Chapter 4

"I'm home…"

As soon as I came through the entryway's glass door, I heard a voice call out,

"Welcome back, Big Brother! You're late, by the way!"

Suguha was waiting in her jumpsuit on the step up to the hallway, hands

clasped in front of her chest, hopping straight up and down.

"I can't help that. I have twice the commute time you do. And I raced home

from the station as fast as I could."

Sure enough, even though September was coming to an end, there were huge

beads of sweat on my forehead. It was nearly a mile and a half from

Honkawagoe Station to the Kirigaya household, and biking that distance in six

minutes had to be a new personal best. I couldn't brag about it, though,

because Suguha could get home in under five, apparently. Still, my wise young

sister did not insult her brother's pitiful leg strength. Instead, she offered me a

face towel.

"Here you go!"

"Oh, thanks," I said, taking it and wiping my forehead.

Next there was a bottle of mineral water. "And this is for you, too!" she said,

taking off the cap before handing it over.

I thanked her and downed half the bottle at once.

"Ahhh, I feel alive again…"

"Now time for another sprint!" she urged me. I rushed upstairs to my room

and had just barely changed into a T-shirt and shorts when Suguha burst inside

without knocking. "Are you ready?! Let's go, then!!"

In her hand was a well-used AmuSphere.

"Go? Where are you going to dive from?"

"From here, obviously! If we don't time it right, we might end up alone and in

a dangerous situation."

"Don't be dramatic…It's not like the Underworld, with its time-acceleration

feature. If we're off, it's only by a minute or two. Plus, Liz and Silica should

already be in there."

"C'mon, just hurry!"

Suguha stuck the AmuSphere on my head, then jumped onto the bed so

vigorously that the wooden slats beneath the mattress creaked. I had no choice

but to lie down next to her. Suguha lifted three fingers.

"We'll go on the count of three! Three, two, one…Link Start!"

I chanted the command with her, wondering if Suguha's hand was going to

drop when the device took over and flop onto my side.

Of course, I wasn't going to see it happen, even if it did.

When my eyes opened, I was staring at a ceiling of brand-new wooden

boards.

Until around four in the morning, there had been a huge, gaping hole through

to the sky, but there wasn't a single trace of it anymore. The log cabin, our

beloved forest home that got ripped out of New Aincrad from the very

foundation and suffered such terrible damage in the crash to earth, had been

successfully repaired with the extra help of Lisbeth and Silica.

That's great. I'm so glad, I thought, rolling back over, when something

smacked my side.

"Come on, Kirito, get up! We've got a whooooole lot of stuff to do!"

"Yeah, yeah…"

I sat up, which loudly clanked the iron armor Lisbeth had crafted for me, and

looked to the side. There was Suguha's avatar, Leafa, dressed in a simple, onepiece cloth dress.

I looked around the room. The living room was much more spacious now that

all the furniture was gone, and there were no other players present. Asuna was

probably on her way home still. While the other four of us were at school, Alice

and Yui were supposed to be protecting the cabin. Where were they now?

No sooner had the question entered my mind than a high-pitched metallic

clang! sounded outside the window. It was not the sound of a hammer striking

an anvil…It was a sword fight.

"What's that?!"

I bolted to my feet, opened the door, and hurried outside.

There in our front yard, surrounded by a variety of crafting stations, were two

figures swinging swords at each other. The time in Unital Ring was synced up

with the real world, so the setting sun was red in the distance ahead of me,

making it hard to see who it was. One of the silhouettes was about my height,

but the other was much smaller, like a child.

"Yaaaa!"

The childlike figure issued a fierce bellow and swung down a sword with two

hands. The speed was impressive, but the adult figure comfortably blocked the

swing with a one-handed parry. There was another loud clang. Thick blond

braids shone, dazzling, in the light of the setting sun.

At last, I realized that the adult was Alice. And the black-haired girl fearlessly

attacking the most powerful Integrity Knight ever was none other than my

daughter with Asuna, the world's greatest top-down AI, Yui.

"H-hey, what's going on…?"

Without thinking, I tried to insert myself in the fight, and Leafa grabbed my

shoulder.

"Wait. Isn't she training?"

"T-training…?"

I glanced at my sister, then back to the center of the yard.

It was true that Alice was receiving and blocking Yui's attacks, but she wasn't

striking back at all. In fact, with each blow, she seemed to be giving small bits of

advice.

"See? It's fine," Suguha said.

"Y-yeah…," I agreed, although I couldn't remember ever seeing Yui holding a

weapon…except for the one time she'd used a GM weapon against the

ultrapowerful boss monster the Fatal Scythe in the underground labyrinth of

the first floor of Aincrad. But now Yui was treated like a player and had an HP

bar like the rest of us. Alice didn't even need to fight back; she could potentially

hurt herself with her own sword. I was in a state of near panic as I watched the

scene unfold.

Yui finished listening intently to Alice's advice, then took her distance again.

She held up her short sword, which had some rather exotic decoration on it, in

a basic mid-level stance…

"Yaaaa!"

Despite her young age, she cried out fiercely as she charged. I couldn't help

but make a note of surprise.

When beginners to VRMMOs attacked with a sword, they tended to perform

a two-stage action: pull back, then swing down. There were situations where

that was exactly the right move to do, but in almost any case, condensing the

start and finish of the swing into one motion provided better speed and power.

Yui's slash was firmly in line with this theory, and in fact, Alice had to pull back

her left foot half a step to defend it.

Another clear, high clash of metal on metal filled the yard. The two came to a

stop, then separated again.

"That was a very good one, Yui," Alice assessed. I clapped in admiration,

drawing their attention. Alice seemed a little bashful, while Yui just flashed a

huge smile.

"Papa! Welcome back!" she cried and started trotting toward me, still

brandishing the short sword.

I had to hold out my hand. "Whoa, whoa, put that thing away first."

"Oh! Of course!"

She screeched to a halt, then slid the weapon into the sheath on her left side.

Now she was free to leap into my arms, where I lifted her high overhead before

nestling her in my left elbow.

"Thanks, Yui," I said. "So…why are you practicing with a sword…?"

"To fight, of course! My proficiency with One-Handed Sword skills just

reached 7!"

"Oh yeah? You've been working hard," I encouraged, stroking her head. Yui

giggled delightedly.

My One-Handed Sword skill, which I brought over from ALO, was at the

maximum value of 1,000, but all the other new skills I'd gained were only at 2 or

3. For a single day's work, getting her skill up to 7 was a lot of dedication.

"If you're up that high, maybe you can use a sword skill by now," I suggested.

"Ummm…"

Yui opened her ring menu and moved to the skill window to check.

"Oh! It says I can use Vertical and Horizontal and Slant!"

"There you go. Those three are the foundation of all sword skills. Once your

proficiency gets higher, I can teach you about the cooler ones, like Vorpal Strike

and Howling Octave."

"Yay!" Yui exclaimed.

"About that, Kirito," said another voice, drawing my attention away. It was

Alice, coming closer in her white dress, looking somewhat upset.

"Hey, Alice. Thanks for watching the house and tutoring Yui. So…what did you

want to say?"

"Take a look at your skill window."

"Huh? Uh…okay…"

I drew a circle in the air with my finger. The ring menu appeared with a

jingling sound, and I picked the SKILLS icon. The window that appeared had a list

of acquired skills, arranged by proficiency, so of course at the top was the OneHanded Sword category…

"…Huh?"

I stared at the proficiency number in shock. When I checked this screen

yesterday, it was definitely at the maximum of 1,000, but now that number was

missing a zero.

"A…a hundred?! Why…?"

"Apparently, last night, when the grace period ended, the proficiency of

whatever skills we brought over was lowered as well. Along with that, it made

all the advanced sword skills impossible to use."

"No way…" I groaned. Leafa checked her own window and exclaimed "Oh no!

Me too!" We hung our heads together, brother and sister, but I forced myself to

rally.

"W-wait just a second…We fought those PKers last night after the grace

period finished, right? I'm pretty sure I used Vorpal Strike at the time. That's

supposed to be a pretty advanced skill."

"Look at your list of sword skills," Alice stated.

At her suggestion, I tapped on ONE-HANDED SWORD SKILLS. The sub-window it loaded

showed the sword skills I could currently use. At the top were the basic singleattack skills: Vertical, Horizontal, and Slant; below them were the two-part

Vertical Arc and Horizontal Arc. Then there was the low charging skill Rage

Spike; the high-jumping skill Sonic Leap; the three-part Sharp Nail…and that was

the last of them that was lit up. Below that, Vertical Square was grayed out, and

tapping it opened a pop-up that said Required proficiency: 150. The numbers

being different from SAO and ALO was understandable, but this didn't explain

why I was able to use the advanced skill Vorpal Strike earlier.

I scrolled through the list and found Vorpal Strike a considerable way down,

grayed out. The required proficiency was…700. That was miles above my

current number of 100.

"What does that mean…? Was I simply recreating the movement on my

own…?" I muttered.

But from my arm, Yui replied, "When you used Savage Fulcrum and Vorpal

Strike in the battle yesterday, they had proper visual effects. That means you

didn't simply mimic the motions."

"That's what I figured," I agreed, then handed Yui over to Leafa and took a

position in the center of the yard. I drew my fine iron longsword, which was

simply made but had a satisfying weight, and dropped my center of gravity. I

extended my left hand forward and pulled the sword back in my right until it

was over my shoulder—but the pre-effect of the sword skill did not arrive.

"Uryaa!" I shouted stubbornly, whipping the sword forward, but it merely

ended in a thrust. There was no bloodred Vorpal Strike flash, nor even a hint of

that giant jet-engine roar. I tried it again…and again. The result was the same.

"Kirito, this is really pathetic," Alice groaned.

"Y-yeah, I know that!" I snapped back childishly. I gave it a fourth try for good

measure.

Shwoaaaaa-shakiiiing!!

"Wh-whaaaa—?!"

Blazing crimson, the sword shot forward, dragging me behind it. I flew ten

feet through the air, then landed right on my chest. "Gwurf!"

In the upper left corner, my HP bar decreased the tiniest bit. I groaned, limbs

splayed out like a frog, until Alice rushed over and offered her hand.

"A-are you all right?!"

"Yeah…somehow…"

Once she'd helped me to my feet, I stared at the sword in my hand. Then I

looked to her and murmured, "That was it just now, right? Vorstrike…"

"I must say, I do not much approve of your real-worlder customs of

abbreviating everything," she said crossly. I gave her a hasty "My b," which

made her glare turn even icier.

"It did activate…I'll admit that," she said. "I wonder what it means…"

"You try it, too, Alice!" said Yui from Leafa's arms. Alice glanced over at her,

murmured her assent, then drew the sword from her waist. It had the same

design as my sword, so it had to have been Liz's work again.

I backed away until I was standing next to Leafa. Then Alice took a stance with

the blade held upright in front of her face.

Back in the Underworld, where she was born, the sword skills imported into

the system from SAO existed as "special techniques." That made her capable of

using a great variety of moves right away in ALO. But she seemed to prefer the

one-hit-kill types, rather than speedy combo skills. It seemed like she was going

to attempt the advanced One-Handed Sword skill Gelid Blade.

Her left foot stepped forward, and her sword jutted behind her to the right.

Normally, performing this action would cause bluish-purple effects to surround

the sword, but nothing happened.

Undaunted, Alice shouted, "Yaaaa!" and thrust the sword forward. It was a

tremendous slash, but no Gelid Blade resulted. She pulled the sword back and

traced that exact motion once again. Two, three, four times she attempted it, to

no avail. I was starting to wonder if the Vorpal Strike I pulled off was more a bug

in the system.

But then, around the seventh or eighth thrust, a light like blue fire burst

through Alice's sword. She stepped forward and slashed. A tremendous

cracking like the breaking of a glacier filled the air, and a bluish-purple path

flickered in the air. That was the effect of Gelid Blade.

"Huh? It worked!" exclaimed Leafa. I nodded eagerly. I couldn't tell if it was a

bug or a feature yet, but this suggested that if you stubbornly tried often

enough, you could execute advanced sword skills even if you didn't have the

required proficiency. The chances of success seemed no higher than 10 or 20

percent, however. That was too risky to try in a real battle, and I felt bad not

understanding why it was happening.

First I looked to Yui over in Leafa's arms—but she was just another player

now, with no special system access. I'd have to actually use my own smarts to

figure this out for once.

Then Yui suggested, "Papa, perhaps the cause of this anomaly is not the

player or item but the place."

I pointed at my feet and asked, "P-place? You mean this clearing has some

special properties or something?"

"No, not the clearing…"

Her eyes moved, and I followed them to the site of the repaired log cabin, lit

by the bronzed rays of the setting sun. I picked up on what she was suggesting

and trotted over to the building so I could tap the wall. The first line of the

properties window that appeared was Cypress Log Cabin, followed by the

names of me and Asuna, its owners, then a colored bar indicating durability. It

should have been fully restored this morning, but the numbers under the bar

right now read 12,433/12,500, suggesting that buildings in the world of Unital

Ring naturally degraded over time. That was unfortunate, but the pace seemed

to be around 120 points per day, so it should last for a hundred days even if we

did nothing to help it.

At the bottom of the window were four buttons, reading INFO, TRANSACTION, REPAIR,

and BREAK DOWN. I was certain I would never press either the TRANSACTION or BREAK DOWN

buttons, so I tried INFO. Alice, Leafa, and Yui leaned over my shoulders to watch.

The sub-window that sprang to life displayed a brief description of the house,

including numerical values like floor and storage space and defensive strength

against various properties. At the bottom was a field labeled SPECIAL EFFECTS.

That had to be it, I decided. There was just one item listed there. It read as

follows: Level-1 / Protection of the Forest: Within a radius of 100 feet of the

center of the building, the owner and any friends or party members have a small

chance of executing attack skills whose requirements are not yet met.

"Ahhh…that explains it," I murmured and rubbed Yui's little head. "Your guess

was exactly correct. Did this Protection of the Forest thing exist in ALO, too…?"

"No, this system did not exist in ALO," she said, shaking her head.

Leafa interjected, "Hey, see how it says 'level-1'? Does that mean there are

special effects that are level-2 and level-3?"

"I would…assume so. But I can't imagine how you would unlock those

effects," I said.

Alice glanced over and suggested, "Couldn't we build them into being? The

way we are building up ourselves."

"Like…raising the house's stats? How?"

"By increasing the rooms or fortifying the structure. When I built the cabin in

the woods near Rulid, I started with just a simple shack with walls and a roof

and built it larger from there."

"O-oh yeah? Interesting…"

My response was more than a little awkward, but I couldn't help that. Alice

spent months in that cabin taking care of me while I was in a catatonic state,

from what I was told. I didn't remember that time, except for the vaguest

memories of being fed with a spoon and being tucked into bed. The topic filled

me with a mixture of gratitude and embarrassment.

"A-anyway, this is clearly the cause of the advanced sword skills working. I

must have been really lucky that I used that Vorpal Strike and got it to work the

very first time last night."

"And that gives us one more thing to do," said Leafa to my confusion. She saw

the look on my face and explained, "Leveling-up the house! I'm so curious what

special effects are at level-2 and level-3!"

"Oh…right. Sure, that makes sense," I agreed, although I felt some resistance

to the idea of expanding the log cabin. I knew better than anyone else how

much love and work Asuna had put into this house, ever since the SAO days.

But Yui could see right through my hesitation. She stated, "It's fine, Papa!

Mama doesn't get hung up on appearances. So as long as the true nature of the

house remains, I don't think she'll be bothered at all!"

"What's its…true nature?"

"That's obvious! Being a place where you and Mama, and me, and Leafa, Liz,

Silica, and Sinon can relax and be at peace!"

"…Uh-huh. That's true," I agreed, nodding slowly. I rubbed Yui's head one

more time. "But…I think any expansion is going to be a long way ahead of us.

First we need to focus more on defending the whole lot…"

I took a wide view of the clearing, a space fifty feet across, smack in the

middle of deep, dense forest. The eastern half of the clearing was taken up by

the log cabin, and the western half was filled with large crafting stations like a

smelting furnace, a casting table, and a bisque firing kiln. These stations were

easy to create as long as you had the materials, but getting those materials was

a different matter. So I wanted to protect the entire clearing, if possible. While

we were at school today, Yui, Alice, and Asuna's pet, Aga, the long-billed giant

agamid, watched over the cabin. But if another disaster like the thornspike cave

bear or the pack of hostile players attacked, the three of them would not have

been successful.

The proud lady knight knew that as well and looked around the clearing with

me before opining, "First we'll want a wall around the outer edge of the

clearing. Preferably stone, not wood."

"True…but who knows how much stone that'll take, if we're talking about the

whole rim. If only we had the glorious Administrator here. She could build us a

wall of thick steel with the snap of her fingers, I bet…"

Mentioning the name of the living god who created the Everlasting Walls,

which split the human realm—all thousand miles or so—into four equal parts

using nothing but sacred arts earned me a chilly glare from Alice.

"Go ahead. Ask the pontifex to perform a menial task like that. She'll turn you

into a cricket."

"You sure? I feel like she'd help us out if we offered her a delicious piece of

cake or three."

Isn't that right, Eugeo? I thought.

With a pang, I shook my head to dispel the image of my late friend. Alice

brought us a message from Dr. Koujiro of Rath yesterday, a coded message

saying The twenty-ninth, at fifteen o'clock. The expensive cake shop. But the

true sender of that message was almost certainly not Dr. Koujiro. To learn the

truth of what she meant, I would have to go to a fancy café in Ginza at three in

the afternoon tomorrow. It occurred to me now that tomorrow was a school

day. To get from school in West Tokyo to Ginza Station, I'd have to take the

Seibu Shinjuku Line to Takadanobaba, switch to the Tozai Line subway, then

transfer to the Ginza Line at Nihonbashi. That was an eighty-minute trip, so I

couldn't possibly make it unless I ditched my afternoon classes.

Why would you pick that specific time? I wanted to yell. But that was for

tomorrow. For now, not having the almighty superpowers of the godlike

pontifex, I would have to collect the materials for our wall the slow and boring

way.

Fortunately, we already knew that you didn't have to stack rocks one at a

time to build a wall. Within the crafting menu for the Beginner Carpentry skill

was a listing for Crude Stone Wall. The adjective crude wasn't exactly appealing,

but we'd have to deal with it until the skill proficiency got higher.

"So…shall we go to the riverbed to look for rocks?" I suggested, closing the

cabin's properties window. Alice, Leafa, and Yui agreed to join me.

"While we're gone, we'll leave Aga to guard…Wait. Where did he go?"

I glanced around the clearing, but there was no sight of Aga, the long-billed

giant agamid. At first, I was afraid that his taming period had worn off, and he'd

gone wild again. Asuna would be furious! But just at that moment, there was a

characteristic "Quack!" from behind me. I spun around and saw Aga on the

southern path to the river, hopping along with Silica and Lisbeth in tow.

When the pair noticed me and Leafa, they trotted over to us.

"Kirito, what took you so long?! Did you stop somewhere to eat on the way

home?!" Liz snapped, fixing me with a glare.

Silica, meanwhile, smiled awkwardly. "Kirito has a lengthy commute. That's

just how long it takes him to get home."

Aga opened its bill and quacked. On its head was Pina, who squeaked, though

it was hard to tell which one of the two girls they were agreeing with. In any

sense, Aga was still clearly tamed and friendly.

"Where were you two just now?" I asked.

Liz rubbed Aga's neck and replied, "This little guy loses HP if he doesn't get a

couple dunks in the water throughout the day. So we went to the river and

collected some rocks while we were there."

"Oh, that's great. For being a lizard, this thing's pretty needy, huh…?"

"Papa, there are plenty of half-aquatic lizards in the real world, too. Like the

Mertens' water monitor or the Sulawesi crocodile skink," Yui noted promptly. I

murmured with surprise, but then I recalled that the first time we encountered

Aga, it was coming out of the river. And that duck-like bill was evidence that it

was aquatic in nature.

"Well, we need to dig a well pretty soon, then. There's so much to do!"

I shook my head and checked the clock in the lower right. It was 5:50 PM. I

couldn't stay in this dive all the way to dawn this time, so if I logged off at

midnight or at two in the morning that would give me a bit over eight hours. I

was almost feeling a little wistful for the days of SAO, when I could spend my

entire day tackling the challenges of the game.

A deep breath helped me dispel that thought. I was going to head to the river

for those stones when Leafa stepped in front of me, still carrying Yui.

"Big Brother, shouldn't we prioritize meeting up with Sinon instead? In the

long run, more hands will make the work go faster, and more fighting power

will be reassuring."

"Hmm. You're not wrong…," I said reluctantly.

At the after-school meeting, Sinon delivered several pieces of stunning news.

Numerous players from her home game of Gun Gale Online were converted

into Unital Ring as well. That wasn't particularly surprising, but the fact that

they were able to bring in guns was.

Of course, we ALO players brought our swords and spears in, so it stood to

reason that GGO players could have their weapons. That was only fair—but

theirs were guns. And in GGO, there weren't just gunpowder-based guns but

also optical guns that shot lasers. How did the mysterious mastermind of this

incident expect to manage the logical integrity of combining such wildly

different worlds?

But that wasn't something we needed to worry about for now. Sinon's Hecate

II was an ultrapowerful gun that was the equivalent of a top-tier thirty-word

attack spell in ALO. Apparently, she'd lost almost all her ammo, but if you could

have a gun here, there had to be a way to replenish them, and if we could meet

up with her, she'd be a huge benefit to our mutual defense.

But the biggest problem was…

"We don't even know which direction to find this village of birdpeople where

Sinon is…," I lamented, shoulders dropping.

"She said she didn't even notice the sound or shock wave of New Aincrad

falling," said Silica worriedly. "That would suggest the GGO players started

somewhere very distant from our initial location."

"Hmm…"

Meanwhile, Lisbeth opened her ring menu and tapped the MAP icon in the

lower left. The map it displayed was colored in with a much wider range than

mine or Leafa's.

"Let's see," she said. "This is the ruins where the ALO players started, right?

And New Aincrad's crash landing was here. The village of the Bashin is north of

that, and way to the northeast is this cabin…Silica and I walked here from the

village, but we didn't see any giant dinosaurs or centipede monsters like Sinon

described."

Silica nodded, then noticed something and ran her finger over the map. "But

when we were walking from the Bashin village, it started as wasteland and

gradually turned into grassland, and then forest once we crossed the river.

Sinon said her area was a desert with no water anywhere, so it seems like a

higher probability that she's in the opposite direction of the forest."

"Uh-huh…," murmured Leafa, Alice, and I. Silica had a good point, but even if

she was right about the direction, we couldn't go searching blindly without

knowing a rough distance. There were stamina points and thirst points to

manage here, in addition to HP, and that meant we needed plenty of food and

water to complete the trip.

No sooner had the thought entered my mind than I felt slightly conscious of

my empty stomach and dry throat. Thankfully, the game preserved the points'

status while we were offline, so my bars were down only about 20 percent for

SP and 30 percent for TP, but they would go quickly once we started working.

We had a nearby river for water and plenty of bear meat left for food, but we

needed a more stable source of that soon.

"We'll need to chop down some trees and till a field…assuming we can

actually do that in this game," I muttered.

"I'll add it to the list of things to do," Yui noted studiously.

"Th-thanks…Uh, so how's that list looking now?"

"I haven't put them in any priority, but it's currently looking like: build a

defensive wall, expand the log cabin, make weapons and armor for everyone,

raise levels, tame stronger monsters, dig a well, cultivate a field, meet up with

Sinon, and reach the land revealed by the heavenly light!"

"...…"

The group shared a silent look. The last one on that list would indeed have to

be saved for last, but everything else was a high priority right now.

"…Let's start with the defensive wall," I said, recovering my initiative.

Lisbeth nodded. "That's what we figured and why we brought lots of stones

back with us. I'll try to make a wall and see what happens."

"Thanks, that'd be great."

Liz shot me a thumbs-up, then closed her map and opened the skill window

instead. From the list of craftable items under the Beginner Carpentry skill, she

chose Stacked Rock Wall, bringing up a translucent light-purple ghost object.

Awkwardly, she slid the ghost along until it stopped at the boundary between

the clearing and forest.

"Can I make it here?" she asked.

"Hang on," I said, then walked up next to the see-through stone wall,

checking the placement and angle carefully. "Can you push it, like, six inches

back…and rotate a teensy bit to the right?"

"L-like this?" Liz angled her fingers slightly, and the ghost crawled forward.

When it was in just the right spot, I shouted "There!"

Liz squeezed her hand shut, and a number of gray rocks tumbled out of thin

air and landed perfectly in the place of the ghost wall. The actual wall that

resulted was about five feet tall and long and one foot thick. The rocks of

various sizes were packed without any gaps, so it didn't feel as slapdash as I was

afraid it would. Just to test, I gave it a push, but it didn't jar any rocks loose.

"This actually looks like it can help protect against monsters somewhat," I

stated, patting the wall.

Alice looked a bit conflicted. "True…but I doubt it will stop the charge of a

thornspike cave bear, and any player will be able to climb over."

"We'll just have to pray we don't have any teddy bears wandering our way for

a while. But as for the players…" I said, turning to Lisbeth. "How many of your

stones did you use for this block of wall, Liz?"

"Hmm. I used thirty favillite rocks—that's the most common one at the river

—and five pieces of rough gray clay."

"And how much do you have left of both of those?"

"A hundred twenty-something rocks and twenty clay," she replied.

Silica raised her hand. "I've got a hundred stones and fifteen clay, too!"

"Thanks, Silica. So that means we can make another seven blocks of wall with

what you two have on hand. Liz, test to see if you can put another section of

wall on top of this one."

"Okeydoke," Lisbeth replied and opened the window again. When she slid the

second ghost wall over toward the first, it snapped into place, initially latching

onto its right edge. When she tried to push it to the left, the ghost popped over

and stacked itself atop the first.

"Oh, I think it works."

"Awesome. Do that."

Da-doom! With another heavy rumble, the new wall fell on top of the first

one. Now it was ten feet tall. It wasn't perfectly impervious, but it would cause

all but the most nimble players to think twice before climbing.

Of course, in its current state, it was less of a wall than a very flat pillar. The

clearing was fifty feet in diameter, which made its circumference close to 160

feet. To circle the entire space, we'd want thirty-two blocks, then, which would

be sixty-four when double-stacked. I didn't even want to calculate how much

favillite we'd need for that…

That was when the door of the log cabin burst open, and Asuna leaped

through, wearing a white dress.

"Sorry, everyone! I didn't mean to be late!"

"No, Asuna, you've got good timing! What's sixty-four times thirty?!" I asked

promptly.

Asuna looked confused at first but immediately answered, "One thousand

nine hundred and twenty." Then she narrowed her eyes with suspicion and

asked, "Why…?"

"That's how many rocks we'll need to build that wall around the entire

clearing."

I pointed out the gray wall standing near the smelting furnace.

"Ohhh," she exclaimed, catching on.

"Big Brother, are you really not able to do that calculation in your head?"

murmured Leafa with concern.

We headed for the riverbed as a group and collected as much favillite and clay

by the light of the setting sun as we could. After returning to the cabin, Liz and I

spent an hour using our Beginner Carpentry skill to make sections of wall, one

after another. By the time we had finished placing a wall ten feet high around

the entire clearing, the sun had set all the way.

As a matter of fact, the wooden gates we built on the northern and southern

ends meant that the number of stones we used was a bit below Asuna's

calculated sum—but it was still a mammoth task. But the satisfaction of

finishing the wall was tremendous, and we celebrated with plenty of high fives,

even from Alice.

"It really feels so much more secure with a wall!" commented Silica once we'd

settled down a little.

"That's right," I agreed. "I wonder if the ancient Greeks felt like this when

they completed a wall around their cities."

"It's not quite as large as Athens or Corinth," snarked Asuna, but I just flashed

a grin back at her.

"You don't know that. We'll keep building and building until, eventually, it's a

city the size of Athens—or even Centoria."

Now it was Alice's turn to join the fun. "Oh? A bold claim. I am looking

forward to seeing it."

"I…I've got it under control," I boasted, thumping my chest, before quickly

changing the topic. "Anyway, that's one item off our list of tasks. Next up is…"

"Ooh! Ooh, ooh, ooh!" hollered Leafa, waving her arm. "I want a sword and

armor, too!"

"…Yeah, good point…"

With myself decked out in full iron armor, it wouldn't be fair to deny her that

request. Liz and Silica had leather armor and metal weapons they'd received

from the Bashin, but poor Leafa and Asuna were still wearing ubiquigrass

dresses and wielding a stone ax and a stone knife, respectively.

Fortunately, we had Liz, who'd inherited her Blacksmithing skill from ALO, so

the technical aspect was taken care of. The problem was all the ore we'd need

to smelt. We'd found a lot of ore in the thornspike cave bear's lair last night and

recovered some iron equipment from the PKers, but virtually all of it had gone

to repairing the cabin. We'd have to return to the bear's cave to get more ore,

but the owner had surely respawned by now, and it'd taken a desperate gambit

of dropping tons of logs onto it from the roof of the cabin to kill the first one.

That wouldn't work twice, I knew.

"Yui, did the Bashin mention where they got their ore?" I asked.

The AI was the only one of us able to understand the mysterious NPC

language, but she just shook her head. "I'm sorry, Papa. I wasn't able to learn

that information…"

"You don't have to apologize. It's my fault for forgetting to ask where to find

ore when they were showing us the source of silica and flax. We'll figure it out."

"That's right, Yui. Kirito will figure it out," Asuna said, picking up Yui and giving

her a nurturing smile.

Yui smiled back, but she still looked worried. "What exactly are you going to

do, Papa?"

"Beat the thornspike cave bear the orthodox way, of course…Though, hold

on." I turned to look at Silica, who was sitting to my right with Pina on her head.

"The best outcome would be to tame it, rather than kill it. That would probably

stop it from repopulating each time."

"What?! Tame a bear?!" she exclaimed, pulling back.

I grinned. "Asuna doesn't even have the Beast-Taming skill, and she turned

that duck-dino into a pet. You inherited the skill from back in ALO, so a bear

should be easy-peasy for you…"

"Unfortunately, Kirito, the skill I inherited was Daggers."

"What? Really? Your proficiency was higher in the Daggers skill?" I exclaimed,

surprised.

Silica pouted, pursing her lips. "Kirito, raising the Beast-Taming skill to a

proficiency of 1,000 is incredibly hard. From what I know, the only person in

ALO to max it out is Alicia, the master of the cait siths."

"Oh, I'm sorry for my ignorance…So that means Asuna actually has a higher

Beast-Taming skill at this point…"

I looked at her, but she just blinked and shook her head. "N-no, don't look at

me! I can't tame that horrible bear," she protested.

Even so, I was busy thinking of how to trick—er, convince—her to achieve

that feat when Silica announced, "I-if you're just going to force Asuna to

attempt something dangerous, I'll do it!"

Either she was feeling bold, thanks to the armor from the Bashin, or I'd

wounded her beast-tamer's pride. Asuna tried to say something, but Silica held

out her hands to push her back down. "No, Asuna, it's fine. I didn't see this

bear, but in terms of beast-taming, it's got to be a lower difficulty than bug-

types or demon-types. I'll work up my Beast-Taming skill again and bend that

beast to my will!"

It's probably not the kind of bear you're imagining, I thought. Asuna and Leafa

and Alice were probably thinking the same thing. Before anyone could say

anything contrary, I stepped forward and grasped Silica by the shoulders.

"Yes! That's the Silica I know—the idol of all beast-tamers in SAO! It's a huge

relief to hear you guarantee that!"

"Heh-heh-heh…I'll do my best," she replied, laughing self-consciously. Over

Silica's shoulder, I could see Asuna sighing, but I wasn't going to slow down

now.

"Asuna, can you teach Silica how to get the Beast-Taming skill? There was that

fox monster in the woods when we were on the way back from the river, so

that's probably a good practice target. Me, Liz, Alice, and Leafa will dig up a well

before we run out of TP again."

"That sounds good…but are you sure we can just dig wherever we want in this

game?" Lisbeth asked.

That gave me pause. In most VRMMOs, including ALO, it was impossible to

change the landscape of the wilderness. It would invalidate the map design,

after all, and players would be digging giant holes all over the place just to mess

with one another.

Unital Ring wasn't a normal game in many respects, but I had a hard time

imagining you could alter the terrain here…and I'd been thinking about this

yesterday, too. But on the other hand, in the Beginner Carpentry skill's

production menu was…

"Look…a well," I said, pointing at the opened menu for the others to see. Just

as I remembered from the list, there was an entry that said Small Stacked Rock

Well.

"Doesn't that mean it's like the smelting furnace, where if you place it, you

can have a well wherever you want?" asked Leafa, but I wasn't buying it.

"You really think it's that simple? If you can create a well anytime you want,

as long as you have the materials, that totally invalidates the point of the TP

bar."

"Don't complain to me—I didn't invent it. Anyway, why don't you just test it

out?"

That was a good point. I checked the type and number of materials needed

for the well: three hundred stones, twenty sawed logs, ten clay, fifty iron nails,

one iron chain.

"Ugh, we don't have anywhere near what we need. It's easy enough to get

the stones and the logs, but the iron…"

"It's not going to be easy," said Alice, shrugging. She glanced at the furnace.

"No matter what, we're going to need iron. It's going to take time for Silica's

beast-taming project to come through. Will we have to fight another thornspike

cave bear?"

"Hmm…In a normal game, I'd just go for broke and try to fight it anyway, but

now…"

I hemmed and hawed, and Alice and the others frowned.

In Unital Ring, dying meant you could never log in again. But it wouldn't spit

you back out in ALO, either. The VRMMO worlds stuck in the incident were

overwritten on the server side and effectively shut down to the public. Devs

attempted to roll back a few of the games, but even if the Seed program were

reinstalled, they wouldn't function, according to Argo. Under these

circumstances, even I, the triple-crown winner of insane, reckless gambles, was

not up to fighting the ultrapowerful thornspike cave bear.

"Iron…ironnnn…"

I folded my arms and stared up at the night sky. In SAO and ALO, iron

weapons and tools were in ready supply in even the earliest towns, so it never

felt that valuable. Monsters would drop tons of iron items, so I regularly threw

away whatever I couldn't carry. Now I wished I could go back in time to pick up

all that excess supply.

If I searched hard enough in the area nearby, I could probably find some iron

ore in a location aside from the bear cave. But considering the general rules of

game difficulty, it seemed that the rarity of iron ore was set to "strong enough

to defeat a thornspike cave bear with relative ease." I shouldn't expect a steady

supply of ore on the open sides of hills. The true Iron Age was not going to

arrive unless we could deal with that bear somehow.

"…Let's look for Sinon," I murmured. Alice, Leafa, and Liz glanced at me; in the

distance, Asuna, Silica, and Yui stopped talking about beast-taming to look my

way, too.

In the tense silence that followed, Asuna's voice was crystal clear. "I want to

meet up with Shino-non, too…but we don't know where she is or even what

direction to search. How will we search for her?"

"The Bashin people they came across might know something about the

birdpeople Sinon's with. We want info on ore anyway, so let's go to the Bashin

village and ask them," I said, looking at the rest of the group in order. "Asuna,

Silica, Alice, you stay here and protect the cabin. I'll go with Leafa, Liz, and Yui to

the village…How does that sound?"

"I understand that Asuna and Silica have the Beast-Taming skill to discuss, but

why are you leaving me here?" demanded Alice, sounding disgruntled.

"Because if you're here watching the house, I feel confident it's safe," I said

honestly.

"…In that case…I cannot argue. Very well…but I will insist on taking part in the

next expedition," she announced, turning on her heel and lining up with Asuna

and Silica.

Asuna put her hand on Alice's back, and in a crisp, clear voice that reminded

me of when she was the vice commander of the Knights of the Blood, she said,

"We will keep our home safe, so make sure you return home safe, too. That's a

promise."

"…It is," I agreed. Liz added, "We'll bring Sinon back with us!" and Yui rushed

over to hug Asuna. While that was happening, I opened my inventory to test

something I'd been thinking about.

I brought out the longsword Blárkveld, which I'd transferred over from our

home storage. My special sword from ALO was still too costly to equip; even at

level-13, I couldn't use it yet. With my window open, I walked toward Lisbeth.

"Liz…I hate to ask this after you made it for me, but could you melt down this

sword?"

"What?" the forger of Blárkveld exclaimed, stunned. "W-well, you're the

owner, so you can do what you want with it…but there's no guarantee I can

make you a sword of the same rank now that we're stuck in this world."

"I know that. But I think I'll need to get to level-40 or level-50 to use this

thing. If it's just going to waste away in storage, I'd rather melt it down and put

it to good use for the group."

"…Hmm. All right." She grinned, then reached for the black sword resting atop

the window.

"Oh, hold on! Remember, if you touch it, it'll fall to the ground, and then you

can't move it."

"Ah, right."

"Hang on—I'll put it directly into the furnace."

With my inventory still open, I walked over to the western side of the

clearing, opened the operating window of the smelting furnace, and dropped

Blárkveld inside. The sword floating in the air vanished, scattering motes of

light. Then I set firewood in the furnace's combustion chamber and let Lisbeth

take over from there.

The blacksmith briefly placed her hands together to pray for the sword she

forged herself, then used a flintstone to light the logs. Soon there were

flickering red flames inside, and a roaring sound escaped the furnace as they

burned furiously.

Last night, the iron ore began to melt in just a few dozen seconds after I set

the logs in the furnace, but Blárkveld resisted the flames for nearly two

minutes. But at last, molten metal shining white escaped the spigot and filled

the ingot mold. When it was full, the metal flashed and vanished so that the

mold could fill again.

It was only a one-handed sword in there, so I figured that getting ten ingots

out of it would be a success, but in Unital Ring, it seemed that high-ranked gear

also increased the number of materials you could salvage from it. The molten

iron flowed and flowed and only stopped after I had given up keeping track of

the count.

"…It's over," Lisbeth murmured, opening the furnace's window. "Let's see.

We got…sixty-two premium steel ingots, eighteen fine silver ingots, nine fine

meteoric iron ingots, six mythril ingots, and two black dragon steel ingots."

"Wowww…Some of those sound really rare," Leafa whispered with great

reverence. If Blárkveld gave us this much stuff, what would happen if I melted

down the Holy Sword, Excalibur, the other weapon I brought over from ALO?

Not that melting down the legendary weapon that I went through such trouble

to gain was anything but a last resort, of course.

Instead, I asked Liz, "Can you make equipment for Alice, Asuna, and Leafa

with this stuff?"

"Hmm…Remember, my Blacksmithing skill went down to 100, too. I might not

be able to use the fancier metal," she muttered with consternation, moving the

ingots to her own inventory, then sitting at the little chair in front of the anvil.

She dropped a premium steel ingot on the anvil's window and opened the

crafting menu.

"Oh, looks like I can just barely do steel weapons. So I'll make Alice's sword

first. Will a bastard sword do?"

"Yes, Liz. Thank you."

"You got it."

Lisbeth flashed the knight a thumbs-up and grabbed her smithing hammer,

then smacked the silvery-brown ingot that appeared atop the anvil.

As the hammer clanged against the metal, loud and crisp, I prayed that the

new swords about to be born turned out as sturdy and faithful as my lost

Blárkveld.