8

The party of eight, all men, raved as they downed bowls of Asuna’s bear meat stew.

In the meantime, Asuna, Alice, Leafa, and I sat by the smelting furnace, poring over the map data from the man in the leather armor.

The problem was that there was apparently no means of directly sharing map data with another player, so instead, he’d used charcoal to draw on some cheap, crude paper. Still, it was enough to make out the features of the surrounding area.

The forest we’d fallen into with our log cabin extended an unknown distance to the north, but it also went another four and a half miles to the south. By following the river south through the forest, you eventually reached a short but treacherous mountain range that bounded its southern edge, on the other side of which was an arid wasteland. There was essentially no water out there, so if you left the river behind, you’d run out of hydration very soon.

The river branched to the west in the wasteland, and the men had originally tried to follow that tributary, but when they reached a basin with more plant life inside, they were attacked by NPCs bearing metal spears and axes. They couldn’t communicate with them, so they had to run for their lives and lost two members of their party in the process.

To the south of the basin, it was even more desolate, and that was where New Aincrad had fallen. On a direct line from the edge of the forest, it was about six miles away. There was major damage to the flying castle, and the bottom twenty or thirty floors had been completely destroyed. The man in the leather armor swore that they hadn’t seen any living players nearby.

That made me wonder if all the players who were stuck in New Aincrad when it fell had died on impact and been eternally shut out of the world of Unital Ring. But it wasn’t the case, apparently; death being expulsion from the game only started after the mysterious voice gave its message and the timer started, after nine o’clock. So where did the players who died before that revive…?

Farther south from the highlands where New Aincrad fell, the terrain became grassland. Water and food were fairly plentiful, and he said there was a giant ruined city there. Apparently, that ruin, which was very similar to Alne, the capital city of Alfheim, was the official starting point for the players who’d been converted from ALO—and the spawn point if you died prior to nine AM. Just after five o’clock, when everything started, about four thousand ALO players (including a thousand-plus who died and came back to life when New Aincrad fell) were tossed into those ruins without a tutorial or explanation of any kind. The chaos and confusion had been extraordinary.

Nearly half the players logged off to avoid the chaos or to seek more information. The other half got to work figuring out where they were. They left the ruins, hunted small game, tried out elementary crafting, and built simple bases…until some players started to range farther out from the ruins in search of better materials. This party was one of the groups formed by those intrepid pioneers.

The smaller man with the dagger finished up their story for us.

“In open-world survival games like this, you can’t just putz around with wood and stone at the start. Iron is crucial. You have to run for an area with iron ore in order to build a proper base…and that’s an ironclad rule.”

“Well…I suppose that wasn’t the worst trade imaginable for our bear meat,” said Leafa, causing Alice to giggle.

“Let’s not be unbearable now.”

“You get negative ten points for that pun.”

Asuna smirked at that one, too, and examined the hand-drawn map once more. “If Liz’s group crashed with New Aincrad and then revived, they would have gone back to these ruins, too. And that’s a good…fifteen miles from here…”

I pointed at the map and cautioned, “Only on a straight line. It’s at least eighteen following the river…But knowing Liz and Silica, I doubt they’d just sit around and behave at the starting point…”

“That’s a good point,” Asuna said. Alice and Leafa agreed.

Yui was accompanying Lisbeth and Silica, but our sweet daughter was not necessarily the careful and conservative type, either. If they’d left the ruins area, there was almost no chance we could run into them at random by searching. We’d have to make contact with them in the real world first.

Asuna realized the same thing. She stroked the sleeping agamid’s head and announced, “I’m going to log off for a second to send another message to them and Yui. I want to draw this map on a real piece of paper and attach it to the e-mail, too, so it might take a few minutes. Watch my body and this little one here.”

“All right. We’ll take care of you,” I said. Alice added, “Leave it to us,” and Leafa commented, “See you soon!” Then Asuna rested her back against the smelting furnace, opened her ring menu, glanced at us again, then pressed the LOG OUT button. Her avatar closed its eyes and went limp. As the other players had said, it did not disappear.

“Hmm…I’m used to rotating log-outs in ALO, where your avatar stays behind,” Leafa said, rubbing the giant agamid’s head in Asuna’s stead, “but this could last, like, ten hours at a time, while we’re at school and stuff. Doesn’t that put students at a major disadvantage playing this?”

“Students and people with jobs are at a disadvantage in every MMO,” I pointed out.

For some reason, Alice gave me a sidelong glare. “I am neither a student nor an employee, but I do not have all day free to myself.”

“W-well, of course. I know how abusive Rath can be to people…”

“Really? This is coming from the guy who wants to work at Rath?” Leafa snapped. I hunched my neck, and Alice gave me a very meaningful smile.

We couldn’t really discuss or decide anything until Asuna came back, so I decided to resume my blacksmithing work. I put away the hand-drawn map we’d traded eight portions of bear soup for and got to my feet. The way she was leaned back against the furnace with her eyes closed, Asuna appeared to be sleeping, but I didn’t have to worry about her waking up if I smacked the hammer right near her head. As for the giant agamid sleeping next to her…I could always apologize if it woke up.

With Alice and Leafa watching, I sat at the anvil, picked up the hammer, and twirled it in my fingers to look cool. Then I set the production menu to NAILS and readied a new ingot on the surface of the anvil…

“Um, pardon me,” said a voice behind my back. I promptly stopped the forward motion of my arm, turned around on the log seat, and saw the dagger-user standing there with an empty bowl in his hand.

The two girls felt a little stiff to me, so I sent them a quick glance and got up, taking a few steps out to face the dagger-user.

“What is it?”

“Oh, I was just going to thank you for the meal. We’ve been eating bugs and rats and things on the way here. I’ve never tasted such good meat before,” he said.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“What should we do with the dishes?”

“Just leave them on the ground.”

“Got it.”

He lifted the bowl and made to turn back around but stopped himself and faced me again. He stared at me piercingly through his long bangs.

“Hey…I apologize in advance if I’m wrong about this,” he said, sounding hesitant, as though he couldn’t believe what he was about to say, “but are you the runner-up from the ALO unified tournament they held back in February—Kirito?”

I stopped myself from denying it on reflex. I couldn’t guarantee we’d never end up trading or otherwise exposing our player names to each other. If I denied it up front, I’d have to come up with an alias if necessary. And despite what I said to Asuna, I wasn’t any good at coming up with names, either.

“Uh…well…yeah, that’s me,” I admitted.

The shorter man’s face lit up. “Really?! Wow! I had a hunch when I first saw you…Sorry, do you mind if I shake your hand?!”

He strode over excitedly, which made it difficult for me to protest that I wasn’t really big on things like that. I had no choice but to extend my hand.

The dagger-user took it in his own and shook up and down. The force of it caused the bowl to slip out of his left hand. It hit the ground and splintered to pieces with a great crash.

“Ohhh, I’m so sorry!” he wailed.

But at the same time, I felt a sensation that was both hot and cold, like a cramp but also like numbness. I looked down without a word to see a metal blade he had in his left hand, stabbed deep into my stomach.

*   *   *

“Kirito!” yelled Alice and Leafa. I had already pulled my hand free and retreated as quickly as I could. The dagger slipped from my stomach, the bright-red damage effects gleaming like threads on my skin.

I drew the stone knife from my back waistband and checked my HP bar. It had been full before but was now under half. One blow did all that?! I was stunned, but then again, I had zero armor on now, and the other man’s dagger was a valuable metal weapon. If I hadn’t gained all those levels, it would have killed me for sure.

The enemy expected that to happen, clearly. He narrowed his eyes with surprise and exclaimed, “No way. I got a clean hit in on you, but it only went down half…? Did you power level or something?”

I was under no obligation to tell him that I had. Instead, Alice and Leafa jumped out in front of me, brandishing their stone knife and ax.

“What was that for?!”

“You cheap coward!”

But the dagger-user was unaffected by the anti-PK squad. At last, a cursor appeared over his head, so I examined it.

Because he had attacked me, the spindles of the cursor were a deep ruby red. Beneath the slowly rotating HP bar was his character name: Mocri. I didn’t recognize the name, but that didn’t mean I’d never interacted with him before. Holding my left hand to the wound on my stomach, I demanded, “Are you with Laughing Coffin?”

Mocri the dagger-user blinked with surprise, then twitched his head to deny it. “N…no, no, I’m no historical big shot like that. I’m just a gamer, man.”

“You didn’t hesitate an instant when you stabbed me.”

“No, no, no, I totally did. My heart was beating out of my chest.”

Based on Mocri’s mocking tone, I couldn’t tell if he stabbed me as an act of treacherous role-playing or if he was a true pleasure killer like the people from Laughing Coffin. I wasn’t as firmly anti-PK across the board as Alice; in games where PKing was a thing, it was the right of the player to engage in it, and if someone came after me, I was willing to fight back. But I wasn’t going to get along with anyone who chose betrayal over cooperation in the midst of a strange, unprecedented situation like this.

The man in the leather armor and the rest of the group chatting enjoyably on the east side of the clearing noticed the situation at last, and they got to their feet and ran over this way. The eight of them must have been in a party together, because they all had red cursors over their heads now. Alice’s and Leafa’s were green, so red was probably the color of a criminal. Or…no, the concept of crime and law probably didn’t exist here. It was just a regular old hostile classification.

“What the hell did you do, Mocri?!” shrieked the man in leather armor. The one in scale armor and the other five looked quite panicked. My initial reaction to this was to guess that Mocri’s attack on me was an individual move on his part.

Then Mocri glanced at the man in leather and said, “Bolan, that’s Kirito the spriggan! Second place from the tournament! And he’s already crafting iron! Once he starts making swords and armor, we’re in trouble, even with our numbers! We gotta kill him while he’s still naked!”

The other seven promptly began to rumble and murmur. I had no idea people in general knew my name that well, but thinking about it now, coming in second in the central tournament of all nine races of ALO was like getting second place in Gun Gale Online’s Bullet of Bullets tournament. Any player who was interested in PvP combat would at least check out the names of who won…I supposed.

The man in the leather armor named Bolan gazed at me wide-eyed, then looked at Mocri and back.

“Well…I guess that settles that,” he said.

“Whaaat?!” exclaimed Leafa. She jabbed a finger at Bolan’s face and said, “No, it doesn’t! Why is that a convincing argument?! We have no intention of fighting with you at all! He’s the one who started attacking us!”

Bolan looked like he was searching for the right words. Eventually, he remarked, “You still don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?” Alice said, seething.

He shrugged. “This isn’t just a simple survival game or some PK-friendly battle royale. We’re being put to a race. What did the announcement say? To the first…all shall be given.”

“…And you know what all is in this case?” I asked him.

Bolan grimaced with chagrin. “No, I don’t…but you can tell this is just as crazy as that SAO Incident, right? All the VRMMOs with decent name recognition—not just ALO, but Asuka Empire and LunaSca and ApoDe and GGO—and thousands upon thousands of players got converted into this place. And if you end up in first, you get something. Don’t you want to know what that is?”

“Not to the point of killing total strangers,” I retorted.

Bolan ran his fingers through his short hair. “Well, that’s just your fault for being Kirito.”

“Wh-what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Any ALO player’s going to know you’re tough. A player like you, falling in this sheltered location with a house and everything? And with iron already acquired? Once you get your base set up and your gear together, you’ll be unstoppable. But right now, you’re a caveman with a rock for a weapon. Everyone can recognize this is the moment to take you out.”

“You’re being paranoid. We’re only making iron to repair our cabin. I have zero interest in trampling over you to be the ‘first’ or whatever.”

“Maybe not now, you don’t. But what about when you’re done repairing your house? You won’t be interested in learning the secrets of this world?”

Bolan grinned and put a hand on his longsword. Alice and Leafa snapped into combat positions, and even the giant agamid growled behind us; apparently, it had woken up.

But Bolan didn’t draw his weapon. He seemed to be very confident in their advantage.

“Luck is on our side. We were nobodies in ALO, not fit to lick your boots, but because of the equipment we brought over, we didn’t hit the weight limit after the game’s grace period ended. All the best players are wandering around the starting ruins with grass clothes and rocks for weapons, just like you. So we’re going to make use of this advantage we’ve got,” he announced, drawing his sword loudly. The steel blade was anything but “crude” as it gleamed in the firelight. The six men behind him had their weapons out, too.

If their gear came from ALO, that would explain how it could take out half of my HP in one hit. In a proper collision in battle, his sword would shatter my stone knife. The situation was heavily weighted against us, but it wasn’t my style to give up and be killed without a fight. Alice and Leafa would certainly agree with me there.

Bolan didn’t need to hear a statement to know our response. His face grew tense, and he barked, “Ten, Garth, kill the woman lying there. Doarn and Meito, get the cat-eared girl. Tetsuriki and Chap, the ponytail. Mocri and I will deal with Kirito.”

They were clear and decisive orders from a natural leader. But I wasn’t just standing around listening, either.

“Alice, Leafa, don’t bother parrying. Focus on dodging and wait for an opening!” I said, just loud enough for them to hear. They replied promptly to indicate they understood. Lastly, I gave our final member some instruction. “Aga, protect Asuna!”

I had no idea if Asuna’s pet agamid actually accepted my orders as given, but it did quack firmly in response. It wasn’t a thornspike cave bear, but the long-billed giant agamid inhabited the same region, so it had to be a pretty tough monster, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if its numerical stats were much higher than mine without any armor on. I had no choice but to trust it to protect its master from these players with the equipment they’d ported over.

“Raaaah!”

The enemy group, now split up into pairs, roared as they charged at us. Alice fled to the right, while Leafa took the left, and I stood my ground, awaiting the attack of Bolan in his leather armor and Mocri with his dagger.

Two against one in the open was a bad situation, so I wanted to lure them toward the forest around the clearing if possible, but I couldn’t leave Asuna’s side while she was logged out. No matter how powerful the giant agamid might be, its loyalty parameter was going to be at its lowest just after being tamed. I had to accept the possibility that it might turn and flee as soon as it got hurt.

“Hraah!”

Bolan came in with a deliberate yell and a swing of his sword. It probably was half for show, a way to grab my attention so Mocri could stab me from the side. Keeping the swift shanker in the corner of my eye to the right, I sidestepped the sword to the left. I tried to circle around to Bolan’s back, but Mocri kept up persistently. So I changed course and made a hard right turn. Both Bolan and Mocri only had on light armor, but in terms of mobility, nothing was quicker than no armor at all.

As I expected, Mocri couldn’t quite keep up, and I caught sight of his defenseless left side. I thrust out the stone knife and slashed his left arm. A few bits of red sprayed, and his circular HP bar lost about 5 percent. I wished I could use a sword skill, but the skill I inherited was One-Handed Sword, so I could only use basic skills with the knife.

My enemies, however, had no healing potions to use, I assumed, so if I could build up the damage on them, I had a chance of winning. I jumped back for distance, rather than going in deeper for more.

Mocri only temporarily faltered. When he regained balance, he glanced at his HP bar and the corner of his mouth curled upward.

“There’s that second-place talent.”

“Don’t get distracted by your admiration,” Bolan warned, but the other player just said “We’re only getting started” and took another stance. I dropped my weight and readied for the next attack.

For now, Alice and Leafa hadn’t suffered any major damage. The giant agamid’s menacing bill was keeping Asuna’s two attackers at bay. It had been about ten minutes since she logged off. The time was ripe for her to return.

“Yah!”

This time Mocri struck first. His smaller avatar leaned all the way forward into a charge that nearly scraped the ground. Bolan ran right behind him.

I couldn’t avoid them by backing up. And if I jumped, Bolan could easily hit me in the air. My only choices were right or left. Last time, I moved left, so…Right!

Making full use of my near-zero equipment weight, I jumped right without any kind of preparatory motion. They wouldn’t be able to keep up, and while Mocri was changing directions, I’d go after Bolan, I decided on the spot.

But when I was about to push off that foot, Mocri stuck out his left hand behind him, while still in his leaning posture, and Bolan grabbed it with his own left hand. That pulled Mocri into a sudden stop and swung him to the side. This extreme turn, impossible on his own, allowed the stabby one to continue rushing at me.

“Rrgh!”

I swiped with my free hand at the blade rushing up toward my stomach. My aim was for the side of it, of course, but it split my skin, which was enough to take another chunk of HP. I had 45 percent of my HP remaining.

Once again, I backed away and asked them, “You two didn’t meet here, did you?”

“Not exactly. Mocri, Tetsuriki, and I go way back in ALO.”

“That makes sense…”

Based on their teamwork without even eye contact, much less vocal cues, I had to bump my mental assessment of them up at least two levels. They called themselves nobodies, but they had a lot of experience and confidence in PvP as a team.

Mocri sensed my rising worry and smirked again. “Sorry, man, but we’re gonna wrap this one up. I’ve got the hang of it by now.”

“The hang of it…? That’s kind of a vague thing to say.”

“Well, that’s just what Sensei teaches. Don’t only look at one part of the opponent; grasp the whole. Then you’ll know what they’re aiming for—and what they don’t like, you see.”

“Sensei…?” I repeated, squinting.

Bolan smacked Mocri on the shoulder. “Hey.”

“I know, I know. Let’s do the thing now.”

Mocri slid to the left, and Bolan drifted right, forming a triangle with me, each side being ten feet long. The dagger was readied low, and the sword was up high. Both of them began to shine brilliantly in the dark of night.

Sword skills!

If either of them hit me, I was going to die. And with them coming from both right and left, and high and low, the difficulty of completely dodging them rose significantly. The orthodox strategy here would be to take initiative and attack one of them first, but I couldn’t use sword skills now. With a normal attack, my stone knife might easily shatter just from hitting their armor, much less weapons.

From all the adrenaline, it felt like my sense of time was elongated, such that I could feel the entire battlefield.

In the distance, Alice and Leafa were also trapped in triangle formations like me, targeted by sword skills from either side. All three of us were going to die together at this rate. We had to find a way to survive this moment and look for a chance to turn the tables. But how…?

“Quaaaaack!!”

At that moment, a high-pitched roar and some screams rose above the din. The giant agamid had bitten one of the men. The tips of Bolan’s and Mocri’s weapons twitched, and the glow of the pre-skill effect flickered. Instantly, I launched myself off the ground with all my power.

Of course, my adversaries wouldn’t have been completely taken aback by the possibility that I would charge toward them. But given my lack of armor, they had to consider it a very long shot. So their sword skills executed just a fraction of a second too late. It wasn’t a significant gap of time in a PvE setting, but that could be enough to seal your fate in PvP.

“Nraaah!” “Chieee!”

Bolan’s longsword skill Vertical came high from the right, and Mocri’s dagger skill Canine thrust upward from below on the left. I leaped straight forward and twisted, curving myself like a high jumper.

The sword passed just over my throat as my head tilted back, and the dagger passed beneath my arched back, leaving me with only a brief chilly sensation. Aware that I’d lost a tiny fraction of my HP, I twisted twice before landing and immediately took off running. My target was one of the foes fighting Leafa. Not because she was my sister, but because she was six feet closer than Alice.

You’re on your own this time, Alice! I thought, willing the words to her mind, as I sank my knife deep into the unprotected back of the enemy.

There was a foreboding cracking sensation. The durability of the knife, so abused by the bark-stripping process, had given out at last. But while the enemy was stunned, Leafa slid out of the trap they’d set up and headed with me to help Alice.

But we needn’t have bothered.

Because standing there, knife sunk to the hilt into the side of one of the enemies attacking Alice, was Asuna.

“…Asuna!” Leafa exclaimed with surprise. I couldn’t blame her; just three seconds ago, Asuna was leaning against the furnace in a logged-out state.

In the first second after coming back, she had grasped the situation, spent another second drawing her weapon and going into a run, and crossed ten yards to attack the unsuspecting enemy with the third. It was an incredible piece of pure reaction—but it came at a cost. Asuna’s knife also failed to withstand the shock and crumbled to pieces.

Without missing a beat, Alice escaped her attackers and said, “This way!” We ran after her and wound up standing with our backs to the cabin wall. A moment later, the giant agamid joined us and purred, rubbing its head against Asuna.

It had fought hard to protect its master. Its green scales were torn here and there, and its proud bill was all cut and scraped. But after a gentle caress from Asuna, it lifted its head with brave determination.

The enemy group had been momentarily confused, but on Bolan’s signal, they regrouped and formed a semicircle around us. They were done with taunting and closed in steadily from a distance of ten yards, swords and axes held before them. We’d injured some of them, but all eight were still in good fighting condition.

But on our side, only Leafa’s stone ax and Alice’s stone knife were left. Unfortunately, I had to admit that victory was even less likely than before. That left escape as our next best option, but if we fled, they’d take up shelter in our cabin and make it their base. I didn’t know how the system ownership of the log cabin might be affected, but going by typical survival RPG rules, there was a good chance they’d officially take it over if they occupied it for a certain length of time.

To run or go down in defeat?

I couldn’t pick either of those options. I bit my lip with agonized frustration.

“Quee…?” the giant agamid remarked with a questioning note in its voice.

Then something happened that I would never have predicted. A number of shapes jumped out from the woods behind Bolan’s group.

I would have expected a respawned thornspike cave bear, but it was clearly not the case. They were thin and bipedal, obviously human. They weren’t carrying any kind of light, so I couldn’t identify them at all. There were six…no, seven of them. I could also see a very small shape behind them, like a child.

Bolan’s group noticed the new visitors a moment later and turned around, pointing their weapons the other way.

A tall figure that I guessed was male, standing at the lead of this mystery group, lifted something long and thin like a spear and bellowed.

“, !!”

They were words…presumably. But muffled and distorted, like there were several layers of noise filtering over the voice, making it impossible to derive any meaning from them. Whatever the voice said, the figure’s companions understood, fanning out to the sides of the spearman with axes and curved swords of their own.

Intuition told me these were NPCs, not players. That was quickly corroborated by Bolan’s friends, who reacted with panic.

“Th-the natives from the basin!”

“What are they doing here?!”

“They’re dangerous!”

If these NPCs were tough enough to scare Bolan’s team with their inherited gear, they had to be the real deal. It was that very turn-the-tables moment I’d been hoping for—if we were lucky. But it probably wasn’t going to work out that well. It would be too convenient to assume the NPCs would attack Bolan’s group and leave us alone.

If there was a way to make use of this situation, it would be to launch a pincer attack the moment the NPCs struck, then run away as quickly as possible. I didn’t foresee NPCs camping out in our player home, so as long as we came back before too long…

But once again, the situation swerved in a direction I did not anticipate.

Cla-cla-cla-cla-cla-cla-cla-clang! There was a rapid series of high-pitched metallic noises. It was coming from behind the group of NPCs. At first, I thought it was a brass gong or some similar tool to summon more companions, but the rhythm was too fast for that. It wasn’t like an instrument, but an anvil or something, being smacked by a hammer…

“Anvil…,” I murmured, realizing it was an anvil. Behind the row of NPCs, which Bolan called natives from the basin, was the furnace, casting table, and anvil that I’d built. One of the NPCs was striking my anvil.

But why? Just to make noise? Or was it a message to others, after all?

It was unsettling our opponents, who spoke among themselves in hoarse voices.

“What are they doing…? That’s not good, is it?”

“Well, we can’t just run away without anything to show for it. If we take this spot over, we can make new weapons and armor for everyone.”

“What should we do, Bolan?”

After a brief silence, I heard Bolan say, “Tetsuriki, Chap, Doarn: Keep the NPCs at bay. But don’t attack them. The other five of us will take out Kirito’s group as quickly as possible.”

Here we go.

I put my fists up, preparing for combat just as Bolan, Mocri, and three others turned on the spot.

The anvil striking sound had stopped, but no NPC reinforcements were coming out of the woods, and the six or seven of them were still standing there with their weapons up, nothing more. If they weren’t going to attack, then nothing had really changed for us. Eight or five opponents, we were still at a major disadvantage.

I thought I heard a faint rustling from the woods to our right. Initially, I suspected one of our enemies was circling around through the trees, but there were still eight red cursors in the clearing with us. A bear would make more noise than what I was hearing, so it was probably some small animal instead. I ignored it and focused on the enemies ahead.

The group of five slowly closed the distance, their weapons at the ready. As soon as we were within range, they were going to launch into sword skills all at once. It was the ultimate orthodox move, no wrinkles—but that was what made it hard to counter.

The only trick I still had up my nonexistent sleeve was the stock of stones I had packed in my inventory, just under the carrying weight limit. Should I climb up onto the cabin roof and try the avalanche method again, while the others fought off the bad guys? No, that only worked on the bear because its actions were simplistic and predictable. The players would recognize what I was up to as soon as the rocks started to appear on the roof—and zip out of the way in time.

What to do? What to—?

“Use this, Papa!”

“?!”

My breath caught in my throat at the voice that came from below. My eyes shot downward, and I saw a black-haired girl in a white dress covered by leather armor, crouching and looking up at me with big eyes. Eyes as black as the night sky, sparkling with stars.

“Yui?!” Asuna and I cried simultaneously, trying to pick up our daughter without thinking. She held up a hand to stop us, then used her other hand to make a gesture. I saw a small window that said Yui has sent a trade request. Do you accept?

A trade?! But Yui isn’t supposed to have an inventory! I thought, shocked by this impossible request—but I hit the ACCEPT button on pure impulse. Up popped an error message that said Not enough carrying capacity. I’d have to do something with all those rocks to make the trade.

“Hey, what are they doing?!” yelled one of the enemies, noticing our trade window. An instant later, I heard Bolan shout, “Don’t let them do that! Charge!”

Feet struck the ground. I didn’t have time to organize my inventory. They would soon be upon us.

In a blink, I opened my ring menu and hit the SKILLS icon, slid my finger over, and selected Stone Furnace from the list of craftable items under the Stoneworking skill.

Immediately, there was a gigantic purple mass taking up the space about ten feet in front of me: the ghost object indicator that I could use to place the furnace once it was crafted. I put my fingers together and spread them outward, sending the ghost sliding rapidly along the ground toward Bolan’s group.

If any of them had experience doing larger construction, this wouldn’t work. But since they were all using weapons they’d brought in from ALO, they probably had no need to build crafting equipment. So if my hope was accurate…

“Whoa, what the hell?!” Mocri wailed, toppling over in an attempt to avoid the ghost. The other four jumped out of the way to either side. I pinched my fingers inward to pull the ghost back, then sent it shooting out again. This time, Bolan pulled off a very impressive backflip to avoid it.

But of course, this kind of visual trick to cause chaos was not going to last very long.

“Hey, isn’t that what shows up when you build something?!” one of them shouted, and Bolan’s eyes and mouth opened briefly.

“Dammit!” he swore. “Stupid prank…That purple thing has no physical form, you guys! Ignore it and charge!”

Mocri and the others howled in response and regrouped near Bolan. They got their weapons ready and rushed us as one solid mass.

I moved my right hand again, placing the ghost in the space between them and us. They weren’t dodging out of the way this time. If anything, they were running faster, charging headfirst toward the object they now knew was harmless.

And they were right. The ghost was harmless.

But just before Bolan made contact, I clenched my hand into a fist.

Da-thud! An enormous stone furnace fell into place right where the ghost was. A split second later, Bolan slammed directly into the thick stone wall, with the others piling against him immediately after. The impact was loud enough that the furnace shook. They bounced backward without a word and fell onto their backs.

I would have checked to see how much HP that had taken off their cursors, if I had the time. The next few seconds would mean the difference between life and death.

I turned and accepted the trade offer from Yui, which I’d left open this whole time. Completing the furnace had consumed the majority of the stone in my inventory, and five new items promptly teleported into my now-spacious item storage. Their names were fine iron chest armor, fine iron waist armor, fine iron shin guards, fine iron gauntlets, and fine iron longsword.

Setting aside the immediate question of how Yui ended up with these things, I used the fastest finger speed possible—perhaps as fast as the time I once switched my skill and weapons to Dual Blades style when fighting the Gleameyes, boss of the seventy-fourth floor of Aincrad—to drop all these items onto my equipment mannequin.

Pale light surrounded my body, and the armor appeared on me. The design wasn’t anything fancy, but the steel-blue metal had a deep shine that told me the adjective fine wasn’t just for show. I didn’t much go for metal armor that limited my mobility, but after spending hours exposed to the elements, the weight of this protection was reassuring on my skin.

Lastly, light shone on my left hip and took the form of a sword. I grabbed the sheath with my left hand and rested my right on Yui’s head.

“Thank you, Yui. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Yes, Papa!” she said with delight. I gave Asuna, Alice, and Leafa an eye signal and a firm nod.

“…I’ll be right back!”

And then I was off like a shot. I drew my sword in a whirl and held it above my shoulder. The whirring sound of the sword skill warming up sent all the blood in my body into a feverish heat.

Up ahead, my five opponents were getting back to their feet after crashing into the new furnace. The axman closest to me gaped when he saw me. He started to shout something, but it was too late.

“Aaaah!” I howled, activating the charging skill Sonic Leap. A streak of light-green tore through the darkness toward my target’s left shoulder.

Djunk! I felt hard feedback against my wrist, reminiscent of the sensation of the stone knife breaking, but the iron sword stayed utterly firm in transferring the full power of the sword skill. The axman flew backward, spraying red effects, and slammed against the ground. One hit took out over 80 percent of his HP.

A smaller shadow burst toward me from the left while I was immobilized following my big attack. It was quick and decisive, the action of someone used to fighting with sword skills. Mocri.

The dagger that stabbed me in the stomach minutes ago took on a yellow shine. That was the motion for the charging attack Rapid Bite.

“Shaaaa!”

Mocri zoomed forward. My delay wore off, but I didn’t have time to use a sword skill in return. I couldn’t evade it with footwork, either.

Instead, I let his dagger approach as far as possible, pointed right at my heart, and used the flat of my longsword blade to block the tip. My free hand pushed against the backside of the sword; this was a defensive technique known as a two-handed block that could diminish the power of an enemy sword skill.

Kshiannng! Two pieces of metal scraped against each other, and orange sparks burned the darkness. Blocking a big sword skill from a heavy two-handed weapon like this carried a real risk of ruining your weapon, but a dagger shouldn’t be a problem.

The yellow light flickered, blinked, and went out…and I immediately swept Mocri’s leg from under him with a swipe of my own. He lost his balance and threw his arms out in an attempt to keep from falling. From there, I set my sword flat at waist height on my left.

“I still owe you one!” I whispered, activating a new sword skill. Indigo light infused the humming blade as it swiped parallel with the ground and drove deep into Mocri’s side. While there, it rotated ninety degrees and ripped up through his torso.

“Gaaah!”

Even without pain, the sensation of having your avatar’s guts torn up was unbearable. Mocri groaned, but he had not yet paid enough of a price for abusing the rules of hospitality in an attempt to kill us all. After traveling from stomach to chest, my sword surged forward with explosive power. It was the three-part One-Handed Sword skill Savage Fulcrum.

Thrown backward by the force of the thrust, Mocri’s body jettisoned a frightening amount of damage light and landed at the feet of Bolan and the rest, who were starting to run. His ring-shaped HP indicator rapidly diminished until it was gone.

I expected his body to remain, like the bear’s, but I couldn’t have predicted what happened next. The empty HP bar rotated rapidly, growing and growing until it turned into a string of numbers. The numerals 0000:03:02:45 clearly had the same format as the menu in the center of the ring. In other words, from the point Mocri heard the mysterious voice, and the true survival game began until his death, he survived for three hours, two minutes, and forty-five seconds.

The wheel of numbers stopped spinning and vanished, right as the sharp spindles that ran through the center of the cursor shot downward like bullets, piercing his body. The avatar dissolved into a multitude of rings that came apart in long ribbons, rising into the night sky.

Lastly, a large black cloth fell from above and landed with a heavy thump. That was probably his items and equipment. Bolan watched it with stunned disbelief, then his head shot up to glare at me. He pointed his longsword in my direction and shouted, “The rest of you, ignore the natives and surround Kirito! Do whatever it takes to kill him, if nothing else!”

The man in scale armor named Tetsuriki briefly hesitated, then bellowed and readied his weapon, the two-handed war hammer. He and his companions charged. The NPCs remained in their formation around the ironworking area and did not move.

There were six enemies left. Now that they were watching out for my sword skills, it would not be easy for me to beat them all on my own, but in order to protect Asuna, Alice, Leafa, and Yui, I had to do it. I’d have to avoid using big moves with long delays and whittle them down with regular attacks and quick skills instead. Once I beat their leader, victory would be in sight.

I took my stance, waiting for the six of them to reach me in their horizontal line.

And then, as though waiting for that very action—two shapes leaped forward past the NPCs and sprinted toward Bolan’s group from behind, as quietly as they could. They’d been watching this entire time; why choose this moment to attack…? But a split second later, my suspicion turned to shock.

They weren’t NPCs.

The people were dressed in simple leather gear, but the recognizable hairstyles, and most of all, the little dragon hovering over the head of one of them, were unmistakable. It was Lisbeth and Silica, who had fallen to earth with New Aincrad.

That explained the sound of the hammering earlier. It wasn’t a signal; it was actual blacksmithing at work: Lisbeth had used my anvil, sheets, and ingots to make the armor and sword I was wearing now. Then she’d given them to Yui, who had used her small size to sneak around the forest to deliver them to me.

Silica got a bit of a lead on Lisbeth and smiled as she saw me. Now I didn’t need to worry about holding back on the big skills. My two longtime companions could back me up.

“Hey!” Tetsuriki shouted as he finally realized there were two more people in the area. The instant I sensed that the formation had faltered, I held out my left hand and drew back the sword as far as I could with my right. A high-pitched whine filled the night, and deep-red light surged from the sword’s tip.

The sound grew thicker, deepening into a metallic roar. The instant I sensed the system’s movement adjustment kicking in, I leaped forward with all my strength.

It was the single-hit heavy attack Vorpal Strike.

Once in the air, I unleashed all my pent-up power. The tip of the sword barreled forward, sending a spear the color of blood toward Bolan’s chest.

“Aaaaah!” he shrieked. Like I had a moment earlier, he turned his sword sideways in an attempt to block it. But the crimson spear shattered the thick weapon like glass and dug itself deep into his chest, past his leather guard.

After the loss of their leader and second-in-command, it did not take long for the enemy group to completely break down. I was going to let them go if they decided to run, but the way they chose to fight to the last man was admirable. Then again, maybe they weren’t truly dedicated teammates. After all, the mysterious voice said all shall be given to the first, so even if their group had been successful, they were fated to kill one another in the end, no matter what.

The last one standing was Tetsuriki, the one with scale armor and the large hammer, but he was totally unable to keep up with Silica’s quick, acrobatic movements and perished when she slammed a Rapid Bite into the back of his neck.

After the eighth bag of dropped items fell from the sky, I wasn’t quite sure what to do next. I wanted to thank Lisbeth and Silica for their great help in the fight, I wanted to run over to Asuna where she held Yui at the side of the cabin, I wanted to compliment Alice and Leafa for their efforts, and I was curious about the NPCs still waiting on the west side of the clearing.

I decided the first priority should be confirming our safety.

With that in mind, I strode over to Silica as I put away my sword. The little dragon on her head spread its wings and cooed in greeting.

“Uh…so…Pina converted over, too, then,” I said a bit awkwardly. Silica gave me a look that conveyed Really? That’s your first comment? but it quickly turned into a smile.

“Yes. Liz brought over her favorite mace and blacksmithing hammer, but I only had my dagger…so I think Pina came over by being treated like an item.”

“That makes me wonder if the cait sith dragon riders got to bring their mounts…”

“You know, that might be right. But dragons eat a lot of food, so I bet it would be tough to keep them fed,” she said.

In the meantime, Lisbeth walked up and gave me a once-over, resting her chin in her hand. “Hmm. You look pretty good in metal armor.”

“Oh yeah. You made this, huh? Thanks, Liz, you saved me.”

“You can find a more material way to thank me in the near future.”

“Uh…right…”

Asuna came over from the cabin, and I reached out to ruffle Yui’s hair with both hands. The ticklish smile she gave me filled my heart with love, but there were so many questions to ask that I didn’t even know where to start.

The girls hugged with tears in their eyes, while I stood nearby murmuring prompts like “Sooo, ummm, well…”

Eventually, Alice glanced at the NPCs behind us and asked, “Liz, are they not hostile to us?”

“Huh? Oh, they’re fine. Those are the Bashin. Ever since Silica had a showdown with their chief, we’ve been on friendly terms.”

“Wh-what? You make it sound like a manga about street delinquents,” Leafa said.

Silica waved her hands in protest. “N-no, no, it wasn’t some big showdown thing!”

“It practically was,” Lisbeth insisted. She beckoned toward the five NPCs with their weapons raised. They spoke to each other for a moment, then slowly approached. It did not look like simple algorithmic behavior to me. They were probably high-level AIs, just like some of the special NPCs in the old SAO days.

Their spear-toting leader spoke to Yui, for some reason. As before, I couldn’t make out what he was saying in the least.

“?”

“, ,” Yui replied in the same language. Everyone aside from Liz and Silica looked shocked by this. After a few more statements from each side, Yui switched back to Japanese to speak to me.

“So you fell here with the house?”

“Er…yeah, we did. The whole floor split off from the main body of New Aincrad…”

“Apparently, the Bashin saw the house falling from their settlement. They came here to discover what fell into the forest, and the three of us are helping them with that mission, in exchange for receiving some of their equipment.”

“…Oh, I see…”

In other words, Yui, Silica, and Liz had crossed the wasteland to get here without knowing that they’d find Asuna and me. I had to thank the VR gods and the Bashin who escorted our friends here. I faced the spearman and hesitantly held out my hand.

“Th…thank you.”

I didn’t expect him to understand me, and he gave me a suspicious look, but he did eventually extend a rough, powerful hand to squeeze mine briefly before pulling away. That would have to do as far as signs of friendship for now.

But then I noticed something glinting on the chest of the Bashin man’s well-worn leather armor. I squinted harder and saw, tied on a leather cord and fashioned into the shape of a tusk, a piece of glass.

“Oh…wh-where did you get that?!” I shouted, pointing at the necklace. The spearman glanced down at his chest, then smiled proudly and lifted up the cord to show me.

After peppering him with questions, aided by Yui’s interpreting, I learned that the silica material used to make glass was on the highland across the river, and the secondary ingredient of wood ash could be acquired by burning any old plant. In fact, an examination of the spot where Alice lit our first campfire turned up a number of gray clumps. The stone furnace could be used to melt them down, so at least that second furnace I dropped in the middle of the clearing wasn’t going to be a total waste of resources.

He also told me where the flax grew that we could harvest to make linseed oil. At last, we had a lead on all the different materials needed to repair the log cabin. After we thanked them, Asuna served more bear meat soup, which the Bashin ate with delight. It turned out that they considered thornspike cave bear the greatest of delicacies.

We saw the satisfied Bashin off as they returned to their settlement and then exhaled as a group. It was after one AM. We had a bit more than three hours to go before the cabin collapsed for good.

“There is still much to do,” Alice said, clapping her hands.

Lisbeth bent and stretched her arm like she was doing warm-up exercises, then said in her usual energetic tone, “I’m so glad we were able to meet before the cabin fell apart! I’ll make those iron sheets and nails and such. You worry about getting the other materials.”

“Uh, s-sure…That’s cool, but since you made the armor and sword for me, we might be a little short on iron ingots,” I said, imagining that we’d have to go back to the bear cave for more ore or even melt down the new armor to recoup the material.

But Silica just grinned and pointed at the pile of sacks in the center of the clearing. “It’s all right! If we melt down the gear those PKers dropped, I’m sure we’ll get plenty of new iron!”

“…Ah. Yeah. That makes sense.”

It was a very logical idea, but I still couldn’t help but glance at Asuna, Alice, and Leafa with alarm.