea off the Izu Islands. They may not have had deluxe desserts there, but Asuna had claimed that the mess hall on board was actually quite good. Sadly, I’d been unconscious the entire time, so I’d never gotten the chance to try it.

Regardless of my own reflections on the matter, Kikuoka pressed ahead and said, “Strangely enough, in my dreams, I was always with you, Kirito. Even though we’d only been to this place together twice in reality.”

“…I have no idea how to respond to that,” I stated.

Kikuoka replied cryptically, “That response is enough,” and drained the rest of his coffee. Then he glanced at the diver’s watch on his wrist, assuming a serious look. “So. Before I get to the real reason you’re here…may I assume that you’re going to be a member of Kirito’s army, too, Argo?”

“H-hey…I don’t recall ever starting an army!”

“Then call it Team Kirito, or Kirito and His Band of Merry Companions. My question is, will she be fighting on your side if there’s any trouble?”

“…Well?” I wondered, passing the baton to the young woman at my side.

Argo’s shoulders bobbed. “Mmm, well, I guess I’d say my plan is to join the Kiri-boy army in Unital Ring. Outside of that, I’m considerin’ my options in other VR worlds…”

“Yeah, but pretty much all of them have been absorbed into UR, haven’t they?”

“There are still VR worlds that don’t belong to The Seed Nexus, kiddo,” she said with a smirk. Then she turned to Kikuoka. “So tell me, Chrysheight. Did you call up Kiri-boy to talk about a world that isn’t hooked up to the Nexus?”

“Huh…? Did you?” I asked, looking at Kikuoka. Up to this moment, I’d just assumed his business was related to the ongoing UR incident. But—no. Upon reflection, I recalled that Alice sent me his message (The twenty-ninth, at fifteen o’clock. The expensive cake shop.) before New Aincrad came crashing to the ground. So this whole thing hadn’t blown up yet when Kikuoka had first tried to make contact with me.

Argo and I stared holes in Kikuoka’s face. He pushed up the bridge of his black-framed glasses and murmured, “Yes, that is true. What I want to speak to you about today—what I want to ask you to do—has no direct relation to this Unital Ring business. I’ll be up front with you, because we don’t have all day: Kirito, will you dive into the Underworld again?”

“……”

All I could do was stare. The winter sunlight coming through the south-facing window reflected off his glasses, so I couldn’t make out his expression. I could feel my palms getting hotter.

“That sounds…great,” I said, my voice hoarse. “But why would you say that to me in person? Surely you could just tell Dr. Koujiro to pass the message along.”

“Actually, Dr. Koujiro was against getting you involved again. She told me that if I wanted to rope you in, I was welcome to go and explain it to you myself.”

“Ah…”

That did make sense. For the last month, every time I mentioned wanting to visit the Underworld again, Dr. Rinko Koujiro would say nothing more than, “We’re assessing the situation.” She wasn’t being mean, of course, just keeping my personal well-being in mind. However, diving from The Soul Translator in Rath’s Roppongi branch office wouldn’t cause my physical body any harm, and inside the Underworld…Well, it was an arrogant way to describe it, but there was nothing there that could threaten me anymore.

“…I see. So what is it that you want me to dive in and do?”

Kikuoka glanced around us. It was afternoon on a weekday, so there wasn’t much of a crowd at all. Every adjacent table was empty. There couldn’t be anyone listening in, but he lowered his voice even more until it was barely audible.

“Someone has broken into the Underworld somehow.”

“…!” My eyes went wide. I whispered back, “Broken in…? What do you mean?! Who did?! When?!”

“Hold on, hold on,” he replied, lifting his hands. He glanced at Argo. “How much do you know about the Underworld, by the way…?”

“It pains me to admit, as an info dealer, but I don’t know any more than what the mainstream media reports on it.”

“So you know the Underworld is contained on the Ocean Turtle, and the Ocean Turtle is on lockdown at sea near Hachijojima.”

“Yeah, but I don’t really know whatcha mean by ‘on lockdown,’ specifically.”

“Exactly what it sounds like. There’s a guard ship from the Maritime SDF and a patrol ship from the coast guard keeping watch twenty-four hours a day so that no one gets close. Remember how the media boat tried to push past the blockade, and the patrol ship had to fire warning shots to scare them off?”

“Yeah, I remember that piece of news. Welp, it’s about what I expected,” Argo admitted.

Kikuoka looked back to me. “When I said that someone broke in, I’m not talking about someone physically sneaking onto the Ocean Turtle, of course. A week ago, we found traces of someone diving into the Underworld who wasn’t from Rath.”

“Diving…,” I murmured.

The Underworld was built on a special kind of data structure called Mnemonic Visuals, which meant it couldn’t be accessed except with The Soul Translators on the Ocean Turtle or in Rath’s Roppongi office. At least, that was my assumption when I started working with them. But it wasn’t that simple.

In fact, the Underworld’s mnemonic visuals, which were just as realistic as images in the real world, existed in parallel with a more traditional polygonal-model style, using the Seed program. You had to use an STL to get the high-fidelity experience, but you could still access the Underworld with an AmuSphere, if you wanted an experience that was on par with SAO and ALO. At the climax of the Otherworld War, thousands of VRMMO players from Japan, America, Korea, and China dived into the Underworld for a ferocious battle. Meaning that, strictly speaking, you needed only an AmuSphere to enter the Underworld.

“But…how did they get in? The only way to dive into the Underworld now is through that server in Iceland whose IP address got sent to me…I mean, to Alice. Right?”

“Yes, the satellite connection Rath used has been blocked on the government’s orders. Presumably, that means the infiltrator must be using the same route…”

“……”

I stared at the plate dotted with flecks of mille-feuille and thought very hard about this.

My suspicion was that the IP address to reach the Underworld came to us from a kind of digital ghost of Akihiko Kayaba. He’d been lurking within Niemon, a humanoid robotic body, watching Project Alicization play out, until he’d ultimately charged into the containment chamber of the nuclear reactor to save the Ocean Turtle from a water vapor explosion. Nothing more than an oil slick was ever found of Niemon after that, however. If Kayaba had set up some kind of communication device on the Ocean Turtle as Niemon’s last act, then perhaps the infiltrator had also gotten the server address from Kayaba—if it wasn’t just Kayaba himself.

“…Mr. Kikuoka, how did you learn that someone outside of Rath had reached the Underworld? Real-time monitoring from Roppongi isn’t possible, is it?” I asked.

He frowned, nodding. “That’s correct. Fortunately, I’m able to at least see an access log from the gateway server on the Ocean Turtle, thanks to that special exterior server. The log saves all access from the outside.”

“From the outside…?”

“The Seed Nexus’s Japan node. Meaning that someone converted their own character into the Underworld.”

Thirty minutes later, Kikuoka finished paying the bill, over 10,000 yen with tax included—in cash, for some reason—then told me he would contact me again tonight, and vanished into the bustle of Ginza.

After his suit was out of view, I stayed there on the sidewalk, thinking. There was so much to consider that I felt like just tilting my head would cause excess information to spill from my ear.

The UR incident was still ongoing.

A week ago, there was an unexpected access to the Underworld.

And the suspicious activities at Kamura, which is how Kikuoka and Argo came to work together…

I looked over at Argo, who had her hands stuck into the pockets of her jacket and was currently cracking her neck.

“That pastry was real good, but places like that make my shoulders stiff, I tell ya.”

“…No arguments here,” I murmured, taking a step closer to her. “But what were you doing here in the first place? You didn’t even talk about your payment or whatever it was.”

“It’s not the kind of thing he can just produce with the snap of his fingers. I’m not in a rush about it, either.”

“…What did you ask him for?”

“Mmm…well, I guess I can tell ya for free. It’s real-world details about an SAO survivor.”

“A survivor…? Y-you mean, when you took the job…you knew Kikuoka—I mean, Chrysheight—was in the line of work that could tell you?”

“He introduced himself as being part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ Virtual Division.”

“Oh, that would explain it…So…would that be someone I know…?” I asked, not sure if I should.

A frail smirk tugged at one of Argo’s cheeks. “Can’t tell ya that much. It’s just…personal info.”

“Ahhh…”

Of course, Argo had been through her own experiences during those two years. I wasn’t going to pry into her past. I exhaled, trying to switch gears, and looked at the sky. At some point, dark-gray clouds had covered half the sky, an ominous echo of my state of mind.

Argo followed my gaze and said helpfully, “Chance of rain downtown after six o’clock was seventy percent.”

“Whoa, really…? What about Kawagoe?” I asked without thinking.

“You can look that up yerself,” she said with exasperation. “But since I’m so nice…I’ll look it up for ya.”

She pulled her smartphone out of her pocket and tapped at it a few times, then grinned.

“Well, here we go. Kawagoe at six o’clock…eighty percent chance.”

“…Thanks.”

I had a small folding umbrella in the side pocket of my messenger bag, but I couldn’t use that while riding my bike, so if the rain was really coming down by the time I got back to Kawagoe, I’d have to walk the last mile home on foot. If I had full rain gear, I could just blaze my way through it on the bike, but I was warned about the dangers of riding at night in the rain by my mom…and Suguha, and Asuna, and Yui. They’d worried about me doing that on many occasions, so I had to hear them out this time.

If I got onto the subway right now, I might get back to Honkawagoe Station before the rain started, but I had one other important mission left. Mentally preparing myself for that mile-long walk in the rain, I started to say my good-byes but changed my mind.

“Ummm…Argo, there’s something else I’d like to know…”

Her smirk turned into a comically exaggerated frown. “I’m gonna start chargin’ ya now.”

“Go right ahead.”

“…All right. What is it?”

“For example…let’s say Asuna’s birthday is coming up. What would you give her?”

Her mouth fell open. A moment later, a long, long sigh escaped it.

“……Listen, Kiri-boy, that ain’t an example. A-chan’s birthday is tomorrow. You don’t have a present for her yet?”

“Wait…you know Asuna’s birthday is September 30th?”

“I’ve known her a long time, too, ya know. Today was just the first time we met in real life.”

“Yeah…that’s true, I guess…”

Asuna and I had gotten married in Aincrad, but even then, we’d hardly ever traded any real-world information. It wasn’t until the floating castle crumbled into ruin that we ever admitted our real names and ages to each other. But Argo, true to her inquisitive nature, had somehow learned Asuna’s birthday when I hadn’t yet.

“…Okay, so it’s not an example. Straight up: What do you think Asuna would like?” I asked again. Argo prodded my upper arm.

“Kiri-boy, the fact that you make the effort ta pick it out is part of the present. Besides, you oughtta know more about A-chan than I do.”

“Yeah, I know. Yui said that, too…And I get it, but…”

I exhaled, looking up at the encroaching clouds. They seemed ready to open up at any moment.

“Lately, I find myself thinking…What if everything I know about Asuna is from the virtual Asuna, and in fact, I hardly know a thing about the real Asuna? And…not just Asuna. I’m talking about Liz and Silica and Sinon and Agil and Klein…Maybe I’m not even seeing eye to eye with my sister, Leafa, except through the virtual world…,” I said, finishing in a mumble. Then I smiled awkwardly. “I know, you didn’t come here after two years just to hear me complain about things. I’ll come up with a present for Asuna. Sorry to keep you here…You going back to Kanagawa now?”

“Nah, I can’t commute from the southwest part of Kanagawa all the way to West Tokyo every day. I got an apartment close to the school.” Argo cleared her throat. “Well, I ain’t really in any position to give advice to other people about their relationships…but as thanks for that expensive cake, I’ll give ya one piece of advice.”

“…For free?”

“For free. Listen, Kiri-boy, yer thinkin’ too hard. Real, virtual—it’s still the same person on the inside. There’s no point to treating ’em like separate things.”

“……”

“What’s with that look?”

“I was just thinking…you really are older and wiser than me…”

“I’ve always called myself Big Sis for a reason!” she scolded, jabbing me on the shoulder again. Then she hopped back a step. “And here’s another one for free. A-chan’s not gonna be happy if you go in over your head and buy some fancy brand item here in Ginza.”

She waved her hand and said, “Welp, see ya tonight!” and with a swish of her khaki jacket, Argo vanished into the crowd, too.

I leaned back against the side of the building and exhaled, rethinking my previous plan to, as she called it, “go in over my head buying a fancy brand item in Ginza.” I closed my eyes, shut out the roar of the city from my mind, and envisioned Asuna, as I’d known her, from the first day we’d met until today.

Asuna in the first-floor labyrinth tower, running herself ragged but dispatching monsters repeatedly with a sword skill as pure and speedy as a shooting star. Asuna as the vice commander of the Knights of the Blood, leading the group against a floor boss. Asuna dozing off in the rocking chair in our forest cottage on the twenty-second floor. Asuna at my bedside in the hospital in Tokorozawa, cradling the NerveGear she’d just taken off me, waiting.

Asuna dueling with Yuuki the Absolute Sword in New Aincrad after it was added to ALO. Asuna fighting at the forefront of the human army with a super-account in the Underworld. And Asuna leaning against my shoulder in the secret garden at returnee school…

In the nearly four years since I’d met her, Asuna had always been there for me, supporting me. There was no doubt that I’d received so much more from Asuna than I’d really given her. And after all that, how many times had I ever really put into words the gratitude I felt toward her…?

“Ah, geez…”

I sighed again, feeling inadequate once more. Whatever I gave her for a present, the one thing I needed to do for sure was put my feelings into words for her, I knew.

With that oath in mind, I headed for the subway station.