Chapter 6

"…I'm just not good at this sort of thing," I murmured, staring at the ability

screen.

Lisbeth finished drinking some water and groaned, "Just go by feeling. Leafa

and I did ours really quick."

"That's the problem. I'm not good at going by feeling," I mumbled, focusing

on the options.

In the center of the screen were four icons in a cross pattern. Clockwise from

the top, they were BRAWN, TOUGHNESS, SAGACITY, and SWIFTNESS. Each of those icons had

two lines extending farther in that direction toward more icons. Past BRAWN,

there was BONEBREAKER and STOUT. Past TOUGHNESS, there was PERSEVERANCE and ANTIVENOM.

Past SAGACITY, there was CONCENTRATION and LEARNED. Past SWIFTNESS, there was GALLOP and

DEXTEROUS.

Tapping an icon brought up a description of the ability. According to this,

Brawn gave a bonus to medium-and large-melee-weapon damage, equip

weight, and carry weight. Toughness gave a bonus to HP, TP, SP, and statusailment resistance. Sagacity gave a bonus to MP value and magic power.

Swiftness gave a bonus to ranged-weapon damage, small-melee-weapon

damage, and jumping distance.

In other words, the suggestion was that damage dealers should take the

Brawn ability tree; tanks should go for the Toughness tree; mages, the Sagacity

tree; and scouts, the Swiftness tree. As a user of a longsword, a midsize melee

weapon, that meant I should take Brawn without overthinking it—but it wasn't

going to be that simple. In a survival RPG, maximum HP, SP, and TP values were

crucial. I could envision myself nearly dying of hunger or thirst in the future and

wishing, If only I'd maxed out Toughness back then, at least once or twice, if not

a full ten times.

I sighed and asked my friends, "Anyway…what did following your feelings lead

you to pick?"

Lisbeth said, "I did Toughness," while Leafa added "Brawn for me," and Yui

chimed in with "I picked Sagacity!"

That one took me by surprise. "Sagacity…? Are you going to be a magic user,

Yui?" I asked.

"That's right! I want to be a battle mage just like Mama!"

"Uh…okay. That sounds reassuring."

Of course, the reason Asuna was feared far and wide as the Berserk Healer of

ALO was because of her incredible defense and evasion techniques, but I didn't

want to ruin any child's dreams, so I patted Yui's head instead. After all, there

was no way to rule out the possibility, and it was my duty to protect her,

regardless of what build she went with.

In that sense, perhaps a tank would be best, I thought, losing myself in choice

once again. When we'd left the cabin, there'd still been some sunset light in the

western part of the sky, but that was long gone now, replaced by dark clouds

that flowed in front of the faded stars.

"Hmm, if only I knew the effects of the second row of abilities…"

I could only read the descriptions of the currently selectable abilities, so I'd

have to actually make a choice to find out more.

Leafa was munching on some nuts across the way, and she asked archly,

"Have you considered asking us what they are…?"

"Huh…? Oh, d-duh…"

They had already picked their first ability, so they would be able to read the

description of the next options. I cleared my throat, feeling awkward, and

turned to the other three.

"If you don't mind the trouble, would you please tell me what comes next?"

"If you insist," Liz said with a sigh, opening her ring menu. "Let's see. The

abilities past Toughness are Perseverance, which gives a bonus to damagereduction when guarding, and Antivenom, which gives a bonus to damage-

reduction against poison, as you'd guess."

"Mm-hmm."

Next, Leafa checked her window. "The abilities after Brawn are Bonebreaker,

which provides a bonus to damage that ignores enemy guarding, and Stout,

which gives you decreased knockback when guarding."

"Hmm…?"

Yui didn't need to check her window first. "The abilities stemming from

Sagacity are Concentration, which gives a bonus to MP recovery rate, and

Learned, which increases proficiency gain of all language skills."

"Hmmmm."

Language skills probably referred to the skills that let you speak with NPCs,

but I wouldn't need that if Yui was around. I didn't intend to be a mage, so I

removed the Sagacity tree from my set of options. But even knowing what

came after Brawn and Toughness, it was hard to pick between them.

"Hmm. It sounds like Stout and Perseverance are fairly similar. Why are the

abilities for knockback-reduction and damage-reduction in different trees…?"

"Probably because Stout is intended to work for weapon guarding rather than

with shields?" Leafa suggested. "If you can block an attack without losing your

stance, you can counterattack that much faster."

I nodded. "So the Brawn tree isn't just pure offense, either…Maybe I should

take that one, too, then…"

"Can't you just take two of them?" Lisbeth asked.

"Mmm, I could," I admitted, "but it's always the case that if you master a

single tree rather than spreading the points around, you end up tougher in the

end."

"In that case, you should go for pure offense. That's the most like your style,

anyway," Liz said. Leafa grinned for some reason, and Yui nodded with a big

smile. I wanted to protest that I wasn't a pure damage dealer in SAO or ALO, but

all three of them seemed on the same page, and I doubted that Asuna, Silica, or

Alice would argue with it, either.

"…All right, but you guys are in support roles, then."

"Sure thing. We'll watch your back," Liz reassured me.

I touched the BRAWN icon again and then pressed the ACQUIRE button at the

bottom of the pop-up window. Another dialog box appeared, asking if I wanted

to expend an ability point. When I pressed the YES button, the window flashed

with a jingling sound, and the black-and-white BRAWN icon turned red.

That made Bonebreaker and Stout available, but each of them cost two ability

points this time. It seemed that each ability had ten ranks, so I had the option of

taking Brawn all the way to rank-10 before I took Bonebreaker, if I wanted. I

had eleven points left, but I didn't think I wanted to spend all of them yet.

After a bit of thinking, I went ahead and took Bonebreaker. That caused two

more abilities to appear past it.

One was Assault, which provided a bonus to additional strikes during

consecutive attacks. The other was Expand, which increased the span of area

attacks. As I suspected, each took three points to unlock. In other words,

getting to rank-10 in Brawn, Bonebreaker, and Assault altogether would take a

total of sixty ability points. And there were probably more abilities farther up

the tree.

"Boy, this is gonna take a while…," I muttered to myself, raising Brawn to

rank-5. That meant I'd used seven points, leaving me with five more. I went

back to my status screen, which showed the effect of Brawn now. The meters

displaying my current usage of the total equipment weight and carry weight

were a much lower percentage. There was a lot of water, food, and materials to

carry around in this game, so it was a good bonus to have, even if it was boring.

"…Okay, I've got my abilities," I announced, closing the window.

"How many points did you leave?" Liz asked casually.

"Five, I think?"

"Aha! At least five! I win the bet!"

"…Huh?" I gaped.

Liz thrust her hand out toward Leafa, palm up. Leafa then poured a pile of

nuts into her open hand. They'd made a bet about how many points I was going

to leave unspent?

"Thanks a lot, Big Brother! What's the point of saving up your points? Be a

man and make good use of them!" my little sister snapped, which seemed quite

unfair to me.

Yui rubbed my head in consolation.

Done with our meal break, we hopped down to the ground from our

impromptu safe zone atop the large boulder. Off to the southwest we

continued, eschewing any man-made light to walk by the weak light of the

stars.

We'd left the forest behind long ago; now there was nothing but dried

grassland around. Because it was night, the monsters we encountered were

nocturnal types, like hyenas and bats. They weren't pushovers, but they weren't

too hard, either. That was thanks to Liz's metal equipment, of course—I'd have

felt nervous about even leaving the woods with just the stone knife and

ubiquigrass clothing.

For drinking water, Asuna filled up some handmade pottery canteens from

the river, and we brought a bit of bear jerky to eat, but for the most part, we'd

need to rustle up some supplies along the way. The hyenas' meat was inedible,

even after being cooked, but now and then we found some short, rounded

trees with walnut-like nuts. They were tough to crack but tasted good once you

got them out. Two hours had passed since we left, but we were keeping TP and

SP at around 80 percent so far.

"Liz, how far to the Bashin village?" I asked Lisbeth, who was walking with her

map window open.

Over her shoulder, the blacksmith replied, "We're still only a third of the way

there. There are two huge trees up ahead, and that's basically the halfway

point, I'd say."

"Like how big? As big as the World Tree in Alfheim?" Leafa asked.

Lisbeth just grimaced and shook her head. "No, not that big. I'm not totally

sure, because the last time we saw them was also at night, but I'd guess they're

like three hundred feet?"

"That reminds me…When the Bashin passed a hill with a view of those big

trees, they stopped to pray," added Yui, who was walking hand in hand with

me.

"Oh, right! They did!" Lisbeth agreed.

"…Praying to the huge trees…," I repeated, thinking hard. Somehow, that

imagery stimulated something deep in my memory, but I couldn't tell what it

was summoning. I considered asking Yui to run that idea through her VRMMO

database but thought better of it. Yui was another player now, not a navigation

pixie, and what's more, she was excited about that. It wouldn't be fair of me to

continue treating her like a convenient AI tool.

Instead, I was going to ask them if they'd stopped and prayed with the Bashin,

but I got distracted by a cold, damp breeze from the north.

"Brrr. The night here is chilly for being a savanna…Aren't you cold, Yui?"

"No, I'm fine. Liz made armor for me, after all."

Indeed, Yui was no longer clad only in that little white dress; now she had on

a thin breastplate, plus gloves and boots in the same design. She still wore the

dress underneath these items, so it didn't look that warm. But Lisbeth's

Blacksmithing skill proficiency was at 100, so even reduced from before, that

was very high. Maybe she had worked a bonus against cold in there.

As for Lisbeth, she was still using the leather armor and one-handed mace the

Bashin gave her, and out of the ingots cast from Blárkveld, she'd only made a

small round shield for herself. Leafa, in contrast, had four pieces of metal

equipment, same as me, including a long katana that could be used in one or

both hands. Compared to our original stone gear, we'd transformed into a

heavily armed combat force. But despite all that, Leafa shivered and

complained the moment the northern wind hit us.

She turned back, whipping her golden ponytail behind her, and nimbly walked

backward to talk face-to-face. "Hey, Kirito, can you make a cloak or something

out of those hyena pelts?"

"Don't be silly. I don't even have the Tailoring skill."

"Then let's run! It'll make the trip go faster, too!"

"Uhhh…You might be able to run continuously because you get exercise in

your school club, but I just go home after school…"

"You know that doesn't matter in the virtual world!" Leafa snapped.

I realized my mistake and cleared my throat to hide my embarrassment. "Aanyway, running is just a waste of TP and SP. And we can't see the ground very

well, so it's dangerous…"

"But, Papa, we have torches!" Yui cried and removed a sticklike object from

her inventory. It looked like a tree branch with some dried grass wrapped

around the tip. The lights we used at the cabin were just dead branches, so this

was a step beyond that.

"Did you make that, Yui?"

"Yes, but it was Liz's idea."

"Ooh, that's a professional crafter for you."

"I'm not paying out for compliments," Lisbeth remarked, glancing over her

shoulder. "But…we should probably be ready to run soon. Last night the Bashin

told us that the…Giyoru Savanna, was it? It sometimes has ice storms, and

when that happens, you either need to wrap up with furs or find a cave.

Otherwise, you'll die."

"What?! Why didn't you tell me that earlier?!"

"Because they said it only happens once every few years."

"Okay, you of all people should know that in a video game, that means once

every few days…," I snapped.

But Yui, in a tiny, dejected voice, said, "I'm sorry, Papa. I heard them say it,

too, but I did not classify it as important information."

"I—I'm not blaming you, Yui. I mean, who ever heard of ice storms on a

savanna?"

"Hang on! What's with the difference in treatment here?!" Lisbeth fumed,

puffing out her cheeks.

Just then, there was a gust from the north again, and the four of us hunched

over simultaneously. It felt much colder than the previous one—and slightly

wetter. I looked at the sky and saw black clouds rushing from north to south

with great speed.

"…I'm getting a bad feeling about this," Leafa murmured. I offered a vote of

agreement and looked down at Yui. "Let's get that torch lit."

"All right."

Yui solemnly pointed the grass-wrapped end of the branch toward me. I took

a pair of flintstones out of my bag and struck them together. In the real world,

flint had to be struck against a piece of metal called a firesteel to create sparks,

but here, you just needed two stones. I struck them together, telling myself that

even if I didn't take the Sagacity ability tree, I was going to learn the fire magic

skill someday. On the seventh strike, the sparks landed true and began to burn

the dried grass.

I put the flintstones back in my bag and took the torch from Yui, holding it

high. The strong wind buffeted the flame, but it wasn't going to go out that

easily.

A quick survey around us did not reveal any likely places to find a cave; if

there was one nearby, the light wasn't strong enough to reach it. But it did

show us a tall, narrow silhouette like a rock formation to the east and some

gentle hill slopes to the west. Which way to go?

It wasn't a sure thing yet that an ice storm was going to sweep over us, but if

we waited until then to search for shelter, it would already be too late. If there

was a cave nearby, it would have to be at the rock formation, but it was shaped

like a spire, so any potential hollowed-out caves were unlikely to be deep

enough for us.

To my right, Yui cried out, "Something's coming from the north, Papa!"

"Huh…?"

I spun around, pointing the torch upwind, just as a huge, silent shadow slid

into the range of the light.

Pausing just five yards away, the shadow stayed low to the ground and

growled. This was not one of the hyenas we'd fought several times already. The

black-furred body was slender but far bigger than a hyena's, and its front legs

were burly by comparison. It wasn't a canine type but a feline…Based on the

rounded ears, it was probably some kind of leopard.

"Graaar!!" the black panther roared, its light-blue eyes watching the four of

us closely.

Why now?! I lamented. We couldn't run fast enough to get away from it, and

it was clearly feeling hostile toward the torch. I moved the torch to my left hand

and grabbed the handle of my sword.

"We're going to fight!" I shouted.

Leafa drew her weapon and stepped forward. Liz loosened her mace from its

fasteners. I whispered "Take care of Yui" to her, and she replied, "Don't worry.

I've got her."

Upon seeing my longsword and Leafa's katana, the panther bared its vicious

fangs. They weren't as big as a saber-toothed tiger's, but they were at least

three times as long as any real leopard's. Its pelt was dark as night, with a blue

luster that ran from its neck down its spine.

The black panther crouched lower, entering a leaping stance. It was targeting

me. I held my sword at my right shoulder, preparing to fight back with a sword

skill.

Then there was an earsplitting roar—not from the panther but from the wind.

A gust that made all the previous bursts of wind seem cute by comparison

blasted us. I had to tense my feet against the ground. Our valiant little torch

couldn't withstand this and finally went out, plunging us into darkness. Hard

pellets lashed my exposed face and hands. It was ice…hail.

Oh, hail no! I thought, although I didn't think anyone would have appreciated

the wordplay because, just then, the panther leaped.

I started to activate the sword skill Vertical on instinct but stopped myself

before I could plant my feet, and I spun around.

With incredible power, the panther jumped over all four of us, landing on the

other side. It wasn't targeting us. It just ran farther south.

"Um, do you think…it was just running away from the storm…?" Liz

wondered, just as the same thought occurred to me. If we were right, then

these icy gusts were merely the warning blast of a storm so dangerous that

even monsters fled from its path. It also meant the black panther had an

evacuation destination in mind.

"Let's go after it!" I shouted, sheathing my sword and grabbing Yui's hand. We

took off running, Lisbeth and Leafa close behind. The panther's silhouette

blended into the darkness, and if it got more than a few yards away, we'd lose

sight of it.

The torch was extinguished, so we couldn't see the ground. If any of us

tripped on a change in elevation or a stone, that was it for our chase. I could

only pray for real, actual luck during the pursuit. I considered scooping up Yui to

carry her, but as a player, her agility was bound to be close to my own, and she

was keeping up well.

For two minutes, we pursued the fleeing black panther. A small hill appeared

up ahead. The panther leaped toward the foot of the hill, then seemingly

vanished into it. When we arrived a moment later, there was a cave mouth

about three feet tall, dark against the hillside.

As soon as I stopped, hail struck my iron armor from behind, clanging off the

metal. The pellets were only a fraction of an inch in size now, but they were

bound to get worse. The temperature was dropping, too; my breath was

turning white.

I could also see that my HP bar was dropping, bit by bit. A blinking Debuff icon

shaped like an ice crystal at the right end of the bar told me all I needed to

know.

"Papa, let's go inside!" Yui urged. I nodded. The cave went much farther in,

and we just had to pray that the panther had gone as far as it could.

I let go of Yui's hand and drew my sword just in case as I approached the cave

mouth. I couldn't see anything inside. The wind was so strong that no torch

would last more than a second at this point. I steeled my nerves and bent down

to go inside.

The cave sloped gently downward, and the ceiling got higher as I proceeded.

The cave was small at the ground level, but it seemed that the full dimensions

expanded as it went down. I continued onward, feeling a bit relieved about

that.

After about thirty feet, the slope leveled out, and I stopped moving forward

and straightened up. The ceiling was high enough that I could reach upward

with my sword and not touch anything. It was quite a large space, then. There

was no sign of the black panther.

I checked on my HP bar, which had stopped decreasing and no longer had a

freezing Debuff icon. I exhaled and turned back around. The cave was pitchblack, with almost no visibility.

"Are you all here?" I whispered.

"Yes, Papa." "I'm here." "Sure am!"

Relieved, I started to put my sword back so that we could light the torch

again. But then I heard Leafa gasp "Wh-what's that…?" and spun around.

I still couldn't see a thing. But after squinting long enough, I got a message

that said Night Vision skill gained. Proficiency has risen to 1. And just like that, it

became a tiny bit easier to see in the dark.

And soon, I noticed it, too.

In the depths of the cave floated two blue lights. What is that? I wondered.

They went out, then lit again. Almost like a blink…

No. It was a blink. The eyes of the panther that had come in before us.

We'd been noticed.

"Grrrr…"

The beast growled, and the blue eyes rose higher, suggesting that the panther

went from lying on its side to a standing position. Obviously, its night vision was

far better than ours, so if this turned into a fight, we didn't stand a chance.

"Yui, light the torch," I murmured, holding the torch in my left hand behind

my back.

"Okay," she replied and took it. I was going to hand her the flintstones, but

before I could, there was a strange sound.

It was a high-pitched creaking, something that did not sound like it came from

the panther. Wary of the enemy ahead of us, I quickly spun around and saw

that tiny white particles were sweeping in from the mouth of the cave.

The moment the particles touched Lisbeth, who was the farthest back, she

sneezed loudly. Leafa shrieked, "It's cold!" and Yui moaned. Lastly, I shivered. It

was worse than just cold. The freezing Debuff icon was there again, and I could

see my HP dropping. We couldn't avoid the chill from the mouth of the cave at

this location. I could even hear the whistling of the wind, which sounded like

faint screaming. I didn't want to imagine what it was like out in the open.

"Big Brother, we have to go farther in!" Leafa urged nervously. I shouted back

"I know, but what about the panther?!" The monster in the back of the cave

wasn't attacking, but it continued to growl. It wasn't hard to imagine the beast

pouncing on us if we got any closer.

My HP bar had dropped 10 percent. At this rate, it would hit zero in less than

three minutes. I supposed that we'd just have to fight the panther, regardless of

the disadvantages…but then I remembered something we could still try out.

I dropped my sword back into my sheath and stuck my hand into my tool bag,

then removed a thin, flat object. It was the bear jerky Asuna had made for us.

The emergency ration was important, but I'd never need to eat it if I died from

the cold or the panther.

"C'mon, it's yummy! It's dinner!" I called out to the blue eyes in the darkness

and tossed the dried meat. It fell to the ground, attracting the attention of the

panther. It blinked. Then blinked again.

The blue eyes silently moved toward the meat. I sensed the panther sniffing

at the air. After several tense seconds, I heard a creaking sound. The black

panther had bitten the jerky. Instantly, there was a glowing ring in the darkness,

looking like a car speedometer. Around one third of it was full from the lower

left and colored red, while the end of it jittered up and down. That was the

beast-taming meter Asuna said appeared when she was catching Aga.

I pulled out another piece of jerky, my last, and tossed it forward. The panther

immediately grabbed it, and the meter rose another 10 percent.

"Give me your jerky."

I reached behind my back, and Yui promptly dropped a piece of meat into my

palm. Trying to sense when the panther was done eating, I hurled the third stick

of jerky. The meter went up farther to the halfway point. The first piece of jerky

put it at 30 percent, and the next two added 10 percent each. Yui should have

one piece of jerky, plus two each from Liz and Leafa, which should give us just

enough.

Trusting in my calculation, I continued tossing the dried meat to the panther.

For each bit of the beast-taming meter we pushed upward, our HP dropped. At

level-13, I had more overall HP than the others, who were only around level-4

or level-5. I could see on the party readout below my own HP bar that their

health was already under the halfway point.

Hurry, hurry, I prayed. But I had a feeling that the timing of food lures was the

key to beast-taming success in this game: Wait for the monster to finish eating

so that the meter was rising when you gave it the next piece of food. Any faster

or slower, and it wouldn't work.

Once I had given the panther the second piece of Yui's jerky, then both of

Liz's, the beast-taming meter was about 80 percent full. Asuna had given Aga

three pieces of bear meat to tame it, so this panther was much harder. Either it

was because we were giving it dried meat rather than fresh or because the

panther was a much higher level.

"Leafa."

"Okay."

She placed the ninth piece of meat in my palm, and I tossed it. The panther

gobbled it up, taking the meter to 90 percent.

"Leafa."

"That's all."

"...Huh?"

I spun around to face my little sister, whose silhouette I could only just barely

make out in the darkness. "What do you mean, that's all? Asuna gave us three

pieces each! And we each ate one when we stopped for a break, so we should

all have two…"

"I ate two, actually."

"Huh?!"

"I couldn't help it! I was hungry!"

"Wha…?"

I was aghast, but what was gone was gone. It was too late to get back all the

hyena meat we left behind, too. I had a feeling the panther wouldn't eat that

hideous-smelling stuff anyway.

The panther's beast-taming meter was now wavering around 90 percent. If

we did nothing and it started to drop, all of our effort and supplies would have

amounted to nothing.

I heard Yui whimper, "Papa…my HP…"

"Yui," I murmured, dropping the unlit torch and pulling my daughter closer so

I could wrap my arms around her. Even through her armor, I could tell that her

body was freezing cold and trembling. Her HP bar was down to barely over 10

percent at this point. I couldn't just let her freeze to death.

My mind was made up. I inched forward, holding Yui. Getting farther away

from the entrance eased the cold, but the black panther started to growl again.

The beast-taming meter, still wavering, started to shift into a negative trend.

There was no food left to give. But food couldn't be the only way to lift that

meter.

"You don't have to be afraid…I'm not your enemy," I whispered to the beast

as I approached. The panther's growling got louder, but it was neither fleeing

nor attacking for now.

I closed within six feet…three feet…two feet. At this distance, I could finally

see the creature's outline. Its head was low, ready to pounce at any moment.

The beast-taming meter was down to 80 percent.

Ready for it to be bitten off, I extended my hand. When I touched the

powerful neck of the panther, its body jolted.

"There you go. Good boy…"

I brushed its luxurious fur with my fingertips. The growling did not stop. The

meter was still dropping, bit by bit. But if I showed any fear now, the panther

was sure to attack right away. I continued to stroke it with my right hand,

holding Yui in my left. The panther's muscles tensed, relaxed, then tensed

again.

"Grrr…rrrrr…"

As the growling got lower, the panther's head followed. Was it a sign of

impending attack or something else?

"Rrrr…grorrr…"

The constant rumbling in the giant cat's throat had changed somewhat. It was

more of a rolling sound now, like a giant version of a cat purring.

At last, its powerful neck muscles relaxed, and the beast-taming meter

stopped descending and began to rise once again. The black panther rolled onto

its side and allowed me to pet it. The meter hit 80 percent and then went past

90.

"There you go…Good boy…," I whispered, reaching back with my other hand.

Leafa had seen Aga get tamed and knew to hand me a rope of ubiquigrass.

Annoyingly slowly, the beast-taming meter finally reached its full length, and

that was when I looped the end of the grass around the panther's neck to form

a circle. With tense fingers, I closed it tight, and the big cat's body flashed,

summoning a green circle over its head. Underneath the ring-shaped HP bar

was the species name: Lapispine Dark Panther. There was also a message for

me: Domestication skill gained. Proficiency has risen to 1.

So it's a dark panther, rather than a black panther. Okay. But what does

lapispine mean? I wondered, though there was no time for that now. I shouted

"Huddle around the panther!" to Leafa and Lisbeth, and pressed Yui against the

neck of the beast. The other girls draped themselves over the thick, soft fur on

its stomach.

The cat's body temperature was high, and the warmth bloomed through my

near-freezing skin. I exhaled with relief. My HP stopped dropping, and the

freezing Debuff icon disappeared. The icy particles were still streaming in from

the entrance, but they didn't reach the back of this little cave.

Feeling secure at last, I asked a question to no one in particular.

"…What does lapispine mean? Like intestine?"

Leafa rubbed at the bluish part of the panther's back and replied, "Probably

because of this lapis-blue patch on its spine, right?"

"Oh…lapis spine…"

Lisbeth asked, "So what are we calling it?"

"Hmm? Well…it's black, so it should be Kuro," I said after two quick seconds

of consideration. Leafa and Liz cried out "That's so boring!" in unison. But Yui

said, "It's simple and good." I decided to ask the creature in question.

"It's a good name, right, Kuro?"

The black panther barked, "Graar!"