Chapter 10

It was 1:35 PM the next day, Tuesday, September 29th.

I stood on the Seibu Shinjuku express train, fighting off the sandman.

If possible, I would have loved to make good use of this time to zonk out and

catch up on some sleep, but that wasn't possible—because sitting next to me

was the mysterious new transfer student Tomo Hosaka, aka Argo the Rat. If I

fell asleep and leaned on her shoulder or, even worse, drooled on her, I'd never

live it down for years to come.

So instead, I was desperately fighting back against the power that compelled

my eyelids to shut. A mirthful voice said, "You seem sleepy, Kiri-boy. Want

some eye drops?"

"N-no, I'm good. And what is it with you and wanting to give people eye

drops?"

"Not just anyone."

"Oh, okay…Well, why are you following me, then?"

"Hey, that's kinda cruel to say to the person who taught you the secret life

hack to gettin' out of school without ditching, huh?"

"Hrmm…"

Well, she had me there.

To make the arrangement to be in Ginza by three o'clock—a task that was

nigh impossible for a high schooler—I was planning, despite my reservations, to

ditch fifth and sixth periods. But when I mentioned that to Argo before the start

of school, she informed me that I could get out of afternoon classes by applying

for a workplace visit with the school.

Of course, I'd need an electronic signature from the business to be visited, but

I had the man who was summoning me whip up something for that. The school

accepted the application, so I wasn't branded with being delinquent from class,

although it didn't change the fact that I was missing lessons. If this ended up

being a waste of time, I was going to make full use of it by stuffing myself to the

gills with expensive cake.

"I hear ya had a hell of a time last night, huh? Your base got attacked by a

huge raid party?" Argo asked me out of nowhere.

"...…How did you know that?" I asked after a healthy pause.

"A player who was takin' part in it was tweetin' all kinds of details out. The

account was private, but that means nothin' to the great Argo."

"No way…"

I was muttering about the player tweeting out details, of course, not about

Argo's information-collecting ability. It wouldn't be long before every former

ALO player still alive in Unital Ring knew about our base.

I stifled the urge to sigh and replied, "Yeah, it was a hell of a thing. They were

intending to wipe out our base from the very start. We managed to make it

through because they didn't have magic, but if they had two or three mages, we

would have lost." I paused, then considered what I had just said. "In fact…how

did they have so many players, and none of them with magic? There should

have been a bunch of players who inherited magic skills at the start of the

game…"

"Ya can't use magic skills just by inheriting them into the game."

"Huh? Really?"

"The skill will show up in yer list of acquired skills, but it's inactive. Ya gotta

use a magicrystal to unlock it. Once people figured that out, they went crazy

looking for monsters that drop magicrystals around the Stiss Ruins starter

area."

"Uh…uh-huh," I replied awkwardly. Then I hastily added, "But isn't that

putting a huge handicap on magic classes? You might as well be beginning

without any skill head start at all."

"I agree with ya. But if they didn't put any limitations, the magic skills woulda

been way overpowered, I bet. It'd mean that in those first four hours before the

grace period wore off, you'd have all the top-class devastating magic spells at

your disposal, ya know? They could power-level on tough mobs and waste all

the other players."

"Ahhh…Yeah, I get that…"

The MP recovery probably wouldn't allow for unlimited magic blasting, but if

you gained enough levels, that wouldn't matter anymore. Like Argo said, if they

hadn't placed those limitations, Unital Ring would likely be a mage-centric

battleground by now. But even still, having to find and eat a magicrystal after

your skill proficiency was lowered to 100 seemed a bit too restrictive to me.

The express train arrived at Kami-Shakujii Station, dropped off just a few

passengers, then began moving again. Knowing the morning and evening rush

hours, I had trouble imagining how these cars could be so empty. The afternoon

sunlight shone through the windows and created a lattice pattern on the floor.

Relaxing on the bench seating was making me sleepy again.

Ultimately, I stuck around until five last night—er, this morning. I did my best

to live up to my promise to create the town in four hours, but it took one hour

to gather the materials for the well, then another hour to find the plants to

make our crop fields, and that just delayed the rest of the plans further.

But we worked hard together and managed to create something that

resembled a town—at least, by video game standards.

We'd cut down parts of the forest outside the fifty-foot walled perimeter

(which was easy because most of those trees had burned in the attack) and

created another circular wall, dividing the interior into four separate areas. The

eastern area was the living quarters for the Patter, the western area would be

for future NPC settlers, the southern area was for commerce, and the northern

area would be fields and pet stables. The western area was just a stone

foundation for now, and there wasn't a single shop in the southern area yet,

but it was looking much more like a town already. It wasn't until Alice pointed it

out that I realized the circular four-quarter construction was exactly the same

structure as Centoria in the Underworld—though our town was only two

hundred feet across, smaller than a single district in the city of North Centoria.

Even still, in a single night, we managed to whip up an erstwhile town that

was much better than I'd envisioned, much of which was thanks to Silica's new

partner, Misha. Asuna used her Tailoring and Woodworking skills to fashion a

large beast pack for Misha, giving it a seemingly infinite carrying ability for all

the stone and logs we needed. Of course, the harder you worked a pet, the

more its SP bar drained, so acquiring enough food to keep it going was an issue.

But thanks to a fishing net that Asuna made and some additional proficiency in

the Net-Casting skill, the river to the south actually started turning up some

good-sized fish. Aga and Kuro loved the grilled fish, too, so that was a good

solution to the problem of feeding our pets for now.

After that, the only question was whether this would create a sense of

aversion and intimidation among the players who were likely to try attacking us

in the future again. I certainly wouldn't ever want to do something like that, but

some people might only find it a more enticing target this way, so we would just

have to wait and find out. Perhaps there were new attackers sneaking toward

our town at this very moment, while I was being rocked to sleep by the train.

The problem is this Sensei character…

I rested my head against the pole at the end of the seat, thinking about the

player who might be behind the string of invasions. The evocation of a teacher

of PvP (PK) tactics made me think first of PoH, leader of Laughing Coffin, the

murderous guild in Aincrad. But his fluctlight had been irrevocably damaged in

the Underworld, so it was hard to imagine him showing up in Unital Ring and

getting involved with PKing for fun. Plus, the whole mental instruction about

"grasp the whole, not just one part" was not PoH's style. What he taught was

how to lie and mislead people and give them poisoned water to drink.

So who was this Sensei…?

"Hey, Argo," I said. Her head was resting on my left shoulder, and it rose with

a grunted "Nwuh? Wh-what…?"

"That locked account you saw. Did they say anything about why they attacked

our base?"

"Hmm? No reason…I think the most he wrote was that a salamander friend of

his invited him."

"Uh-huh…"

The salamander in question had to be Schulz. Which meant that he might

have been the only person in contact with this Sensei.

Kirito…you're…really…

Those were Schulz's last words before he left the game for good. It had been

an entire night since he said them, but I still had no idea what was supposed to

come after "really." Of course, Schulz wasn't really dead, so it was possible I

could use real-world means to make contact and hear what he meant to say…

"Hey, Argo."

"I'm gonna start charging you for my services."

"I'll buy you an expensive piece of cake in Ginza. Anyway…you have any idea

what player in ALO might go by the title Sensei?"

"Yep."

I was stunned. The last thing I expected her to do was say yes.

"A-are you serious?" I asked, staring between those curls at her face.

"Yep. Though they usually call you the Black Swordsman, instead."

"..."

I snorted. It was certainly an answer but not the one I wanted.

"Forget that guy. Anyone else come to mind?"

"Hmm," she murmured but eventually shook her head. "Nope. Can't think of

one. Seems like a number of ALO players who converted into UR have formed

new teams of their own, so it could be the leader of one of 'em. I'd have to look

into it to find out."

"When you say 'teams,' you mean like a guild?"

"A bit looser than that. More like groups based around sharing intel. They

make up silly names, like the Absolute Survivor Squad, or the Announcer Fan

Club, or the Weed Eaters, or the Virtual Study Society…"

"Yeah, those are pretty goofy…Anyway, can you look up who's leading those

groups?"

"That's gonna cost ya more than a single piece of cake." Argo pouted, though

her cheeks looked strange without the characteristic whiskers painted on.

"Hang on, Argo. At the meeting yesterday, you said you hadn't logged in to

Unital Ring yet. How do you know so much about what's going on inside?" I

asked.

"If you're thorough about collecting all the information being traded online,

you can figure out most things. Back in the SAO days, I had ta walk around and

collect all of that myself. Nowadays it's so much easier, I'm back to gaining

weight," she joked, but it was clear to see beneath her jacket and uniform that

her torso was just as skinny as it had been in SAO. I wanted to call her bluff and

tickle her stomach but had to remind myself that she wasn't just the

androgynous Rat anymore but a young woman one year above me in high

school.

"Buuut," she drawled, "I'll admit that I'm thinkin' of loggin' in at last. Will you

offer me an armed escort from the start point to your base, Kiri-boy?"

"Well…I did want to check out what the Stiss Ruins look like, so I guess that's

fine…"

"Great! Tonight, then!"

It seemed like today's adventure was going to be another long one, I realized,

looking up at the information panel over the train doorway. We'd just left

Saginomiya Station.

We got off at Takadanobaba Station, changed lines, then finally reached

Ginza, where the streets were bustling, despite its being a weekday. There were

rich ladies in fine clothing and foreign tourists all over, which made me feel the

slightest bit out of place in my school uniform.

We marched down the main street, its sides bristling with flagship stores of

expensive luxury brands, and entered a distinctive red building at an

intersection on the seventh block. The place we were heading was on the third

floor. When we got off the elevator, the classical music playing made it

immediately clear what a fancy place we were visiting, but I used my

Incarnation power to dispel its intimidation before walking through the door.

"Welcome. Table for two?" asked a waiter, bowing deeply. I told him we were

meeting someone and glanced around the spacious café.

From a window-side table in the back came a loud, impolite voice. "Hey!

Kirito! Over here!"

I wanted to grab him and demand, Are you doing this on purpose?! Instead, I

quietly hurried across the floor toward the source of the voice.

It was still five minutes to three o'clock, but the man with the dark-brown

suit, flashy striped tie, and black-framed glasses was already half-finished with

his fruit sandwich.

The first time I'd met Seijirou Kikuoka, he was a member of the Ministry of

Internal Affairs; the next time, he was a lieutenant colonel of the Self-Defense

Force; and now, I had no idea what he was, besides being the sketchiest person

I knew by far. He grinned and raised a hand in greeting—but when he saw Argo

standing next to me, his grin vanished, and he blinked in surprise.

"Hmm…Well, take a seat for now."

We sat across from him while the waiter set down glasses of cold water for

us. Kikuoka exhaled, grumbling.

"So if this isn't Asuna or Suguha or Shino…who is this young lady, Kirito?"

But before I could open my mouth, Argo smirked and replied, "I believe you

already know me quite well. At last we meet, Chrysheight."