A little over a minute later, the giant spider monster [Nefila Queen] burst apart into shards of polygons. This time, I caught Kirito making a small fist pump, so I figured he must have gotten the LA.
Well, one of the biggest joys for players was getting loot, so I wasn’t exactly in any position to say otherwise.
And as if his luck wasn’t good enough already, Kirito had picked up an item called [Queen Spider Venom Fang], which meant we now had a real shot at clearing the next quest too.
"Then everyone else, get some rest. Kibaou’s group will probably head back to the Second Floor before long, and when they do, we’ll slip out."
The raid on the giant boss mob had actually been fairly short, but maybe because the tension had been so high, Asuna and Kazuha both nodded with apologetic looks. Kirito naturally started to get up to come with me, but I raised a hand to stop him.
"You rest too, Kirito. If anything happens, we might need you to take command."
"...It just feels like I’m dumping too much on you..."
"Then I shall accompany you."
Kirito still looked too guilty to back down, so Kizmel, who had been quietly watching us, suddenly stood and offered to join me.
At that, I noticed Kazuha make a brief, flustered face... though honestly, she didn’t need to worry about it.
"You’re not tired, Kizmel? You were fighting pretty enthusiastically back there."
"If this much exhausted me, I would have to resign from the Strange Flowering Tree Order."
Kizmel looked utterly unconvinced by the idea, and I let out a small laugh and nodded. Unless it was one of those quests where Kizmel specifically had to die, she would know her own condition better than anyone.
Without another word, I stepped out of the room, and Kizmel followed right after me, matching my pace.
Once we had put enough distance between ourselves and the others, Kizmel opened her mouth as though she had been waiting for exactly this chance.
"Kazuma, you are impressive. The split-second command you showed earlier... I thought it was excellent, personally."
"Enough with the compliments. I could only do that because they’ve spent a decent amount of time with me already. And the method itself wasn’t anything complicated."
"Of course, I know that. But what I mean is this: for an ordinary human—no, even among elves—it is rare to remain as unshaken as you were in such a sudden situation. You are very different from others your age."
"...You’re not wrong. I’ve lived a life that was a little different from most people."
"Oh? If it is not too rude, may I hear about it?"
"...You really don’t hold back, do you? It almost feels like you followed me out here because you were waiting to ask that."
"You noticed at once. To be honest, even if not the others, I have taken a great interest in you."
At the same time she said that, Kizmel took hold of my shoulder and gently guided me toward the wall. I didn’t think I’d done anything to her that would make her act this directly, though...
She was a different kind of beauty from Asuna and Kazuha, so any guy would naturally get flustered here, but I barely managed to hold myself together by forcefully reminding myself that she was an NPC.
"...I’m honored a beautiful woman is interested in me, but aren’t you forgetting why we came out here?"
"Kazuma... please do not casually raise flags with NPCs..."
I could practically hear Elia sigh as she immediately cut in.
"It is fine. My [Spatial Awareness] is rather good. I already confirmed they went down toward the Second Floor."
"Got it... but still, could you let me out of this pose? It’s kind of embarrassing."
"That is good to hear. Then enduring my own embarrassment to try it was worth it."
Maybe because her skin tone was dark, it was hard to notice at first, but there was definitely a red flush on her face. No, seriously, Mr. Kayaba? Did you actually put affection settings into the AI? Is this a dating sim now?
"And the flag really did get planted, too..."
"No, she approached me first, so I just tossed out a joke. How was I supposed to know it’d actually go like this?"
Elia let out an even deeper sigh in a tone of utter disbelief, and I hurriedly shot back at her. At the same time, I forced the corners of my mouth into an awkward smile.
"...It’s nothing special. My mother died a long time ago, and my father passed away recently. After that, I just lived by doing work that was a little different from what other kids did."
"...Has your heart grown so dry that you can speak of such sorrow so calmly?"
It was more or less the reaction I had expected. I hadn’t said it to deliberately draw sympathy, but seeing Kizmel’s face twist with pain still made me feel a little bad.
"Not really... It’s just that where I came from, I wasn’t the only one living like that."
"I see... Then the place where you lived must bear very deep karma indeed."
"...You don’t need to make that face. Just treat me like you always do. That’s enough for me."
"Understood... I am sorry for asking such a difficult question."
"It’s fine, really."
Waving a hand, I started walking back toward where Kazuha and the others were waiting. Somehow, Kizmel’s footsteps following behind me sounded a little heavier than before.
Once Kizmel and I returned, I immediately suggested we head out, and the group left the cave and crossed back through the forest.
"Hey, that boss spider from earlier. How many minutes would it take to respawn?"
Kazuha asked, probably only now realizing that we had killed it ourselves.
"No idea. I usually don’t think about farming boss mobs again, so I don’t really know the repop timer."
"At that size, with the cave filled to the brim with spirit power, it would take at least three hours before a new master could be born there," Kizmel said at just the right moment.
From her answer, I picked up another new word: spirit power. Usually, in fantasy worlds, magic used mana. So what exactly was the difference between mana and spirit power here?
Just as my thoughts started sinking deeper and deeper into that question, Asuna pulled me back out with a slightly annoyed voice.
"...I don’t know. It kind of irritates me that we ended up helping those people without them even knowing it."
"Hahaha. There is a saying: 'The forest sees good deeds, and the insects see evil ones.' Surely the Great Sacred Tree will bless all of you."
"...R-right. In the human lands, there’s a saying for that too. 'Kindness comes back around to you in the end.'"
"Oh? I shall remember that."
"Doesn’t it not really matter, Asuna? We handled our own quest our own way, and like Kizmel said, maybe someday we’ll be the ones getting help from someone else."
"Ugh... I know that, but still..."
That was probably the best way to put it. She understood it logically, but couldn’t quite accept it emotionally. Seeing Asuna lightly bite her thumbnail in frustration, I decided to offer what I considered a helping hand.
"Try thinking of it another way. Like, we stole the Queen Spider from them and took it down ourselves, so technically we interfered with their quest."
"That sounds kind of like self-hypnosis... but thinking of it that way does make me feel a little better!"
"Ah... Asuna really is super sadis— Hrk?!"
Kirito, still nowhere near capable of controlling his mouth, let his thoughts slip out again. He clamped a hand over his lips in a panic, but Asuna—looking every bit as terrifying as the Second Floor boss—drove a vicious kick straight into his side.
Maybe it was because we had avoided as much fighting as possible, but we made it back to the camp on the south side of the forest much faster than we had on the way to the cave.
After pushing through the thick fog created by the [Forest Veil] spell and entering the valley encampment, we were finally able to relax, if only for a moment, from the tension of battle.
Each piece of armor I took off felt heavier than I had expected, and with every piece I removed, it felt like some of the weight on my mind lifted too.
As we stored our equipment away in our inventories and watched it vanish one item at a time, Kizmel once again gave us a look of wonder before turning her gaze deeper into the camp.
"...Would you deliver the crest we found in the cave to the commander for me?"
"Hm? I don’t mind, but are you sure you don’t want to come with us?"
"Ah, that is... The scout who lost his life was related by blood to the commander... I would rather not be present for that report. Forgive me for saying something so selfish."
As Kizmel lowered her long eyelashes, I suddenly remembered the mention that her younger sister, Tilnel, had died. Maybe she had overlapped the commander and that scout with her own situation.
"It’s fine. Everyone has things they’d rather not go through. We’ll make the report."
"...What are you going to do now, Kizmel?"
Asked about her plans by Kirito, Kizmel thought for a moment before answering.
"I will rest in the tent for a while. If you need my help, call for me at any time."
As she took a step back, Kizmel’s HP bar in the upper left vanished in response. So that was it for now—the party was disbanded. Until the quest continued, this was a temporary farewell.
As Kizmel walked away deeper into camp, her armor clinking softly, her back somehow looked lonely.
Maybe the others felt the same, because every one of them wore an expression full of regret and reluctance.
"Hey, Kazuma... is this really the end for Kizmel?"
Kazuha’s question carried a lot more than just those words, so I shook my head from side to side.
"Hard to say, but judging by the flow of things, if she’s really an irregular case, then unless something major happens, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her."
Maybe that gave them at least a little comfort, because they seemed to let out small breaths of relief.
"Then let’s go report the quest."
What had started as a small experiment out of simple curiosity had now returned to me in the form of Kizmel—a full-fledged companion.
And this change would definitely send the quest down a path very different from before. Holding that thought in my heart, I pressed down the edge of my hood and spoke.
Once we got back to camp, we went straight to turn in the quest. According to Kizmel, the crest item belonged to a relative of the vanguard commander...
Maybe it was because he was an NPC. Or maybe his emotions were just faint to begin with. Or maybe...
Maybe, compared to Kizmel, his AI was simply less advanced, so his emotional fluctuations were much weaker.
People judge and perceive others according to the assumptions they already believe.
To me, the commander’s behavior just looked emotionally lacking in a mechanical sense. But to Kirito and Asuna, he seemed like a stoic man hiding deep grief, judging by the way they both wore gloomy expressions beside me.
But of course, the commander had no way of knowing our inner thoughts and moved immediately on to issuing the next quest.
Fortunately—or maybe unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it—thanks to Kirito’s sharp eye, when we brought out the [Queen Spider Venom Fang] item we had gotten from the boss, the commander showed a slight look of surprise—or at least, it looked that way—and the clear condition was immediately fulfilled.
In the end, we completed Campaign Quest Chapter 2 - [Subjugation of the Venomous Spider] in a single dungeon run.
We then accepted Chapter 3 right away, and since Kirito already knew the reward options, we all chose the item pouch with its much larger storage capacity, thinking ahead to what was coming next. The col and experience were, as expected, far better than what normal quests gave.
"Ugh... it’s finally morning. Come to think of it, we basically pulled an all-nighter."
"Don’t exaggerate. You’re the one who came back after fooling around with Kizmel."
"...Ugh, I wasn’t fooling around..."
Kirito shrank back and mumbled his defense, but given how things had looked, anyone who didn’t know the details would absolutely think that. At this rate, it felt like he was going to be under Asuna’s thumb for a while again.
"Mm... Kazuma, aren’t you tired?"
Kazuha rubbed her eyes as she asked me, clearly exhausted herself. Well, she was just an ordinary student. After staying up all night and pushing her body this hard, of course she’d be tired.
"Like I said before, I’m used to staying up all night. You’re the one who should maybe get some sleep somewhere. In a tent, maybe."
"Mm... no, I’ll hold out. This kind of thing might happen a lot from now on, and I don’t want to drag the team down."
"There’s no reason to force yourself to endure a normal physical need. You’re not the one in the wrong. This world is."
"Even so, if we can’t escape yet, then I think we have to adapt to it for now."
I could feel the sincerity in her words as Kazuha’s steady eyes met mine. They were slightly bloodshot from fatigue, but the resolve inside them shone all the same.
"She does have a point," Elia said.
"She does, but that doesn’t automatically make it right... I just wish she wouldn’t push herself too hard."
"Oh? You care more than I thought."
"Are you really not going to stop talking like that? And if you get too hung up on tidy little correct answers like this, you end up missing the most important premise of all."
"And that premise would be...?"
"...Surviving."
For an instant, the mood sank again. Of course, that was only inside my own head. Around me, everyone else was still chatting noisily enough, but my body felt utterly still.
"...I see. Forgive me for offering such shallow insight, Kazuma. That was careless of me."
"It’s just a difference in values. You don’t place much weight on human feelings or emotions, so you pursue pure efficiency above all else."
"That’s not necessarily a bad thing. For someone like me, that approach can actually be extremely effective."
"But for people who came here from ordinary lives, their starting line is way farther back. They’re not even mentally prepared to do that properly yet."
After finishing that exchange, I let out a breath and nodded.
"...All right. But if you start feeling sleepy at all, you have to tell me. If your fatigue parameter gets too high, there’s no telling when you might collapse."
"Okay. I promise I will!"
Once that conversation ended, Kazuha and I turned toward Kirito and Asuna. It looked like they had finished talking too, because they started walking over to us.
"Kazuma, Kazuha. Want to come to the blacksmith with us? I’m thinking of getting a new sword made, and the rest of us should probably reinforce our gear, repair durability, or at least get everything checked over."
"Good idea. Let’s go."
The blacksmith, huh... Come to think of it, there was a skill I needed to get there too...
With that drowsy thought drifting through my head, I quietly followed after Kirito’s group.
We reached the small commercial area set a little apart from the center of the dark elf camp and headed for the one tent among the four that flew the blacksmith’s banner.
Along the way, I caught sight of armor and accessories on display, and even at a glance they looked less like ordinary gear and more like rare items. I passed them by without even letting myself hope. From the look of it, they were way beyond what players at our level could use anyway.
When we finally stopped, the smith who greeted us was not the burly dwarf one might expect from a typical fantasy world. No, fitting for a dark elf camp, the blacksmith here had a slender face and elegant features.
The only thing that matched the image in my head was the classic black leather apron and the gloves that reached up to the elbows.
Still, between the arrogant aura unique to a master craftsman and the high-grade smithing hammer in hand, the whole figure gave off the feeling of a hidden expert.
Of course, to someone who didn’t know better, he’d probably just look like an obnoxiously stuck-up dark elf.
Sure enough, when he saw us arrive in front of the forge, the blacksmith snorted and ignored us outright.
That first impression hit hard enough that Asuna’s face immediately turned suspicious.
"Kirito, are you sure this is okay?"
She whispered it to him because saying it out loud right in front of the guy would have been rude, but if he’d been human, he still would have heard every word.
Fortunately, Kirito seemed to trust the elf blacksmith’s skill quite a bit, so he nodded, and Asuna turned her [Wind Fleuret] into an ingot.
What came out was a clean silver ingot gleaming in the morning light.
At a glance, it looked like ordinary silver or maybe high-purity steel, but according to Kirito it was some fictional material called Argentium, a metal I’d never heard of before.
"That is an interesting name. I’ve heard of mithril, adamantium, even orichalcum from various sites, but not that one."
"Knowing even that much is pretty impressive. From the information I got, I never heard anything about orichalcum or adamantium."
Kirito shook his head as he said it. Well, he had said he only made it to around the Tenth Floor in the beta. Even so, just hearing about imaginary metals and rare materials made my heart beat a little faster.
I guess everyone has that dream of wanting to own something rare.
"...One of humanity’s most primal desires is also the desire to become stronger, so in a sense, using rare materials to make powerful weapons aligns with that impulse and—"
"I know that already, so you don’t need to define it for me, Elia. Still, hearing that just makes me even more certain."
Thinking that, I smiled faintly as I remembered the stack of six items sitting in one slot of my inventory.
Normally—and according to everything I knew—weapon crafting couldn’t fail, but maybe because she had put something with memories attached into the process, Asuna didn’t look very happy while it was being made.
As for Kirito, he was so restless the entire time it was almost like the sword being forged was his own, which at least made waiting less boring.
Maybe the feelings of those two somehow reached the blacksmith. Or maybe it was just pure luck. Either way, the known rare weapon [Wind Fleuret] had taken twenty hammer strikes, but Asuna’s new sword reached a total of forty—an unprecedented result that, for now, probably meant the strongest sword on the server had just been born.
Even the blacksmith seemed to think he’d done fine work, because after examining the sword from several angles, he declared it a good blade. From a player’s perspective, that guaranteed its quality.
"Its name is Chivalric Rapier. So, a knight’s sword? That feels like it suits you pretty well, Asuna."
"Thank you, Kazuma. It really does feel... comfortable in my hand somehow."
"Congrats, Asuna! You’re already super strong, so this should help even more!"
"H-how..."
While the rest of us traded comments back and forth, Kirito was still stammering in total shock.
Honestly, I was just as surprised. Forty hammer strikes was already absurd for this floor, and if you judged the sword’s specs coldly, it was more like something from the Fifth or Sixth Floor.
"Life really is all about luck."
"No, no, no, no. This is way beyond something you can explain with luck, okay? There is no way this is normal!"
Firing back like a machine gun, Kirito ran his eyes over the sword’s stats again in disbelief.
"Fifteen enhancement slots too... This is seriously an insane result."
"It already happened, so what can you do? The stronger your duo gets, the better. Just think of it positively."
"How are you so calm about this...?"
"Like I said. Life is all about luck."
"That is way too simplistic!"
After that brief back-and-forth, I turned back to face the blacksmith.
He looked down at me with a haughty little snort. He still acted like he was ignoring me, all tsundere-style, but it felt like he was interested after all. Maybe making Asuna’s sword had put him in a good mood.
In that case, I might as well ride the momentum and raise his favorability a little more.
Not that a system like that would ever be shown explicitly. Actually, no—seriously, please don’t let that be a real mechanic too.
Anyway, the better the blacksmith’s mood, the better the odds of a good result. So it made sense to go with the flow. All right, then. Time for one last check.
"Kirito, you said there’s definitely an extra skill called [Katana], right?"
"That should be certain. Between that kobold on the First Floor and everything else, the skill exists in the system. There’s no way they wouldn’t have made it craftable too."
"That’s what I thought. Kazuha, you really are going with a katana, right?"
"Ah, uh?! ...Yeah. I think it’d be best to use something I can handle well..."
Once I heard that answer, I immediately opened my inventory and pulled out every material needed for crafting.
We had fought plenty of monsters before coming here, so my item pouch was neatly sorted by type, and the materials section alone was packed with a generous supply of crafting items.
As the materials piled up one by one, Kirito tilted his head and spoke, clearly confused.
"Huh? Kazuma, are you switching to a rapier too? Or if not, wouldn’t it be better not to craft a one-handed sword? We’ll be getting a better one from the campaign quest before long."
"I know about that quest too. And this isn’t for me."
"...What?"
Kirito’s face clearly said, What are you talking about? I let out a small laugh and pulled out the second item from the very back of my inventory—the main material for this weapon.
Thud.
The moment that heavy material item landed in front of the blacksmith, not just the four of us and the smith, but even the nearby elf merchants all widened their eyes and stared.
"Kazuma... surely this horn is..."
"I didn’t expect the boss LA to be this generous."
In many ways, [Asterios the Taurus King], the true floor boss of the Second Floor, really had been something special.
It had been an added monster to begin with, and its scale and difficulty were on a completely different level from Baran the General Taurus.
But high risk, high return. The Taurus King’s LA hadn’t dropped a single equipment item like Kirito’s coat from [Illfang the Kobold Lord] on the First Floor, but instead it had spewed out a quantity of material items that couldn’t even be compared.
There had been seven in total. Six horns, and one other thing. Just looking at them made my inventory feel richer.
"Kazuma! What is that?!"
"Wha, wha, wha... what in the world is that...?"
"Isn’t that the horn from that Second Floor boss? It’s huge!"
Different kinds of amazement spread around us, but I hadn’t brought it out just to show off. I looked the blacksmith straight in the eye and spoke.
"Please make a curved sword."
At my words, the blacksmith’s gaze shifted to the sword at my waist, then returned to meet my eyes.
"Truly... curved sword?"
"My friend uses one."
Instead of responding further, he flicked his eyes toward Kazuha, then looked back at me. Maybe because of that reaction, the blacksmith didn’t give another snort this time. Instead, he let out a low, thoughtful sigh. As the silence stretched on, Kirito’s brows furrowed slightly.
"This is kind of weird, isn’t it? System-wise, he should’ve answered right away. Maybe there just isn’t a matching curved sword recipe for this material?"
"Maybe. Or, to put it the way you would, maybe the blacksmith is agonizing over his craft."
"K-Kazuma, something this valuable... I’d be fine with just a normal curved sword..."
Kazuha was so flustered her pitch kept rising and falling as she tried to stop me.
"...Didn’t you say you were going to follow me from now on?"
"Ah, uh... y-yeah..."
She must have remembered saying it herself, because she nodded once with her face turning bright red. If she was going to get this embarrassed, maybe she shouldn’t have said it in the first place.
Kazuha really did seem to get swept up in the mood sometimes. Well, she was an ordinary girl. That was only natural.
"Then just accept it. I’m using the other five anyway, and I was wondering what to do with the leftovers. Think of it as me boosting your combat power."
By then, the blacksmith seemed to have finished thinking. He lifted the horn and asked me a question.
"Extra price. Ring."
"With the curved sword too?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
"One-third of sword price."
"Agreed."
Kirito really might have exaggerated the guy’s speech. He was talking better than expected. And just like some hidden quest, this was the first time since Kizmel that I’d seen an NPC actively speak to a player and make a suggestion.
Maybe the horn itself was some kind of trigger. The merchants didn’t show a direct change the way the blacksmith had, but the three of them gathered together and began murmuring while looking my way.
It felt like an omen—the sign of something beginning.
After hearing my answer, the blacksmith said nothing more and gathered all the materials before tossing them into the furnace. A true master showing his worth through skill rather than words, maybe.
Before long, the whole mass had melted down into a dazzling lump of light, and he drew it back out and began hammering it, just as he had with Asuna’s rapier.
One strike, two, three... The hammering passed twenty with ease, and without showing the slightest sign of slowing, it moved straight on to thirty.
Gulp.
Maybe everyone was tense, because in that place filled with silence except for the ringing of the hammer, I heard someone swallow hard.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Forty now. Even as I counted, the hammer rose again. Was this going to surpass Asuna’s rapier? No one could know yet, not until we saw the result.
Once it passed forty-five, I saw a bead of sweat run down the blacksmith’s cheek. When it passed fifty, another droplet formed at the tip of his nose.
And when the sixtieth strike fell—
The bead of sweat at the end of his nose dropped.
"..."
Even after the hammering ended, no one made a sound. The curved blade was not yet fully finished, but every eye was fixed on its graceful shape, visible in flashes, and the faint light glimmering over its polished surface.
"..."
The blacksmith stared at the curved sword he had made in silence, then suddenly bowed his head deeply to me.
"Thank you."
The words came from his mouth before I could even tell him to raise his head. I was the one who should have been thanking him for making such a fine weapon, but apparently this had been a rare experience for the blacksmith too.
"I trusted your skill."
"Thank you. Cooling remains."
As he raised his head, one corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly. He set the curved sword aside on another rack to cool, then turned to the remaining lump of material. After that, he went deeper into the forge, mixed fine clay with just enough water to make mud, and shaped it into a small box.
Then he brought his face close to the box and moved his lips in a quiet murmur.
"...Wind... form... take shape."
"...!!!"
Kirito and I both snapped our eyes wide open at the same time. What the elf blacksmith had just spoken was unmistakably a chant—the kind you only heard about in novels.
And when his whisper ended, the lump of clay slowly hardened into a cube, leaving behind only two tiny holes.
After confirming that, he placed the remaining molten material into a small cup-shaped container and put it back into the furnace.
"K-K-K-Kazuma, I didn’t hear that wrong just now, did I?"
"Nope. I heard it too."
"No, seriously, how are you still so calm...?"
"...I’m not actually that calm."
Was that sorcery? Magic? Whatever it was, it was clearly a supernatural phenomenon different from the player status window—though according to Kizmel, even that counted as sorcery.
The only reason I wasn’t more shocked was because I had already left room for the possibility. And now I had just seen proof of it with my own eyes.
As if our reactions didn’t matter in the slightest, the elf blacksmith focused entirely on making the ring, carefully pouring the fully melted liquid material into the tiny holes.
Usually, accessories were made by shaping metal into bands and then working them, so it was fresh to see him using a casting method instead.
"...Whew."
Once the liquid had filled even the smallest openings, the blacksmith finally wiped at his forehead as if the work were done. To be fair, there really were one or two beads of sweat there.
"Somehow, making the ring looked harder than making the sword."
Asuna muttered that with a wry smile, and Kirito nodded with the same expression, as if he couldn’t deny it either.
Maybe it was the system being considerate about time, but the clay seemed to cool incredibly fast. Before long, the blacksmith gently cracked it open with a small hammer, and from inside emerged two silver rings with a bluish-green sheen.
"...Huh?"
All four of us voiced the same confusion at once and turned to the blacksmith, but he only looked back at us like he had no idea what the problem was.
"Why are there two rings?"
"? You two there. Dating, no?"
"...??!?!?! W-what?!"
Kazuha understood what he meant faster than anyone, and her face turned red in an instant.
It had been such a direct fastball that even Asuna’s face reddened as she settled into an expression halfway between a helpless smile and complete blankness.
"We’re not a couple. But still... thanks for making two."
"Then I assumed wrong. No matter."
Shaking his head like it was nothing, the blacksmith casually tossed both rings to me.
"What, what?! What are they called? Since the blacksmith made them, they’ve got a proper name, right? Were these originally items implemented in Aincrad?"
"What about the stats? The effects? The size? The level requirement?"
Unable to withstand the pressure of the Kirito duo charging at me like zombies the moment I caught them, I reluctantly pulled up the rings’ status window. And then...
"...Huh."
"...What?"
"...This is insane..."
"...What are these numbers supposed to be...?"
Each of us blurted out our reactions without filtering them, and once again we were left stunned.
[Wishing Heart]
Set Item
All Stats +10
HP 50% Shared
Activates only when worn by opposite sexes.
In simple numerical terms, equipping it was basically like instantly gaining ten levels. And not in one specialized stat, either—every stat.
Sure, focusing heavily into one direction to make an extreme damage dealer or tank could be more efficient, but our group tended to value each individual’s combat ability over strict team roles, so this kind of effect was hardly bad for us.
I was human too, so I welcomed this kind of luck very much. While my own satisfaction had shot straight to the maximum for the first time in a while, Asuna was barely managing to catch Kazuha as she collapsed with steam practically coming out of her head, and Kirito looked like half his soul had already left his body.
"What a huge win."
"Please stop reacting so casually to this!!!"
For once, it seemed Kazuha was on exactly the same wavelength as the other two.
Several minutes must have passed. Honestly, spending all of that time just calming down felt horribly inefficient... but then again, it was still better than panicking in a dungeon and dying stupidly, so maybe I should look at it that way.
"But if you’re this shocked already, what are you going to do? You haven’t even looked at the curved sword yet."
"...Right. Come to think of it, we haven’t properly checked the main weapon at all."
"Maybe it’s a good thing. After the shock therapy from the rings, I don’t think anything can surprise me now..."
Kirito pressed a hand to his forehead with an exasperated look, and Asuna slowly rubbed her temple with one finger. Kazuha, at least, had recovered enough to stand beside me, fidgeting awkwardly.
...Maybe topics like this really were sensitive for girls. She still didn’t look fully recovered yet. Thinking that, I turned back to the blacksmith and signaled for him to continue.
Maybe he understood my signal, because the blacksmith brought over the cooled curved sword, slid it into the sheath that had apparently already been prepared, and handed it to Kazuha.
"...?"
That caught even me off guard. I had assumed he’d hand it to me first, as the owner of the materials, but giving it directly to Kazuha had to mean someth—?!
"Qualification lacking. With training, possible. Strive."
"...You really are something. There wasn’t a single mention of this in the entire beta, or from Kayaba either..."
I muttered that under my breath without thinking, and Asuna and Kirito both looked at me strangely.
"What do you mean, Kazuma? What wasn’t mentioned?"
"Couldn’t it just be that the blacksmith’s AI is really high too? Maybe he noticed you were planning to give it to Kazuha."
"That could be it. But if my guess is right... Kazuha, take it."
"W-what?! Ah, um, Kazuma... I really can’t accept something this incredible..."
"...Just take it. You’re the one who said you wanted to use a katana."
"But... this material came from a boss you risked your life to defeat... and I haven’t done anything for you..."
I saw tears gathering at the corners of Kazuha’s lowered eyes. My vision had long since surpassed normal human limits, so I could pick up even tiny changes like that.
Still, I had already told her once before that these were leftover materials...
"...Kazuha, this world may be a game, but it isn’t play. People’s lives are on the line here, and we always have to fight desperately just to survive."
At the sudden weight in my voice, Kazuha carefully lifted her head and looked into my eyes. But I didn’t look away. I met her gaze head-on.
"That’s why there’s no such thing as getting too strong. The stronger we become, the closer we get to clearing this game, one step at a time. And that strength doesn’t come only from the player. The strength of your weapon matters too. That part is unavoidable."
"...Kazuma..."
Asuna started to interject, maybe thinking I was being too harsh on Kazuha, but Kirito stopped her. He probably understood the core of what I was saying.
The reason he had been willing to accept the stigma of being called a beater, and the reason he kept pushing ahead alone as a solo player, were ultimately the same as mine. The methods were different, but the conclusion was one.
"Sure, what I’m doing now might feel burdensome to you. You probably feel like you’re only receiving. In a death game, it’s natural to be most wary of people who give things away for nothing."
"N-no, Kazuma, that’s not what I meant—!"
"Please let me finish. The reason is this: right now, by Third Floor standards, you’re still around the appropriate level. That’s normal. But Kirito and I are always in situations on the front lines where we have to risk our lives, and because of that, I judged that your combat power needs to be raised too. That’s why I’m giving it to you."
"...That’s sophistry."
"Maybe it is. Maybe I’m just saying what I want to say and forcing it on you. But if it really weighs on your mind that much, then let’s call it even if you grant me one favor."
"A... favor?"
Seeing Kazuha’s face, with a line of tears just about to spill because she still hadn’t fully gotten hold of her emotions, made a bitter smile rise to my lips. How could someone cry so easily?
"...Yeah. Smile for me."
"...Huh?"
"In exchange for taking that curved sword, just smile. Brightly."
As I said it, I lifted the corners of my own mouth into a full smile so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed. Looking back over my whole life, it was probably the brightest smile I’d shown in years.
"...Hehe. Seriously, Kazuma, you really are strange."
Wiping away her tears with a finger, Kazuha blushed and smiled too, her whole face blooming.
It was the same smile we had always seen in everyday life—the one that brightened everything around her—and for some reason, it looked especially beautiful now.
"Still... thank you. Really, Kazuma."
"Um... I’m really sorry to interrupt this romantic atmosphere, but could either Kazuha or Kazuma please take the curved sword already? I think the blacksmith’s arm is about to fall off."
At the voice, I followed it and saw Asuna narrowing her eyes with a face so sweet it looked like she’d swallowed a whole bag of sugar.
"W-wah! I’m sorry, Mr. Blacksmith! And Asuna! It’s not romantic! Seriously, it’s not!"
"Sorry. Persuasion took time."
"It is fine. Good thing. I watched well."
"Please use full sentences! Just saying random words makes it sound weird!"
The blacksmith gave a faint smile at Kazuha’s immediate protest and held the curved sword out to her once more.
Kazuha glanced at me briefly, then bowed her head slightly to the blacksmith in thanks and accepted the weapon.
And then—
[Bound to target.]
"Just as I thought..."
"Huh...? B-bound?"
Kazuha made her second blank, dazed sound of the day. While I told her to open the status window, Kirito repeated the word once to himself, then his eyes went so wide they looked ready to pop out, just like they had with the rings. Asuna still didn’t seem to understand yet, though...
"Bound... bound?! No way?!"
Kirito rushed over, saw Kazuha open the status window, and froze solid exactly as expected.
There was even a faint trace of incomprehensible fear in his eyes. And when Asuna, now curious because of his reaction, looked too...
"...What?"
[Star-Horned Bull Blade]
● Range : Warpage
● Type : Slash
● Attack : 100-140
● Durability : 900
● Weight : 100
● Requires : 16
"W-what is this?!?!?!?!"
Yeah. This wasn’t just being lucky anymore. We had hit the jackpot. And the proof was the pair of screams that rang out together into the sky above the camp.
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